Hi RAZD
Interesting topic.
Honest Debate: how do you read?
So do you read for understanding (as best you can)?
Or do you read to find and pick out points to base a refutation on?
For me I tend to read for understanding if I feel that the other person is at least making an attempt to read my arguments for understanding. I think it is important to fully understand what the other person is saying because otherwise there is a tendancy to just lump them into a generic view, which doesn't always work with many of the posters on EvC. I think it is also important for the reason that Bluejay highlights later in this thread. That is that we might find ourselves arguing against something simply because that person is on the other side of the debate rather than taking the time to understand a person's position and then recognising that we have some common ground.
But I will also read to refute otherwise there would be no point in replying if I was just interested in understanding the different stances held on this forum. There are not very many YEC posters as it is and so I find a sense of obligation to try to pick the most pertinent points in a post and try to show the other side of the argument.
Note also that what bluejay writes:
We, as evolutionists, are constantly fighting strawmen on this forum. It seems, in fact, that creationists are not even making any effort to understand at all.
can often be felt the other way round as well.
But yeah, for the next wee while as I get back to this forum I will probably mainly be skim reading and trying to catch up with what's been happening until I settle on which threads could do with some Arphy comments