[Mendacious]

Phil, I agree belief in God seems to be a default position. Clearly there is a very large social component to this, and to some degree a component of convenience of explanation. I tend to think there is more at work-- especially when it comes to notions of "good and evil".

As to your remarks about thinkers of past eras, I strongly disagree. Questions of this nature have been dissected by some incredible minds for milleniums. And, I don't think most of the thought hinges on totally primative notions. People all over the world have been using math to predict and scientific methodology to track the unknown for such a long time...see the many very precise astrological calculalations and structures based on those calculations throughtout the ancient world. People have been bringing reasoning, observation and rational thought to bear on these issues for many many centuries. Moreover, the dominant religeons have not been about "explaining the weather" for milleniums as well. The teachings of Jesus are almost entirely philisophical and have nothing to do with explaining the weather, or attempts to establish theocracy-- far from it.

Don't get me wrong, science has dispelled a great deal of mythology, but count me amongst the people that the more they understand of the Universe, the more persuaded they are of the existence of an architectural force, AND the more my experience leads me to believe that there is an aspect of conciousness that exceeds any laws of physics or biology.