Naturally, I have a few comments I'd like to make on what you wrote so I'll get right to it. I'm going to strongly disagree with you on some points but please don't take it as a personal affront.

The trouble with this is that you're picking up on the "hits" and neglecting the "misses". "Psychics" and "mediums" rely on the very natural human tendency to notice and remember the correct guesses while forgetting about the misses. This same tendency reinforces religious beliefs, it seems. The creation story in Genesis 1 says a few things which, in hindsight, appear to be correct but it also says quite a few things that are devastatingly wrong. I'm afraid you're also mistaken about some of what the Bible does say. Let me list some of those things for you:

1. Heaven and earth are created in verse one and water on the earth is mentioned in verse two but light isn't created until verse 3. So, the creation of light before the creation of the sun and the moon couldn't be the big bang unless the earth existed prior to the big bang, which it didn't. Before there was light, the heaven and earth existed? That seems unlikely, eh? That's one "miss".

2. In verses four and five light and darkness are separated, creating day and night, but there's still no sun. Since we now know that the sun has quite a bit to do with there being day and night on earth, that's a "miss", too.

3. If I understand correctly, scientists are not completely sure whether or not life began in the oceans. If life did begin in water, Genesis is wrong again because life is first mentioned in verses eleven and twelve, day three, when grasses, herbs and fruit trees apparently appeared on the dry land that was created in verse nine. That's likely a miss.. Animal life being brought forth from the sea isn't mentioned until verse 20. That means, apparently, that the herbs were yielding seed and the fruit trees were bearing fruit before there were any pollinating insects or any other bugs working up the soil. I think that's a "miss".

4. Plants are growing and reproducing in verse twelve, day three, but the sun isn't created until verse fourteen, day four. So, that's another "miss".

5. Whales and fish and birds come forth from the seas in verses twenty-one and twenty-two, the fifth day, but land animals don't appear until verse 24, the sixth day. Since evolutionary scientists are reasonably sure that birds and whales evolved from land animals, the order is wrong yet again and that's a "miss".

I hope you can see that when Genesis is examined a little more closely, it does not complement science very well at all.

If the days of Genesis are not literal days, that only makes the mistakes of Genesis even worse. It would mean that plants were growing, flowering and producing fruit for perhaps millions of years before the sun came into being, let alone the pollinating insects.

Have you considered the possibility that the reason the conditions of the earth are so well-suited to the planet's life forms is that the life forms evolved on and adapted to those conditions? If conditions had not been right, then we wouldn't be here. Perhaps the conditions would have been right somewhere else or maybe not. Perhaps the conditions aren't right anywhere else and we are alone in the universe. Does that demonstrate that there must have been a someone to set things up for us? No. Just because the universe produced us does not demonstrate that the universe was designed to produce us or that we are the purpose of the universe. If we are to draw conclusions of that sort, we might have to conclude that the universe has "an inordinate fondness for beetles" and that things were set in motion to create them in the astounding numbers and varieties in which they exist.

I assume that one of the "interesting questions" to which you're referring is "Why are we here?" Why should there be a why? ;-) Why should there be a reason or a plan? We are here because we are here. That's just the way it worked out. "But why?" you might ask. Why not?

This is reminiscent of Pascal's Wager. The point about my disbelief (and I think I've made it quite plain on my site) that I have no reason to think that God or gods do exist. I can't just believe things willy-nilly; I need to honestly think that something is true in order to believe it and I truly have no good reason to believe in any deities. Am I supposed to pretend to believe that God exists "just in case"? Any god who'd be fooled by such a ruse would have to be rather dimwitted, wouldn't you say?

Even if I do believe, what if I'm believing in the wrong god? Humans have invented so many different gods throughout the millenia that my odds of happening to choose the right one are rather poor, I'd say. On the other hand, if god(s) wouldn't be offended by my believing in the wrong god(s) then I think it's reasonable to think that he'd/they'd also not be offended by my not believing in any gods at all, as long as that's my honest and sincere position.

How can you be sure that "things like that just don't happen by themselves"? Why wouldn't they? All kinds of things happen just because they happen. Why not us? If there is a purpose and a plan behind the universe, on what grounds do you assume that we are what the planner had in mind? Maybe he was trying to create beetles - or bacteria - and we're an unintended side-effect. The fact that we are here only proves that we are here. It doesn't prove that there was a plan.

You speak of a "remarkable chain of events". In hindsight, any chain of events can look like a coicidence so remarkable that one might be tempted to consider it a miracle. Consider this: a baby is born and, at that moment, it seems to its parents as though the entire universe was leading up to that moment. Two days later, the baby dies. What a remarkable chain of events: the big bang, the beginning of life on earth, the rise and extinction of the dinosaurs, the rise of the mammals and primates and homonids and homo sapiens and finally these two parents and the birth of this baby and... it's dead. One could as easily make a case for the death of that baby being the purpose of the universe as they could anything else.

Sorry, I must disagree. As I said earlier, the Bible doesn't compliment science very well at all. Remember, we're talking about the Bible that tells us that bats are birds (Deuteronomy 14:11 and 18).

Agnostic has one of two meanings: 1) someone who says that it is not possible to know whether or not God exists or 2) someone who does not know whether or not God exists. The first meaning is the original meaning but the second meaning has come into being through popular usage.

No need to apologize for the length. If you'd like to discuss these issues further with more input from others, feel free to come and post some questions or comments at the "graveyard of the gods" message board at http://www.graveyardofthegods.net/forum/ I am one of the administrators. I post under the name "NoDeity" there, of course.

Sincerely,
Brad Reddekopp