What have we accomplished?

Decided to revisit the old forum, to poke around and see how well diversity of thought has been supported here.Things seem fairly similar to 15 years ago when I joined, so wished to ask the question: what are the aims of people here, and has it worked?Interested to hear stories from anybody who wishes to share, about:

1. What are your goals in being here? and


2. Do you feel they've been accomplished?

I'm happy to share my own thoughts on the thread, if admins are so kind as to promote this.Edited by Ben!, : No reason given.

Super interesting, thanks for sharing Percy!The site always seemed a noble tension between the two sides, and it's been hard to find places where that tension leads to really good discussion.I wonder if it's because we always seem to be asking something from each other: to change. I think I came here more to understand - understand myself, understand other people and what they care about, and to understand new facts about the world.I've found people in the "Intellectual Dark Web" to be some of the best at fostering those types of "understand" discussions (Dave Rubin, Joe Rogan, Eric Weinstein, and to some degree even Ben Shapiro for translating religious perspectives into secular arguments and perspectives). Definitely a special place

For me, I always thought this is the place where all people are welcome:* Atheists fluent in science
* Atheists not fluent in science
* Theists fluent in science
* Theists not fluent in scienceand were welcomed to discuss EvC topics, to foster understanding and community.My goal was to listen & learn: about evolution (I was thinking about entering grad school, wound up getting a Ph.D with a specialization in anthropogeny), about people's values and thoughts (I was entering a cognitive science department), and about myself/my own feelings (having come from a roman catholic family and having been baptised and confirmed) I certainly learned a lot! People here are super knowledgeable and have tended to be very generous with time. I learned a lot of facts for sure.I've also learned a lot about conversation. Some people's approaches (jar, Phat, nwr, Percy, Faith, Buzzsaw?) made deep impressions on me. Often, I felt confused at how antagonistic the conversations tended to get.Looking back, it does seem to me that people feel threatened here. I'm not sure bludgeoning people with facts, when they're speaking from feelings (and vice versa) is productive.Outside of here, I appreciate that some theists (e.g. Ben Shapiro) are able to translate ideas into the facts/science domain, and I appreciate some who try to sometimes translate facts into the religious/emotional domain (Jordan Peterson, Eric Weinstein to a lesser degree).Would love to see that happen here. To Percy's point that this community has not experienced too much new user growth, that may be a tall order - people here know each other deeply, and now this seems like a wonderful place for friends to meet and talk. Wonderful thing to have, particularly when many of us are sheltering in place and figuring out our new reality!