EDIT: For the latest update see most recent post. Refer to date and title of post.

I've been looking at the names of the forums. Religious Studies and Religion. Exactly why is it called Relgion? It harkens to dark times when everything seemed to be falling apart. I barely remember choosing the name, much less why I chose it. Seems I wanted to set up at least two forums but couldn't think of a decent name. I couldn't set it up without calling it something so I just slapped on a label. I knew I could change it later.

So what shall we call it? Querying Religion occurred to me. I looked it up on the internet and there is at least one book by that title. So it seemed maybe I shouldn't steal someone else's title. What about Questioning Religion or Challenging Religion? Seemed too specific. People might be afraid to raise their questions or ideas because they don't fit into those specific categories.

The one I really wanted--and am using for the moment--is War Zone. But it sounds so terribly harsh. Battlefield might sound less harsh but does it capture the essence of what we want to do today in the twenty-first century? Isn't it rather antiquated?

The purpose of this forum is to: Question, challenge, undermine, and substitute fundamentalist religion. For those of us raised to revere religion above all else in life and death, that definitely feels like war--it's an attack on the most deeply held values of a large portion of the earth's human population. Thus, War Zone it is for now. Suggestions are invited.

With this name, I do feel a need to warn against attacking individual people. The war is on religion--on ideas--not on people. It seems fundamentalist Christians have a hard time differentiating between attack on them and attack on their religion. Here we make a difference on whether the attack is on ideas or whether it is on people. Religion belongs in the category of ideas.

We can say things like "religion directs one's attention away from the present life," or "Roman Catholics believe in the baptism of infants." We can talk about the impact of infant baptism on a person's life. But we can't say "You're crazy to believe in infant baptism."

For example, I personally have serious ethical problems with infant baptism and I think it is okay to discuss those problems. However, it's not okay to ridicule or judge people for baptizing their babies. They think they are doing right by their children and they are probably not harming them. Does this clarify the difference between attacking ideas and attacking people?

If so, let's march on religion!

Edited to "unstick."

Hey! how about this one: Religion Lab, or Laboratory of Religion?

Let me know what you think. Make your own suggestions. This will probably be where much of the general conversation takes place, at least until we're large enough to specialize and diversify.

Changed it again. The Lab. Nice and concise. Room for lots of stuff to happen.

I'm still open to suggestions. But I do feel much more comfortable with this one than I did with war zone. UGH!

I used to think labs were places where only scientists could work with their chemicals and experiments. But these days we have computer labs that are merely large classrooms full of computer work stations where students can go to write papers or do research or whatever they need to do. It's a comfortable place designed for a specific type of activity.

The "specific type of activity" we will be doing--already are doing--in our lab is dissecting religion. We're asking some of the questions we weren't allowed to ask in the church. Why weren't we allowed to ask these questions in the church? Because it would undermine the faith!

As noted on the homepage I changed a few names. I think "The Lab" and "Lab Tools" turns people off--they don't know what it means in the context of religion; it sounds like science. I have now settled for more conventional names as follows:

• The Lab is now General Discussion
• Lab Tools is now Resources

This announcement also appears in the Opening Post (OP) of Topics That Attract Ranked In Order.