The term "agnostic" is generally believed to have been coined by Thomas Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog." It is supposedly a less dogmatic position than that of atheism, holding that one can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God.

Scientists like to be accepted as clear-thinking, objective scholars who observe and measure natural processes as they actually occur, documenting and confirming experimentally the physical phenomena of the real world. Their scientific method involves careful testing and replication of experimental data, without regard to personal beliefs.

There are many Christians today who insist that they believe the Bible, but seem unable to believe its very first chapter. The Biblical record says that God created the universe and everything in it in six days, then rested on the seventh day (note Exodus 20:8-11).

One of the hardest things to understand is how anyone who claims to believe in a God of love can also believe in the geological ages, with their supposed record of billions of years of suffering and death before sin came into the world. This seems clearly to make God a God of waste and cruelty rather than a God of wisdom and power and love.

I have always loved books and libraries. As a child, I spent much time in the Houston Public Library and read many books. As an engineering student (later also as a teacher), spending my evenings at the Rice University Library was a favorite activity—then even more so in the library at the University of Minnesota where I was both an instructor and a graduate student.