User:Nat32

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I am a Christian and was born and raised by my parents in the local churches. In the mid-1990s I became aware of various Internet websites operated by people who felt they had been sent by God to openly oppose the beliefs and practices of the local churches. As soon as Wikipedia came into existence, it became a place the opposers used to practice their "ministry". Today, some of the original Internet-based opposers continue to oppose, some have stopped their opposition, and some have retracted their opposition and become defenders of those in the local churches. Since the mid-1990s, others have joined the original Internet opposers, but the new opposers mainly perpetuate what the ones before them have said.

This opposition does not bother me; those who oppose are free to do so. However, what does bother me is that nearly all who oppose not only oppose the beliefs and practices of the local churches but also substantially misrepresent them. This saddens me for two reasons:

1. In most cases, what the opposers oppose is not what is actually believed or practiced. In fact, in nearly every case, if what is opposed were actually true, I also would become an opposer.
2. Because the beliefs and practices of the local churches are so widely misrepresented and misunderstood, people who would actually appreciate what we have to say--if only they could hear it above the noise--are deprived of that opportunity.

One of the major items that upsets me about Wikipedia's treatment of the local churches is its allowing false and malicious allegations of "sexual impropriety" to be aired against my father-in-law, and not just on a "talk" page, but in a main "article". The argument made for allowing the airing of these allegations on Wikipedia is that since it is only stated that allegations were made and not that they are necessarily true, there is nothing that can be done to restrict such speech. I do not agree with that argument, but apparently there is nothing I can do about it.

[edit] Rename

As requested, I have renamed you as User:Nat32. You should now move your userpages to the new name. Warofdreams talk 23:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi - as the instructions say, you will need to manually move your userpages (as I see you have now done), and change any signatures. May I suggest that you also now change your signature to read "Nat32". Warofdreams talk 20:43, 28 October 2006 (UTC)