It has been suggested to me that consensus has been reached here that when a question asks for the "Biblical basis" of something without asking for a particular denomination's view, any answers attempting to prove that there is, in fact, no such Biblical basis should be disallowed.
This answer with 4 votes to "Can somebody please help me provide acceptable answers?", asked in September of last year (2016), proposes:
If you think there is just no basis at all, then please don't answer the question. Let the silence and lack of answers speak for you. Or if there are answers, and you think they are poorly argued or illogical, then it may be appropriate to downvote them.
This answer with 7 votes to "What is the Biblical basis for Oompa Loompas?", asked in June of the same year, proposes:
Answers that say "there is no biblical basis," and especially answers that give the biblical basis for the opposite belief, such as this one, would be "Not an Answer" for a biblical basis questions, because the on-topic guidelines would require that some Christian group thinks the belief does have a biblical basis.
Both answers were the most highly voted answers to the related questions (the first was the only answer).
With due respect, I think there are some serious flaws here.
First of all, the question Do not assume was raised three years earlier and dealt with the issue of loaded questions. The highest ranked answer to this question, provided by someone who was (I believe) a moderator at the time, states:
Pointing out false assumptions is a valid way to answer such questions.
A question that asks "What is the basis in X for Y?" necessarily implies an assumption that a basis for Y does, in fact, exist in X.
Secondly, the Oompa Loompa solution essentially requires that some meaning be imputed to to the question "What is the Biblical basis for ...?" that the user may not have intended. "What is the Biblical basis for ...?" is to be understood, in my view of the answer, as really meaning "What might some Christians (somewhere) believe to be the Biblical basis for ...?" This is not literally what is being asked. Someone asking "What is the Biblical basis for ...?" may, in fact, mean this, but it is not obvious in my opinion. Imputing a slightly different meaning to the question may make the answers tidier to referee, but I think a disservice is done to the questioner in the process.
The justification for the Oompa Loompa solution was that "on-topic guidelines would require that some Christian group thinks the belief does have a biblical basis." I am not sure that this is true. While "what the Bible says about a subject (unless you specify a doctrine/tradition)" is given as an example as an off-topic question in the Help Center, "the biblical basis for a belief of practice" - without regard to any specific doctrine or tradition - is given as an example of an acceptable question.
The Help Center states that an acceptable topic for questions is "the biblical basis for a belief of practice." It says "the biblical basis" and not "a possible biblical basis". A different acceptable topic is "understanding the Bible from the perspective of a specific viewpoint". The Oompa Loompa solution essentially requires that any question of the first type always and automatically be interpreted as a question of the second type, with the condition that the viewpoint be "specified" relaxed.
I understand that the crux of the problem here is that the Bible is interpreted differently by different people, depending on the underlying manuscripts, how the manuscripts have been modified (e.g. punctuated), how the individual words and phrases have been translated, and even what the English words appearing in the translation are taken to mean (e.g. "theological viewpoint"). But I don't think truncating answers is the solution here. If someone is able to present a sound, or even valid, argument for why the premise that there is a Biblical basis for something might be false, I don't think we do the site users any service by suppressing those answers.
I only see the following as solutions:
Remove "the biblical basis for a belief or practice" from the list of acceptable topics altogether, and possibly refer users to the BH SE.
Modify "the biblical basis for a belief or practice" to read "the biblical basis for a belief or practice from the perspective of a specific viewpoint" and disallow any biblical basis questions that do not specify a viewpoint (consistent with the disallowed questions list). Somehow this seems redundant,though, given the topic, "understanding the Bible from the perspective of a specific viewpoint" already exists.
Continue to allow "the biblical basis for a belief or practice" questions, but allow users to argue against the premise of a biblical basis, in keeping with the answer to Do Not Assume.
I really don't see the solutions proposed in the other two answers as being consistent with other earlier site guidelines.
