I may be overstepping a few bounds here, but I feel like it should be said. Dannager, I find you to be one of the most belligerent posters on CF, period. Maybe a little more kindness, please?
I'm sorry your sensibilities were offended, Scotishfury09. However, given that my interaction with you has been next to nothing, I'm not sure you're qualified to make that judgment. If you were somehow injured by my message, you might want to ask yourself why that is.
We're not fans of being ridiculed, insulted, and generalized.
So I've heard. But that's a cop-out, Scotishfury09. If you feel that in the course of having creationists' behavior and material properly criticized and discussed that you were ridiculed, insulted or generalized, you may need to adjust your sensitivity. Nothing that I said was unwarranted.
Dannager, we all like discussion too.
Oh, you might. But a lot of creationists don't.
None of us would be on here if we didn't.
Careful, that's a half-truth. You see, there are
countless creationists that I've had the pleasure of interacting with over the last couple of years. Many of them were not interested in discussion, but they participated here anyway. Do you know what they did, Scotishfury09? They came to this board, started a thread full of nonsense, were refuted about two dozen times by the end of the day, and never returned to discuss
anything. So yes, you might be interested in discussion. A lot of your fellow creationists
are not.
You can confront us in the OT forum.
Oh, I do.
No one said you couldn't. The Creationist sub-forum was never a place for that anyways.
And nor should it be. But the creationist sub-forum has now been walled off because creationists want a safe place to hide. It's not the fact that you're walling yourselves off that bothers me. It's the fact that you're doing it because you are not comfortable having your views confronted.
We TEs use our sub-forum to discuss the mentality of creationists. We strategize, develop ways to effectively debate with you, and casually joke. Our sub-forum works like a meeting room. Your sub-forum works like a support group.
How can you not see that this disparity is critical?
Another demeaning generality. You're insulting all YECs with your assumption that you must put your posts into a simple form so we can understand them.
A lot of creationists
don't understand them unless we take time to explain it. It's not an insult, it's the truth. Most creationists haven't a clue how evolution actually works. That's reality. And believe me, I
would avoid using these kinds of generalizations to describe creationists if creationists decided to police themselves a little. But that doesn't happen. We TEs correct each other on getting information wrong all the time. Creationists
almost never do. I've seen a creationist start a thread
in the creationist sub-forum with a PRATT on AiG's Do-Not-Use list, and nothing happens but back-patting. And that's on
your sub-forum. That happens in the main OT board
all the time, except when it happens here it's the TEs doing every single correction. We do all your work for you.
I am new to CF and the entire TE vs. YEC debate in general and can't possibly know all that has happened in the past, but from your recent paragraph I assume they're just tired of your insults.
Then you haven't been paying close enough attention. Would you like me to link you to some hit-n-run threads? I'd be happy to. Anyway, you'll come around eventually.
More stereotypes and more rudeness
I shared with you our perspective. Would you rather I had not done you that favor? That's what many creationists make themselves out to be in our eyes.
The creationist sub-forum was a place for creationists and fellowship posts by TEs. If you want to discuss other matters, post it in the OT forum.
Oh, I do. Heck, I also rather enjoy cross-posting threads from the creationist-only sub-forum here, so that topics brought up there can be properly discussed.
As far as I know no one has stopped posting in OT and stayed in the sub-forum.
Oh dear.
tel0004 said:
I think its a great idea, we need a safehouse every once in a while. In fact, I stoped checking up on the creation and evolution forums months ago due to constant flaming, so I will come back and stay if this rule is kept.
FallingWaters said:
It has been so much nicer (safer) here lately!
I have been visiting more regularly since the restriction because I feel safer to voice my opinion without fear of being insulted or losing my faith.
The only thing is, instead of being confronted in the forum, I have received a couple of PM's asking me to explain myself.
Thankfully the exchange was short and polite or else I would have reported it.
Still, if I wanted to be confronted, I would go to their forum.
I don't remember the last time FallingWaters posted in the main OT board. Maybe I just missed it, though. Or Floodnut for that matter.
Stop acting like we're hiding in our little fortress.
I would, but then I hear:
tel0004 said:
I think its a great idea, we need a safehouse every once in a while.
My bad. It's not a fortress mentality. It's a
safehouse mentality.
