Faith's Participation in EvC

I'd like to second this post of Parasomnium's.Faith is a smart, eloquent opponent. You'll never get an easy ride when you debate with her and that's just fine by me. Arguing with Faith has really made me think carefully about what I believe, and I'd like to thank her for fitting me into her busy posting schedule .Even in the science forums her contribution is positive. Her persistent questioning of assumptions has brought out some excellent explanatory posts from her opponents. I've learnt a lot from following these threads. I can understand that it may seem frustrating that she won't accept the scientific evidence sometimes, and usually won't provide her own, but I think accepting this frustration is a small price to pay in the long term.For Percy and Ned I'd just like to provide this quote from Mill's On Liberty

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

First of all, let me do some creeping and tell you how much I enjoy your debate forum . This is the only site I've ever participated in and I think it's partly because the site itself is so well-designed (easy to find your way around; easy to follow debate threads, etc.), and partly because the quality of debate is so high. So, thanks for providing the forum - I hope you'll keep it going.Secondly, I don't think those of us defending Faith would argue with any moderator slapping Faith's wrist when she steps out of line. What concerns us is that she is about as eloquent and reasonable a creationist as we're likely to find. If you treat her right she's willing to go a long way in teasing out the implications of creationist ideas, which is something most other creationists here are either unable or unwilling to do.A good example is the debate about variation she engaged in recently with Crashfrog, Quetzal (and others). She doesn't have a scientific background, but I think she did a good job of following the implications of the evolutionary theory and teasing out the implications of her own beliefs. The debate led to some excellent posts both from her and from Crashfrog and Quetzal, and the fact that the debate eventually foundered doesn't detract from its value.If you were to bar her from the scientific debates would that improve the quality of the debate? I'd argue that it wouldn't. Either we would end up having abstruse discussions amongst ouselves about the finer points of evolutionary theory or cosmology (which might be interesting in itself, but not necessarily what you want at a forum for debating Creationism and Evolution), or we would have to waste our time arguing about the kind of pseudo-scientific tosh that randman is/was fond of spouting.So, by all means call Faith to account for specific infringements of forum guidelines, but don't apply any blanket bans on her contribution. As I'm sure someone else has noted, if Faith didn't exist then we'd have to invent her.Edited by JavaMan, : typo

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang