do you really Believe we are damned?

Well, thanks Mike that answers Pascal's wager above. I means that you believe that I, old theist that I am, have a chance of going to heaven too. It just depends on how God judges my actions over this life not if I believe in him or not. Now that makes sense at least.

Mike the one man army. I can imagine a bit how you feel. It is a shame that those on your side of the discussion don't hang around long. There are lots that pass through but it turns out to be too tough for them. You're handling it much better than they.However, you also need to limit the number of issues you take on if it's just you. You might also want to do the research in advance. I don't think that there have been any new insights put forward here by anyone. The theological arguments have been written down and thrashed out for centuries. The scientific ones for decades and many good popular summaries are available and on the web.

"no matter"? no, that isn't true, it is possible for pretty smart mind to be blinded by belief in spite of pretty well any evidence. That's even true on the scientific side. New concepts sometimes are finally accepted as a consensus rather than with unanimity. Then final the few holdouts die off.The ability to ignore evidence is pretty much all powerful if the belief is strong enough, I would say.

The measurement of time intervals is affected by gravity. Time is slowed in an intense gravitational field as predicted by general relativity. This has been directly measured.http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/...ia/NumRel/GenRelativity.html