dhw: The surprising thing is how often you present us with information which lends itself to a very different interpretation from your own. But that is often the case when someone has preconceived ideas: they automatically select the pros, and seem to miss the cons. The latter usually underlie my own contribution to the scientific areas of our discussions, the intelligent cell being a prime example.-DAVID: You have my developed ideas backwards. I was a lazy agnostic after medical school. Lazy in the sense that I had not done any deeper thinking than religion is boring and science will in time probably explain everything, a thought based on how well medical training was explaining the human biology. Then I began to read lay science reviews of the latest discoveries in particle physics and cosmology and surprisingly the Big Bang theory read like the first few chapters in Genesis. I had just written my book on American politics and discussed with my editor doing something on a comparison of the BB and Genesis as a piece of evidence there might be a God. He told me to check out Darwin's theory of evolution. I found it to be totally wanting, and also found a book by a Ph.D. theoretical physicist who also was an Orthodox Jewish scholar of the OT. He had done the comparison of the BB and the first chapters of Genesis, and I was now fully convinced there was a God. What you see from me does not come from an original preconception. I am strongly committed to a self-educated point of view.-You can't actually have a preconception until you have a belief. The moment we become “fully convinced” of something, we often exclude (or even ignore) any material that contradicts our convictions. You undoubtedly notice how atheists do this, but you cannot see that you have the same problem. That is why I talk so often of pots and kettles. I am no different. The admirable critique of philosophy that George posted sums up my own preconception: whatever anyone believes, there will always be a counter argument, and I automatically look for it. This is not meant to be a criticism of you or of myself, but simply an observation.-As for the course that has led us to our current positions, we have indeed come from opposite directions. I have always thought deeply about these matters ever since childhood, and am fully aware of the possibility that I think too much. (That may need explaining, but it's a subject in itself.) Initially I was very religious, in my teens I began to question and became an atheist, and on reading Darwin became an agnostic. I too am “strongly committed to a self-educated point of view”, and opened this website in the hope of enlightenment. Thanks to you and other contributors, I have certainly found plenty of light, but so far it has only lit the way to an impenetrable darkness. However, I love the light, and am not afraid of the dark.