Il_Billym, It didn't occur to me that I was 'reaching out' - just saying it as I see it - as always.
I honestly don't believe that religion can ever win the debate, not only from the point of view of stark rationality, but from examination of the available information. After all, we all have the same stuff before us, so it's nonsense for the religious to tell us we don't understand. An unbiased study of the texts - the Bible and the Koran - reveals both to contain glaring errors, multiple contradictions, and at the very least an anaemic, manipulative being whose personality exhibits the very worst of human failings - and one far removed from its much-lauded benign and omnipotent reputation. If there is an Almighty, the subject of those books cannot be it. I have reached the conclusion that if a Creator God does exist, it doesn't demand adulation, sycophancy, pathos, or trembling subservience - in fact it takes no personal interest whatsoever in the arrogant and self-centred inhabitants of this speck of dust. I can understand people holding the majesty of this magnificent universe in awe, and indeed, through that, feeling spiritually connected to it - but those who adhere to the God of Abraham are crediting - and worshipping - the wrong bloke. If a creator exists, it has to be something far bigger than him.