Mousethief, I know that Bishop Spong's writings get up the noses of a lot of folks, what with titles like Saving the Bible from the Fundamentalists, but what do you mean by "very left?" I think I have an idea, but I just want to be sure.

If it's what I think it is, then I would say that Barbara Rossing would be "very left" as well. One of her books is entitled, The Rapture Exposed. Not too popular with Tim LeHaye and his fans……

By the way, I am a voracious reader in a number of areas, and high on my current list are authors such as Michio Kaku (Hyperspace, Parallel Worlds, Physics of the Impossible), John Gribbin (The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry, and the Theory of Everythingý), and the vast array of non-fiction science books and articles by the late Isaac Asimov (although some of these have been superceded by later writers).

I do not see this as science versus religion. In fact, I find that studying science (cosmology, astronomy, and, yes, evolution) does not contradict religion, it shows us how God did it.

My response to those who try to tell me that the earth and all of this is only 6,000 years old, that Darwin was a fraud or worse, and that there was a literal Adam and Eve is, "You worship a very small God."

I recall Carl Sagan saying that the emergence of life in the universe may very well be the universe learning to know itself. "It may be," said Sagan, "that as life emerges, God is being born!"

Wonder. Mystery. "What is it all about?" is what it's all about!

Don Firth