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Why should I see this kind of text on Game Development?

Does God continually (re)create the physical world?

enter image description here

I don't care what people do on their own community. We all have freedom of religion. But we don't have a freedom to force a religion.

Being forced to see them is very unpleasant. This is a kind of visual enforcement, and currently being repeated. This can be a sort of offensive action to some people. There're more SE sites for some other religions. What would happen if you put some ads of them to each other's site? And even more, advertising a religious SE site can be a distinction to some people with minor religions (they don't have enough numbers to build a SE site).

Please consider that people with other religions are also visiting other SE sites. SE doesn't have a right to force them to see ads for other religions.

P.S. I mentioned Judaism on screenshot because that's the only ad I am seeing now. I am not related to Judaism.

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    Of all the advertising on the internet, that's the one that offends you?
    – mhlester
    Commented May 9, 2014 at 5:15
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    Let's revisit a few points: "This is a kind of visual enforcement...advertising religion SE site can be a distinction to some people...SE don't have a right to force them to see ad for some other religions." Where do you get any of this? Commented May 9, 2014 at 5:19
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    Adblock. Use it.
    – bjb568
    Commented May 9, 2014 at 5:44
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    Gotta love freedom. Freedom means that a business owner can do whatever it is that they want to with their website, their infrastructure, and their investment.
    – jmort253
    Commented May 9, 2014 at 7:29
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    Question; if you had seen an advert for "coca cola now extra sugary" or an SE question of "Why is my wall full of bees" would you still be offended? Why should religious topics be treated any different? Commented May 10, 2014 at 15:35

5 Answers 5

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Disclaimer: I'm an atheist and have no religious affiliations.

I don't care whatever people do on their own community. We all have freedom of religion. But we don't have a freedom to force a religion.

You are not being forced a religion, and being "forced to see them" is a pretty strong way to say "an ad showed up on my page". The Stack Exchange sites display community ads for all sites indiscriminately. Some of them are for sites about religions. Some of them are about other potentially very personal topics such as parenting or pets, and there was a proposal about dating for a while.

When you see these, click it if you're interested, and if not, move along. If you have a strong emotional reaction... that's on you to deal with.

In case it was missed: these ads are automatic and just picked at random. Nobody on Mi Yodeya took any actual action to make those ads show up, they're just part of the Stack Exchange network.

There're more SE sites for some other religions, and what would happen if you put some ads of them to each other's site?

They'll see ads for the other religions, and life will go on. They will not engage in holy warfare or anything of the sort. I think this image, whilst tangential, is relevant:

(This image is put across like a joke. Here's what it says:) An atheist, a jew, and a christian walk into a bar. And have a good time because they're not assholes. Of course none of them invited their Muslim co-worker... because they know that Muslims aren't supposed to drink and they're respectful of other peoples' lifestyle decisions.

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    Couldn't this fourth coworker come along and drink lime and soda or iced tea or something? Maybe they are assholes... Seriously, though, that's a great poster.
    – jscs
    Commented May 9, 2014 at 19:46
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You can hardly walk around in this world without encountering religious content, freedom of religion, and freedom from religion doesn't meant that you have some guarantee to never encounter aspects of religion that you find offensive. Freedom of religion generally refers to being able to freely practice your own religion (or lack of it), and to the government not establishing a religious preference. This is a private website, so it simply doesn't apply.

Eliminating all religious content from the community ads would be unreasonable in my opinion. If we would cater to this level of sensitivity the next thing we would ban would probably the RPG site because it is devil worshipping, or the biology site because it promotes evolution.

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I know, I don't care what people do in their own community either. We all have freedom of speech to voice our opinions/ideas. But we don't have a freedom to force an opinion/idea.

Being forced to see and hear people's freedom of speech is very unpleasant. This is a kind of visual and hearing enforcement.

Please consider that people with other opinions/ideas are also visiting other SE sites. SE doesn't have a right to force them to see other people's opinions or ideas.

For instance, as I'm typing this I can see user Łukasz's comment on my screen. Why is his answer being forced upon me? That is his opinion, not mine, so why is it on my screen?

P.S. I mentioned user Łukasz's answer because that's the only one I can see as I type this. I am not related to Łukasz.

P.P.S. He also appears to be wearing a hat in his picture. I do not like hats because they give people bad hair upon removal. Why is his freedom to wear a hat being forced upon me?

The only solution I can think of, is for everybody's questions, answers, and comments to be invisible to everyone except themselves. This could be achieved by automatically sending users to their profile page when visiting any of the sites, and restricting them from ever getting out. This would enable me to freely navigate through the various SE sites of which I am a member, while still showing me only my profile pages (which contain only my answers and my questions).

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    "The only solution I can think of, is for everybody's questions, answers, and comments to be invisible to everyone but themselves." Fantastic. Please make this a feature request.
    – jscs
    Commented May 9, 2014 at 19:49
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Such questions are really not a problem, beacuse you exactly know what they are about and you know you're not interested in.

A bit more problem are those questions from Japanese or Chinese SE, where you see what means and you have no idea what the question is about. Well, if those characters are strange to you, it's also not what you're interested in.

The real problem are those Arqade and SciFi questions, where you have no idea what they are about unless you click them, because the folks there have annoying custom to place the most important information in the most hot-questions-unfriendly way, namely in the tags, and don't see a problem with it ;)

The issue is not new and mentioned for example here: Filtering "hot" questions

If more foreing-language sites start, it will become a more serious problem, because there will be a strong conflict between folks outraged their favourite sites do never appear on hot questions list, and others protesting that no non-English question should ever appear them because being exposed to other languages as English makes their precious rare gray brain cells to overheat. Your problems seem negligible compared to them.

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I think it would be good to be able to flag questions as not appropriate to be in the "Hot Network Questions'. Just now I saw According to the Catholic Church, are Jews saved without faith in Jesus? - and yes, I suppose I know that sections of society like to think that other sections are damned to hell. But I find it distasteful that that's the case, and seeing it highlighted here is distracting and unpleasant.

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