undoneQuote:farmerman,
literal. I know you probably have tons of evidence to prove that it is fabricated and that the different legends were simply passed through oral tradition from one civilization to another all over the world. If it is really that important for you to try to convert me to atheism, which requires no belief in a god and therefor will result in everyone becoming nothing after death, then write what you want.
Here we have the crux of the biscuit. The bible-thumpers are convinced that a theory of evolution is a canard, a trojan horse by which the legions of horrid, pestilential and vile atheists who lurk in the shawdows of every happy meadow will seek to destroy the faithful and their religion. It is very important for the demagogues of religion to convince the faithful of this, because it is then much easier to shut of dangerous questioning which might throw too much of a glare upon the nonsense which is concommitant with all organized religions.
Unfortunately, there are many people who call themselves atheists, shout it from the rooftops, as it were, and who are in fact anti-theists, who make a god of their apostasy, and make science their scripture. My experience of them is that they understand science about as thoroughly as bible-thumpers understand the cultural antecedants of the middle east. They have their own handful of demagogues who manipulate them shamelessly to their own modest, personal profit (atheism does not pay like that old time religion--which is truly a gold mine), and providing them their "atheist" talking points at a host of sites every bit as shabby and ludicrous as those which the bible-thumpers frequent.
In fact, anyone who is truly an atheist, is truly without god, which includes not setting science up as an idol to be worshipped, doesn't give a rat's ass what anyone else believes, and has no interest in converting anyone to anything. People who wish plausible and well-founded scientific hypotheses such as theory of evolution to be the foundation of scientific education feel that way because science has proven the best means of investigating the cosmos which we inhabit, regardless of how one asserts it came into existence. One of the reasons the more clever of the bible-thumpers trot out the issue of cosmic origins is that it is a clever tactic to associate in the minds of the credulous the notion that a theory of evolution deals in cosmic origins, and that it is part and parcel of a vile "atheist" plot to destroy the worship of the god of the bible-thumpers fathers.
A theory of evolution does not rely upon any description of cosmic origins, and is perfectly acceptable to millions, perhaps even billions of people on this planet who have profound and devout religious scruples. A theory of evolution clashes with the bible thumping literalists, however, because if posits an earth far, far older than Bishop Ussher's six thousand odd years (very odd years, indeed). For literalists, every further confirming aspect of geology, paeleontology, archaeology and paeleo-archaeology, is another potential nail in the coffin of Bishop Ussher's exegesis, and therefore another assault on the temple in which the holy of holies resides--biblical scripture.
Small wonder that when the dust briefly settles from time to time, so many well-meaning people are confused.
