One of the reasons I feel a little differently than I did in the past
is the outrageously aggressive attitude I've seen by many in t.o. and
the evc debate in general. I've been to many forums and I've always
seen the same bait and switch tactics going on.

It's like good cop, bad cop. The nicer people will be helpful and
friendly and try to explain how the science works and be encouraging
and reassuring,  and then once someone is reasonable enough to accept
that evolution has a lot of good evidence to back it, the other guys
move in and attack them and try to destroy every ounce of faith they
ever had and/or the same people who were so helpful before then turn on
them and try to rip into them.

I had both happen to me but it didn't shake my core, but I still find
this absolutely repulsive and the glowing praise that I gave t.o. in my
original POTM is very outdated.

Even though I think evolution is a valid evidence-based theory, I
hesitate to try too hard to convince people of it anymore, because I
know that doing so opens them up to these kinds of attacks.

I think I went a little bit too far in some of the conclusions I
reached in my previous post because I failed to see at the time what a
complex subject Genesis really was. The early parts are definitely made
up of symbolism and do hold striking similarities to the other stories.
What exact connection it has to them, I'm still trying to read up on. I
have read some things about how it's linked to the Epic of Gilgamesh
and other texts and I don't deny that it may be responding to some of
what was said in these, but I didn't express myself very well in some
parts of the original post and I come off as being dismissive, which I
didn't intend to be. I don't and never did dismiss Genesis as being a
spiritually relevant text, but I doubt that all readers will pick up on
that.