Dear Joe: I do not wish to aggravate your resentment at the obloquy of things you hold dear; and I appreciate your not including me in your list of the prime villains of the thread [at least, I think I do, but perhaps there is some ambivalence here!]. And I know you are not a person who is easily stirred up to such a degree of animadversion. But I do think that, with your deep beliefs, you fail to see that others feel just as strongly that beliefs of this sort are a mischievous drag on human enlightenment and progress; and so are bound to express themselves as vehemently against them as you do in their defence. I honestly do not believe that the nay-sayers to your convictions deserve the sort of opprobrium you have, most uncharacteristically it seems to me, heaped on them, for expressing their honest and deeply-held opinions in tones of emphatic conviction. They [we] see it as their [our] duty to do so to as great an extent as you feel honour-bound and motivated to contradict them. On a forum of this sort, may not contrary views be vigorously expressed without incurring such a degree of rage?

With respect, and genuinely loving difference of view

~Michael~