Hi Steve,

I just want to point out a few things. Attacking the integrity of translations does not withstand scrutiny. The Jewish scriptures are meticulously, painstakingly unchanged since they were first written. If you're truely interested to know about this, look up the lenghts to which a Jewish sofer must go to produce a Torah.

Concerning the creation "days" of Genesis, the word is "yom." And it is in fact a very well defined word. It means a period of time with a definite beginning and a definite end. It does not, however, imply anything about the period of time between those two points. But you don't have to learn Hebrew to pick up on this. There couldn't have been a sunrise or sunset for the first three creation days since there was no sun untill the fourth creation day.

And if you're genuinely interested, there is one more point you can note from Genesis. As far as scripture denotes, the seventh creation day has not yet ended. In each of the first six creation days we read that "the evening and the morning were the (n)th day," again taking care to note that scripture says nothing about a sunrise or sunset. And while scripture does tell us that on the seventh day God rested, it makes no mention of the seventh creation day having ended yet.

As for the Big Bang, I too believe that the Universe as we know it came into existence in just such a way. And I have found no more succinct a description of the same than the scripture, "And God said, "Light be:" and light was," (Genesis 1: 3).

As for the other arguments you and Jez mentioned, I am unfamiliar with them. Forgive me for being pointed, but "random virgins" and "half-eyes" sound to me like rather sophomoric rhetorical arguments. Thus I will leave them to sophmores to deliberate.

Of course, all the things I've discussed above are based on a scriptural basis, one which it sounds like you and Jez have dismissed a priori. But I've heard neither of you address the strictly secular question I posed except to dismiss it prejudicially. Perhaps I am missing something, but all I can glean from your (you and Jez's) comments is that you both rely on your own intuitive assertions, not quantitative empirical analysis, as a basis for truth. I would point out that this approach, not faith in God and scripture, is the logical vector that gave rise to werewolves, vampires and a flat earth which was the center of the Universe.

In point of fact one must make certain assumptions when addressing the question analytically. So do so. And when you do, consciously make those assumptions to favor random mutations and natural selection as much as is reasonably possible. If you do, you will be amazed. You will be forced to conclude that in order for life to have evolved as it has, there must have been some discriminating influence behind those mutations. Time simply doesn't allow for random mutations to have achieved what has been achieved, not in the lifetime of our Earth, and not even in the age of the universe.

P.S., The age of the Earth is indeed somewhere around 4 - 6 E+9 years. The age of the universe however is on the order of E+32 to E+33 years, a far cry more than a factor of 3 times the age of the Earth.