taiji2's complaint

There are several Christians that still frequent this forum, though a pretty eclectic group. I am one of those; theistic evolutionist (I don't particularly like the term, but probably best describes my position in this debate), an active member of a holiness church, and moderate political views. Before coming to this forum I knew only one avowed atheist and he was one of the most despicable people I have ever known. So that was the impression I had of atheists, since that was all I really knew. One thing some churches have sort of taught is that people are atheists because they want to live vile and disgusting lives and the one person I knew who was an avowed atheist confirmed that idea.However, from discussions on this forum, I have found that is not a true characterization at all. I have learned a lot about why people are atheists and many of the reasons come from the church itself. This forum has really helped me to consider the beliefs I have and the way I present myself and how I live out those beliefs.There is also some great science discussions here. I learned just about everything I know about geology from participating in a couple threads on the subject. So true. It can be very time consuming and time is a very valuable commodity right now. Actually I have a couple responses that I should make from several weeks ago, but I need to be studying HBD

Hi taiji2. I don't have much time to spend here these days, but I still lurk around. I have been following must of the discussion and would like to offer a bit of advice. First, if you are here with the expectation of convincing anyone of anything, you are going to find it terribly frustrating. If instead you are here to strengthen your skills in developing your arguments and to consider alternative arguments you will find it much more fulfilling.Second, DO be very careful in drafting your responses. Take the time to consider what your opponents may object to and be sure to address that. The people here are sharp and can easily spot the weakness in an argument and they know how to exploit that weakness. That is what debate is. Before you post, figure out where the weakness in your argument is and strengthen it.Third, you don't need to feel obligated to respond to everyone who replies to your posts (although continually ignoring responses with strong counter arguments is bad form). Only respond to those replies that you feel will lead the discussion in a constructive direction. There are a couple members here that I think have a really bad attitude and I don't like interacting with very much, but the people you have been interacting with are not them. I don't think you can retract a post except to edit it and remove all the content. That how it is handled sometimes when there is a duplicate post. But I don't advise deleting a post's content except in the most extreme situation.HBD