Three Simple Rules
- Love one another and treat others as you would like to be treated (Matt. 7.12),
- Give freely and more than you receive so that you may receive your reward in heaven, and
- Want nothing for self, for the Lord giveth and taketh away. In order to gain your soul, you will need to lose it first.
"Whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel shall save it" (Mark 8.35).
Etiquette - Applying these 3 Rules
Sinning Bearing False Witness
1a. False accusation. "
For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night" without rhyme or reason (Rev. 12.10),
"and Satan shall wear out the saints of the Most High" (Dan. 7.25). "
A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who utters lies will not escape" (Prov. 19.5). "
Many false witnesses spoke against him, but they contradicted each other" (Mark 14.56). God places this particular sin right up there with the worst of them: "
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, FALSE WITNESS, blasphemies" (Matt. 15.19). When spat on, Jesus didn't say a word.
Self-centeredness
2a. Self-promoting. Only provide links if they are absolutely necessary. Don't be a link junky or product pusher. These are forums to quote and discuss specifics.
2b. Spammed Advertisements. Spamming is not just obvious advertising, but sending the same post, email or private message over and over to different individuals (even if you change the message up, sending messages to everyone is too random, fruitless and definite trolling).
Confusing
3. Misrepresenting. Don't misrepresent or read into it what is not explicitly stated, esp. regarding the
5 Deeper Truths, the
4 Step Proof for God and the
Minimal Facts Approach.
Contradicting
4. Doubletalk. Be consistent and honest with your answers you give to questions in your profile, posts and comments. Be "not doubletongued" (1 Tim. 3.8).
Presumptuous
5a. Self-declaring. Making assertions on your pedestal and pontificating without an attempt to support your claim.
5b. Overassuming. Don't quote verses, other text or give links as though by doing so that solves the issue, but give your interpretation with evidence.
Unspecific
6a. Vagueness. When discussing with others, respond directly, specifically and courteously.
6b. Circumventing. Not responding to the burden placed on you while demanding it of others - "become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal" (1 Cor. 13.1).
Narrow-minded
7a. Off-topic. Don't post a reply that has nothing to do with the thread.
7b. Agenda. The purpose of the forums is to bring together
12 informal apostles according to biblocality. If you go overboard trying to prevent this, you're done!
7c. One Way Conversation. If all you are doing is posting new threads or copy and pastes without responding directly and personally, that's not much of a conversation is it? Please don't just keep responding to your own posts.
Vain
8a. Belligerent. Rejoining with the same unrepentant attitude and obstinately repeating the same errors in conduct; registering with inappropriate usernames, the names of "God", "Christ", "Jesus", etc. in part or whole. We want to be reverent to God and reserve His names for Him alone. Capitalize his name as you would anyone's. And when discussing the sole uncreated Creator, He is God not a god.
8b. Petty Self. If you are being petty in your arguments we'll let you know.
Rudeness
9a. Frivolous. Avoid vain, frivolous conversation, racist comments, coarse jests, pretending to be a Christian, and complaining about infractions without showing they are unwarranted.
9b. Insulted Other Member(s).
9c. Inappropriate Language.
Discourteous
10a. Misusing features. Stop misusing forum features: quote tags messed up, no paragraphs, narrow column and extra spacing from copy and pasted posts, not using quotes, mingling your words with another poster's words, addressing multiple users as the same person which creates confusion, continued inordinate misspelling, large cap usernames, not capitalizing certain words or start of sentences, sloppy grammar, meager short quips, duplicate posts, caps on, unnecessary symbols, messing up links, starting a thread in the wrong forum, non-Christians posting in Christian-only areas, and multiple usernames. Administration may need to use more than one username to run the forums, but such is not needed for regular members. If you register another account while you have an active account already, both accounts will be banned.
10b. Over thread limit. Please limit new threads to 2 and blogs to 1 per day. We don't want you to smother out other posters' contributions. Let us be selfless and not self-centered. I have had some new posters post a dozen new blogs as soon as they join the forum. That's not right. Please also limit your replies to existing threads to no more than 5 different threads per day.
10c. Uncordial. First post needs to be cordial and all posts thereafter.
