From a comment by Peter Turner on another question:
"It's not a Christian website either, it's a secular website about Christianity"
I have read a few Question/Answer/Comments about this topic on this site, and am finally coming around a bit. However, I still have what I feel are valid issues:
The Name
If I, as a Christian, wanted to explore Islam, I would want to check out the islam.stackexchange site and be grateful for objective knowledge about the topic from the perspective of adherents AND academics, with no intention of becoming an adherent. But as a Christian, I would NOT want to explore the christianity.stackexchange site and be told it is only for academics and the adherents need to disguise themselves as academics, which is how I feel I am treated. In "Should we say we are a 'secular website'?" I do like Lee Woofenden's suggestion that the site would serve potential members better with a clear reference to "about" before christianity, which would suggest it is not "for" christianity. I agree with DJClayworth's assessment that "secular" is a loaded trigger word for many people, and is off-putting to at least some of the Christians using the site. The academics should not be able to decree that it is a good and proper use of the word here as some have done in other comments.
The concept
The debate about "secular" or "christian" views seems to describe two different goals for using the site. The first and foremost user is the person exploring the topic as a religious studies class, keeping the material at arm's length, with no interest other than intellectual curiosity. The second user may or may not be an adherent, but is interested in learning if this topic could possibly become a belief system to live by. Both should be equally respected and understood as having different approaches to Q&As (although I agree all discussions should apply in a public way, not to address a person's unique life issue).
My concerns
In the comments to my first and so far only question "Does Predestination apply to all people or just the major characters God needed for His plans for us to unfold?":
Ray Butterworth told me the site is not religious, it is about religion, and went on to say
"Ideally good answers will be the same regardless of one's personal beliefs Q&As should be about what is objectively true for people of all faiths".
But this makes no sense to me, because part A would restrict discussion to an extremely limited range of ideas that have no room for interpretation, and for part B there will be almost no Q&As that would be considered true in more than a few common faiths, if that. Otherwise, why so many different faiths?
curiousdannii told me that my question was moot because
"most Christians from most denominations are compatibilist - upholding both the sovereignty of God, and humans having real wills".
But this seems like a cop-out, because the question is trying to determine when does God gets to decide versus when do people get to decide. Saying that God and people both get to decide will obviously create conflict between people and God when they both think they can decide.
NigelJ said
"The question appears not to be seeking what God has revealed of Himself (in his own word). Therefore it becomes a philosophical enquiry, inviting philosophical debate, in order to come to a human concensus of opinion, all of which are off-topic on this site".
But my question referred to many Bible verses, and asked for help with clarification. The only person that answered it (so far) used many Bible verses in his answer, and I commended him for using source material and referred to some of it in my reply to him. I was not trying to get "consensus of opinion" or invite "philosophical debate", and I carefully restricted the question to what God HAS revealed about himself in His Book.
A mildly ironic observation made with respect: The word "philosophy" is Greek for "love of wisdom", the Google definition (from Oxford Languages) is "the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline". An adherent to Christianity understands this refers to the type of wisdom gained from the study of human-derived knowledge, as in academia. This seems to pretty accurately describe the primary "keep it at an arm's length" type of site user I described above, but NigelJ says such usage of the site is off topic...