>>Justin Hasselman wrote:
>>Just for the record, almost of the the pioneers, great thinkers, etc >>of
>>the world were either atheist, deist, agnostic, or one of the >>other
>>religions that encourage independent thought.


>Todd Moodey replied:
>But don't forget Pascal, Newton, Descartes, Averroes, Kant,
>Berkeley, Galvani, Maimonides, etc.


I think I should have worded my initial post differently.  I would
agree
that muslims, chrisitians, jews, etc have all produced a great number
of
accomplished pioneers.  But, as a percentage of the total population,
the
deist/atheist/agnostic/free-thinking crowd has produced a much better
turnout out of a much smaller pool of people.

Justin Hasselman