The point I tried to make was this: I think the death-spiral of humans towards exclusivity is as innate as taking the next breath. Many religions take advantage of that human characteristic, but not just religions. Political parties, advertisers, specialists of all kinds (scientific, academic, skill-based, etc.), frat-brats and sorority chicks — more often than not, they tend to stick together with others like them and exclude others that are different. The rarity is the occasional religion or philosophy or “social evolution” (never say “social Darwinism” on this list unless you are wearing asbestos underwear) that reverses that trend without exacting the terrible price of restricting most personal liberties.
In my experience, proselytizing is hardly limited to evangelical religionists. But it does seem that our national dialogue on just about any subject these days has taken on the impassioned vitriol of the most dogmatic zealot. I wasn’t trying to defend Christianity even though it works well for me as a way to understand the things I need to understand. For others, I am quite certain it is always going to be regarded as complete foolishness. Christians who cannot deal with that reality are miserable creatures indeed. I suspect many who have crossed your path were sincere but frustrated to the point of anger with their inability to convert you to “their” side. So be it. That’s their problem, not yours.
You seem to have a high regard for logic, but I’m pretty gloomy about the prospects of humans being able to figure their own way out of the mess we’re in. Seems like all we’ve gotten really good at is figuring out how to kill lots of folks real fast, and how to build really expensive toys for the ones who do most of the killing. I hope you’re right about scientists being able to use their understanding of the human genome in ways that benefit everyone and everything on the planet, and not just the stockholders in some soulless corporation. But at this point, I’d settle for someone figuring out how to make people use their turn signals…