""don-i think you overstate your case.the 1st christians were jewish following a jewish messiah.there are still messianic jews now and i very much doubt they are all evolutionists-probably the opposite IMO.""

Slack and slapdash thinking Pete. The first Christians were followers of Jesus who so far departed from Jewish custom and thought that his fellows chose to save a murderer rather than this (to them) false Messiah.

There are indeed many Messianic Jews, but a very tiny proportion of their number believe that the Messiah is Jesus, and orthodox Jews to this day believe that the Messiah is yet to appear.

""I cannot let the basic errors in understanding of science go unchallenged, but neither can I condemn a person simply on the basis of what I consider 'wrong' ideas. I almost always react to **ideas** in a forum like this, not to a person.""

Bill D, I couldn't agree more with that statement.

After all, if I am to react to the man rather than the ideas, I could be quite scathing about Steve Shaw's totally erroneous assessment of Pete's real life character.

He has managed to come to the wrong conclusion in almost every respect, due to a complete ignorance of the subject, a pretty damning indictment of one who portrays himself as a scientist.

I have known Pete personally for several years and I rather resent my comments based on knowledge being dismissed as "second hand opinion" by someone who is drawing his opinion out of thin air.

Pete may well be living in cloud cuckoo land, but he has at least learned good manners.

Don T.