There is a lot of debate over “Star Wars vs. Star Trek” as well, which doesn’t mean any of the events in either fictional construct actually happened. In any case, thank you for your unsolicited commentary on my “profession” of unbelief on this fine Christmas Day, and you have yourself a merry one.

Well, my conclusions about Christmas you can read on your own. As for my universal conclusions, I was not raised as a Christian, but was taught to evaluate everything in my life critically by my parents. What Christian doctrine I was exposed to pretty routinely failed these evaluations, though while growing up in this country I found it a useful defense mechanism to adopt a sort of wishy-washy agnosticism (ever seen a typical seven-year-old react to a profession of atheism? It’s not pretty).

In high school I learned a little philosophy and began publicly affirming what I’d pretty much thought from the start: I see no reason to believe anything exists which there is no evidence for. Philosophical proofs for God’s existence tend to be horribly inadequate when not viewed with a massive confirmation bias…it amazes me that “Pascal’s Wager” is considered by anyone to be a *coherent* argument, much less a *rational* one.

But at any rate, I expend no more time and effort in hating God than I expend hating, say, the monster that’s kicking my tail in a game of “Dungeons and Dragons.” I enjoy pointing out that the Old Testament God is a torturer and a mass murderer, but only to make people squirm.

“I think a study of history would show that many non Christian societies are far more bloodthirsty than Christian societies.”

This is a non sequitur. Incidentally, I do not believe it to be the case.

“that the thought of a world without Christian values is a scary thought – imagine having a brand new car, and a person who does not feel that it is a sin to steal said car.”

Christians did not come up with the idea that stealing ought to be a crime.

“But truth be told, I can’t even begin to hold all of the universe together in my own power”

No one can, to my knowledge. Fortunately, no one needs to.

“there are too many things created that could not have evolved as those who claim evolution contend.”

As someone who is studying biology, I submit that you are misinformed. And I am familiar with all of the typical anti-evolution apologetics, before you send me links.

“For me, I found that I just didn’t want to have any being controlling me and my life, but now I realize that basically we all worship something -if not God, perhaps the altar of our egos.”

Hmm…nope. I don’t worship anything, including myself. Not all of the lessons we learn about ourselves apply to others. For instance, I have no desire to tell you how you should live or think; I have no applicable knowledge.

“But life without God is not something I want to conceive.”

Sorry. However, what occurs to me is that our personal desires and conceptions may not have any impact whatsoever on reality.

“The problem is, that a decision made now can have eternal conseqences.”

Well, I figure that if I am faced with negative eternal consequences simply for using my critical faculties and not choosing a particular one of the Earth’s many faiths to follow, that things are run a trifle unfairly.

“I just care about you, and hope that one day you look at things from a different perspective, perhaps removing a few blinders.”

In that case, you might wish to refrain from impugning the honesty of the vast majority of biologists, including (hopefully one day) me, my father, my mentors, and my friends.

“they haven’t found the skeletal proof that would back up those theories,”

This is factually untrue, so it suggests to me that you really don’t know enough about the issue to be debating about it. In my high school anthropology class I studied the skeletons of nearly a dozen different early human species. The field of human evolution in particular is extremely well studied.

At any rate, I suggest that your time would be better spent researching the issue (talk.origins would be a good place to start) than talking to me about it. I’m just a student, and frankly I’m not that interested in continuing this. You’re just removing my posts from your website anyway.