In Unitarian Universalist circles labeling happens most often
along the humanist/theist split.
Those who think of themselves as humanists
may be too quick to dismiss someone who seems to be "just another theist".
Perhaps these dismissers used to believe in God (in their own youth)
but in adulthood have become militant non-believers.
And because of their bad experience with a traditional church,
they tend to reject everyone who believes in God.

     It also works the other way around:
Those who believe in some God may feel themselves to be in the minority.
So they defensively classify all non-believers together
as part of the enemy camp.
Even tho there are vast differences within each 'camp',
every theist or non-theist tends to get classified as one of "them"
by people who see themselves in a different group.

     If we avoid jumping to conclusions
based on our experiences with other theists or non-theists,
then we can let each individual explain himself or herself completely.

     Flame-catchers will notice labeling
whenever a response starts out by saying
that the author of the cyber-sermon is a certain kind of person.
When assertions are made about the author,
not based on anything said in the cyber-sermon,
then this might easily be a jumping-to-conclusions response
by someone whose irritation button has been pushed.

Sometimes such irritation pops up from the use of a single word
—such as the word "God".
People who have been the victims of labeling on previous occasions
usually have learned not to use such 'hot buttons',
precisely because they do set off a chain of irrational responses
based on the hearer's past
rather than anything the writer is attempting to communicate.

     Sometimes one person is a victim of labeling from both sides:
He or she gets labeled a radical by the conservatives
and a conservative by the liberals.
In such cases both extremes are using labels
to dismiss someone whose ideas they do not want to examine more deeply.

     Labeling is often a collective behavior:
People get together to decide how to label a certain individual.
This often leads to several people
adopting a view of someone they do not know
merely because someone they do know (and trust)
labels that individual in such a such a way.

     The humanist/theist split could offer many examples of this, once again:
"I heard that so-and-so believes in God."
Or "I was told that so-and-so is a humanist."
Oddly enough, in some cases, both labels have been used
by different groups of labelers to dismiss the same individual!
Instead of uncovering the full story about that individual's belief system,
they have depended on hear-say from others,
who may be just as ill-informed as they are.

     Flame-catchers will be able to detect labeling
when the responder begins to criticize the cyber-sermon
on the assumption that the author is either a theist or a non-theist,
even tho nothing about that issue
may have been mentioned in the cyber-sermon.
Labelers may proceed to attack the beliefs of the group
with which the labeler associates the author.