text:
Is it necessary to Biblically support arguments within discussions about Christianity?
I'm new here, and have been away from Christianity for about 7 years. I used to be actively involved in a kind of Pentecostal church, and used the Bible very often to discuss and privately understand God.
I'm obviously in a different place now, but am genuinely interested in understanding what I believe and perhaps will believe in the future, so please do not treat this question lightly: it means a great deal to me. I call myself a "Deist" now, which I see as the proper neutral position.
Before I left the church, I looked into the formation of the Bible and was thoroughly unconvinced. I found a lot of answers for things in the Book of Enoch (which I'm not recommending per se), which showed how much I had drifted.
Toward the end of my "Christian years", I felt very strongly that the Bible was actually a hinderance to the modern Church, as it acted as a reference book in a legal way, and did not encourage people to seek God for spiritual revelation - whatever that meant. The main channel for revelation was actually scripture, said many around me. The "Living" word sounded more to me like a radio frequency which is tuned into rather than a couple of finished canons.
Now, I find it irritating that people discuss issues with different views and use scriptures which are vague and sometimes can be seen to contradict each other, so I have posed this question. I guess inside this question is another one about whether the Bible is the out and out Word of God, or a (very special) reference point.

Not a bad question, but I believe it is a better fit on the Meta site, rather than this one.  If you check the FAQ for this site, having references is part of what makes a "good" answer.  There's some history behind it, but the short version is that every question on the site was becoming an opinion-fest, and a popularity contest.  After much discussion in chat and on Meta, the majority agreed on several standards, one of which was that an answer that's supportable is better than a mere opinion.  Scripture is one obvious form of supporting docs, as would be doctrinal statements, etc.

@DavidStratton Thanks. I'm not sure I want a "Meta" point of view, considering my history in Christianity and a certain need for answers which are applicable to the development of belief, but I'll try it.

@David I'm not sure the OP means "on this site" - it sounds to me "in general", which is not a "meta" thing in the SE sense

possible duplicate of Why is the Bible a foundation of theological evidence?

You should specify the doctrinal background you want to see this answered by (if any) as a Catholic, I would certainly say "no, but here are sixteen reason the Bible agrees with the Church" but that might be utterly unhelpful to you.

@Marc Gravell - You're right.  I wish I could retract the vote to close as off-topic.  And may I say, very nice answer!

I agree a lot with the OP.  My difference is that I don't see the Bible as a hindrance per se, but those who take the books individually literal.  I cannot say collectively literal as those who claim that have never read the books.

For the record: I restate that I don't see this as a meta.SE, as it appears (to me) to relate to "in Christianity", not "on this site".

@MarcGravell I to am not sure I agree with the migration. Its definitely meta, but its a "meta Christianity" issue not a "meta Christianity.se" issue...

Let's not forget that for some time there have existed Christian sects that explicitly repudiate the authority of the Paulinist Bible, or, in the case of the Doukhobors, reject the authority of any document written by men at all.

I'll try to pretend I have a "Christian" hat to put on for an answer, but note that much of following doesn't really reflect my own personal views:
If you mean in terms of the overall thinking process:
The problem if you put down the Bible is that you might not get to the Christian answer! What do I mean by this? Over history, many many peoples have started with the same inputs: observation of the human condition, and the world around them, and have reached very different conclusions. There have been countless religions and countless more gods (monotheism is pretty rare). I use this as evidence to support my claim:

if you don't use the Christian Bible in your reasoning, you are statistically unlikely to reach the Christian conclusion as the answer

yes, some people will say "of you will, as that is the Truth", but the numbers do not agree with that. More recently, with the huge advances in critical thinking and objective empirical science, things have changed even more, with the same inputs pretty much universally leading to the conclusion "no god(s)" (small g intentional, as this doesn't apply specifically to the Christian God).
So the Bible may or may not (in your words) "be a hinderance" to Christianity (I honestly don't have an opinion on that), but it is the thing that defines Christianity; if you don't use the Bible and agreed dogma/doctrine, then indeed you are not unlikely to reach very different answers, which would be, by definition, either a heresy of Christianity, or an entirely non-Christian (whether other-religion, or non-religious) answer. Perhaps more likely is that the other party simply says "no, I disagree", and with no real basis for either view, there is no way of concluding anything. Christianity has done a remarkable job at creating schisms within schisms even when the text is (broadly) agreed; if we extended this to personal views too... chaos.
If you mean in terms of a specific point within an argument:
Any argument needs some kind of basis - otherwise it is purely idle speculation or uniquely personal thinking. In terms of (any) religion, there is usually an agreed (by the religion/congregation) text/dogma that acts as a baseline - so starting from that position means you are all "on the same page" (without the risk of falling into my earlier point), and have some line in the sand upon which to discuss.
Doing so without a text to steer the answer is... tricky. Consider, for example the Aquinas proofs; I disagree entirely with his thinking process and reasoning (our critical thinking has improved greatly over the last 750 years), but: as a thought experiment, let's pretend for a moment that the core thrust of his logic was sound. Even so, the end of each proof ("This is God.") has not actually done anything to reach the Christian God, and could be used to support the God of any religion (or, indeed, Deism), or any as-yet unclear natural process that doesn't involve a supernatural conscious being.

I'm pretty sure Aquinas' proofs for God's existence (and Plato's obviously) never mention the Trinity, all they are good for is proving a Creator God exists. For what it's worth the Bible doesn't mention the Trinity either. That is where dogma comes in and it can't be proven. It's up to the apologist however to refute any claims against dogma - that much is possible.

While coming from a distinctly Christian viewpoint, and thus naturally disagreeing with some of the side-points here, I fundamentally agree with this answer.  Divine revelation does reveal that God expects us to find him through reason looking at the world (Romans 1), but we can know nothing of great depth about his character without revelation.

I guess the question comes down to this.  Is the Bible literally the Word of God.  If it is then it must be the source of Truth, if it is not then we are left adrift without any reference point.  I say this because there are only two religions that I know of that claim a God who is omniscient and omnipotent (all knowing and all powerful), those are Christianity and Islam.  The Koran was written by one man and contains obvious historical and philosophical errors and contradictions.  The Bible on the other hand has withstood the most agressive and outrageous attacks by critics for thousands of year and continues to stand on it's own as a work of immense wisdom and historical accuracy as well as a work that has never been shown to be internally inconsistent.  So we are left with one choice.  Has God revealed His will to us perfectly in the Scriptures or are we limited to our paltry human experience to attempt to scratch out little pieces of the truth.
Given that the Bible is what it says it is, then it has a real power that goes way beyond just   the bare words of it's text.  Those words have real power as they are attested to by the Spirit.  I have spoken with several unbelievers or agnostics over the last several years and none of them have found me obnoxious, however I continue to point them back to what the Bible says in our discussion.  Some of them have told me that they do not believe the Bible, but I respond that I find it to be the center of everything I hold dear and true.  If they respect me they will listen to my position.
If a 290 pound mugger was approaching a 18 year old college co-ed and the young lady pulled a 45 out of her purse and pointed it at him and he said that he did not believe in guns, should the co-ed just put the gun away?  An unbeliever telling me that they do not believe in the Bible does nothing to my confidence in it's efficacy.  I am going to kindly and lovingly keep pulling the trigger.
That people have different views says nothing about the Bible itself.  Someone who mis-interprets Ohm's law and get's shocked does not invalidate the work of Dr. Ohm.  We are all sinners, and there are very few in the church today who are sold out to God's Word and who will simply believe what it says.  Most have limits they impose from the outside on their interpretation of the scriptures, this leads to many unfortunate divisions in Christ's body.  But again it does not invalidate His Word.

Do you exclude Judaism? Also, "historical accuracy" is tricky: having no strong evidence either way regarding a non-falsifiable hypotheses that specific events occurred is not the same as saying "it is accurate". By that approach, Russell's Teapot is accurate. I'm not sure how a deity being monotheistic/omnipotent/omniscient is important to the answer, but: isn't Brahman omnipotent and omniscient? Your analogy of the gun fails, because the gun is demonstrably effective to both believer and unbeliever.

@Marc, Orthodox Judaism has turned primarily to the writings of men and away from the Old Testament, but as much as they hold the OT to be the word of God I would gladly add them.  Brahman is an ultimate being but because there is no ascribed personality but instead the idea of substance or force only, Brahman can not be Omniscient.  I disagree on the gun analogy.  By faith I perceive the word has an effect.  Not always the effect that I like but I do perceive an effect.  There are Christian Scientists who might argue with the effectiveness of the gun... All a matter of perception.

the principles of Brahman include "prajnānam brahma" ("Brahman knows everything"), and Brahman is commonly described as omniscient (and conscious too - not just power). "By faith I perceive" is an oxymoron; either you actually perceive it, or you have faith. Faith is defined as belief beyond evidence. By faith you might believe there is an effect, but that says nothing about whether that effect exists. If it was demonstrable (my words), it would not be a matter of faith.

