God made man but sam colt made them equal.

I do assume that Aaron is a good person that I like. As I said, I try not to hold grudges. Several people regularly smear my image here and I don't hold a grudge. Them not so much. They can't wait to beat me down. That's their issue, not mine. Most people jump in. Group think. A few brave souls stand up for me. Rational thinkers. As for Trent and NiteHackr, I gave them the same benefit of the doubt and tried to work with them to start.

Trent simply refused to get along with me. He used to troll me every time I posted and everybody would accuse me of doing something wrong. Simply because he's the amazing Trent Gamblin. I even "bought" a physical copy of his game, Monster 2, a while back thinking I was supporting him. He was a complete dick about it and said he was doing ME a favor for it. Guess what, he's an asshole, and that's not my fault. I already put him to rest with my rap and as far as I'm concerned it's put to bed. I don't care for him simply because of how he treats me, and how other people treat me because of him, but I still don't hold a grudge. I try to respect him when I do cross paths, but he usually doesn't hesitate to instantly attack me and when that happens I reciprocate.

NiteHackr and I got along just fine outside of religious debates, but he could not stay out of them (despite boasting that he would every time). He could not handle somebody challenging his beliefs and he left because of that. He was unable to ignore/tolerate somebody questioning his beliefs. That's his choice. It has nothing to do with me.

Sam is casting me in too good of a light. I absolutely am still blunt in person. I still talk about all of the same things. I respect other people's beliefs though, both in person, and online. However, in all cases, if people push their beliefs on me I will challenge them. It doesn't matter if it's religious, social, political, etc. I usually don't bring the subject up unless people are actually pushing their ideas on others.

For example, my girlfriend's great aunt is a Catholic nun. She asked us about our beliefs and we told her I'm an atheist, but I kept my mouth shut when she gave us a speech about religion. The reason is simple. She's in her late 70s and has dedicated her life to her beliefs. There's nothing to gain for her to be enlightened at this point in her life. It gives her a bit a peace. I typically don't engage elders on the topic because again there's nothing to gain. They are set in their ways, and it would be disrespectful for me to challenge them.

However, if anybody specifically targets me and goes after me about my beliefs then they open that can of worms and I let them have it. I was waiting for my girlfriend's great aunt to say something that would trigger me, but she was very polite about it. She didn't force her beliefs on me. That is the most important part. For the most part, I keep it to myself in those situations. I don't care if she's a 78 year old nun. If she had pushed her beliefs on me I would have engaged the debate and swept the floor with her!

Posting religious ideas unrelated to a community or topic in a public forum is inappropriate. "I'll pray for you!" Unless you specifically know that person holds the same beliefs as you do that is impolite. In public that might still be provoking a response from others that don't share your beliefs. It shows a lack of respect for others' beliefs unless they happen to share the same beliefs as you. That opens yourself up for a debate. It's best to keep that stuff to yourself. Go ahead and pray for me. No need to announce it! Use your telepathy. That way God doesn't need to read the thread! Telling me you're praying for me isn't going to affect the outcome. The only possible benefit is the person you're telling giving you praise for it (i.e., it's selfish to say something). I will never give you praise for praying for me. I don't care. Keep it to yourself. If you just mean to say that you wish me well then say that.

The same goes for starting threads about your religion. You're effectively starting a discussion about religion by doing so. I don't at all mind you posting about it (Bring. It. On.), but expect to have a discussion about it if you do. If you don't want to have that there are specific forums on the Internet full of like-minded people to discuss that without debating it.

I never really meant to target Aaron with my rant, but I assumed that his post was the catalyst for the OP and the OP is an over-reaction, just as I felt that Aaron's post was. And frankly I'm sick of people posting these kinds of threads. It's not really constructive to have a thread like this. These kinds of threads look really bad for a community and it blows things way out of proportion. For the most part, people do get along just fine here. We have for over a decade. Nothing needs to be fixed. If anything, people that are overly sensitive need to address that themselves. As we've said, things used to be far worse. If anything, we need to go back to that! It's OK to have a little bit of rivalry, but I don't even think that we have that here right now. It was perfectly fine for Aaron to say what he did. He had a feeling and he expressed it. I didn't say boo when he said that. I rolled my eyes and moved on.

The problem is that it attracted this kind of attention. Those people that feel the world has to change because somebody felt that something they did wasn't appreciated or something that somebody did or said was offensive to somebody else. They're wrong, and that is predominantly what I was addressing. Gideon provoked me to address it by starting this thread. As usual, people took offense to the humorous envelop that I wrapped my message in and resorted to tunnel vision attacks. And that is all that you read. You focused on the envelop instead of the message. And here we are.

I can understand new members being confused, but those of you that have known me for years should really know better. And those of you seem to have been the front-runners in this witch-hunt.

I didn't quite grasp why people have been disappearing because of bambam (I mean, it's just bambam... ).
What I noticed here, however, is that I'd consider it polite to apologize if I offended someone instead of calling him an oversensitive wimp on top of it. However, that's just what bambam seems to do here ("If I offended you, it's your fault.")
Even if he was right by saying so (which I have reason to doubt), it is still just rude and impolite.

If something makes you incredibly uncomfortable or upset, would you stay? If you do something that hurts, would you keep doing it over and over?

I presume you skim or skip most of his tirades? Among his wonderful gems, He has said that it is women's fault for being raped.

Bams is quite abrasive in his rants, however, that doesn't mean he's the root of all evil here. We used to have a large number of members to get irritated at, and no real way to engage them without trolling yourself. Nowadays it is mainly the regulars, the committers, and and those who just come for the lulz. Bams just seems more abrasive because there aren't a bunch of idiots trolling us all the time.

