Steve, it's impossible to get along with or be understood by a person who is simply determined to take offense every time spoken to and to put the worst possible interpretation on something another person says to them, and that's how you react to anything I say to you. Why not consider the possibility that I'm trying to relate to you in a positive way...discuss things in a positive way...and simply exchange ideas...rather than assuming I'm patronizing you? You ascribe all kinds of dire motives to me that are not accurate. In doing so, you make the same error you accuse me of: assuming you know exactly what I am thinking.

You don't. Neither do I know what you're thinking...but I keep trying to find out...

Keep in mind that I also talk to about a hundred or so other people on this forum, and I don't have perfect recall of every single word we've ever said to each other in the past.

In any case, are you saying that your background with the Catholic religion has not in any way affected your present opinions or the things you react to? It doesn't seem very likely that would be the case. I've known a lot of Catholics or ex-Catholics, and there hasn't been one who wasn't very strongly affected by their family's religious background, and most of them have to a considerable extent rejected much of what they were taught...or left that religion entirely. Some have switched to other religions or philosophies. Some have rejected all forms of religion. Some have remained in the Catholic church. I doubt that any of them regards the Pope as infallible!

I was very strongly affected by being brought up in a materialistic, social-climbing, competitive, atheist, money-and-status-concerned family with absolutely NO spiritual outlook on life...and I ended up to a considerable extent rejecting much of the example they put in front of me...because it didn't make me (or them) the least bit happy or address the things I ended up really caring about.

I'm trying to communicate with you here. I am NOT attempting to patronize you, to prove that I am smarter than you or to have a fight with you about anything at all. I have nothing to convert you to, no belief I want you to adopt, I simply want to communicate. Period.

****

Evolution. A very interesting subject indeed. I already was reading about it with great interest when I was a small child, due to my parents having some neat science, geological history, and biology books around the house. My father and I went on fossil-hunting expeditions, and I was well aware that the fossils we found were probably millions of years old, and far predated the development of humanity on this planet...or of mammals, for that matter. The idea of evolution is no threat at all to more advanced forms of spiritual understanding...but it does seem to bother religious fundamentalists, all right, because it doesn't fit the mythical/allegorical stories they wish to take literally.