I have no wish to get involved in an argument here. A discussion, fine, but everyone else seems to be doing a good enough job of that. I'd just like to point something out that really riles me.

Stephen is trying to *further human knowledge* here. He is deliberately saying that science reckons this and religion reckons that, so can the two both be right? This is a good thing, questioning belief and trying to apply science to it. And as ever, this is opposed by a wave of objection from the more religious people.

An example of the current state:

Stephen: If God controls everything, how can we truly have free will?
Generic religious reply: God does control everything, but we have free will anyway.

That's not a logical reasoning that Stephen was trying to get. Another theme I've seen is:

Religious reply: God controls everything, but he gives us the choice of whether or not to follow him.

That's just saying the same thing as before. If we really do have the choice, then what difference does it make? If we choose not to worship, does God no longer control us? If so, that goes against the omnipotence. If we do have this choice, where does it come from? If God controls us all, then at what point do we gain the control to say "no thanks"?

I'm not asking these questions. Stephen is. I'm just trying to point out that you can't conduct a logical argument without applying logic. You can't answer Stephen's question by just saying that "well, we do really."

Matt"Of course, this kind of means I'm putting Stephen in the same bucket as Galileo and other persecuted scientists. I hope it doesn't go to his head"hew