Steve, to answer your question about my religious beliefs - after struggling for over 26 years within Mormonism, I've become a bit disillusioned by religion in general. My main issue with Mormonism (and other religions I know of) is its underlying message of divisive certainty which goes something like this: "We're right and everyone else is damned for no good reason".
My brother has stayed in the faith but seems to have rejected the attitude mentioned above. I found it better for me to leave the church all together. I've been out for almost 4 years now and I feel much healthier then I did before.
For the time being I do not actively maintain a belief in any sort of God in the traditional sense. I do however, actively maintain reverence for many of the ideals that people commonly attribute to God such as mercy, kindness, love, and justice. I believe in honesty, in the golden rule, in respecting my neighbors, and in allowing people to live their lives however they see fit, as long as they do not use that freedom to destroy the freedom of others.
I do not know what will happen after I die but I do know I want to live in a peaceful place while I'm alive. I strive to build a healthy community for myself and others to enjoy.
I have no desire to preach atheism or agnosticism. Instead, my passion is for advocating science. The scientific conversation is a conversation strictly limited to observation and how those observations can be logically connected. When everyone in the conversation respects these limits it allow everyone to talk and learn freely no matter what their personal beliefs and cultural backgrounds may be. I find this beautiful.
The theory of evolution is a valid scientific theory which has been demonstrated to be true in as much as observation and logic permit us to discover. I'm very pleased to meet you in a moderated debate about the subject.
After our phone conversation you may be interested in this Gould quote:
"The entire creationist program includes little more than a rhetorical attempt to falsify evolution by presenting supposed contradictions among its supporters... Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists—whether through design or stupidity, I do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups."
You can read more about that here:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/ ... heory.html