folklore and superstition.

Most were petitioned for by people who wanted such a group. I see no reason why they should not exist. I don't visit most of them, since their topics aren't of interest to me. But why shouldn't they exist? I can't think of any reason at all for that.

clarifying for me some of these things. I knew that there were some rules etc. in place, but didn't know specifics.

Snow? Wow, it seems like you've been moving and shoveling snow all winter long (I've seen several of your posts and they referred to your snow removal duties in those posts too).

Hopefully the snow is lightweight, easy to shovel or toss aside (with no winds to contend with), and your driveway short!

My driveway is 24' wide and 60' long. It's a double driveway, shared with my neighbor. I do both sides. I also do three houses worth of city sidewalks, since those neighbors don't have snowblowers. For my own convenience, I blow off the snow on the street, 8' out from the curb, the full width of my lot. That way, I don't have a huge pile of snow at the end of the driveway after the snowplow goes by. There's some hand shoveling, too, but not too much.

With today's 6" of snow, the whole job took only about an hour. That's typical, and gets done five or six times in an average year. It's not that big a deal, really, as long as you have a good snowblower. At 72 years of age, I'm a little tired, but not bad.

would suggest that people refrain from broad brush attacks designed to frame any particular group of people as a problem, or as the problem.

And we all know that anyone who looks at the DU site can view every post. One does not have to be a member to read, only to post and respond.

And reposting them was a despicable thing to do.

There are those who suffer from the delusion that they don't even have to scrape together the basic honesty and decency to allow differing philosophies to so much as define themselves. Respecting boundaries like protected groups is asking for a level of integrity which is at least one step up the ladder from that bare minimum.

I'm not sure it will have any effect, but there it is.

But I understand the motivation, and the desire of some few to suppress actual dialogue here.

You're the one who considers a statement in a protected group for atheists and agnostics that some religious people are delusional to be some sort of actionable attack on religious people. It's not something I would say, but it's a pretty common statement about religion. Some think that belief in invisible entities that have no evidence of existence is a delusion. That can certainly be argued, in fact. I prefer to think that people who believe in such entities are simply uninformed and would benefit from additional education. But, that's just my opinion, just as is the opinion that religious belief constitutes delusional thinking is someone else's opinion.

Opinions are what they are. When they are expressed in some place that has limited membership, I don't bother with them. I actually don't post in the Atheists and Agnostics group. I could, because I am not blocked from doing so by the members of that group. I simply don't bother with writing things in places that already agree with those things.

Dialogue. It's a good thing, particlularly in open forums like the Religion Group. There's a lot of it going on here. Honest dialog is a good thing. I approve of it, generally. All dialog, however, is not honest. I disapprove of dishonest dialog, generally.

And honest dialogue would be a good thing.

But your response avoids what I said. Revealing and defensive on your part?

But you might sense some profit in fomenting the idea that it can be. Pretending to be the victim usually doesn't work around here though.

Both involve speaking, but that is all.