Even if Brahman knew everything, Hinduism does not even promote an idea of absolute truth.  If we said that they did it would be an imposition of western ideals into that religion.  Also Brahman knowing everything would include the idea of him knowing contradictions in the Hindu faith.

Heb 11:3 "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God..."  So within the Christian worldview faith is never blind but it definitely teaches us things that we would not otherwise know.

Nowhere does the Bible say that "faith" is "belief without evidence". Look up references to "faith". e.g. Matt 14:31, Jesus invites Peter to walk on the water, then Peter becomes afraid, and Jesus says "Oh you of little faith." Did Peter fail to believe without evidence? No. He had just seen Jesus walk on the water, Jesus had enabled him to walk on the water. But then despite the evidence of his own eyes -- and feet! -- his faith failed. Biblical faith is not believing without evidence. Just the opposite: It is believing what the evidence shows, even when it challenges your preconceived ideas.

Nice gun-sword adaptation of Biblical imagery!

Is it literally "necessary"? I'd say no. It's certainly possible to discuss theological questions using reason and logic, history, science, personal experience, etc.
When I'm talking to someone who doesn't believe the Bible, I don't use the Bible as an authority, because by definition the other person doesn't accept it. I seek to find some common ground, principles that we agree on, and go from there.
But there are lots of things in the Bible that we cannot know from other sources. There is little we can figure out about Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, etc, by studying math and science. We can figure out some things about the nature of God and about his thoughts by studying the universe he created, but there are limits to how far one can go with this. If I want to know what my neighbor thinks, I could figure some things out by watching his behavior. But I could learn a lot more by asking him, reading his correspondance, etc.
So ultimately, I think there are many theological questions that cannot be answered without using the Bible. But that's certainly not our only source of information.


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How can we fix this question on Sola Scriptura?

What is the basis for Sola Scriptura?

This question is in disarray. The title appears to be asking about Sola Scriptura but is really asking about personal interpretation of the Bible. The answers are a mixed bag between the two, with most attempting to point out the confusion and then choosing one of the two topics to answer.
With this being our main question on the topic of Sola Scriptura, it really should be fixed.
How can we fix it?

part of the problem is the OP uses "Sola Scriptura" as an abbreviation for "personal interpretation", so that further muddles the pond...

These problems were brought up almost immediately after the question was asked, but the site was new, and nobody had authority, nor will to step on the toes of others, so a lot of discussion happened, and not a lot of action.
The problem is that the original question was very confusing, and was really about multiple questions.  As it's worded now, I think the question is clear, but the title doesn't match it at all.  More importantly, the answers don't match, to varying degrees.
I understand how, as @PeterTurner points out, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura can be confusing to a Catholic, thus leading to a confused question.  But that does not justify a title/question mismatch.  It does justify asking a question that needs to be clarified to be a good question.
I think my suggestion would be to close the question, then encourage the OP, or others, to ask the various questions that are present in this one question:

What is the basis for Sola Scriptura?
What is the basis for personal Biblical interpretation?
Does the doctrine of Sola Scriptura preclude external assistance in Biblical interpretation?
Etc...

Alternately, clean up the question to clearly ask about one of these sub-topics, and delete any answers that no longer fit (with the possibility to un-delete if the OP chooses to clean them up to match again).
EDIT: As it seems, once again, this question is generating discussion, and no action, I have now cast a VtC on the question. :)

To a Catholic, Sola Scriptura is tantamount to personal interpretation because it's interpretation without Church authority and tradition. Sorry if this doesn't make sense.  In my defense, this is question #2 on the site and I've learned a lot since then.
I'd think it would be one of those things where maybe the mods can lock it and say it's not a good example of a good question.  Then you can ask the real question (and answer it).

BTW, assuming that a person asking a question knows what they're talking about is assuming quite a bit. I've answered a few muddled Catholicism questions here :)

Also, did you see my follow-up question?

The question appears to be, "What is the Protestant's Authoritative Source of Revelation."
The author posits a straw man in saying that anyone can interpret the Scriptures any way they want. The Protestant laity are asked to submit to the elders of their church. There is church discipline, etc. None of that appears represented in the question or the accepted answer. :\

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


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Is my avatar offensive / a poor choice?
Just occurred to me. For a Christian website, is an anime character dressed as an angel a poor choice in an avatar?

Not to me (though i won't speak for others on this site). And it would not meet the guidelines for removal as far as SE is concerned.

Thanks ;) It would be a bit more of a person-person basis, but your message combined with no immediate (negative) answers makes me think it's fine ;)

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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How to delete a user account on a Stack exchange site?
I want to delete my account on this site. How to can I do that?

From the help page you will find "How do I delete my account?" under the My Account section.
Follow the steps described there.  After confirming that you've read what account deletion entails (it's permanent, for one thing), you'll be able to hit the "Delete Profile" button.
Once you do that, one of two things will happen:

Your account will be immediately deleted if you've never posted or voted more than once.
Otherwise, your account will be scheduled for deletion.  You'll have the opportunity to cancel the deletion for 24 hours, but after that, it's gone.

You can learn more on the official SE FAQ.


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Evolution of a Resource Question
I'm curious about the evolution of this question:
What are the mechanics of interaction with the Holy Spirit?
It somehow went from a resource question -- to being closed -- to being re-opened. I'm not entirely certain exactly what happened? Can someone please explain the transformation process to me? [This way, in the future, I can auto-translated my resource-related questions into a form that is not closed.]
Thanks!

Your question was first a book recommendation/shopping list question, which are discouraged across the Stack Exchange network for a variety of reasons, one of which is that there isn't really any one "right" answer. In this form, it was simply not suitable for the system.
What Jon Ericson did was to remove the book-recommendation part and bring to the surface the question you really wanted to ask. You wanted resources so you could study up on a particular topic related to the Holy Spirit, and Jon moved the focus from "resources" to "topic related to the Holy Spirit". Note that the question in its current form asks a direct, answerable question and it asks for citations, which will also get you the resources you wanted.
Hence, in the future, you can transform your questions from this:

Where can I find resources for topic of X?

to

Question about X? (Please give citations.)

Purely on a intellectual level (and not being cynical), the general idea is to change from "Please recommend books for X" to "How does mainstream Christianity view X (please give citations)" ?

@user1311390: To be honest, that's all that I did.  ;-)  The key is to make sure that X is interesting.  I would also recommend narrowing the scope down to a particular tradition or denomination rather than "mainstream Christianity", which is a slippery concept.

@user1311390: Not quite so fast. Using the cliche "mainstream Christianity" is going to be a dead end real fast if you head that way. Don't try to cloak resource requests, just bring us your specific questions. Do the resource shopping somewhere other than SE. This site doesn't cover all the basis. Just use it for what it's good for, vetting answers to focused questions.


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Is there any appropriate way to share humorous sermons?
I was just reading the following from Spurgeon's The Sympathy of the Two Worlds
(minor paragraph splitting to simply reading)

But I want you just to read the text again, while I dwell upon another thought. "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." Now, why do they not save their joy till that sinner dies and goes to heaven? Why do they rejoice over him when he repents? My Arminian friend, I think, ought to go to heaven, to set them right upon this matter. According to his theory, it must be very wrong of them, because they rejoice prematurely. According to the Arminian doctrine a man may repent, and yet he may be lost, he may have grace to repent and believe, and yet he may fall from grace and be a castaway. Now, angels, don't be too fast. Perhaps you may have to repent of this one day, if the Arminian doctrine be true, I would advise you to save your song for greater joys. Why, angels, perhaps the men that you are singing over to-day, you will have to mourn over to-morrow.
I am quite sure that Arminius never taught his doctrine in heaven. I do not know whether he is there—I hope he is, but he is no longer an Arminian; but if he ever taught his doctrine there, he would be put out. The reason why angels rejoice is because they know that when a sinner repents, he is absolutely saved; or else they would rejoice prematurely, and would have good cause for retracting their merriment on some future occasion. But the angels know what Christ meant when he said, "I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand;" and therefore they rejoice over repenting sinners, because they know they are saved.

And I considered it a crime against humanity that I couldn't post it to christianity.se since I couldn't coax it into a christianity.se question (but then I realized I could make it into a meta.christianity.se question).
Question
Is there some appropriate venue (perhaps a sister site) related to christianity.se (i.e. contains the people who are active on christianity.se), but focused on sharing interesting pieces of theology / sermons ?
It would basically be like pinterest (minus pictures + paragraphs of text) or twitter (up to 14k characters), with most of the users being christianity.se users.

Wow, Spurgeon had some serious misunderstandings about Arminian teaching, as well as the Bible's own teaching on the subject.

