[Loser]

I appreciate your reply, Krsqk, and I may go back and edit my previous post to tone down a couple generalities in those Last two paragraphs.

But I must object that we have right here, and I quoted, an 'all the answers' Creationist. Involving a 'higher power' is a catch-all that can be abused, so easily, to answer any rational challenge. I know Creation Science has moved past such things as 'Gap Theory', so this example is a little dated, but let me just show you what I mean.

"What about the dinosaurs, how do they fit in?"

"God put the fossils there. Maybe it was to test us, to test you, sinner."

The explanation is silly (and I know full well that Creation Science has a better approach to this specific question these days), and you might say it's only silly at this level. But it just doesn't stop being silly when you move it up to the grand, epic, where-did-it-all-really-come-from scale.

The Christian Creationists I know, and have questioned, and with whom I have debated, all have the same reason for wanting to believe in Creation Science: they do not want to question the Bible. It is of great importance to them. It makes them happy and secure (the good ones) or at least makes them who they are.

(If this is not the case for you, then I would love to carry on a discussion of the matter with you, perhaps through private Messages or e-mail, if you'd allow it. Or in person if you happen this way.)

This is placing the Bible itself above challenge, above improvement, and above question. Does not Paul himself say "Test everything. Keep that which is good."? What is right will be proven, what is weak will break, and the human race may be left with something worth clutching, worth studying, worth devoting to memory, and worth devoting our lives to. Lord knows we could use something like that, because psychology, sociology, and pharmacology aren't doing any better than the dead-end Dogma with which we formerly oppressed each other.

Just for the record, I don't dislike Bible Belt Christians. I dislike power-plays in the guise of piety.

I will not call you close-minded at your first confession of faith. I will only call you closed minded if you fail to respond to questioning. I will not call anyone close minded who can entertain an idea without believing it, really. Isn't that someone's (Aristotle's?) definition of an intellectual?

There is faith, and it is a good thing. And there are matters provable by Science, and it is a good thing.