I've been both a prick, and the recipient here. Blaming this all on each other doesn't change the fact that we keep coming back for a reason. I happen to like you all (even the ones dumb enough to use Windows or believe in a Sky Daddy).

I'm not actually upset for his walls of text, or just the abrasiveness. It is the actively hostile and hateful stance towards women (and other things I'm probably not remembering).

Not in rape rates!

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I think a portion of this might have to do with Sweden's openness about sexual conduct. In other countries a large portion of people won't go to the police out of shame. Double edged sword though, that openness could be perceived as an invite sometimes.

Take the good with the bad, I guess.

EDIT:

I prefer to abstain from marking certain views as inappropriate from a site perspective, because then the mods become more thought police than abuse deterrents. In Allegro's context though, I can see how this would be abhorred. We have few regular members, and it isn't good to have their opinions be iconoclastic. What do you do, though? Ban bams for his opinion? That's not right either, so just let it be.

Thus why I'd like to move away. I see little hope for the under-educated, non-voting, unwashed masses of my country. They don't know what's best for themselves or each other. We value capitalism over the greater good. We want to put pseudoscience in schools. We police and spy on the world. We pillage for oil.

I'll take my education and go somewhere that knows how to keep it real.

You have no onion.

Honestly bambams, reading your latest post here, I think you have trouble distinguishing what is real, hard facts and what is purely your perception. It's good that you explained your rationale in this thread, because it was a mystery to me if no one else. There's still a disconnect though, because you say you used humour in this thread, but I don't think anyone can reasonably be expected to recognise it as humour. Without focusing further on specific points in your post, I just think you should work on recognising when your infallible logic is actually based on bad information because your own perception was different from everyone else's. That's at least damage limitation and dispute resolution. You can also work on it pre-emptively: think what other people know and how other people might think, and factor that in when you decide what you're going to say in the first place.

I will actually point out another example from your post. "I'll pray for you" at worst shows that someone else (also) has problems putting themselves in other people's shoes, or it could just be a reflection of where they have most of their interactions (church). The fact that they're saying it, instead of just doing it, may be the whole reason it works: it lets you know that they want the best for you, and that should cheer you up, which in turn makes you better at coping with the coming stresses. The person saying it does not necessarily even know why they're doing it; it's built in. We evolved to support each other because it helps us survive as a species.

As you can see, plenty of people don't see it the way you do. I also think most people won't anticipate the way you see it, because you've spent a long time thinking about your reasoning and no one else is automatically privy to that. So, if your girlfriend's aunt had said that and you had reacted the way you suggest, you might have lost your girlfriend.

Finally, it's good that you said you never meant to target Aaron, but it would be even better if you could bring yourself to apologise. Don't do this just because I suggested it. Ideally it's a natural consequence of your recognising that you acted on a lot of personal conclusions that you now realise were not in most other people's minds, especially Aaron's.

Now I'm going to reply to other people

I'm not sure this by itself is an argument that clothes don't make a difference. Those rapists might have been influenced by the clothes without realising it.

That graph clearly shows that Sweden has the strongest culture of actually reporting it when a rape has occurred. Honestly you think a country like Indonesia really has no rapes?

[EDIT]
Crack statistics: OMG! Rapes are at 66.5% in Sweden!

I read that as "Bam bams for his opinion?"

I respect you as a person, but I have to say that I hate that argument so much. The second you bring "Report rates" into the mix, all statistics are meaningless. It then becomes nothing more than "Well, I feel like the USA has more rapes, so it must have more rapes." Yes yes yes, 3rd-world countries that don't even believe rape can happen don't count, but similar, free, democratic countries are still comparable.

Sweden, the USA, Canada, Germany, and likewise, can still be compared. Otherwise, we might as well say police brutality isn't a problem at all in the USA because maybe the USA just cares more about our citizens so they report brutality more. And the USA doesn't have more gun deaths than other countries, we just report them more.

Bill Gates is gonna GETCHA!

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Great Unfortunately, since you started a sentence with that totally backhanded comment, the feeling is no longer mutual

[EDIT]
And a quick reply to bambams: I did cite a couple of examples

1. the belief that "I'll pray for you", in typical usage, is insulting - of course Christians can be disingenuous but you should never assume it until you have a reason beyond that they said "I'll pray for you"

2. the belief that what I at least read as an attack could be humour (and I don't care to argue about whether it's actually my perception that's wrong, sorry - too tired)

Aside from that, the stuff I asked you to do (which you think isn't your responsibility) is stuff that many of us just do because it helps us and others get along. I only suggested it because I'm trying to find ways to stop you getting attacked for your posts like in this thread. If you can't get anything useful from it, I only have so much time and will have to leave it, sorry (Will just say that people can at least sense it when you show some effort to understand them instead of just talking about your own views - you don't have to be right about what others are thinking, just show you're trying.)

Oh and what exactly do you mean by dark comedy? Is it the same as black humour? Because I love that stuff. Jokes inspired by recent tragedies for example (with care to make sure you have the right audience for those jokes, of course). Sorry we can't agree on this one.

Oh, example: my mum felt sad on Mother's Day because it was her first one without her mum. I sent her something like, "I want to die like my grandfather, peacefully in my sleep. Not screaming like the passengers in his car." The joke did actually help her.

[EDIT again]
Maybe we're assuming different contexts? If someone means to say "I'll pray for you to find your way back to religion" then yes, it's annoying, I'll grant you that and a bit of rudeness might be a useful reality check for the person who said it. My previous comments apply if someone merely said it outside of a religious discussion because you've got something stressful coming up.

Sleep now!