borderline religious discrimination

The News Ticker banner displaying that "TORN is bigger than Jesus", I find in poor taste and borderline offensive. Can you replace the name Jesus with some other religious figure such as Mohammad, Buddha, Krishna, and piss off other religions instead? NO, you wouldn't dare to because those followers would take offense as well. Just trying to prove my point here. I am not asking you to offend anyone. I am asking that TORN staff have more respect for their own RULES that we are also obliged to follow.

Am sending this complaint to Suggestions Forum since there isn't a REPORT button such as found on a User profile. And I thought that as Staff, you would have experience in determining why a religious figure needs to be brought into any conversation.


Thank you in advance for your consideration regarding TORN following it's own rules.

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The rules are against discrimination, not against offending people.

Discrimination

Hate speech and direct or indirect derogatory words / slurs regarding ethnic origin, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, misogyny or misandry. This includes any text, imagery or flags displayed in support of discrimination, real-world terrorism or Nazism.

While you might find it in poor taste, it is not hate speech nor derogatory words nor a slur.

There is also no discrimination, real-world terrorism, or Nazism.

"Torn is bigger than Jesus" is simply a claim that Torn is either more popular or more well-known than Jesus. It does not exclude other religions. If that claim offends you, that is your problem, but it's not in breach of the rules.

Also, if your point is that they would tolerate poking fun at Christianity but tip-toe around other religions to avoid offense, why would they let me treat Islam's holy documents in such a manner?

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Patient, OP said "Dear Jesus," not "Deer Jesus."

OP, As a Christ-follwer myself, I would be willing to bet Jesus wouldn't be offended because ultimately he didn't care when he was mocked. He expected it. Being offended for him only makes you look foolish. You aren't going to convince others of Jesus' love by clutching your pearls.

Okay, uh... Few problems here... Even aside from what has already been said...

To start, if you have an issue like that in the future where something is upsetting or offensive and you can't figure out how to report it, do a self report and write your mind in there. Don't bring it to the suggestions forums. I'd say don't bring it to the forums at all, but one could argue that the B&I forums would be a ~somewhat~ more appropriate place for that. Definitely not in here though.

I don't think I saw that banner, though I'm not saying you're wrong or anything. But it also sounds more like something that one of your faction leadership put in the faction banner. Again, could 100% be wrong on that front, it just doesn't sound like something that staff would put in a banner. If it was a faction banner (and they actually wrote something against the rules), report the faction leader that did it.

Ya definitely handled this one entirely wrong though. Smart to not put it in GD though, better for your karma.

Theologies don't, and shouldn't deserve respect purely by virtue of being theologies.

Just because something is old, and believed in by many, doesn't make something worthy of universal respect.

People should respect another's right to believe whatever they want, but they don't necessarily have to respect the content of those beliefs.

This is old and probably won't be seen but I thought OP might be a little more understanding of the phrase "TORN is bigger than Jesus" by knowing that it's a satirical play, intentionally I always assumed, on the controversy created when the US press discovered that John Lennon had been quoted by London's Evening Standard in March 4, 1966, as having said, "The Beatles are more popular than Jesus". The US press, however, rephrased Lennon's words and reported that the Beatle had said that The Beatles were "bigger than Jesus". This then prompted US radio stations across the country to ban Beatle music on their airwaves and sponsor Beatle bonfires where Beatles albums and other merchandise was burned (much like the US political right's reaction to the NFL's response to BLM and kneeling during the playing of the American national anthem in recent years). The clever cherry on the satirical milkshake of Torn's usage is that Mark David Chapman, after murdering John Lennon on Dec 8, 1980 (41 years and 1 day ago), claimed that one of the reasons that motivated him to kill Lennon was Lennon's more popular/bigger than Jesus statement.

Lastly, to be fair to Lennon, if even needed, he was simply commenting on the fact that, at the time in Britain, more people listened to pop music than attended church services. Here is the full quote from The Evening Standard:

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first – rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.

Thanks for attending my TED Talk. Wikipedia article for the curious

I'm Orthodox practicing.


No, absolutely not. get over your sensitive little self, no one else cares.