The smoldering of EVC

It is with a certain amount of glee that I watch the now complete decline of a website that once purported to be an inclusive forum for rational debate concerning evolution and creation. As we can now clearly see, that no longer exists, although in reality it never did, it just was a better illusion before, because they had topic names that actually looked like places where people could debate. That was never true, you never could debate, because Percy wouldn't allow that, but it looked like you could if you were a first time visitor. Ha, good riddance to that. Now look what you have:Is religion good for us.
Why the flood never happened.
Do we need God.
Have you ever read Ephesians
Bible and Plagerism.
Was Jesus's crucification all part of God's plan.
We invented Jesus Christ.....Oh how it amuses me. Percy's evil little plan has wrought his own little bible study group. And Dr. A and Coyote are his altar boys. Ho ho ho.I like to think I played no small part in exposing the fraud of this website for what it was. A poorly executed mouthpiece for Percy to attempt to convince the fence sitters to join his church of wounded pilgrims. They pretended they wanted to discuss science, but Percy made sure that would never be allowed, by silencing all detractors of his world view, and giving harsh warning to the rest about making sure you toe the party line. Dissent will not be tolerated in Percy's little cocoon. Tar and feather the evolutionist doubters if you must, but just make sure no one can trace the tar back to him. But don't worry, HE will protect you.But that's what can be great about the internet, it can expose the truth, no matter how much someone tries to grab a monopoly of it. Percy wanted to post his propaganda with just enough disguise to try to trick the unsure comrades, but eventually his banana republic couldn't keep the doubters from fleeing. He said, this is my site, and I will post whatever false information I want, because heck, its free advertising for how I want the world to be. So now he has exactly the world he created, a bible mock group. Oh the joy.I called you on it Percy, and being vindicated is kind of fun. You were warned repeatedly. Now you have been banished to your own island. You don't own science, it goes on with out you.

Thread copied here from the The smoldering of EVC thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

You missed one: If Caused By Flood Drainage Why is the Grand Canyon Where It IS?(Perhaps you or marc9000 could take up the challenge to describe why the Grand Canyon is where it is and nor either north or south.) Yet it seems that topics you (and marc9000) have proposed still get promoted for debate ... so isn't the number of threads dependent more on the numbers of people proposing their personal views than any real filtering by administration? Some people are more prolific than others, so their views would make a larger proportion of the total threads.Enjoy.

How does this square with what is happening in "Why the Flood never happened"?
Faith has presented her views over nearly one-third of the posts, while others have (mostly) patiently presented refutations, and pleaded with her to produce evidence to support her views.
Seems to me dissent is well and truly tolerated.

The non-atheist view is that there is more to reality than only the rearrangement processes of naturalism. That view is met with rudeness and mocking here, it has become a sport to ridicule and drive posters away who have that view. You forgot one, 'Faith'. Non-atheists threads are promoted so the HAMMER game can begin. Examples;EvC Forum: Why the Flood Never HappenedIn that one, start reading at message 841, then explain to me why you believe any creationist who lives a life would want to come here and take that kind of abuse.and;EvC Forum: On The Limits of Human TalentAgain, after reading that, why would any non-atheist come here thinking any points they had to make would be treated with respect?EvC Forum: Peanut Gallery for Great debate: radiocarbon dating, Mindspawn and Coyote/RAZDWHY IN THIS WORLD would any self respecting non-atheist come here for a one on one great debate knowing that a hammer thread will be started in the coffee house for no other reason than to ridicule and mock ONE poster? Some "one on one" that is. Please read messages 9, 50, 69, 147, and others in that thread, and explain that to me.

Lets look at some of the loving patience that you refer to;

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It could only be a "natural assumption" for someone incredibly ignorant, in the same way a child might believe it possible to be carried off by a bunch of balloons.

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Then, after Faith announces that she's finished with the thread, we have more patience;

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Watching Faith at work reminds me of a science fiction novel from the late 1960's,

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I'm quite certain that Faith will keep her own faith safe, shielded by her armor of ignorance

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It's clear you know very little and I'm very happy to see you admitting it. I think that the more you learn, the harder it is for you to continue the charade. That's why you often resort to exaggerated derision.

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All of message 854, with its big flurry of green dots. Then, administration's back;

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But this is just you mouthing off inanities again.

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The flood is the most natural explanation only to someone as completely ignorant of geology as yourself.

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Is trumpeting your ignorance and ineptitude really a good strategy?

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How could the opinion of someone as ignorant of geology as you just described have any value?

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And it goes on and on, even after Faith clearly left the thread. Atheist love fests have become part of science. These forums, and websites like talkorigins increasingly display it, and hopefully that display will serve to wake more and more people up to that fact.

Rather than complaining about the treatment of creationists, perhaps you, or some of the other creationists, could just bring evidence to the debate?That's all that's needed.

Example: When different creationists place the date of the global flood variously from 4,350 years ago, to about 10,000 years ago, to the K-T boundary at 65.5 million years ago, to even the P-T boundary at 252 million years ago, what are we to think of their scientific rigor? If creationists can't agree on a date, and provide supporting evidence for that date, why should we take any of their arguments concerning the flood seriously?

Creationists must expect that any evidence they proffer will be subject to scrutiny and skepticism--that's the way science works.Instead, what we generally see are unsupported claims being proffered, with little to no effort to support them with evidence. In a lot of cases those claims require that the laws of physics be ignored, but no evidence is provided to either support those claims or to explain all of the many "unintended consequences" that are a necessary result of the claims.

