I have banned Fear of Shiz, because he no longer meets one of the basic requirements of this forum. Simply put, he is no longer a member of the LDS church. I regret Shiz leaving this forum. I regret him leaving the church. But only he and Casi can determine the path which they will take, and I wish them well and hope for the best for them. In many ways, I feel like I've lost friends with their leaving.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing... the truth of God will go forth till it has penetrated every website, sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done
Suffice it to say, no one here takes pleasure in their decisions to leave and the consequences those choices have now created and will create for them in the future.
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It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
It is sad that they have taken that path, but I think it was becoming clearer and clearer the more Shiz posted the last little while. For the health of this board it is a sad but wise decision.
Maybe I missed something somewhere but I haven't seen a change in Shiz's postings as of late. Other than his posts about what was going on with regard to church I wouldn't have caught that something was going on.
I really thought he was a good participant, here, but you need to be a member of the church to participate here. We all have agreed to that.
Even after he posted about his lack of acceptance of the gospel, he wasn't banned (and there are a few rules that require gospel acceptance here). So, I think he was treated beyond fairly.
That's why I was quite surprised that his wife went off on a rant about how we banned him so fast after he announced his name removal. They left us. We didn't (and still haven't) left them.
I obviously have missed a lot. I didn't see any where that Shiz announced his name removal, nor Casi's comments. Maybe the answer to my comment is in those, but: why was it necessary to ban Shiz? I know, I know - the agreement about church membership. But, he already said he was leaving the community because he felt it time, so what was the point? It just seems so - what is the word? much like shunning and therefore is a bit embarassing to me. Where is compassion? I know, the membership thing - but this is not a normal situation. How many other times is there going to be a friend within our midst that leaves the church? It just shouts out as a time to increase friendship and love and not a time to slam and lock the door behind him. I can't help to think that this action may make it harder for him to return and possibly be part in pushing Casi out. I don't know. I just don't feel as clean as I did before.
Thanks Palmon, that is what I think. I've been thinking about the thread and the whole banning issue in this situation. I realize the crieteria to join Bountiful is that one be a member of the church. But I think perhaps they could consider making exceptions for certain situations- ie this one or that of Hiccups husband (nonLDS unless he recently joined), etc
Palmon, there are plenty of forums for LDS and non-LDS to mingle and to discuss pretty much any topic under the sun. What gives this forum purpose is that we have a common base for our discussions - we all start from the understanding that we accept and embrace the revealed gospel. It is a great foundation for our discussions. Other kinds of discussion are great, and there are other forums for that. But we lose our purpose and our raison de etre if we no longer define this forum by our religion. Shiz has made a conscious choice to leave the LDS faith. However we may wish it were otherwise, he no longer shares that common trait with us that helps make this forum so valuable.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
palmon wrote:I can't help to think that this action may make it harder for him to return and possibly be part in pushing Casi out. I don't know. I just don't feel as clean as I did before.
A: Casi is out, too; and she had made this decision long before ANYTHING we did here.
B: Nothing in the rules of Bountiful prevents any one of us from being their friend.
C: If you feel unclean, that is completely on you. Go be friends with them.
This forum has rules and we all agree to abide by them when we join. I think the rules have served us well and helped prevent this forum from imploding like so many others. Free agency is God's greatest gift to man kind. We are free to choose liberty or death. Shiz and Casi made a choice to end their membership in the church. They could have remained members but made the choice to leave as is their right. It is a decision that saddens me but there is nothing that we can do about it. I think everyone in this community went out of their way to be "supportive" when Shiz first came out with his decision not to attend church anymore. I do respect him for being honest with us as the anonymous nature of the net could have allowed him to probably remain here with none of us being any wiser, a dishonest act to be sure. He chose to be honest about his situation but there were still consequences one being that he could not be a member of this forum. A rule I support. There are plenty of other forums out there that do not have this requirement. The conversations on those forums are very different than here. In the grand scheme of things, this place means very little but it is our special place and the rules were decided at the beginning for our benefit and we agreed to live by them. As I entered this place of my own free will and accord with the agreement that I would abide and support the rules in place then no one including me, my friends, or family should be shocked if I decided not to live by the rules and found myself on the outside. Both choices would have been mine as they were Shiz's. I don't want exceptions to the rules, I like the rules. I like Shiz too but he made his decision.