We're tired of it. Understand that that isn't the place to talk about such matters.
What isn't?
I'm sorry that happens. I truly am, but you shouldn't blame us for that. We get some of the same from the other side too, although not as much.
No, you don't. TE hit-n-runs are a
fraction of the wasted threads we get here. And creationists never seem too keen on trying to counter them anyway. No, Scotishfury09. I cannot conceive of how you can complain about TEs ignoring your replies on this board.
That's the problem. You still are hostile.
Yes, we are.
That should never be an option.
When all other recourses have been exhausted, yes it should be. We try civil, first. That usually doesn't work. Creationists tend to not be interested in hearing the other side. So we turn to hostile debate tactics (which, by the way, is acceptable - this is a
debate) to demonstrate to whoever is watching that our opponents' arguments are nonsense. We don't use ad hominem attacks, we don't move the goalposts, we don't cite frauds. We refute arguments.
Can't you see that's what we don't like?
I'm
quite sure you don't like us dealing with your arguments in the manner they deserve. It discredits your position, makes you feel uncomfortable, and potentially embarrasses you to have brought such an argument so haughtily to the table in the first place without bothering to check up on its validity or asking the forum if it holds any water.
It should never be a justifiable option. Ever.
No, it
should be. You just don't want it to be. I realize this may be hard for you to hear, but I'm going to be firm on this. Creationists, for the most part, tend not to be properly equipped for debate. This would be fine, were they not under the impression that they
are equipped for debate. The end result is that they post something, have it refuted twelve times, and complain about being insulted and demeaned. Yeah, they should feel a little bad. They came in with a silly argument and it got handed back to them covered in red ink. But we don't have any final drafts here. Nothing is stopping creationists from recognizing where their arguments are lacking and fixing the problem. Most of the time, though, nothing is done.
I really appreciate your respect for my faith.
I have respect for your faith as I have respect for my own. I am
concerned for the faith of many creationists because of the demonstrated fragility of their own. I can't count the number of times I've heard (almost verbatim!) "If Genesis isn't literally true then I can't believe in any of the Bible and there is no right or wrong in the world." That's glass faith. Drop it, bump it the wrong way, accidentally hit it with something substantial and it can shatter. Your faith should be like rubber. It should be flexible enough to give a little in the face of legitimate criticism, but it should bounce back as strong as ever in the end. That's what faith should be, and that's not what I see in a lot of creationists.
I want you to know that I respect your faith as a Christian.
And I yours. Don't mistake my concern for a lack of respect.
You wouldn't be here defending it so adamantly if it wasn't sincere and stong, but you could use some tact and some cordiality.
I can be and have been cordial in discussions here. Perhaps I could use with a tad more patience, but after a couple years here I've gotten a decent feel for when it's worth it and when it isn't.
Like I said earlier, no one has stopped posting in the OT. We don't want to close the sub-forum so we can stop posting in the OT forum. We want it closed because of the abuse that has been happening in it.
No, you want it closed so that you have a place to retreat to. That's why you want it closed. The "abuse" you refer to is a forum rule. It's your justification for having it closed, but not the reason. You want what amounts to signs on the door saying "Creationists Only! TEs Keep Out!"
I'm happy that you are so unquestionable in your faith about TE.
See, now you have a problem. I have no "faith" in theistic evolution. My acceptance of a scientific theory involves no faith or unsubstantiated belief. If, tomorrow, evolution is shown to be wrong I will throw it out in favor of whatever replaces it as being valid. That won't happen, in all probability, but if it did, every TE here would do the same thing.
On the other hand, I am
unhappy that you are so unquestioning in your faith in young-earth creationism.
People do not walk on water. One man cannot resurrect another man.
Ignoring that your reply had nothing to do with what you quoted,
you're right! People don't! We know this! We can throw a person in a lake and he will
not walk on top of it. We know that the only way this could have happened as described in the Bible is if God reached down (ostensibly through Christ) and performed a miracle. It is, otherwise, impossible.
However, the origin of the current biodiversity of life doesn't work that way. We
know how it could have (and did!) happen. It doesn't require (or even make sense with) a literal interpretation of Genesis.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't participate in much of the scientific debates in this forum because, frankly, I don't understand a whole lot if it.
