Second Answer: They should be discouraged.
Not to go too deep, but there are a few reasons it's just not a wise thing to do... And it all goes to "who is our audience, who is our desired audience, and who is our unwanted audience?
While this site doesn't exist solely to serve Christians, and we're not a Christian site, it should go without saying that most of our traffic is going to be from one of the following groups:
- Christians who want to learn more about Christianity or share their knowledge
- Seekers wanting to learn what "Christianity teaches"
- Non-Christians who have a scholarly interest, or a desire to participate constructively.
- Atheists wanting to poke the funny little Christians to get a reaction or score some points
- People from other religions that want to point out the inferiority of our belief system compared to theirs.
So let's look at those groups, and make generalizations about how they tend to view such questions. I realize every individual is unique, but I doubt anyone with experience here would argue the general patterns I'm about to describe.
Christians that want to learn or teach: obviously that's a target audience. We want to attract those people above all.
Christians, for the most part, get offended when the God that we love is mocked, or not shown the respect and reverence that we feel he deserves.
Generally, it's not a good idea to go out offending your target audience. Any good business person, PR specialist, or marketing intern can tell you that.
Seekers: - Not exactly our target audience, but still the types of people we want to attract and feel comfortable here. They're here to participate constructively. Sure, they usually want to know about Truthy things, but usually they're honestly looking for answers. If we can edit their questions into a format that fits the site guidelines, we will, and we'll give answers that are helpful, but skirt the Truthiness issue. If we can't do that, and they insist on advice questions, etc. we'll kindly point out that we're not qualified to pass out that sort of advice, and they're better off finding a local Pastor than asking strangers on the web.
They're also likely to be turned off by juvenile or bait questions.
Non-Christians that want to participate constructively. They are rare. And their insight is valuable. We've had a very small handful of atheists that fit this category. They play by the rules, and are overall respectful, and often more knowledgeable than most Christians. We want them here.
These are people mature enough to be able to participate constructively with people whose views they think are wrong, and perhaps even silly and naive. People with that level of maturity aren't attracted by bathroom humor, they're attracted to intellectual stimulation, interaction with other adults.
Atheists who want to poke fun at the funny little Christians with their naive belief in some invisible "God": Yeah... we've had plenty of them, and with rare exceptions, it never turns out good. In my entire time here, I can think of three people in the atheist category that participate constructively here. Quite frankly, I personally don't want to deal with that sort of headache.
These are the ones who like to get a rise out of Christians, so they tend to love bait questions. Bait questions will definitely attract and encourage these. Just what we don't need around here.
People from other religions that want to point out the inferiority of our belief system compared to theirs.
This tends to be a mixed bag. Bear in mind that "people from other belief systems that want to participate constructively" is covered in the third group. Here I'm specifically addressing the ones here to tell us how Jesus was a liar, and we should bow down to (insert their god here) or face the consequences.
Bait questions don't generally attract these. They tend to be as offended or more offended by them. So for this group, it's a non-issue.
So, with all of that said, the harm is that such questions may draw traffic, but they draw exactly the type of traffic that we don't want, and drive away exactly the types that we do. Why on earth would we want that?
