Is asking a question in order to start an altercation an appropriate use of this site?

Question

I'm struggling to see the point of asking a "gotcha" question for the purpose of:

• Starting an altercation in the comments &
• Mocking an outgroup &
• Downvoting any honest attempt to answer the question

This question appears to be one in a sequence of a disappointing pattern doing just what is described above. The user who asked it has been called out for harassment previously.

This user has:

• Asked 45 questions on this site
• At least 41 of them are argumentative attacks on Jehovah's Witnesses or Latter-day Saints
• 0 of these questions have accepted answers--despite many decent attempts--and most of them spawned attacks in the comments. As such, I hold significant doubt that these questions are being asked in good faith.

Is this behavior consistent with our Code of Conduct and our Expected Behavior?

What, if anything, are we willing to do about it?

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Update 5 days later

The purpose of the question

The misrepresentation of this question is disappointing. Some of the discussion below is patronizing. This is not helpful.

Those interested in investigating will notice most questions posing challenges to my faith result in no pushback from its adherents, but rather, produce studious & courteous responses. My concern is not about "people poking holes in doctrine". My concern is a lengthy pattern of bullying by a specific user who seeks to intimidate, insult, and malign in order to make a point. I echo what two of our moderators have expressed elsewhere:

If your goal in writing an answer or a question is to "make a point," then sadly, you've missed the point of this site!

The expectation on this site is that if you get an answer, you don't argue with it.

Example by contrast

See this question for an example of a question challenging my faith's teachings that is presented in a manner that is quite unlike the questions highlighted above. It is neither condescending nor hostile, the questioner is not trying to serially downvote, ridicule people in the comments, or pick a fight. Asking challenging questions is fine--it's likely to produce thoughtful responses. Harassment is not okay, and it severely undermines the academic credibility of the site.

Request for moderator input

This question was asked at the advice of a moderator. The only moderator commentary on this question (to date) is dismissive.

Given that 5 days after being asked this post is now the most active CSE Meta question opened in the last 5 months, I express my hope the moderator team will acknowledge that this matter is of interest/concern to the community, and will offer further support/guidance.

Answer 1

No, it's not appropriate. In an answer to another question I would class those types of questions as Class 1.

After 3 years being active in this site, I think it's best to promote this site as a Christian specific religious studies site, so it's more clear to new visitors and existing participants that this site doesn't proselytize but provides a space for every denomination calling Jesus Lord to coexist peacefully as first-class citizens to explain themselves using their own preferred definitions. Maybe this site should be renamed "Christian studies" instead of Christianity.

As you may know, in the academic discipline of Religious Studies, especially in the 21st century, it is an IMPERATIVE that researchers do NOT use outgroup's terminologies to ask questions to the ingroup, but only as an aid for entry when the outgroup user is new to the ingroup (in this case the ingroup=LDS and outgroup=mainstream). So the attitude of the participant should be that of an anthropologist who really wants to learn how a culture defines themselves without contaminating the understanding with the anthropologist's own background culture.

The true nature of the teachings of the ingroup can ONLY be learned by using the ingroup's own native concepts, native categories, and native priorities when approaching the universal religious questions that we ask as common human nature (presumed to be the same across cultures and ages and races) from within our religious consciousness. Persisting to ONLY use the outgroup's way of defining and critiquing the ingroup's teachings are thus "mortal sin" in Religious Studies, and by extension this site.

While questioners can pose how an ingroup handles an outgroup's way of framing the question (example: Anne's question I think is acceptable and well intentioned), once the answer is provided (in this case by depperm, which I think is an excellent answer) the outgroup should accept the ingroup redefinition and reprioritization, accepting that LDS leaves certain questions unanswered (see depperm's final paragraph) although for mainstream Christianity there is an answer. The outgroup should NOT force the ingroup to provide further details.

If the outgroup user keeps pushing, I would see it as hostile and unproductive for this site. The outgroup (in this case mainstream Christianity) should remember that there are a LOT of unknowns that mainstream Christianity left undefined that LDS actually has answers for. To keep pushing for matters that LDS doesn't deem important would seem to me as hypocritical double standard.

Answer 2

The question seeks an answer to an apparent contradiction :

First Statement :

"I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. … It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God and to know...that he was once a man like us..

Second Statement :

For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.

The question is not rude, does not make any personal comment about authors, and does not deride the logic of the authors.

The question seeks the resolution of an apparent contradiction.

I do not think that this can possibly be called 'harassment'.

There is no evidence in the question that it seeks 'altercation'.

Whatever has happened in the past, whatever other questions may state, this question must be examined on its own merits and be voted up or down by the community as the community sees fit.

Answer 3

Possibly so, but probably not; it would depend on why one intends to start the altercation and its specific, relevant, potential elements.

There is nothing intrinsically or inherently wrong with altercations, so the only direct answer I have to such a question is not yes or no, but in kind: it depends.

No?

"Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword."