WildTurkey: It means you can't support your allegation.
I do very much appreciate RobRoy’s desire not to fight the same battles over and again - as I imagine others on your "side" such as PatrickHenry, Ichneumon and VadeRetro would also. It takes a lot of reading to find a post with something new or particularly informative in an area which is of special interest to an individual Freeper or Lurker.
For instance, here are some points which I believe most of us would agree have been pretty much “settled” over the years but nevertheless get argued over and again:
That Darwin did not address abiogenesis in his theory, nor did he define “life” at all much less address how it came to be.
That the ”theory of evolution” does not include abiogenesis v biogenesis.
That the term ”evolution” reaches to include all kinds of gradual change over time.
That the Designer in Intelligent Design arguments could be God, collective consciousness or alien.
That the arguments for Panspermia are very similar to the arguments for Intelligent Design.
That there are theologians who accept evolution, e.g. the Catholic church.
That there are atheists/agnostics who do not accept evolution, e.g. Panspermia supporters such as Crick.
Some Christians base their theology on Adam being the first ensouled man.
Some Judeo/Christians base their understanding of Genesis 1 at approximately 6000 years from our space/time coordinates plus 6 days from the inception (big bang, relativity, inflationary theory) space/time coordinates.
Some Christians see the difference between verses 1 and 2 of Genesis allowing for billions of years.
Some Judeo/Christians see Genesis 1 through 3 speaking of both a physical realm and a spiritual realm.
But even there, the discussion tends to fall neatly based on the worldview each Freeper brings to the table, e.g. one's view of what is “all that there is”:
Truly, I wish there were some way that we could likewise organize matters on the generalized (and typically, quite large) evolution threads so that it would be easier to “fast forward” through the boilerplate.
Indeed, if for no other reason than because it seems to me that much of the frustration arises from addressing the same points over and over and over and over and...well, you get the idea ;)
If he has proof of false science being taught, I will be the first to work to fix it.
So WHAT!
Forget it. We will never get past JohnnyM's proclamation that evolution is impossible because it is against the literal words of Genesis (according to J's interpretation of the literal words).
How do you get past "Go" when the article posted talks about God vs. Evolution.
How do you get past "Go" when we are continually refered to websites that prove evolution is impossible because it is contrary to the bible.
How do you get past "Go" when we are continually bombarded with the false science of the ID preachers that intentionally foul basic science theory inorder to promote their DVD's. No. Perhaps you should send this message to the ID'ers. It is them that want to keep the fight on that level; we are only responding to the attacks.
We've tried. That was a great motivation for my compiling the List-O-Links. It was also why we included in the "Agreement of the Willing" a provision that "agressive amnesia" was abusive.
But the problem continues, for some or all of these reasons:
1. New freepers showing up, unaware that we've all been there before.So it gets heated, sometimes, as the old-timers grow short of patience. Whatcha gonna do?
2. Some regular freepers maliciously persist in posting the same debunked arguments.
3. Some (new or old) who insist that their interpretation of scripture trumps physical evidence.
Very nice post. You pretty much nailed my perspective on this thing too. The threads I enjoy the most are the ones where I disagree with other freepers. That confines most of my comments to threads on animal rights, music downloading and evolution.
But in all three, you just sort of tire of seeing the same arguments over and over and over. For a while I actually started saving my responses as word documents, then every so often I would cut and paste them into a response to someone (prefacing it with a sentence saying I had done as much).
What is really "new" to the debate lately is that the same thing really does seem to be happening to the evolution side of this as happened to Dan Rather. It is a new and exciting twist, and another reason to praise the internet as a way to really disseminate information. I think it is also why Bush won the election. Lies just do not have the legs they used to.
In other words, for me the story here is that the debate (fight) has spilled from the confines of the dark and controlled auditorium out into the broad dailight of the street. Many of the combatants are rather embarrassed by the now obvious puppet strings dangling from their bodies.
I love when this happens, even when I am the one the light of day is cast upon in a not so positive light - albeit it can be more acutely painful then, in the short term.
I can understand how Rob Roy feels. One often gets a dreaded sense of deja vu on the evolution threads -- kind of a "been there, done that already" feeling....
Indeed, as you say, one does not want "to fight the same battles over and again."