Guidelines

Guidelines Regarding Freedoms and Responsibilities of Site Members

For our complete list of guidelines please read the terms of service.

The Temple is a sanctuary for diversity, where everyone's opinion has value and freedom of speech is encouraged. 

 We encourage:

• Freedom of Speech
• Freedom of Belief
• Freedom from Judgment
• Freedom from Prejudice
• Freedom from Persecution
• Personal Responsibility

When we deal with beliefs, we at times find beliefs that involve ideas of superiority and/or ideas of a prejudicial or judgmental nature.

Prejudice comes from everywhere, and we are often blind to our own. People may or may not realize that when they talk about their beliefs that they may do so in a way that is prejudicial and in a way that implies other groups or individuals are secondary citizens in some way.

So, we cannot 'protect' you from facing prejudices here on the Temple. We are all subject to our own, and to the prejudices of others. However we can provide guidelines for dealing with prejudice and with controversial subject matters.

So how do we go about maintaining as much freedom of expression and belief as possible, and also maintain people feeling safe from potentially abusive judgments and prejudice?

Here are our guidelines:

1. We ask that you understand that any views expressed by one or more of our members, do NOT reflect the views of the Temple owner, its administrative team, or the majority of its members. Do not mistake us supporting freedom of opinion, to mean that we support the specific view or opinions expressed. These are two separate concepts.
2. We ask that you keep in mind that the vision behind the Temple is one where we seek to bring harmony and peaceful interaction between diverse people. A big part of this, we believe, is overcoming prejudices and preconceptions. We cannot hope to achieve this if we deal with prejudice and conflicts by simply excluding or banning people who have them. In fact, pushing away, punishing, or alienating those who hold prejudicial views will likely only serve to isolate the people holding them, and ultimately reinforce them and make them worse.
3. We encourage you to join us in taking an educational and compassionate approach to any perceived prejudice or negative action. We hope to co-create a climate of positive social pressure to allow people to experience perspectives that are oppositional to their own in a way that is not necessarily adversarial or threatening.
4. We encourage you to try to help those who are holding views you feel are disrespectful, judgmental or harmful to others to overcome them in a positive way. That as a group we give those holding views that are disrespectful or harmful to others a chance to challenge and overcome them.
5. We ask that you consider how you challenge viewpoints that oppose your own when you encounter them. Are you just putting someone down for their views and fueling the fires of this person's hate while reinforcing their distorted world views? Or are you helping them challenge their assumptions and actually making a real difference in overcoming the problem of prejudice in the world? When responding, we ask that you try to keep in check any knee-jerk reactions, and avoid being confrontational in an equally negative or judgmental way. We hope that our membership will challenge these views in a productive manner when they encounter them.
6. Now, you're probably thinking, what about the fanatics? What about the people who hold strong controversial or prejudicial views that are simply unable to be respectful of others, and are obviously unwilling to have respectful dialogue, or entertain the possibility of alternative viewpoints? Yes, we will suspend members who are unable to contribute anything but repeated hateful dogma and seem to only create conflict. People who show themselves unable to enter into respectful dialogue and maintain a hateful perspective, will be removed.
7. With that being said, there is one rule that will be enforced here.  There are to be no personal attacks upon any member of this site.  Doing so will be grounds for immediate administrative action, to be dealt with as the administrative team sees fit which includes but not limited to suspension from this site.

This site encourages people to express themselves authentically. That will include people’s prejudices, and it will expose people’s prejudices, to themselves, and to others. This is not a bad thing. This is a wonderful thing, even though it's often an uncomfortable process.

When we get authentic with one another and when we choose to accept ourselves and each other for being our authentic selves, we are given the opportunity to create an environment of growth and change. If we are unwilling to work together, and change together, we can never hope to peacefully co-exist together in this world. 

Only when we are able to be transparent and authentic with ourselves and each other as well as loved and accepted unconditionally, are we able to really empower change in ourselves and each other.

That being said, please don't hesitate to bring to the attention of the administrators when you see behaviour that you feel is not being handled adequately by the community, or when you feel a disruption is happening that needs intervention.

For our complete list of guidelines please read the terms of service.