Example: The RATE study: the Institute of Creation Research (ICR) and the Creation Research Society initiated an eight-year research program to investigate the validity of radioisotope dating of rocks. In an effort to support a young earth, they suggested an accelerated decay rate, but failed to explore how such an increase in the decay rates might have occurred. And they failed to explain how, if decay rates were accelerated during the one year of the flood, the resulting heat--released over a one-year period instead of a couple of billion years--didn't cook the earth to a cinder. Along with the heat problem there would also have been a radiation problem. Noah and the rest of the inhabitants of the ark would have had to survive radiation perhaps a million times greater than it is today. How they do dat?

So, given all the outlandish things creationists want us to believe, without supporting evidence, they don't get half the kicking around here that they really deserve.

I don't know. I pretty much think this is the best forum I've ever been a member of and it is far more inclusive and forgiving than any of the Christian forums. Heck, it's even more inclusive and forgiving than many of the Atheist forums. And I'm an atheist.Sure, people get frustrated and rude, but I'd say the abuse goes both ways. Just look at your post. However, in spite of the snarkiness and that Faith makes me want to pull my eye lashes out one by one, I have great respect for her. I've told her this in the past and I re-iterate it now. I would love to speak to her face to face and I think we'd get along just fine in real life -- as long as we stayed away from Creationist topics. Though I'm not sure she'd actually want to be friends with a stupid, idiotic atheist. But that's okay, too. Same with Buzz and other Creationists.The doubters flee, no doubt, because this site is chock full of extraordinarily intelligent people (myself NOT included) and they demand a higher quality posting than your typical forum. Posting here can be quite intimidating.I think you are probably an adult, but you certainly don't sound like one here.Edited by roxrkool, : No reason given.

I did say "mostly". Sadly the description of Faith as ignorant of geology is accurate, made more sad by her saying she did not come to learn. Her continued refusal to answer criticism of her proposals, which were unsupported by evidence, did lead to testiness on the part of some.

This forum has been running in some form since the late 20th Century. I'm sure you run a dozen of forums that are still getting tens of thousands of posts a year, but its actually difficult to run a forum for over ten years and maintain a constant level of posting in the thousands of posts a month.I'm sure it makes you feel swell to believe your premonitions have come true, but this just shows me that the likes of you can be convinced by any old prophecy. Forums have a finite life span, and there are always some people that think the forum is doomed to die. Eventually those that speak of the end of a forum will inevitably be right in almost all cases. So patting yourself on the back for being partly responsible is kind of stupid and arrogant.What you spectacularly failed to do in your analysis is show a causal link between Percy's attitude and the current topics of discussion. I've been around these forums a little longer and occasionally things quieten down and seem to focus on one area (ethics, homosexuality, politics or the bible) for a while.But you have a problem with Percy because he didn't treat you and your attitude with the deference you thought was due, and now you are trying to find vindication that you were right and Percy was wrong - it's quite pathetically transparent really.Unfortunately for your ego - even if EvC closed tomorrow, it would still have been a successful long term forum. Seeing the stats at the top of the page must really upset you!

Hey, Pebblebrain, You're really pissed off aren't you? You were hoping this place had folded up but, whoa, it's still here! So you figure you would come in here have a sad little boy temper tantrum, throw some sand around, piss on the sidewalk and maybe, just maybe, this forum would magically dissolve away like the Wicked Witch of the West.You can't stand the fact that with all your efforts your side has been steadily losing the war, battle after battle, until there is now only a shell opposition left with nothing more than the same worn out tripe positions and arguments you have been losing with all these many years.You have never been here to "debate". You have never offered any evidence for your silly illusions but only the smoke and mirrors obfuscation, the quote mining, the deliberate misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the science allied against you.You agitate and insult like some petulant little boy without the intellect and the evidence to prevail. That is all you have ever brought to this forum. Always destructive, nothing constructive.Now you're back trying to crow over your prophecy that didn't come true. Such a pitiful little man you are with your little stones and little attitude.Welcome back.

Faith drew responses like this after determinedly demonstrating her "incredible ignorance" at great length and over many posts, and by maintaining it at considerable effort. She even flat out stated that she didn't know much about geology and wasn't interested in knowing much. And it isn't like Faith was innocent. This is from Message 347 where she said views like ours come from being high on drugs: If you think Faith wasn't incredibly ignorant but was correct and supported by evidence, the thread is still open, knock yourself out: Why the Flood Never Happened--Percy

So what you are saying, is that creationists are completely demoralized, and most of them have retreated to their private domains where they can control the debate.Yes, I can understand that glee

You seem to be a bitter, little man. Why so bitter? Did Percy break your favorite toy when you were kids?ABE: You remind me of the villain, Buddy, from The Incredibles. "Percy won't play with me so I am gonna get my revenge."HBDEdited by herebedragons, : No reason given.

You touch on a good point. CompuServe is dead, MySpace is dead, why should EvC Forum live forever if former giants like these didn't?As I've described before when declining activity at EvC is discussed, we're also affected by the twin migrations to mobile platforms and social media. Discussion boards are more difficult to use on mobile platforms, and those looking around for something interesting are going to emphasize social media sites like Facebook and Twitter where we have no presence.We're also affected by the cooling of the public creation/evolution debate. Those who still like to browse in brick-and-mortar bookstores like I do will have noticed the significant decline in books on the creation/evolution debate. ICR has moved from California to Texas and no longer offers college degrees. The Discovery Institute is much less in the news. Legislative efforts promoting creationism in education have diminished in frequency and intensity. Creationist efforts haven't gone away, but they're now less overt and consequently draw far less public attention.--Percy