Mike

I don't disagree with anything you've posted just now. But scientists have yet to observe just one incident of many things including as I mentioned measurable evidence of God's existence. And I think that's alright. It may easily be that all knowledge of how God creates life is forever unavailable to mortals in a temporal sphere. I don't by any means say that scientists should therefore give up searching--because continual scientific research is the door to so many wonderful advancements. I am saying that perhaps part of God's method for creating life is more wonderful and fascinating than anything we can fully imagine or discover even though we can certainly come closer as we continue to research than we were a thousand years ago, or even 20 years ago. In my world view there is room for faith and knowledge even though neither my faith nor my knowledge is what I'd like it to be.

Thanks so much. Yes, I'm a new kid on the block.

Personally, I would more easily accept that Pasteur's experiments showed that mice don't spontaneously generate from sweaty rags and wheat, for example, and not that he proved life cannot arise in so-called natural processes. I'm skeptical that we can scientifically prove that intelligent design is required for life to arise (even though I believe that God created the Universe) any more than we can scientifically prove God exists.

I'm having difficulty buying-in to the claim that men are selectively evolved to become better hunters and protectors. That is unless the claim simply means that men are selectively evolved to be on average bigger and stronger than women. Also, I'm curious about which races are to be considered more dependent on hunting; and which races have a greater need for protecting?

I feel empathy for anyone who feels "hooked" to any degree on substances. Seen a lot of people I cared about suffer.

I feel frustration, too. In my case it is a grandson.

I have no problem believing that God created the Universe, and that Evolution is just one aspect of how the universe he created works.

@LiterateParakeet, you said that you like the idea that we need to move away from taking sides and blaming. You offered the example of blaming political parties. To me this makes a lot of sense because it seems far more productive. We see around us a lot of blaming groups, don't we. Conversely, there are many people (philosophers and religious teachers) who teach us this principle--I think of it as taking each man and woman one-at-a-time instead of by which ideological or racial label we can evaluate them by. (I suppose I'm gravitating toward what seemed to be your original thinking when you started this thread). In my perhaps naive way of looking at it I think of the application of what you articulated as being an aspect of what I was taught as a child about the golden rule. And maybe I can pay the teaching forward by the example I set for my children and my acquaintances. I took the author's theme to be along this line of thought. The principle seems to be one of setting a positive example rather than contributing to the atmosphere the author observes.

I agree with you that the author's remarks are provoking. What I took from the piece was a reminder to myself to try to temper my remarks, my debates, etc., and to seek first to understand before seeking to be understood--as I've heard it said.