Geni Forum » General Discussion
Keeping Fictional Characters Out Of Trees
(30 posts)-
I'm an American & several of my ancestors left their former countries due to religious persecution. They came here for religious freedom then shoved their religion down my Indian ancestors throats. I get emails all the time talking about "this country was built" & "we've been Christian all along". This country was stolen...& the natives were spiritual before they were religious.
Both my Indian & my white ancestors have been here for all the wars...all the treaties...all the laws coming into development...all of it. And because of what they've been through Freedom of Religion is a right I'll surely defend.
I've studied all the major religions & not a single bible came straight from a God's mouth...or even an eye-witnesses mouth. These were stories...much like modern day "Boy who cried wolf" type stories...passed down from generation to generation. Eventually when they created language & writing skills they wrote it down.
Then it was a process of I imagine both political & religious leaders going through these stories & deciding which suits them & goes in the book. Next came translating.
Adam, Eve, Noah, Moses, & Jesus...not a one can be scientifically proven. If they lived nothing was written about them 'til many many years after they were dead. So if you gotta believe in them then I guess we have to believe in Heracles, Zeus, Apollo & those guys. Maybe they were Nephilims (children of angels & humans - superhumans). We can sit here & wonder all day but we can't prove anything so I'm not putting old Greek gods in my tree either.
Again I've studied all the major religions. I've taken what makes sense from them & left what don't behind. I'll never claim a religion. I'm spiritual...just like my Indian ancestors. And I have every right to be. I've explained this to my family & friends & still get forwards about how God loves me & Jesus died for my sins...& if I don't forward to 10 of my friends something will fall off. I'm tired of being ignored like I don't speak plain English & I'm tired of being disrespected.
Then I come in here & see YHWH & Jesus & the whole gang. Which just screams "I still don't get it" to me. And if you could see all the posts I've made in our family forum plus the tutorial I made...well maybe then you'd understand why I'm a lil upset.
This is a tree/social networking community. Because it's a social networking community too we'd like more alive people then dead people. You're supposed to add then invite people to their own profiles while they're still alive to fill out their about me section (plus the rest of their profile). Plus you're supposed to drag in some young people in case you die...so they can mark you deceased & turn your profile into a memorial. All the living people work together as a group on all the dead people. But if you're off adding YHWH & the gang then you're neither adding/inviting the living nor editing the dead.
The main point is that Geni's policy is one profile or memorial per person...I believe. These things have to be merged. If you haven't proven a bloodline to Jesus then when you merge somebody else who added Jesus you're probably not merging with family...you're probably merging with another Christian. These things are supposed to be private trees...between family. Just because you might consider another Christian your automatic family don't mean I'd consider them mine. I only consider blood & maybe the people they married & reproduced with my family.
I said something to the one who added these characters to our tree & most are still there. Geni...can you do something from your end? Otherwise...would simply dropping this person from my family group make it so probable strangers they merge with can't see my private family tree?
Thanks :)
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
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Please don't talk about religious freedom at the same time as you attack and want to censor others freedom to add connections and what they believe in. That is just too stupid.
When it comes to relationships you can't even trust that your father is your father.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
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<p>Adam, Eve, Noah, Moses, & Jesus...not a one can be scientifically proven. If they lived nothing was written about them 'til many many years after they were dead. So if you gotta believe in them then I guess we have to believe in Heracles, Zeus, Apollo & those guys. Maybe they were Nephilims (children of angels & humans - superhumans). We can sit here & wonder all day but we can't prove anything so I'm not putting old Greek gods in my tree either.</p>
For the record, I'm pretty sure that ALL of the above are part of the big tree on Geni. I have certainly bumped into parts of the Sumarian, Greek, Roman, Norse and other pantheons, and while they certainly ain't my thing, I respect the freedom of those who entered them to do so.
Every time someone uses the expression "scientifically proven", I know they are talking about their very own, just as dogmatic, religion - Science. Science, with the scientific method at its' heart does NOT set out or propose to "prove" anything, rather the opposite. It suggests that NOTHING is "provable". Rather science proposes theories that do their best to explain the observed facts. This is why scientific theories are constantly being updated, revised or replaced...