As you've been learning, as part of the StackExchange network, Christianity.SE is a very focused site. Note, I did not say "community" there. The site itself tries not to focus on the social network in favor of sticking to good QnA.
There are lots of things that this site does not do. We don't try to cover all the basis. The SE philosophy is that better QnA can be achieved by cutting out the noise -- by not trying to be a forum or discussion site or social network or bobsled competition. One of the biggest hurdles we have with people new to the site is convincing them that SE is only good for certain kinds of questions.
That being said, there are extended parts of the network that have a role to play.
For starters, there our site chat room. In there, we don't really have rules about something being off topic. It's a place for anybody who happens to be hanging out to interact on a more personal level than questions and answers allows. Because the chat is permanently logged, there doesn't even have to be current participants for you to drop in and share something. If you found something you think C.SE users would like, drop a link in the chat room. There are a couple dozen people that drop by periodically. Content that users like might get stared and people that come by weeks later can still catch your link or salient comment. Sometimes special chat rooms even open up to cover specific topics.
Also, there is a blog we call Eschewmenical. The authors are all contributors to this site. Topics are picked monthly and representatives with distinctly different perspectives cover the issue on behalf of a certain Christian tradition, particularly highlighting some of the differences. You can see several posts about that here on meta or even chat about it. You could perhaps add something like "influential sermons" as a suggested future topic.
In summary, not everything related to Christianity will have a place on this site. When you do come across  questions that fit the format, please bring them!
P.S. One of the things we try to AVOID is pastoral advice questions. Pretty much across the board we agree that these should best be handled in the context of a local church. However much we disagree about what sort of church that should be, we agree that this site is not the place for those. One could easily combine this sentiment with the SE philosophy of not being a social network and note that there are some kinds of fellowship for which the church is the correct venue for. If you find yourself wanting to make Christianity.SE your spiritual community, we respectfully submit you are in the wrong place. Please fill the need for a local church first and use this site as an additional resource for asking questions that you might not have local expertise for, particularly traditions other than your own.

+1: I clearly misunderstood the goals of Christianity.SE -- Thanks for the clarifications.


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Why is this question being downvoted?
Why is https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/9099/should-we-love-jesus-enemies [currently at -2] being down voted?

Is it due to being close to "pastoral advice"?
Is it due to being potentially divisive in marking certain people as Christ's "enemies" ?

In more pragmatic matters, I've been curious about this matter myself:

for example, should Biblical Christians post articles explaining how JW is heretical for denying the deity of Christ?
furthermore, is it Christian to preach Christ yet sit on one of the world's biggest bank accounts? Why do both the Momon/Catholic ministries have far more material wealth than Christ / his 11 disciples ever did?

And it seems like question being asked by the poster is along similar lines.

both of the example questions you propose here (in the phrasings presented) would be closed.

This question was downvoted (and is now closed) because it runs counter to one of the major foundations that this site is run on.
Anyone who claims to be a Christian, for the purpose of this site, and questions posed on it, is considered to be a Christian
Identifying groups that consider themselves to be Christians as "Jesus' Enemies" is not something that we look kindly on (whether or not we as moderators or users agree). These posts are, and should be down voted, flagged, closed and/or deleted (by the community, or in rare cases moderators), if they do happen to contain a nugget of usefulness then perhaps a timely edit and reopen might help. However, posts that attempt to disparage other sects should be dealt with quickly and decisively.
No matter what you, I, or others who post on this site believe. It does us no good to disparage people who we welcome to this site with questions like this. No one is asking that you embrace anything that you consider heresy, just that it not be disparaged on this site.

Christianity.SE vs. Survivor provides a lot of the history behind this decision. This is part of the SEI mandate for this site (Hedge was an SEI employee when she wrote that).


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Standard way to tag theological beliefs?
This is related to Christianity.SE Statistics
I'm wondering if there's a standard way for voluntarily labeling one's theological beliefs. For example, in my profile page, I've labeled myself as pre-trib, pre-millenial, and predestination.
I completely understand why people would want to not do this (and thus the voluntary nature); but I think it could potentially be helpful -- since this way, when reading a response, I can click on the person's profile, and know what theological beliefs they're coming from.
Question:
Is there a "standard way" to tag one's theological beliefs?
Is this even a good idea? Or is this equally bad as Christianity.SE statistics?

no standards that we've set out. Doesn't hurt to ID your position in your profile but holding a positiong does not preclude you from answering form a different position so I can understand why someone would not want to ID their position outright

http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/1581/the-census


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Why aren't posts dated with the year?
Why does this website not give the year when writing the date for a posting? "June 26" could be any year, and the answer given in a past year might have become out of date..

Answers given in previous years do show the date. Look for anything by Richard, for example.

If no year is shown, it belongs to the current year. If the post is from a previous year, it will show the date. Since this site only got rolling in the last few months of 2011, you'll have to go back to some early posts to spot this.


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Re-open: Has the bible been changed over the years?
I believe this question should be re-opened
The reasons to close for a possible duplicate are:

What major discrepancies exist between “versions” of the Bible?
Lineage of Each Verse of Scripture

1) is similar, however it's overly vague.
2) "Lineage of Each Verse of Scripture" what?!? really?!? The answers may be similar but the questions are completely different.  Anyone searching for questions is not going to stumble on "Lineage of Each Verse of Scripture" to find their answer.
Please consider voting to reopen

I'll vote to reopen if you can explain specifically what you're looking for that is not covered in the other two questions. I guess I'm just not seeing the difference.

Just because the answers are similar does not mean the questions are the same.  If I were searching for textual critics of the bible, I would never consider looking at Lineage of Each Verse of Scripture.  Don't forget, it's close as a duplicate question.  Not potential duplicate answers.

Granted, your title is better. What would be the advantage of reopening your question vs. retitling the other?

"Has there been a project that traces the genealogy of each verse of the scripture?
I.e., for each verse, it traces back through all the documents it was translated from, the default translations at the time, ... all the way back to historically verifiable fragments?
I'm not talking about a generic "this book of the bible came from XYZ". I'm talking about details at the grainularity of a single verse. I.e, for each verse, trace it's lineage, through all the translations, back to the original inspired writers."  How is this the same question?

My question is specifically this, "can we trust that the Bible is the same original word of God?"  Neither of these questions ask this.  While their answers may touch this question, it is not the same question.

OK, if that's your focus then I agree it's not a duplicate. But then is it too subjective? I would say the answer to the question is clearly no, but I think many here would say yes. I don't think it would yield a single objective answer.

Let's not assume and judge based on what other people may think or do.  Let them do their thing.  While you may not expect a single objective answer, if the question is not opened, we'll never know for sure.

Fair enough. I've voted to reopen.

Good job to all involved getting this closed, fixed and reopened without any mod intervention! sign of a maturing community.

I agree that your question is worded much more clearly than the one I linked to.  If for no other reason than as a signpost, I'm willing to rescind my VTC, and move to a reopen :)
Why I called this a duplicate is that the two answers referenced combine exactly your answer your question.
1.) What variation exists?  gets to the root of the "has it changed" question
2.) What is the lineage? gives you the resource to see exactly how the manuscripts differ, at the word-in-each-verse level.
Believe it or not, I think this was the first VTC I've ever done on a question of yours, and I promise it isn't out of malice.  (I may often disagree with you, but as Monika says, I like your critical thinking.)
I still think this question covers existing ground, however.

Since we're being candid; I've told you that I hate to agree with you however you're right more often than not. :)


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Purpose of Christianity.SE
Okay, I may ask questions at time which are odd or a little out there.  I do this because these are real questions that some people have about Christianity - even if they are not my own questions / beliefs.  If you look at the Islam.SE, you'll see people answering questions which are just as odd in regards to their religion.  Questions where if they were about Christianity and on this SE, they would be attacked.
My point is, sometimes it appears that the purpose of Christianity.SE is to validate one's personal beliefs and not truly focus on questions about Christianity.

Is this site only for "mainstream" as Affable Geek points out?
Are we defining what Christianity is and what topics can be discussed
in Christianity?
Should we shut the door on questions that may have alternative views
of Christianity?

I understand that some of it has been discussed here but I think we've lost focus of that discussion.  Specifically this: "Many people are likely to come to a site like this with difficult questions they are struggling to answer or resolve in their personal faith."

Another quote from that question:

The Site
For this site to work, it needs a definition that includes groups who
  call themselves Christian even if we personally believe that their
  members have misappropriated the label. One reason for this is that we
  need to be able to ask and answer questions about doctrines that we
  don't agree with, practices we abhor and groups we would never join.
  We're not here to judge them, only to understand them and to share our
  expertise with others.
For the purpose of this site, then, the topic of Christianity includes
  any question that pertains to any faith that is puts the person of
  Jesus Christ front-and-centre. This will include a wide range of
  beliefs and practices to which many of us do not subscribe - but that
  shouldn't stop us asking questions about them nor providing answers
  where we are experts in a particular topic. For the purpose of this
  site, a question is on-topic if it pertains to a Christ-centred
  world-view, even if the Jesus at the heart of that world-view is a
  stranger to our own personal view of faith and the gospel.
This means that our personal definition of Christian may be much
  narrower than the one that defines this site. That is fine and proper,
  too.

+1 I think this is a great question to ask, and a good discussion to have.

Re topics discussed: I've benefited tremendously from this site, often from "borderline closable" questions -- like book requests: otherwise, I don't think I'd have started reading Tozer or Lloyd Jones.

