As long as people are respectful and follow the guidelines, sure.
Edit: your other replies are not respectful and seem to violate the guidelines.
Edit 2: Anyone can be respectful to anyone else regardless of beliefs. Choosing not to be respectful doesn't say anything about the beliefs, it speaks as to the person being disrespectful. This will be my last edit/reply.
The only person here inciting a flamewar is you. Nice attempt at "concern trolling"
Your trolling in the other comments is the problem that you claim to be against. Everyone else seems to be having a rational discussion without letting their emotions influence their writing except for you.
Oh please. I stated a position that isn't even controversial, noting that these sorts of discussions are not really what folks tend to want on hackernews. Responses have been from agreement to claims of trolling. Feel free to give more compassion to folks with religious trauma as you join us all in being better folks.
are not really what folks tend to want on hackernews
This is simply not true - the thing that's unwanted is flamewars. The goal (aspirational as it may be) is curious conversation. If you are unable, for whatever reason, to engage in a topic with curiosity, that's totally fine but it's on you not to bring deliberate arson to the conversation other people might have.
None of this invalidates your views or experiences but the notion they give you some sort of righteous justification to poop in the thread is preposterous. You don't even have the excuse of ignorance - you've been here well over a decade.
> Can you just stop? It's really a much worse thing than whatever your problem with discussion over [a sensitive topic that will certainly bait flamewars] is. There's reams of mod commentary about it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Since you are wanting to continue conversing meta, feel free, but I'm done. The point has been made and enough folks recognize a toxic topic to HN when they see one (which is why this thread has been flaggedeathed), and I'm happy to leave the dead thread where it stands.
Both 'why is this on HN' (right in the site guidelines) and 'let's start a religious flamewar' are things to avoid here. If you don't like the topic, read another post. If you think it doesn't belong on HN, flag it or email hn@ycombinator.com with your concerns.
