Some years ago I was the Religion moderator at a time when the activity in the Religion sub-forum was the highest for the site. I always felt that was not quite appropriate for a purportedly science site, but what I found useful about religious discussions was the practice they offered in critical thinking. For the scientific mind such a discipline is vital, for the religionist it is the opposite. The result of course is that it is never possible to have a truly reasoned argument in the forum since both sides operate from a different rule set. For example, for the scientist evidence is everything, for the religionist evidence is specifically not required. One was always aware there was not going to be any chance of winning a reasoned argument, but the opposition would always respond with even greater rationalization of their position, which in turn forced you into deeper consideration of how to defeat that position with logic, reason, and evidence. The best debates were always against the skilled apologist - the experts at making a fundamentally irrational argument sound entirely rational. Those were rare and in the end the main protagonists were those who would not attempt to listen or appropriately attempt to respond sensibly to reasoned arguments , e.g. LG. So the religion forum has a useful role providing it does not become a place for proselytizing and preaching and we were always pretty good at stamping that out quickly. However, the attempt to split the debates between religion and comparative religion appears to be a dismal failure. I truly cannot distinguish between the subtle difference in the two forums. So having two religious forums does feel very much over the top. The owners here really should merge the two back into a single religion forum.