Also, for controversial questions, I don't think "some branch of Christianity finds this offensive" should be reason to close; but rather "some branch of Christianity can legitimately ask this" should be reason to keep the question open. For example, question like "Of the 'prophecies' made by Watchtower/JW, how many have failed / were later adjusted?" and "What Bible verses do Catholics use to justify praying to Mary? And how is this not idolatry, given the Prophets/Jesus only prayed to God?" should be perfectly valid.

Great question.
You've asked quite a number of good and well accepted questions on the site, but also a few that are not well received. Here you will find my take on why some of the ones that have gotten beat up on in votes are different than the others. They may be the questions you feel like raising, but they specifically target a genre of content that this site is not well suited for. Here are some of the problematic categories I think you've hit:

Questions that seek the "truth" of a matter.
By definition, we have a diverse and even conflicting set of perspectives to represent under one roof. Any attempt in a question to arrive at a truth claim on a theological issue is bound to end in failure here. There is simply no way to a arrive at a right answer on a specific theological issue here.
Anybody coming to the site looking for an end to their spiritual journeys is in the wrong place. The less we try to cater to them and the more we shift the focus to the kind of questions that we CAN handle well, the better off everybody will be.
Instead, while we cannot put theological questions to rest, we can show how Christianity addresses theological questions. We can represent it's theological position(s), show what doctrines bear on which issues, show how it arrived at it's positions and even show the differences in perspectives.
Speculative or progressive theological questions.
This is not a good venue for open ended discussion question. It is not a think tank to come up with solutions to the religious problems in the world. It is not an ecumenical council attempting to forge new levels of interaction between traditions inside Christianity. Several of your questions have had this flavor.
What can only address what is, not what should be. "What should be" is something that must be left to the realm of Churches, which this site is not. Those are things that believers need to hash out among themselves, that their leaders need to oversee and that they need to be accountable for.
All we can do here address what has been and currently is on record, not hash out what is on the table. You once made this comment on an answer:

This is what I'm attempting to establish and hopefully realign.

This site is not a good venue to "realign" Christianity or establish anything new in the way of doctrines. There are plenty of answers to be given about what it is to keep us busy without getting us mixed up in trying to shape it into something else.
Apologetics questions.
This genre can actually be hit or miss, and a lot of it is going to depend on the specifics of both the issue and the way it is asked. I think your most recent question is a good example of a miss on this issue. I realize it is valid to ask a question that you don't actually have yourself. However, in trying to force the point, your question runs rough shod over other aspects of a good question.

It shows research effort, but the research is all contrary. On most SE sites you would be required to show what you have already tried to do to solve a problem and how far those things have gotten you towards a solution. In your case, the prior research is all leading deliberately away from a solution. The tone that set was obviously not appreciated. I actually deal with people in real life every week with very similar questions that are quite legitimate. But they ask them in two ways. One is trolling, and all they are doing is looking for chinks in the armor. When presented with solid answers, they will shift their ground looking for more counter evidence. That is how your question comes off. The other kind really wants to learn the answers, and when pointed in the right direction will actually pursue them. In doing enough research to write a question that well, one must surely have come across some real information about what Christianity actually believes and why. To leave those fragments out of the question makes it sound like a troll.
It is too broad. There are bookshelves full of stuff on the historical evidence, bookshelves full of stuff on the legitimacy of the Gospel accounts, bookshelves of stuff documenting Christianities interaction with Gnosticism, and bookshelves full of stuff on it's relation to Islam. Trying to force a question into a specific genre doesn't give you licence to ask a question that is too broad and would be closed on that ground under normal circumstances.

We've seen other questions in this genre that have different but related issues. "How do I convince my Atheist friends?" for example. By the same token many questions in this genre are fine. As long as they are actually looking for Christianities answer to a specific issue, even divergent traditions often agree on the proper responses to certain common apologetics issues. The key is usually to keep the scope narrow and to want to learn Christianity's answers, not point out a problem.

Nice research, thanks for taking the time to type this.

Good answer and indispensable one too.

I think the purpose to Christianity.SE is to engage all Christian beliefs and practices as well as heresies thereof.
That's extremely broad while being extremely narrow. I mean to say, it's as big as Christianity and as narrow as a heresy, but you may say it's as narrow as Christianity and as broad as the heresies.  We'll both be talking about the same stuff and be equally topical.
So, go right ahead and bring up gnostic texts, there has to be a reason for their existence and a reason against their proliferation.  Some of your questions are hard, much harder than the questions I get from 7th and 8th graders (which is my purpose here) and for the most part, if I have to go look up an answer, to answer at least 2/3rds of the question, I leave it alone because it's obviously not my domain.
I don't go out of my way to look up the javadoc to answer StackOverflow questions, I stick to PHP and Delphi and raw opinion where applicable. So, if you don't get an answer to a hard question, it doesn't mean it's a bad question.  I've had two questions since the launch of the site that were eventually answered by catholic Priests, which was awesome surprising and gratifying, but it took time.

My thoughts on this are well-known.  To me, it does a disservice to the rest of the internet if "our" definition of Christianity takes no account of what the "average" person expects - or even what most scholars expect - when discussing Christianity.
If a liberal were "anyone who claims to be one," then we'd have to address Barry Goldwater's views when discussing "liberal" as well.
If we want to attract experts, we need to not abandon what they think.  No scholar would call David Koresh a Christian.  No scholar would consider Gnostics Christian.  No scholar would consider atheists Christians.  Scholars, in fact, would not want to be associated with someone incapable of even defining what Christian means.
I don't want to censor - but I don't want to confuse either.  I would argue that "mainstream" Christianity is what most people are talking about when they want to know something more about Christianity.  To force them into a meaningless definition is rude to the average citizen of the Internet.

So then we should tag the questions as "mainstream" if we want a "mainstream" answer?  Who should judge what is "mainstream" and what isn't?  We're talking about polar opposites now, but there are many "grey" areas.  It is clear to you what you consider "mainstream" however, others may not define it the same way.

it's funny that you say, "defining what Christian means" since there isn't an agreed upon definition.

I see this as a valuable site.  To me it is a non-Christian secular site to have questions about Christianity posed and answered.  Due to the subject many Christians join.
The more intelligent the questions and answers become, the better off this site will become.  This requires administrative rules that may not be justified from a Biblical standpoint, as like I said this is a secular site.
As the site is managed by sinners such as ourselves it will not be done with perfect fairness but we should be generous concerning the faults of others and appreciate those  who spend the thankless efforts maintaining the site.
On technical terms, I would prefer a different mechanism for closing questions.  I have almost never voted to close a question and had almost none of my questions closed but, I think those who vote closure, should be forced to respond to something like 'yes/no 'ok to re-open' after any revision occurs to the closed question.  Closing a question has an automatic method, but re-opening seems too difficult to motivate the person in attempting. I am only proposing an ideal process, it might not be worth the effort to implement something like that.
One thing I find optimistic about this site (in contrast to the sister site BH which I think has a lot going for it on different grounds) is that it has a high rate of accepted answers.  Something must be working for this to happen.
I think Affable is right about being Academically honest about what is Christianity.  I think bizarre and unusual questions should be allowed on this site (I would prefer they are not closed) but the answers should be able to identify them as such, otherwise, this site could turn into a weird philosophical place chasing everyone away because it does not coincide with the meanings of words used by everyday people.
For example if I were to say I have joined a new sect of Christianity called mikeism and one weird doctrine we believe is that we should have fornication with young women in order to get close with them and share the gospel, well, it would be suitable for someone to comment that actually I am not mainstream Christian in my sect, even if I put Jesus as the centre in some weird way.  I should be allowed to answer according to me weird idea, but not take the mainstream Christian flag as I do it without being called out for it.

Mike... I think you put too much thought into mikeism


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What is wrong with question about Jesus' children?
I asked this question because I wanted to give an answer to some guy asking on FB How do we know that Jesus had no children? on a place surrounded by reactions like Yeah, that's the point about Christian lie!
I was hoping to find an answer, but could not find any. The only mention about Jesus' youth (in age of 12) was in Luke 2.
The first comments and the first answer were just ignoring the question. I thought it is confusing, so I edited it the best way I could. The next comment were complaining about its very low quality, but what could I add? Despite of my effort, I had no positive results in my research. I believe it is irrelevant and bothering to write ten paragraphs of what I think about it. Why don't keep it simple and clear?
The accepted answer was great, but the rest of the topic was just misleading. Please clarify this:

Did I hit some taboo? If yes, would this be more suitable for skeptics stackexchange?
I really don't know how to improve the question about which I can not found anything useful and I really don't want to blur it with my personal confusion about it. Any recommendations? There are just downvotes without any hint.

FWIW, don't take it personally. You question was not clear to some (including me) until it was edited.

@DanAndrews: can you recommend some less crazy place for this kind of questions then?

@JanTuroň maybe there should be a ChristianCritic.SE or NonorthodoxChristianity.SE

I don't see anything particularly wrong, except that your asking for proof of a negative which is rarely possible. (It's also an area that I'm pretty sure the scripture is silent on, so there is that.
However, the question itself is valid following the edits and I've edited it a bit more to clarify it.
Some more detail on why you think this is relevant would be helpful, but is not required for the question to remain open and constructive. Why should we be interested in answering this question? Why would it be important if someone wanted to claim they had Jesus' blood in their veins?

