Well this is a refreshing attitude from someone. You are right, it is best to remember that this is a discussion amongst people who came here to support each other. Letting emotions overspill doesn't help.

I haven't been wanting to get embroiled here in the evolution/creationism debate because there is simply no point in debating with people who say "this is true because it comes from God." It has no context at all for people who don't believe in God; but for people who do, this is all the reason they seem to need, because everyone else is godless and misguided.

I am not convinced by statements from people who say they have "researched" this for years. There is absolutely no way you can claim to have approached the subject with the unbiased mind of a scientist, even if you have convinced yourself that this is the case. You have read the "for and against" with the intention of finding whatever "evidence" you can to blow holes in the idea of evolution to your personal satisfaction. Find me a single person who was a non-religious evolutiuonist and went on to be a non-religious creationist. Go on, I challenge you. I made this challenge on another thread and it was left unanswered. Give me a name and some links and I will check it out and verify it for myself.

This has nothing to do with mercury. What mercury does to the human body is verifiable fact, waiting to be unveiled to anyone who investigates and does the proper tests. Creationism is pure unverifiable religion and has nothing to do with fact or science. You can dress it up that way but it's still the same ideology underneath.

BTW I know Russ didn't say that children shouldn't be sent to school. But if people had to pay for them to go, this is what would happen. It would also encourage a class hierarchy of the worst kind, where wealthy people sent their children to better, more expensive schools, and the poor were left with the bottom of the barrel as usual. This already happens to an extent, where public schools in a particular area are performing very poorly, and wealthier people send their children out of the catchment area or into private education. Is anyone really going to argue that this problem should be magnified by making people pay for schools?