Mrrzy, you and I don't differ much, if at all, on the subject of accepting science, etc., and I'm probably as scornful of fundamentalism as you are.

Perhaps our most significant difference is that I'm a city kid, and have always lived in one fairly cosmopolitan area or another. If I had that Bible Belt bullshit up in my face all the time, I might feel just the way you do.

I probably overstated my point ~ sometimes I just can't help going overboard ~ but the gist of what I had hoped to communicate is just this: you can't prove a negative, and it's such a waste of energy and of human potential to insist that others adopt your belief that there is no such thing as God. Why not allow that there might be a Creator behind this natural world that operates on scientific principles?

Yeah, sure, religions can be blamed for a whole lot of things that have gone wrong throughout history, but they also have to be credited for a whole lot of things that have gone right. More to the point, humans are responsible for historical events, movements, tragedies, comedies, etc.

I don't believe in Santa Claus, and I don't believe in a God who is an old man with a white beard who sits on a cloud and listens to prayers to determine which football team is going to win on a given Saturday. I do believe that there is a spiritual reality far beyond what we can perceive with our senses, and that it behooves each of us to seek some kind of unity with that mysterious reality.

Oh, and Jeri ~ I wasn't thinking of you at all in my complaints about intolerance. I'm sure you can guess whose comments prompted my response...