Agreed. At the start I really couldn't work the question out, but after all the edits it became clear to me. So, thanks for helping out, editors!

Thanks, I have clarified this.

The taboo part is that some self-proclaimed "Christian" religions teach that Jesus had physical children on earth with physical wives, and that belief is very much a core part of their religion. Many of their core beliefs would be invalidated if it were proven that Jesus did not marry and did not have children. On the other hand, many other self-proclaimed "Christian" religions hold that Jesus did not have children, and while that belief is not absolutely essential to their doctrine, it would certainly muddy the waters if it was proven that He did have a wife and children, due to reasons which I have posted on your linked question.


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Reopen: Christianity as we know it today is not tolerant enough per Jesus and the bible?
I changed the question around so now it's not subjective but asking for specific quotes from the bible.  Please consider reopening or suggest what would make it better.
https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/9683/christianity-as-we-know-it-today-is-not-tolerant-enough-per-jesus-and-the-bible

If you're going to make this a meta issue, at least linking people to the relevant question would be appreciated.

@Caleb, isn't this the proper method of getting a question reopened?  To move the discussion away from the question itself?

@JonEricson Caleb edited the comment from the question which had a link to the meta.  That's what I was thanking him for.  I'll add it here too.

@Dan Andrews: Thanks for the edit.  (I assumed sarcasm.  Oops!)

@DanAndrews: Yes raising the issue here for discussion is the proper method except in some really simple fix cases that could be just flagged for a moderator to unilaterally reopen. In this case I think community discussion is important because its involves issues we aren't all clear on.

@Caleb agreed since it was closed by a mod and not the community.

What part of this question (asking for suggestions) is -2?

@Dan Andrews: Reputation on meta.*.SE is particularly meaningless.  My guess is that people aren't interested in re-opening the question.  Here's a +1, if that helps you feel better. ;-)

@JonEricson I really don't care about rep.  Have a look at some of my questions and some of which I'm attempting to keep (one is -9).  What I believe is that a -1 should be a response to allude that a question shows little effort on the authors part, is not well formed, or generally there is something wrong with the question itself.  The fact that a person wants to avoid a question is not reason enough to downvote.

however, it's a good reason to leave a comment

Just adding "per Jesus and the bible" doesn't magically fix a non constructive question, nor does it make an unfocused question into a focused one. For example the following is simply not constructive in spite of asking for a purely Biblical answer:

What Bible verses can be used to show that Christians shouldn't dance?

Your topic is different, but the question pattern is about the same. People's doctrinal positions are going to inform their interpretations so much that it's almost useless to approach a topic that way.
Also, the rest of the question doesn't do anything to solidify or focus it. You have a current event, an opinion piece in the media and a random verse of your own thrown in? How would you expect somebody to come along and actually answer this? You seem to be pushing a very specific direction and yet your question doesn't give any framework for getting the answers you seek.
Most importantly, when it comes to quoting Bible verses in support of an idea, outside of an scholarly environment that deal with this as a hermeneutics issue, it's a free for all. How would the verses quoted by crazy picketing fundamentalist, a beauty pageant contestant that glibly votes for world peace and a few dozen varying traditions with doctrinal mandates on opposite directions of this issue be judged as right or wrong? You haven't offered anything to solve this by adding "quoted from the Bible".
It seems to me that this has elements of both #1 and #2 problematic question types that I talked about in my answer to your previous meta post here.
Edit: In response to your latest edit...

I don't exactly read that as, "Love one another as long as they have the same belief system as you."

This kind of statement in a question really makes it sound to me like you are asking this not to learn something for yourself but rather because you have something in mind to communicate something. I asked my fair share of those kind of questions here early one. They didn't work out well. They are nice and active but they just get messier and messier and drag things down and distract from other questions that have clear answers that people actually learn something new from rather than spending their energy trying to convince people their view is right.

I humbly disagree, but that doesn't matter, I suppose.  Looking for specific quotes from the bible should make it more specific.

Removed the "random" article and made the scripture tie in more.

Im posting because I want to make sure I understand and this may make your point...because I can ask in response to or answer this way "I didnt know Christianity was suppose to be tolerant "... and this is why it cant be asked for instance....also because the response would be to broad to "ones" interpretation...kinda like my quote presents...am I close???


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Reopen suggestions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam worship the same God?
I removed some of the "babble" in the top of the question.  What could I change to make this question acceptable?
https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/8851/christianity-judaism-and-islam-worship-the-same-god

+1 because What could I change to make this question acceptable? seems like exactly the right thing to ask.   I'll think about possible answers, I just don't have anything to suggest off the top of my head.

I think that this question is pretty much a lost cause at this point and here's why:
It's a discussion disguised as a question.
I think this paragraph from the Philosophy FAQ sums up my concern about the question:

Please note that this site is not a personal blog or a pulpit for you to express your own personal philosophical beliefs. This is a Q&A site for examining ideas and concepts in the field of philosophy. It's OK to have opinions (even those that might differ from the "mainstream"), but you need to express them in a constructive way. If you fail to do this, your contributions are subject to being edited or moderated so that they adopt a less hostile or confrontational point of view.

We've had a discussion about whether or not the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is the same God and it's time to move on.  There are a lot of good answers that did their level best to answer the question, but ultimately it's not a question that can be answered.
I should also point out that you've asked the same question on Mi Yodeya, which was closed, and on Islam.SE where you got three upvoted answers.  When combined with the 7(!) upvoted answers on this site, I don't see what could be left to be said.  By opening the question again, we are just continuing the discussion that we probably shouldn't have been having in the first place.
It's a comparative religion question, not a Christianity question
Comparative religion questions don't work well on individual religion sites.  As Shmuel Brin writes on meta.Judaism.SE this type of question:

Pushes away experts—experts would gravitate to websites which discuss technical questions in their field. Unless these questions are discussed in Jewish books (in which case they should be welcome), these are not the types of questions experts would want to see.

When casting about for a new question to ask, I wonder if you might find it helpful to look at historical Christianity or questions discussed in Christian books?

Caleb is talking about deleting questions that have no hope to be opened.  I don't think this question should be deleted and there's no good reason why it's closed.

@Dan Andrews: To be honest, I agree with him.  Did you notice that the question has 9 downvotes?  That's a lot of people who don't think the question is useful.  But let's see if other people have some suggestions for you.

they don't know what's good for them.  I think the question got downvote momentum.  Everyone likes to jump on the bandwagon sometimes.  Similarly there are question that are upvoted just because of the author and upvote momentum.  I would hate to see this question deleted even if it remains as an example of what not to do.

@Dan Andrews: Yeah.  Voting isn't fair.  I'd hate to lose some of the answers, but I'm having a hard time seeing what benefit there is to keeping the question otherwise.  It doesn't really work to keep questions around that aren't helpful to the site.  (See this mess.)

I guess I'm a little troubled with "I'd hate to lose some of the answers" (I assume helpful answers) and "it doesn't really work to keep questions around that aren't helpful to the site".  IMHO, bad question with good answers are still helpful... do you not think that someone else would ask this same question and we'd go through this exercise again?

@Dan Andrews: It seems the right course of action is to fix the question or merge the answers into an open question.  I don't have any candidates for that, however.  Further, I don't have the energy to pursue it. :(

Good answers on a bad question? We have a place for those.


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Reopen: Why don't women cover their heads?
Please help me understand why this isn't a good question.
Why don't women cover their heads  I've reworded it to better fix the Q&A format.  However, my accepted answer will be more of my opinion (IMHO).  I would rather not do that.
As a "Should a Christian..." question, it would be easier to select the best answer with this criteria:  "Yes, they should because it says here and here and an example...." or "No, they shouldn't because it says here and here and an example..."  That is, I can judge the best answer by who has the most supporting information.  However now, I have to judge which is the best answer.  The difference is small, but obvious to me.
Caleb asked these questions:

What would you like to come away having learned something about? Who
  does? Who doesn't? Why those who don't don't?

What I'm looking for is:

Why orthodox Christianity does not promote this?
When did it stop?
Is it a good idea to promote this? (should I have a discussion with
my wife?)

Your first two bullet points could be great questions, but those aren't what you asked. Ask those and you'd be fine. The third one is exactly the kind of thing that doesn't fly here, and that's pretty much what you asked the first time around. Your ends are part way there, but it's still messy.

I modified the question to ask it.  I should have been more direct in the beginning.

In response to the original version of this meta question:
The work you did to eventually make a real case for the question in this meta post (that eventually made it a decent question) is the work that should have gone into the original question on the main site in the first place. The original showed zero research effort and didn't fit any of our site guidelines.

The current version of this meta question doesn't seem to call for an answer too me since the question is taken care of. Since it doesn't seem useful for anything other than posterity, here's  are my comments to your edits (no obsolete).
In response to the original version of the question:

"Should Christians__" questions in general boil down to searches for truth on an issue. As far as the scope of this site is concerned, truth questions are out of bounds. If you want to re-work this so that it asks something ABOUT CHRISTIANITY -- as in who believes what and why -- that would be fine, but trying to resolve whether something SHOULD be one way or another is not a constructive question for this format.

