I have posted nothing in response to caf's post on the date of Christmas, nor have I ever posted anything here with a screen name other than just plain 'essay'. Once or twice I accidentally put the subject on the name line.

Craig, I'm not sure what you're trying to say by posting Dylan's lyrics. I hope you're not implying that the mainstream of Christianity, Catholic and Protestant (and, I think, Eastern Orthodox too) is serving the devil because they accept scientific facts like the age of the universe, and the evolution of species. The evidence for these things is enormous, the 'evidence' against them mostly silly and contrived, and designed to separate God-fearing but gullible people from their money. A good example of this is the 'creationist' claim that the evolution of species violates the laws of thermodynamics. Anyone with a high-school knowledge of thermodynamics realizes how ridiculous that is. You could use the same argument to say that buying furniture from IKEA is a waste of money, because you could leave the package in the middle of your livingroom floor for years, and it would never assemble itself.

By the way, Craig, if you are a Dylan fan, why do you think he stopped being a Christian and went back to being a Jew? I don't know (no, caf, really, I don't), I'm just asking. He has certainly written many great inspirational songs from both Jewish and Christian perspectives, 'Man of Peace' and 'Neighborhood Bully' being my favorites.

'Thesis', if you are still lurking about, I'm still not quite sure of your motivation or your point here. I work daily from about 10:30am until about 8:30pm, so my time online is usually limited to an hour or so in the morning. As I said, I am currently a regular contributor to one board only, and I will give the link below. Once in a while, I have time to visit some others, including this one, where, prior to this recent series of exchanges, I have made a couple of contributions on divers subjects. I have never felt unwelcome or unfairly treated here. I absolutely reject the assertion that I am belittling or ridiculing anyone's religious faith. 'Creationism' really has about as little to do with religion as with science. It is POLITICS, pure and simple, separating the 'them' from the 'us'. 'Thesis', if you'd like to share your thoughts on any of the things we've discussed recently, I'd love to hear from you. If you think it's a waste of time, why even bother to post here at all? I might add, that, before coming to Germany, I taught English in Chicago for three years, as an unpaid volunteer at a very badly-funded center for immigrants. Here, I try to charge what people are able to pay, to make my services available to as many as possible. I still have to earn a living in order to live, but in that respect I am hardly unique.

Thanks for the discussion, caf and others, if you'd like to visit me at my usual 'haunt' (where I post as 'susanah'), here is the address (I'm not sure how to use HTML on this board, so I'm sorry if you end up having to type it in):

http://forum.cygnus-study.com

I might just add that the address above is run by a man who refers to himself as a 'non-Theist', but who maintains a board for the discussion of Christian issues, open to everyone, and also a separate board for Christians only. What could be fairer?