As such, there IS plenty of circumstantial evidence that King David, for example, was in fact a historical figure, of the period described in the Bible. Even those 'scholars' that argue the Bible was put together from various non-divine sources, place the timing of this event during the reign of one of King David's near ancestors.
So there is probably more evidence and documentation for these events, than there is for the vast majority of American-Indian history and traditions... Glass houses, stones and all that.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
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would simply dropping this person from my family group make it so probable strangers they merge with can't see my private family tree?
If I understand correctly, a family member of yours has added historical religious figures (YHWH, Jesus, whomever) to your tree as ancestors and your concern is that if these merge into the duplicates elsewhere on Geni, this will make other users into "blood relatives" when they should not be, thereby granting them permissions that they otherwise would not have; is that correct?
I see this as less an issue with dubious genealogy than blood relatives permissions in general. In order to get to Adam & Eve your relative must have added a whole lot of ancestors in between, and some of those are surely verifiable. After a couple significant merges I'm constantly turning up 20th and 30th cousins on Geni, and as such they are given the same permissions that all blood relatives get (viewing my tree, most notably). We're rapidly moving to a point where many, many thousands of Geni users are blood relatives of people they don't know from Adam (heh). I wonder if it's time to reconsider blood relative permissions, maybe pull those back to some reasonable cousin distance?
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
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"Everyone's related"
Eventually we're all cousins.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
I'm totally for deleting these profiles (though I disagree with other points of your post) but Geni is not going to risk offending anyone by deleting fictional religious characters, so all we can do is be sad that religion continues to infect science, history, etc. and just try to ignore this garbage.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
<p>I'm totally for deleting these profiles (though I disagree with other points of your post) but Geni is not going to risk offending anyone by deleting fictional religious characters, so all we can do is be sad that religion continues to infect science, history, etc. and just try to ignore this garbage.
</p>That's the problem. You're allowed to offend athiests but offending christians, muslims and jews is a no no. Even if it defies logic.
I find shmuelakam's usual argument of "you can't be 100% about most of the relationships in YOUR tree either" a complete red herring and an attempt to distract from the actual problem.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
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Chuq it was Brox that brought it up this time, but thanks for the vote of confidence.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
@shmuelakam, sorry, I wasn't specifically referring to this thread, also to other similar ones.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
<p>Please don't talk about religious freedom at the same time as you attack and want to censor others freedom to add connections and what they believe in. That is just too stupid.</p>
<p>When it comes to relationships you can't even trust that your father is your father.
</p>Your statement..."I'm attacking & wanting to censor others freedoms"...this website isn't your work of art my dear. If you want to go some place like Tribal Pages & add your tree & connect to fictional characters be my guest. They have no rules about merging...they are indeed personal trees.
To add fictional characters here...after you've already invited & merged with others making YOUR tree OUR tree...is to shove your opinions & beliefs down other people's throats. You've taken away their right to be connected with their own fictional characters or in some cases no characters at all. Plus, due to the rules about merging, you've also taken away their right to privacy. So if you're adding characters I do believe you're the one playing "the tyrant".
This was supposed to be a democracy. I haven't seen one thread in our family forum asking "what religion are you"? much less "should we add fictional characters to our family tree"? "The tyrants" just did it.
If I'd been asked I'd have to go with no because I think it's enough that Geni hosts a bunch of dead people's memorials. There's no possibility of them ever paying for a pro account. That alone is lost server & database space. To ask Geni to host a few hundred fictional characters too...that's not only stupid it's also rude.
And your last statement??? To not trust that my father is my father is to say that my mom was a hoochie. Plus I look just like him so I'm pretty sure I'm his.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
<p>If I understand correctly, a family member of yours has added historical religious figures (YHWH, Jesus, whomever) to your tree as ancestors and your concern is that if these merge into the duplicates elsewhere on Geni, this will make other users into "blood relatives" when they should not be, thereby granting them permissions that they otherwise would not have; is that correct?</p>
<p>I see this as less an issue with dubious genealogy than blood relatives permissions in general. In order to get to Adam & Eve your relative must have added a whole lot of ancestors in between, and some of those are surely verifiable. After a couple significant merges I'm constantly turning up 20th and 30th cousins on Geni, and as such they are given the same permissions that all blood relatives get (viewing my tree, most notably). We're rapidly moving to a point where many, many thousands of Geni users are blood relatives of people they don't know from Adam (heh). I wonder if it's time to reconsider blood relative permissions, maybe pull those back to some reasonable cousin distance?