In response to the first round of edits:

The edits to this give the question a fractured personality. What would you like to come away having learned something about? Who does? Who doesn't? Why those who don't don't? Just throwing a topic out there for discussion isn't what this site is good for, be specific about what you'd like to learn. Keep in mind you can't cover both sides of an unresolved issue with a single question.

I disagree that the original question showed "zero" research.  However, I understand why you felt that it didn't fit.  However I'd like to point out that others didn't agree that the original question was bad.  However, we all know not to upset the Caleb. ;)

@DanAndrews: Ok so zero was hyperbole because you at least found the verse reference in the NT. But seriously you see the difference between the amount of effort it took to think though what would make it a good question and vs the original right? Maybe next to nothing would have been more technically accurate. Also, several others did agree that the original was bad (I wasn't the only or even the first commentor or VTC), it just wasn't unanimous because one person noted they didn't see the issue.

honestly, I see the hard work it took to appease you.  It was after all, a question posed while "on the run" in the real world.  That is, I had a conversation in the office with someone, I researched and found that they were right, I thought I'd post the question here to get other's answers.  Maybe that's not the proper use of SE. Further more...

...  When you demand people change questions and answers (to the same question), at some point, you're just talking to yourself.  I would like to see more community involvement in closing, opening, and suggesting better question and answers.  Not just the mods.  You're working too hard my brother.

@DanAndrews SE caters to experts, and this site tends towards the academic, not on the fly / off the top of your head stuff. And, if you'll note, two non-mod community members jumped in close votes and a comment before I stopped by. I took the time (from mobile on the run myself) to leave detailed comments about what the issue was and how you could fix it. You're welcome.

@DanAndrews Also, three of your four previous closed questions were closed by 5 community members, zero mods. The other one, which I closed, was deleted by votes from solely community members, no mods. I think the community is involved here, not just mods.

please don't take me the wrong way.  I'm not saying that I don't appreciate you time and effort.  I'm saying that you're working too hard.  You even mention making suggestions from a cell phone.  It would be nice to see more non-mods put in an effort.  However, looking in the mirror, I could have put in more effort myself - which is the point of your answer.

@DanAndrews: If that's what you're trying to say, it seems to me you are saying in in the wrong place to the wrong person. I started this conversation by saying you weren't putting in enough effort, then you complained I was putting in too much and the rest of the community not enough. If you think people ought to put in effort, set an example yourself then get out there and recruit them. Comments on my post doesn't seem like the place for that call to action if that's what you are really trying to say.

Here is the original question:

When I first heard about this, I thought, "oh, this must be from the old test!" However I was wrong. Per the 1 Corinthians 11:6, should women wear a covering such as the Hijab?

That's just lazy.  It didn't even spell (out/correctly?) "Old Testament".  And while your surprise is understandable, it seems like the first thing you did was to run out and ask a question here.  I typed your question into Google and got plenty of helpful looking results including an entire Wikipedia article on the issue.  (It's not a very balanced article, but that's a different problem.)
After much work the heart of the question is now:

Why don't more Christian women wear a covering such as the Hijab?
Are there many (any) mainstream / orthodox denominations that promote head coverings for women?
When did this tradition stop?

The first question is ridiculous on it's face: Hijab is clearly a Muslim concept.  Christian women might wear it when living in a Muslim country for the sake of cultural sensitivity.  What you meant ask was why Paul's instructions on this point aren't more generally followed.  Nobody who follows Paul's instructions would call their headcovering a "hajab".  Our site works best when asking about the doctrines of particular groups.  A better question might have been:

Why don't more Catholic women wear headcoverings?

(But don't ask that since Wikipedia already answered it.)
That Wikipedia article answers the second question better than any of us could.
The final question is perhaps interesting, but it's lost in all the other things you are doing in the question.
Questions are not a soapbox!
Which brings me to my main objection with this whole thing: the question seems to be more concerned with pointing out the conflict between the text and orthopraxy than with trying to learn.  I have some ideas on how to answer your question, but I don't think you care to hear them.  Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the impression your question makes on me.  Why should I give you even a few moments of my time if you don't care to learn anything?
We have a higher standard for questions.
You wrote:

And yes, I already admitted that it was a fly by post. Lazy, eh, I guess. It's not much different than someone who answers a question only to come back and clean it up later - which happens a lot.

But it is different.  When you ask a question, you are initiating a conversation topic.  When you answer a question, you are responding to a public request.  We have higher standards for questions because it's not a trivial thing to request the attention of every other participant in the site.  Bad, lazy, fly-by questions waste the time of dozens of people.
Please understand that I respect and admire your evident persistence.  But it angers me that you are trying to justify a lazy question.  Why not save us all the trouble of critiquing your questions by just asking better questions in the first place?  I could understand if you honestly didn't know how, but you're obviously a smart person.

"Christian women aren't generally Muslim" - that pretty ridiculous that you'd say that.  Muslims are Muslim and Christians are Christian and a Hijab is a covering.  You don't have to be Muslim to wear one.  Please don't keep us in suspense, enlighten us with the answer which you're holding on to.

And yes, I already admitted that it was a fly by post.  Lazy, eh, I guess.  It's not much different than someone who answers a question only to come back and clean it up later - which happens a lot.

@Dan Andrews: I've updated my answer.  Feel free to comment as you see fit, but be aware that I need to take a step back and avoid saying anything else for a while.

I admit that I should have thought out my question a little more or taken a little more time to develop it before starting to type.  I believe the backlash from this is a bit extreme - but that's my belief, nobody else has to agree with it.  I wonder if I would have NOT said, "... such as the Hijab?" would it have made a difference.  While I used the hijab in my question, I was using it as an example of a head covering.  One that is not very different then every image of Mary that I've ever seen.


text:
How should "one sided answerable" questions be handled?
The question I asked here seems to be like a NP-hard problem in that a single example would answer the question with a "yes" but a "no" would require an exhaustive search of all Christian thought (presumably including works no longer extant!).  I do not think it is worthy of being closed--it is potentially answerable--, but I suspect the answer may be "no" in which case a referenced answer would not be possible.
I am tempted to suggest that someone provide an answer along the lines of "It appears likely that there was no earlier use" (I need to clarify the question and skim through Confessions to find a reference--as well as probably comment on answers, though mostly through clarifying the question.), so that I could accept an answer (but I am a little hesitant to accept a "probably no").
Anyway, this issue seems more general than just that single question.
My asking this question here was motivated by the question about closing open-ended questions.

Related and more recent: How “does any tradition teach/not teach questions” are handled

I think it's okay to leave such questions around for such a time as the right expert can address them. A couple of "probably not" answers are fine and helpful as far as they go, but some day it needs somebody to say "No. I've studied the history of thought in this area through time and Augustine is the first."
As such, I'm a little disappointed in the current answers that fill the void in knowledge about the issue you asked about with personal ramblings on a tangential topic. That's not what we should be encouraging.
In any event, I don't see this as one-sided at all. It's just harder to come up with references for one side. That doesn't mean that an expert can't come along and make a definitive statement about it.

By the way, as far as I know--and generally confirmed by responses--Augustine did not extend the concept of evil not technically existing to suppose that a 'lack of existence' was necessary for God to cause to be a non-self.


