Please Read: Tips For This Section

[Dr. Shane]

What we get here, that isn't available other places, is an exchange of political ideas among Adventist believers that is open. Often times people do not share what they really think around the potluck table because they are afraid of confrontation. Here, most of us are relatively safe behind our computer monitors and feel more secure in expressing our political thoughts but we shouldn't abuse the privilege.

Tips on how to disagree without being disagreeable.

1. Avoid using sarcasm

2. Do not use terms of endearment to address those you are disagreeing with. (I.e. dear, honey, love, son, etc.)

3. Do not use provocative words like “stupid,” “liar,” “phony,” “pathetic,” “hypocrite,” etc.

4. Ask for clarification when a point is not clear. Do not assume the worst.

5. Focus on the topic. Disagree with opinions, not people. People often repeat opinions of others, don’t assume all opinions expressed are even of the members expressing them.

6. Proof-read your posts

7. Ask yourself if you would say the same thing in person at a church potluck.

8. Avoid addressing a person by their name when disagreeing with them.

9. Avoid using the pronouns “you” or “your” when disagreeing with someone.

Here are links to the rules for Club Adventist - Adventist Forum

Rules For Posting

Suggestions For Posting On Adventist Forum

Would you say it if you were face to face?

This section can get a little rough. Political opinions often cause tempers to flare. We would like to see very little of that. No one has to participate here but everyone is invited to do so. If a particular member annoys you, put them on ignore or simply skip over their posts without reading them. If you wish to report abusive behavior, click on the “notify” button and I will look at it within a day or so. I may or may not address the issue.

[Dr. Shane]

Tip #1

Sarcasm can be humorous and used to lighten a mood, relieve stress and make people feel good. Often times it is used in a hurtful way meant to intimidate, humiliate or ridicule someone. The word itself comes from a Greek word which means “to tear flesh”. Sarcasm often uses irony to make a point. This type of irony can be intended to make criticism more polite and less inflammatory – however it often has the opposite result.

Family counselors suggest that sarcasm causes problems in many marriages. Sarcasm is called communication with a bite. It is not a personality trait. It is learned behavior. No one should excuse this behavior as being “their style” of communicating. When it is used, the person using it should make a conscious decision to do so, knowing the possible consequences of hurting others.

Business communications professors tell us that sarcasm isolates business people that use it. Sarcastic managers have high turnovers. Many that use sarcasm are abrasive, controlling and not pleasant to be around. Sarcasm does not win people over and does not cause people to respect those using it. It does not help people succeed in business.

I suggest not using sarcasm in this heated, political forum. However if one thinks they can do it tactfully, I suggest using the rolling eyes smiley afterward to indicate the sentence is sarcastic.

[Dr. Shane]

Tip #2

“A term of endearment is a word or phrase used to address and/or describe a person or animal for which the speaker feels love or affection. Terms of endearment are used for a variety of reasons, such as parents addressing their children and lovers addressing each other.”

Examples:

• Honey
• Sweetie
• Babe/Baby
• Darling
• Cutie
• Dear
• Honey pie
• Sweet pea
• Pumpkin
• Love
• Dearest
• Brother
• Sister
• Son
• Buddy
• Friend
• Chief

When these terms are used between two or more people disagreeing, it comes off as insincere or disingenuous. It is like the situation on a church board where one board member wants to correct another and starts out by addressing him as “brother”. Christians calling other Christians brother and sister is an endearing term but when it is used in the middle of a disagreement it comes off as rather empty.

[Dr. Shane]

Tip #3

Do not use provocative words like “stupid,” “liar,” “phony,” “pathetic,” “hypocrite,” etc.

Using these provocative words are never a good form of communication but are nearly always inflammatory when used in a disagreement. We are trying to have a civil exchange of ideas here so using inflammatory languages defeats the purpose. Many people will follow a thread without participating in it. They will often judge the participants by their decorum as much as their logic. One tossing out inflammatory statements will often lose an argument in the eyes of the onlookers regardless of how well his/her logic is.

[Dr. Shane]

Tip #4: Ask for clarification when a point is not clear. Do not assume the worst.

Internet forums are text based which allow for little expression beyond the written language. We can add emotions using smiles or using brackets like [sigh] [looking around] [tic] and those can be very helpful and are encouraged. However, a lot of times people are in a hurry so GIVE EACH OTHER A BREAK.

I have often seen posts where someone reads into another person’s post what the other person did not write. The other person then comes back in a defensive mode and the thread spirals downward. Asking for clarification can eliminate these types of threads.

Let’s say that Jack posts that the sky is black when it rains. John comes in and says that is a lie. Jack can come back all offended and because he feels John has called him a liar. Or Jack can come back and ask John to clarify that remark because it sounds like John is calling him a liar. When John comes back he is going to be of a different mindset, some hours may have passed and he may well be able to better word what he was trying to say without calling Jack a liar.

Another dynamic in internet forums is that members often do not know each other that well. Some of us here have been here for years and know each other’s online personalities quite well. But that is not the case with many. When we know a person’s history it is much easier to know where that person is coming from and not jump to conclusions. Not knowing a person’s history should cause us to be much slower to assume the worst instead of asking for clarification.

[Dr. Shane]

Tip #5: Focus on the topic. Disagree with opinions, not people. People often repeat opinions of others, don’t assume all opinions expressed are even of the members expressing them.

How can one distinguish a person from his or her opinion? Some simply can’t. But it really isn’t that hard at all.

Let’s consider Bob Smith and Bill Wilson.

Bob goes home one evening and turns on the TV and watches a liberal documentary. In that documentary it says that polar bears are on the endangered species list. So after the program, Bob goes online and makes a post.

We must stop global warming. It is killing the polar bears. They are now on the endangered species list

[Dr. Shane]

Tip #6 Proof-read your posts

This is just good practice. Check spelling, punctuation and clarity.

For goodness sake, if quoting the post of another member, don't copy and paste the entire post. Review what is being pasted and only paste the parts being responded to. That makes posts cleaner and easier to read. Many readers skip over posts that are too long or cluttered.

[Dr. Shane]

Tip #7: Ask yourself if you would say the same thing in person at a church potluck.

Let's be honest about this. Some comments made here are made with such sarcasm and often very insulting. If the person sitting across the pot luck table was talking about something political, would you treat him or her the same way as you treat some on this board? It is a phenomenon called cyber courage. That refers to a group of people that post things on line that they would never say in public face to face. It is not admirable.

[Dr. Shane]

Tip #8 - Avoid addressing a person by their name when disagreeing with them.

Conversations tend to get much less confrontational when we focus on the topic and not on the person we are disagreeing with. When we address another person by name, it makes whatever follows it personal. We can discuss highly sensitive subjects like abortion, capital punishment, redistribution of wealth, war, and such in an academic way without getting personal.

So what about addressing specific arguments. Let’s say that a member of the forum makes a specific argument like this:

My sister had three children when her husband divorced her and without welfare they would have died.