[Rant hat on]

I'm pissed. It seems I am trying to scale a giant wall of ignorance. And it is fighting back tooth and nail. As of late, various treatises I have taken hours to write and years of study to cumulate the necessary knowledge to write are being "answered" by three-line silliness and uneducated whining. It is the apex of stupidity to argue on an issue that you know you don't know anything about. For example, you never see me in the Biblical Errancy forums or on arguments or threads regarding scripture. I'll happily and honestly admit that I don't know jack-fucking-shit about scripture, Biblical mythology, or ancient history. I am incredibly ignorant of the Bible as a book. It is one of the few Western classics that I have not fully read. So when I see Rook arguing with Christians about Jesus mysticism or arguing over Biblical figures and passages, I just shrug shoulders and say "I don't know what the fuck they're talking about. I'll just concede ignorance on the subject and let that be that". In 1500 hundred posts on this forum, I have quoted the bible twice...in the same post. I know my place on this forum. I am a scientist and stick to science, with some side-dabbling in philosophy. We are all of us interested in different things, all of us versed in different areas, all of us with different aspirations. Some of us are interested in science, others in history, others in art, or music, or philosophy, or language...but we cannot be experts in all. There are times when we must simply say "I cannot argue in this particular field of endeavor". So if one day I decided to stroll into Rook's debates and started shooting my mouth like a drunken sailor, I should rightly be called a half-assed buffoon.

So, why is it that someone who probably still hasn't outgrown acne suddenly decides "I am an expert in quantum chrondrodynamics" or "I am better versed in biomolecular kinetics than the guy who studies it for a living" or "I can dismiss twelve pages of physics in three lines". I think I am damaging my teeth by grinding them so hard.

Now, don't get me wrong. I said argue, not ask. It's fine to ask questions, in fact, its fantastic. Daily, I ask more questions than I answer, and judge my success accordingly. For example, if you look at the Proteomics essay of mine on KeWK before I locked it and moved it to Compilations, I was actually giving my expertise for free to Rev_Devilin. It was fantastic. He was doing precisely what I wanted, which was to ask lots of questions. Always ask questions. But if you know that you don't know, don't pretend you know. You look...stupid. Ask questions, and learn. Actually study the field of endeavor you are arguing in, and then armed with this knowledge, give your arguments a baptism of fire. But DON'T try to argue without having done that. Copying off apologetics websites is not "arguing", by the way.

{rant hat off]