text:
Should the rules on answers be loosened/clarified?
New to the site, but a member for several months on stackoverflow. As you can easily guess the two are quite different. One where most questions have a universally correct answer where here the answers are only correct to a specific point of view.
The issue I have is there is a hostility toward answers that do not appear to be universally correct. None of the answers here are universally correct; that is not possible for us to know. For example, in answering a question about a specific Catholic doctrine I turned to the Catechism for the answer. When does the bread and wine become Body and Blood? I think I answered it well, but naturally it led to more questions of a very specific nature that the catechism didn't necessarily address. I choose to attempt an answer with "I would say ..." I was promptly warned of the site's hostility toward any interpretation and basically that he would only accept a quote from the pope as an answer.
In another example I attempted to answer a question on Cessationism, a particular view point on miracles, not a denomination or specific group. How do Cessationists expect people to believe without seeing miracles today? Despite the warning in the comment I still thought it worth while to share my knowledge of the concept and logically argue the point asked for from someone who adheres to cessationism, which does not necessarily imply that such a person adheres to something else. So I resorted to Systematic Biblical Theology and pointed to passages that supported my answer. I was quickly downvoted and accused of not even knowing what cessationism is. Why should I try with such stringent rules? I suppose I need a doctorate in every topic I try to answer to meet the requirements.
This kind of expectation in the answers is what is keeping the site down. There are less then ten new questions a day. On SO I can't even refresh the page without loosing the question I was looking at in a sea of new questions. The answers inherently cannot meet the kind of precision as on SO, because the questions are not typically seeking as exact an answer as the Catholic question I answered. But even then I apparently am not allowed to deduce an answer from my own logic supported by facts because that is apparently interpretation and opinion. How does that make the site any better than a google search?
Read this post. Is the scope of SE Christianity too narrow? And the selected answer is spot on. The scope of the site is too broad and is the seed of this ridiculous answer squashing because I am apparently not the pope or doctorate theologian so must therefore provide only facts in my answer and not logical deduction. The point of beta testing is to see how the users use the product then adjust accordingly. It does not mean force the users into the mold first made.
See this post. What makes a good supported answer? The first bullet is pretty good and should generally be how a question is answered because, more often then not, the questioners will want to see biblical support. But then the third bullet says in bold 'no original research.' Why? That seems quite contrary to the purpose of a site like this. As for questions that are specific, like the Catholic one above, it is pretty clear what the answer should look like and where it should come from. So let that ride without interfering; it is self regulating.
I think we can all agree: The site is barely surviving. Something needs to change.
I propose this: Change the scope of the site and definition of a Christian and clearly define what a good answer is. Merely claiming to be Christian cannot be all there is. I could claim I'm a lawyer or doctor, however, most people would agree I am not. Simply claiming something does not make it so, nor does it make you part of that group in the eyes of the group as a whole. For example, there are atheistic Christians who only ascribe to the bible for moral direction, having logically deduced that moral living is good for them and others. So that really has nothing to do with Christianity. There are also cultural Christians who only claim Christianity because of heritage (quite common in USA) and do not really care about Christianity of any flavor. So, again, they are surely not Christians. Now this post Christianity.SE vs. Survivor makes it seem like it is in contrast with what I am saying but it is not. It is mostly concerned with questions that might read like "Are Mormons Christian?" Surely that kind of question is not constructive. The first answer by Caleb is very good, which is funny, because he is the guy who keeps downvoting me. Maybe a return to that ideal is needed. The first comment under Caleb's answer by Flimzy mentions the exact issue I am trying to illuminate: the questions are mostly fine; how we decide the constructiveness of our answers is shaky at best.
So what should define a Christian? I would say something like this for this site: "A Christian is a person who first calls himself such. He identifies Christianity with religion and spirituality and believes in at least one god, whether real, metaphorical, allegorical, or otherwise; who god might be and what god might do or has done does not matter for this site. The Christian also believes that the bible, at least in part, no matter how significant, is important to the faith of Christianity. Other texts are not excluded, such as Apocrypha or the Book of Mormon.
I also think there should be a section in the faq that defines a constructive answer for the types of questions there are.
I have seen these kinds of questions (paraphrasing from real questions)
1) Very specific doctrine questions - "In Catholicism, when does the transubstantiation occur?"
2) More generic but denomination specific - "What would a Lutheran say about God having ordained all things?"
3) Also generic but view point specific - "How would a Cessationist argue that miracles are not needed to become a believer?"
4) Implied Biblical Answer wanted - "Does a Christian who sins remain a Christian?"
5) Purely Biblical - "How does the author of Hebrews argue that every sin receives a just retribution?"
6) Historical - "Is it true that before the Quinisext Council it was heresy to draw Jesus on icons in the form of a man?"
Here is what I think should define a constructive answer for these questions
1) You must quote from literature produced by the denomination in question or an authority figure for that denomination (Pope, Arch Bishop, etc.). Wikipedia will not cut it, nor will your opinion. The answer, if it exists, will be just as specific as the question. You may make logical deductions from the literature, but sparingly and only if necessary; do not base the whole question off of logical deduction.
2) Quoting from denomination literature or figurehead is not required but is preferred. There is more freedom on logical deduction but it must be based on quoted fact or common knowledge first. Your own research can make an appropriate answer, but not likely
3) Quoting would be difficult as that would also require a denomination association, which is okay, but that greatly restricts your answer. Logical deduction from the basic points of the view point combined with quotes from the Bible and other texts are perfect for this type of question.
4) Although somewhat vague, this question should still be allowed because it is implied that the questioner wants the generalized consensus of the Christian community. Answering with quotes from the Bible and other texts is best for this. Using any approach to the interpretation of the texts is acceptable so long as it is clearly stated or the text is frank and explains itself.
5) This question is not interested in interpretation or anybody's view point. The questioner wants to better understand the particular religious text from the frame of the text itself. The question is also not interested in what other texts say about the topic.
6) This question is largely fact based and requires quotes. For occasions when there is more than one view point on how the history happened it is best to either declare which view point you are stating or discuss both, noting how they relate and differ.
Some general rules are:
1) If you are asking about or answering from a specific view point then say so at the top of the post.
2) For generic questions like #4 it is best if you state the kind of answer you want. Classify your question based on this list of types of questions [this makes me think that if the community likes this 'types of questions' idea then we could have a dropdown for each question to be classified]. If the question is not classified the answerer should assume that the asker wants the general Christian consensus and/or biblical support for the supposition.
I am excited having found this site and am eager to engage in a long journey of theological education. I would hate to see the site fail when there is such potential. Something needs to be done because the current model is scaring users from asking and answering. What are the suggestions? Is doing something about the answers like I suggest something that might work? Are any of the mods on the same boat as me?
As an aside check out the islam SE. It is rife with apparent opinion and no one there  cares. The even have an advice-needed tag! I have asked three questions now and not one has quoted anything yet; just comments. I'm not saying we should do that here but I think some where in between that and what is happening now here is good.

I must admit, I have read only the first few paragraphs and the last paragraph because I am very tired (it's almost 3 am). I'll read all of it tomorrow. That said, I have two points to make: 1) Alypius may be a better-than-usual newbie (no offense intended), but he is a new person and not a regular member, and 2) this site will not fail. We'll actually graduate sometime in the near future, as soon as Jin, the graphic designer, makes our design. Don't be discouraged though; you're learning, and if you stick with it, the community will be honored to have another high-quality contributor.

I responded as I did due to Caleb's chat request/concern - I'm happy to see that you came over to meta. Also, I am fairly certain that your speculation is just plain wrong according to mainstream RC. (The question is not as easy as you might think, and I am looking for a pretty rigorous answer.) And the site is hostile towards speculation. @El'endiaStarman Thanks :)

This posting is longer than it should be and is difficult to read. It addresses too many issues at once. The proposed solution(s?) should be posted independently of the problem(s?). It is probably more appropriate to handle this matter in the chat room.

@Alypius ok lets chat. How? Where do I go?

@fredsbend http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/1167/the-upper-room I believe. The chat rooms are pretty quiet (people might be busy doing other things), so don't be discouraged if conversations proceed slowly.

Mod note: For reference, question closure (and possible future deletion) is at the special request of the OP via a flag. (I don't want people that are able to see deleted content but not flags wondering if I am sweeping something under the rug.)

@Caleb Since you mention it in that comment from 2 years ago, please do not delete this. I use it regularly to identify with new users that I also missed the point.

If this is still useful to future visitors, maybe our choice to close it was premature. Should it be re-opened?

@Caleb Well, actually, I was thinking about some of the things I've said here and that they are applicable, and I think I can reformulate them into a new post. I view this as more of a rant than anything else. That's why I asked you close it two years ago, after I understood the site ethos and MO. So no, I don't think it should be reopened.

Welcome to Christianity.Stackexchange.com. Welcome and I hope that after you read this you will continue to want to participate. I welcome your post and your critiques, and would remind you that a lot of the policy that the moderators and community of this site enforce has been built on two years of meta discussion and argument.
Firstly I'd like to address some major issues with your post, before I get into the substance of it.

"This site is barely surviving" - This is patently false. In fact, we are the next site to graduate from beta. That in an of itself isn't enough to ensure site stability, but it's a pretty good indication that SEI (the company that owns this site) thinks that we're on solid footing. To add to this, we've been seeing rising numbers of questions, answers and views overall for some time now. We're not struggling to survive, we're thriving.
That the site's definition of Christianity is up for debate. SEI has from day one said that all self identifying Christians will be welcome here. That includes the group that you single out (Christian atheists) and it includes plenty of other groups that I not only don't find to be Christians, but that I personally find to be down right blasphemous. The key is that I have my opinions, but I do not, and can not allow those opinions to color how this site is managed because my mandate is (pretty much above all else) to make this a welcoming place for all people who identify as Christians.

Now that those points are out of the way we can get to a substantial answer.
To address your first two questions, about why your specific answers were negatively commented and downvoted:

on the first question, I see no downvotes (+3/-0), and a comment series that seems pretty darn friendly for this site with people trying to understand the points you are making. You make some clarifying edits to pull it into essay form (our desired form here) and overall it becomes a pretty good answer. It's left in a place that seems fairly satisfactory. Looks like a pretty good process to me.
On the second question. I'm inclined to agree with Caleb here, you've missed the boat a bit on it. Your definition of cessationism doesn't line up with the one from the question and so you've missed it on that. But also you're giving what amounts to conjecture as an answer. We work hard to ask people to post well researched, or at least well cited answers. Keep in mind though that we only delete the real cruft. Your answer, while it might not be the best one given, is in no real danger of deletion, the reason Caleb is spending the time to try to help you onto the right path is because he believes you potential contributions to this site are worth it.

