Perhaps so, pete. Consider:

Some decades ago, I was sitting in the Pizza Haven in Seattle's University District with a couple of friends, guzzling coffee and saving the world, when in came a horde of students from a small Bible college in the area. Apparently their class assignment was to go out into the cold, cruel world and save sinners like Buzz, Loren, and me. They dispersed through the restaurant (it was a pretty big place and a bit of a hang-out for students from the University of Washington—good, inexpensive pizza and a bottomless coffee cup, i.e. endless free refills) and pounced on individuals and groups sitting at the tables.

This one young woman descended on our table an asked us the "Have you been Saved? Do you have Jesus in your heart?" and got a fair barrage of smart-ass answers. Discussion ensued, and I have to give the young woman high marks for persistence in the face of dedicated heathens like the three of us. Finally, she button-holed me in particular and said, "May I pray for you?"

I said something like, "Go ahead. Feel free."

I thought she meant quietly. And later. But no! She slid off her chair, dropped to her knees, clasped her hands together, gazed upward, and out came, "Oh, Lord Jesus, please help this poor lowly sinner!!" at the top of her lungs, and continued on for several minutes! People in the restaurant were craning their necks to see if the reincarnation of Aimee Semple McPherson had manifested itself in the Pizza Haven.

I wonder if it ever occurred to that young lady in her obvious belief that she was sporting a halo and I was a lowly sinner (judging me without knowing anything about me--"Judge not, lest ye be judged...."), that she was guilty of the Sin of Pride (one of the Seven Deadly)?

In fact, the whole crew from the Bible college, obviously assigned to go Save Souls among the assorted hippies and beatniks--and a few folk singers--who tended to hang out in the University District, were all guilty of the same sin.

pete, obviously you think you have all the answers, derived from an ancient folk tale (Genesis), and that all of that vast army of scientists, biologists, and astronomers who posit a 12.5 billion-year-old universe and a 4.5 billion-year-old earth, and all of those who argue with you here, are Doomed to Perdition. Think carefully now. You may be endangering your immortal soul!

The Sin of Pride.

Don Firth