My apologies, fxashun. I came upon this string while searching for something else on Google, and I didn't realize it was part of a much longer debate. I suppose the only purpose of the post now is that some rebellious teenager might happen upon it and decide he's not so rebellious after all.

Also, I'd forgotten that all hard science is seen as an "excuse" by a lot of traditionalists. I suppose the laws of gravity are just excuses used by people who won't accept that God keeps us secured to the planet himself, because he loves us. Or better yet, space exploration is an abomination because God included gravity as part of his original creation. And anything man does that defies God's intention on Earth is sinful.

Unfortunately, I also believe that God created our brains and gave us reason and the ability to learn. I also believe that he expects us to use that reason and ability to learn, not just take everything we've been told on faith.

And thank you, tristan, for the welcome. I've had similar long-winded debates on other sites. I'll agree that it gets difficult to make any argument against the statements: "Things are the way they are because that's the way they are, and things should stay the way they are just because that's how they've always been."

So much damage has been and is being caused by those ideas.