Now as far as your suggestions on how to change the site to make it (in your opinion) better. Let's examine them individually.

A reasonable theologian would be acceptable in addition to a church leader (often the same, but many doctrines don't have specific people maintaining them but they do have reasonable theologians who have defined them.). However, these are often questions that can be answered without citation provided an answerer can provide one when prompted. it is not this site's policy to require citation in every answer, just that they can be provided when challenged
You've got the right position here, quotation from denominational literature is preferred. but obviously some denominations don't have a super well maintained knowledge base like others do, so unsourced statements, while not preferable, are welcome here, even if we don't really care for it.
You're seeming to assume that only denominational authorities are authorized to speak about specific doctrines. The way we've tried to word things is that any published theologian is a worthy source, even if that publication is a blog. As long as it's linked so that folks can check it out and verify we've tried to make the bar as low as possible. There is good reason for this, many very small opinions and groups don't have the kind of history and wealth of theologians that you'd find in the Catholic, Presbyterian or Anglican churches (to name a few). To continue to serve those groups (as per our mandate) we must make the bar for a source quite low.
Implied Biblical answer questions as you called them are basically (As generally phrased) searches for truth. These don't go well here and should be generally discouraged. They happen and we try to limit them, but they are one of our primary concerns as moderators when it comes to questions. We'd very much prefer if this type of question went away quietly, but they keep coming so we do our best to try to narrow them and serve the askers the best we can.
This kind of question is often #4 couched in just slightly different terms. If someone is looking for the right interpretation they are likely better off on our companion site Biblical Hermeneutics. However, if they're interested in how a group interprets a passage and especially in how they apply it, then they should feel right at home, provided they can actually specify a group.
Historical questions are on topic and will continue to be so, but you're right, answers should be sourced, or at least meet our minimum bar "being sourceable" that means if you're asked to support it that you do.

The key here is that over the past year in all of our meta discussions we have tried hard to avoid requiring sourcing (Even if I've argued for it, consensus is against me). Thus we've set the bar as "sourceable."
Now, from the looks of it you've got the potential to ask and answer a great deal of very interesting questions. No one is asking you to get a doctorate every time you answer a question, but do know that you may not be qualified to answer every question on this site. But that shouldn't be a don't that's just an opportunity for you to do the research. The key to answering any site here is the exact same key that you used for every research paper you wrote in school, you can't write the paper if you haven't done the research. So if you find a question you want to answer, but don't know the answer, or you don't have support for it, do the research instead of just spouting your opinion. It will be much better received.
On your last point. I haven't spent a great deal of time on the Islam.se site, but I have talked to their mods several times, and they are plagued by sectarianism and infighting that we've largely avoided here. Heck, one group of users from that site even tried to start a new Area 51 proposal for his specific sect. We've avoided these kinds of issues largely by keeping things focused on doctrine and trying to make sure answers match to perspective asked for in the question. None of us will argue that it's perfect and all of us probably wish this site catered more thoroughly to truth rather than to the blasphemous hodge podge we've put together, but so far it's working, and we've been successful by the metrics SE uses so I call that a win.

I wholeheartedly endorse this response, including the bit where you put words into my mouth.

How did the community evaluation go?  Does it look like our quality is being maintained?

@JonEricson I'll try to dig up the results again, I had them...

Wow that's a lot of thoughts for one post! I am not going to try to engage all of your points, but here are a few things that come to mind to keep the conversation going. There seem to be a few misconceptions going on here that maybe we can clear up with a little history.
Before we start with that though, I want you to know that my comments to your early posts were not meant to be antagonistic. I'm sorry if I came off as rude or demeaning. In particular my remark on your personal knowledge of a doctrine was uncalled for. Forgive me for that, I should have made less assumptions about you and stuck to what I could see in your post. I still argue that the post doesn't properly represent the doctrine in question, but I should have stuck to trying to help you improve it rather than presuming a lack of knowledge on your part.
Now, for some points...

I think we can all agree: The site is barely surviving.

No, actually, I don't think you'll find much agreement on that point here. We are doing a lot better than "barely surviving"! The numbers show steady growth and really solid amounts of traffic, and the folks that have been around a while see a different picture.
Of course there is massive room for improvement, but we're thriving. We've even gotten the green light to graduate from beta and be a full fledged member of the SE 2 network.
Along with that growth come some growing pains. We're actually seeing such a high rate of influx on new members that we're falling behind on getting them up to speed with the SE environment and our local site norms. We're not educating people fast enough with all we've learned over the last year and a half and newcomers are quickly dragging the site through some of the same issues we ran into early on and found solutions for. If anything, your experience with the site reflects this mix of directions as new members think they know what's going on long before they actually grok the big picture.

I was promptly warned of the site's hostility toward any interpretation and basically that he would only accept a quote from the pope as an answer

Say what? Whoever gave you that line doesn't sound like they represent the greater community at all. (Note: I'm specifically not naming names because this isn't about calling them out, just trying to help you along in your understanding.) We're not hostile towards interpretation -- in fact vast amounts of it are called for even in answering straight up factual questions. What you did with referencing the Catechism and then trying to make some inferences in line with it was right on target. We want to see more where that came from!
My own criticisms of some of your posts were not that they included personal interpretation but that they were either A) did not directly answer the question or B) were nothing BUT personal doctrine when a specific church doctrine was called for. They told us about what you believed but not about what Christianity believes. When a logical defense of a doctrine is called for by a question, by all means include it. However when the gist of a question is about how that doctrine relates to a specific issue, answers need to approach the issue directly, not beat around the bush or build a case for something related to the doctrine. The worst (and these will get deleted rather than commented on) are when answers wander so off track that they actually attack the doctrine in question rather than explain it.

The first answer by Caleb is very good, which is funny, because he is the guy who keeps downvoting me.

You don't know that. In fact this is something you should know across the SE network: it is much harder to guess who is voting than you think and you should avoid every assuming you know who voted. Even when they outright say +1 or -1 in a comment, it is often the case that they don't actually vote the way they comment.
It is quite common for someone to comment on a post with some criticism and have somebody else come along and vote the post down. I tend to comment more than I do downvote and often save the downvote for if people don't do anything to improve their post. I am, however, not shy of downvoting and have downvoted one of your posts. But just one and not where you seem to think I have. I have also upvoted several of your posts.

I propose this: Change the scope of the site and definition of a Christian and clearly define what a good answer is.

The "definition" of Christian on this site only defines who is allowed to participate and the overall scope. Changing this would do absolutely nothing to improve the state of answers on a per-question basis. In fact it would actually set a precedent of being scoped like a church and reduce us to moderating based on doctrine. Imposing a definition on Christian would necessarily ruin the entire main theme that is going on here.
As for the latter part of that suggestion, we've already done that. Maybe they need improving, but we do have guidelines for what makes good answers.

the questions are mostly fine; how we decide the constructiveness of our answers is shaky at best.

Here I am about to go doing almost what I was apologizing for above: but are you sure you've understood how we define constructiveness? I don't hear in your complaints anything that actually sounds like what we're aiming for. I do hear that you've received a couple complaints yourself that missed the mark and I'm sorry about that. Can we keep a discussion going, in particular could you engage with some of our more experienced users and see if they can help you understand the in and outs rather than taking another new users' views as defining?
I'm sure we welcome help on communicating our guidelines. You'll find that over time new voices on meta have been welcomed as they helped communicate what we are about in new ways to people with different backgrounds. However before you completely re-invent the wheel, please do take the time to understand what we've been through as a site and learn from the experience that the last couple years has taught us.

As an aside check out the islam SE.

I am well aware of the situation there, but they are hardly a model to emulate. If anything, they are busy trying to emulate us. They ran into massive problems and conflicts early on and have done a lot of reform to clean it up. In many ways they are working through some of the same issues we did and are gradually settling on some things like question/answer scope matching and a preference for referenced material in the same way that we have. Your statement that "nobody cares" implying that what they had going is a good thing. It's not true, all kinds of people cared and some of them are trying to do something about it.
The nature of their beliefs and the breakdown of their sects does allow them to make deeper inroads into one genre of question that we have had to make totally off limits: pastoral advice and personal counseling questions. Islam has formula based answers for those kind of things where Christianity does not and the doctrinal beliefs of many of the major traditions in Christianity lead us to direct those people to find a local church rather than answer their questions here. However, those don't seem to be the kind of questions that you're concerned about in the first place.
Without dealing with the specifics of your numbered examples and proposed guidelines (some of which I like, others of which I disagree with), I think it's more important that we get on the same page with the big picture first. Some things you consider problems I consider solutions and some things you see as solutions I consider to be problems. Maybe after considering any feedback you get on this meta post you could break down issues into smaller pieces here on meta so we can deal with them in bite site pieces?

I don't know if I'd say Islam.SE is trying to emulate Christianity.SE per se (I reckon we're gravitating more towards a Judaism.SE/Skeptics.SE mashup myself) but we're definitely taking cues from here as you've already dealt with many of the same issues we're only starting to struggle through.