You have dozens of people here willing to give you an education in science at a level that you will both understand and be comfortable with. We have
scientists here. People who actually do the research they're talking about. You could probably ask any TE here and they would be more than willing to personally take you aside and teach you how any natural process works, one-on-one. And if they can't, they'll show you someone who can. You could understand
any of it if you wanted to.
I do, however, respect scripture.
So do we. Every one of us. But not your interpretation of it.
Deal with insults? No thanks. We understand this to be a debate forum, we're all debating, whether you see it as such or not.
We're not insulting you. We're pointing out the truth and you're choosing to make it into an issue of who is being nice to who. That's not what this is about. We don't want to insult you. I would never willingly insult another creationist for the sake of insulting them. I would certainly consider it in some of my most frustrated moments, but it would blow over within seconds. We're telling it to you how it is, and it's hard for you to handle, we know. But choosing to view it as an insult
is the wrong way of going about this. To build on the paper metaphor from earlier, when you were in school and got an essay back from your English teacher with criticism in the margins, were you insulted? Or did you just feel bad that you were criticized, however validly? Was your English teacher trying to insult you, or trying to help you out?
I for one appreciate the slipper and soft gloves, but I'm fairly confident in saying that no one wants you to stop debating. We want you to stop generalizing and insulting.
Generalizing, as long as it's mutually understood that the comment applies only to most of a group and not all, is just fine. When I say that the majority of creationists are not properly educated in basic biology, that's a generalization. It's also the truth. As for insults, that's been addressed.
By asking you to stop insulting and generalizing us? I think it's been done. What else should we do?
Would you like some suggestions? Have a few:
1) Police yourselves. Your level of intellectual honesty would rise a number of notches in our eyes if creationists started correcting other creationists,
regularly, when they are obviously misrepresenting something. For example, if a creationist starts a thread on how the second law of thermodynamics proves evolution is false, we'd love to see a creationist jump in and be the first to say "That's actually not true, and it's probably not a good idea to use that argument. Here's why."
2) Don't hide in your sub-forum. Use it to discuss what's going on amongst yourselves, but you serve neither yourself nor your fellow Christians by staying inside your safehouse and never venturing outside. It makes it look like you're too unsure about your beliefs to have them challenged, or that you're really not interested in hearing an opposing view and are content with being in the dark.
3) Listen to what we have to say. Some of us are really pretty smart (mostly the others, I'm still in college
). We spend a lot of time on our arguments, and they're correct. We don't post any refutations that we know to be wrong, ever. We like to check our facts. We take our own intellectual honesty as a matter of pride. We honestly feel bad if we slip up and say something wrong. There have been a couple of times when I've gone off on something that was a non-issue, or provided a refutation that didn't apply because I didn't understand the argument, and I've felt legitimately bad about it.
4) When we provide refutations from TalkOrigins or other such websites, don't discredit the refutation because it comes from TalkOrigins. First, TO is right pretty much 100% of the time. They have an enormous database of great arguments and cite all their references. If a legitimate concern is raised against one of their refutations, the refutation is fixed. And I know you could counter with "Well then don't disparage AiG and ICR!" I'm going to be blunt: they aren't good resources. They're probably the best available to you, but they do not do well in this debate. They can't compete with the science we've got, as hard as they try.
I have a lot more suggestions, but many of them would only be useful to people who are very recent newcomers here (things like no PRATT lists, phrasing arguments in their own words, etc.). I think these are a good place to start. They'd go a
long way.
In conclusion, I think I should leave you with some words of wisdom from Paul:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13: 1-7
Dannager, I recognize your brilliance and love for the Lord, but I pray that you find some compassion in your future posts.
I will think on your words, and I appreciate the response. Perhaps I am a tad jaded, and that's showing. There is a place for compassion, I believe. That place is almost everywhere, and almost every time. But there is a place for being blunt and honest even if it's hard to hear. This was the place for that, I believe. I've stated my perceptions as carefully and thoughtfully as I can.
As loathe as I am to use a good-guy, bad-guy scheme, you're one of the good guys, Scotishfury09. You want discussion. Most of what I've said doesn't apply to you. Most of what I said doesn't apply to many of the regular creationists here. But even if it doesn't apply to you, there are ways you can help.