You're correct that this isn't about religion and in no way is the core issue that I bring up here about religion. It's about whether we as a community should talk about something or not; and the principle reasons to do either. The debate of certain religious topics such as creationism, rather than the topic itself, is the example in question. These debates show that debate/rhetoric is inappopriate for suppressing what is objectively determined to be a falsehood (there is no academic doubt that the earth's age is greater than 10000 years).

My issue in this thread is how to deal with falsehoods in the reddit community. Do we suppress them (downvote) or do we discuss them? It is quite relevant and on topic to consider by reference to other walks of life the pros/cons of such a procedure, even if they are touchy to some people. In this instance, the creationism debates are relevant because their publicity implies to the community that devate still exists in the academic community, when in reality, the subject is settled. In this regard, publicity is given the idea and the debates, often televised regionally, implicitly legitimise these points of view. In much the same way, by discussing rather than downvoting, we as a reddit community are giving those who put forward their own version of events (whether they are intentionally misleading or whether its' just a personal opinion) a spotlight, and legitimising their version of events.

I would like to add that there is no evidence that anyone is trying to misleading anyone in regards to FA out of malice: it may have been a misunderstanding that led to the obviously wrong elements, such as this ficticious 'section 9'. There is nothing to suggest the anyone has deliberately fabricated evidence to discredit FA/dragoneer: what has come to Reddit's /r/furry is ultimately unsupported rumour. While it's quite clear that some people dislike FA, and that's nothing new, and would post these rumours by way of supporting their hateboner for FA/'Neer, this is categorically different to deliberately planting false information to cause panic. Since it's not shown that this is the case, we have no choice but to deal with the falsehoods in the relevant manner: it is their honest but mistaken opinion that they honestly believe.

The core issue here is how to deal with asserted or unsupported falsehood. I am of the opinion that anything unsupported / without evidence does not deserve positivist debate because it necessarily legitimises it, and thus spreads the idea. That is the extent of the argument that I have raised, and to arbitrarily exclude religion, a popular vehicle of coercive control, from the ambit of this argument is to transform facts into opinion. It is opinions that are touted as facts but are unsupported that I am suggesting that people downvote. The comparison to religion, while confronting to those who would like to think of their spirituality as more than a matter of faith, is to this point and embroiled inextricably with the distinction between fact and opinion.