CFL players debate religion, the nature of man, evolution and more on Twitter, complete with monkey and "headed straight to hell" talk

While much of the CFL world is focused on freeagencymoves this week, some of the league's players are discussing bigger issues. Current Ottawa Redblacks (and former Calgary Stampeders) Eric Fraser and Maurice Price, as well as current Stampeders Jon Cornish, Keon Raymond and Jasper Simmons, got into a wide-ranging and long-running debate on religion, human nature, science and much more on Twitter Wednesday. This appears to have started with a comment from @MissMadelineMar about the Chapel Hill shootings, which Fraser then responded to:

That discussion then went back and forth for a bit, with Fraser contrasting race and religion, and then it turned into the first Twitter user going after atheism and Fraser defending it and criticizing religion. That appears to be what took this from one player interacting with another Twitter user into a wider CFL conversation, as Raymond (Fraser's former teammate in Calgary) jumped in to ask about an atheistic moral code, Fraser outlined a case for humanity as inherently good, Raymond dissented, and Cornish (a former teammate of Fraser and a current teammate of Raymond) jumped in to agree with Fraser. There are a lot of tweets between them; here are few of the more notable ones.

Most of that's a relatively civil exchange of ideas, and it's interesting to see CFL players discussing deep topics on Twitter. However, things got a little thornier when Simmons (Fraser's former teammate in Ottawa) and Price (Fraser's current teammate) jumped in to bash his criticisms of religion. Here's some of what happened once they joined in:

And things got a little more testy once the subject turned to the Big Bang and evolution:

Is anything going to come of this? Well, there is some history here, with Price previously being fined for homophobic tweets this May. The CFL statement at that time from then-commissioner Mark Cohon was interesting, though:

The league's been clear that it doesn't discriminate on religion, so both atheists and Christians should be accepted. The expression of those beliefs shouldn't be fine-worthy, either, unless it crosses the line into attacks that discriminate against others (as Price's tweets on Sam did, and Khalif Mitchell's racist tweets way back when), and while there's plenty of criticism of beliefs here from both sides, that doesn't appear to lead into anything that's obviously a personal attack. Thus, we probably won't see league action on this.

Are having these kinds of discussions on Twitter a good idea for CFL players, though? On one front, absolutely; it's good to see players expressing what they believe on deep subjects (and it's much more interesting than a lot of tweets about offseason workouts and so on), and players being themselves shouldn't be censored (as long as they don't cross that line into discrimination). It's also an interesting window into the world of these guys for fans; discussions like these can take place in locker rooms, but having them in public lets fans know what athletes are thinking and chime in themselves.

However, there are a couple of concerns here. First, Twitter's character limits and threaded replies can mean a lot of context and nuance is missed. Second, if these conversations escalate into personal nastiness, that doesn't look particularly good for the players or the CFL. Still, on the whole, there's not much reason to complain about players expressing their views. If they can do so with a little more civility throughout the discussion in future, that might be even better, but this particular conversation doesn't seem like something the league would step in and fine people over.