I have mostly kept out of this discussion to avoid the "piling on" problem. Others are doing a pretty good job of responding, so there's no need for me to jump in. I do want to comment on just a couple of issues. There's no need for you to reply, though of course there is nothing stopping you from replying, either.
marc9000 writes:The name of the game at these types of forums seems to be to
discourage/stop a creationist from posting.
Actually, no, I haven't seen any sign of that. However, there is an effort to keep the discussions honest by pointing out factual errors and unsupported claims.
marc9000 writes:In this case, the understandor called foreign countries states
crashfrog writes:Because that's what they're called.
marc9000 writes:No, they're called foreign countries. The word state is sometimes a reference to a specific government structure, such as separation of church and state, or it can refer to a geographical division within a larger territory, such as a state within the US, or a single European country within all of the continent of Europe. But in a general conversation concerning any foreign country, it's simply not common in the US to refer to a foreign country as a "state".
Perhaps you don't get around very much. I expect that there are parts of society that don't use the word "state" when referring to other nations. However, that usage is nevertheless quite common elsewhere including in Washington, in the universities, and in the major media. There's a Department of State and a Secretary of State that deal with other nations. There's the term "statesman" which is normally applied to people at the level of national government and international relations.
I'll suggest that you try to broaden your horizons, learn to recognize both uses of "state" and learn how to use context to determine which of those meanings is being used.
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