</p>You do understand correctly. And yes they did add the whole line.
I've added a lot of people...by hand. I'm trying to find at least one person from every surname to handle their own surname/in-law tree. Because I did add therefore do manage so many I have to invite a lot of people to my family group to merge. I can't get people to understand my family plus anybody I invite to my group can see & edit things I manage. I can't get them to see that it's therefore important for them to get these things out of my control.
What's the alternative...invite to family group just long enough to merge then delete invite to family group?
Thank you very much for your help. :)
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
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@dmleforce - it is a religious view that defines those as fictional or not.
We should respect those who don't see them as fictional.
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
brox, I disagree. You are trampling on somebody's rights either way - it might as well be the people who have added information that doesn't belong.
I don't believe Jesus existed (at least not how we know him).
A Christian believes he is the son of God.
A Jew believes he is a false prophet.
A Muslim believes he is a prophet but not the son of God.Explain to me how we respect everybody's religious beliefs.
Then explain to me why religious beliefs without factual evidence belong in historical record. This is a slippery slope. I could invent a religion called Mattism that believes King Matt the Awesome ruled Europe, gave birth to Charlemagne and was born on the moon. Also, I am him and live forever. Let me go merge my son Charlemagne with the big tree. You have to respect my religious beliefs! :)
It sounds absurd but other religions sound just as absurd to those of other religions or no religion. The only compromise is to leave religion out.
Posted 1 week ago # -
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But do you want to remove Jesus as a person in the tree?
I agree that placing God as his father in tree tree might offend a lot of people, but we should not remove Muhammed and Jesus just because somebody don't like them. Unlike many other "famous" people in "the big tree" there is enough indications and documentation that they did exists as people.
Posted 1 week ago # -
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"Hail King Matt!"
I'm a catholic, but I would never put God on the tree for this reasons you talk about. Not everybody is a catholic so why should I include God in my tree if I have family who is not catholic and don't beleive in God?
Posted 1 week ago # -
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There's plenty of room in the Geniverse for everyone. Before we're done we'll provide the tools necessary to support differing points of view without everyone having to accept everyone else's version of history.
Posted 1 week ago # -
I can see keeping Jesus and Mohammed (actually, I wasn't aware of any historical dispute over Mohammed but I'll admit I've done little research on this) if people can actually come up with credible paths but God should definitely not be in there. Adam and Eve should also not be in there because we *know* they are fictional. Anyway, we've been over this. ;)
Posted 1 week ago # -
Maybe we could have an option to turn off the top 100 profiles or are you related on our home page. I am Christian and I do believe Jesus is the son of G-d. But I think it is disrespectful to Them to have Them on this site. So if they must stay on maybe those who do not want to see them can have an option to not see them. I don't really want to see the famous people either. I do not care if I am their 8th cousin 10 times removed. I am interested in my direct lines and immediate family. I spend so much time on 1600s to the present day, and still tons of work to do, that I don't even get as far back as Christ anyway. So the odds of my seeing Him on this site are unlikely. The only way I knew He was put on here was the discussions... and now the Are You Related box.
As for permissions... I have been happy to add people to my family group and collaborate so merges can get done. But I have little to no duplicates 6 generations away and earlier. So I get a bit upset when someone I've added to my family group updates my great aunts profile! She is living but she has not joined Geni. I try to respect the privacy of people I add and just stay in the area we connect and wish they would do the same. So if there was an additional option in the family group settings that the people you add outside your immediate family group could do merges but not edit say 4th generation and earlier I would appreciate it. As it is I'm kind of cheating the system for my children. I want to add info for them for my relatives but because I have so many people in my family group I have no privacy. Anytime I upload a photo or document everyone I've added would be able to see it. Although I want to collaborate in the distant lines for the immediate family I need more privacy. There does not seem to be a way to have both on here.
Posted 1 week ago # -
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Why not reduce your Family Group to 1st cousins or closer, or even just immediate family? You can do that here.
To see what changing your Family Group affects, look at Profile Privacy, Permissions and Managed Profiles
Posted 1 week ago #
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