[ZenoArrow]

Of course the subject is bound to rub some people up the wrong way. What I will say is that science should not be viewed as a substitute for a religion, they're separate areas of human endeavour. Science frequently used as a tool by atheists to justify their position to non-atheists, but in the way it's used it's almost followed as a matter of blind faith. Just stop trying to justify your position, you made your choice and that's it.

[jgeorge]

I know a lot of very religious people. I also know a lot of atheists. My personal religious beliefs put me squarely in neither camp - I'm not secular enough for the atheists, and I'm not religious enough for evangelicals.

I can say without question that overly evangelical religious people leave me alone about my non-religiousness FAR more than atheists leave me alone about my non-atheistness. Which, for the latter, is "almost never".

If you're an atheist, I don't care. Nor do I care if you're strictly religious. But it seems to me that atheists try so very hard to prove their superiority by nature of being atheist that they sound like they're more blindly following dogma than the most evangelical people out there.

[ZenoArrow]

Exactly jgeorge, and for what it's worth I'm mostly agnostic (sounds like you are too).

[jgeorge]

Actually, I don't consider myself agnostic at all. I firmly believe in the existence of some incarnation of a deity, be it a God, Superior Intellect, Grand Architect, or whatever else you want to call Him/Her/It/Them. Just where that entity fits in my own universe view is a little different than most, which is non-standard enough to weird out my religious friends and too-religious-still to placate my atheist friends. :)