I don't think you do ( take the position of being open minded to all ideas). You go to absurd ends to defend it. "I don't believe that I have ever claimed to be absolutely right on the subject of creation and/or some Higher Power." You can't even DEFINE "Higher Power", how can you RATIONALLY defend it
Correction: According to current guesswork, we are not ape decendants, but possibly descended from a common ancestor. My personal guess that that both the "descendant from ape faction, i.e., that faction perpetuated in the minds of the Christian church as an abomination, and the common ancestor faction are wrong. We think man's origins lie in the African continent. But that is likely because that is where we look. Where we look is determined by probability of finding something publishable. And environmental, and developmental, conditions there have been favorable to finding fossils. We have more or less ruled out multiple origins occurring more or less simultaneously. And that we can blame squarely on the Christian Bible nonsense. The highest probability is multiple origins, and there is very strong evidence in support. The DNA evidence will eventually straighten all this nonsense out.
??? Not sure how Jeremiah's prophecy of Babylon's destruction plays into your thinking....but yes, God will not be mocked. Babylon was an instrument that God used to bring the israelites back into spiritual relationship with God, He did it then and will do it again in the future - however their sins would/could not be overlooked. God allowed Cyrus/Persians victory over the Babylonians. A resurrected Babylon led by the Anti-christ will once again be used by God to bring the nation of Israel back, as foretold by several of the OT prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zachariah, Daniel et al. & Revelations. And just like then God will judge sin.
If we don't want to be judged as blithering idiots, we should begin with the knowledge that all religions are wrong in fundamental ways; yet not precluding some usefulness. Religion, in fact, can be extremely useful. One might go as far as to say, "indispensable," if one makes one's living from manufacturing arms.
what usefulness? what confident wisdom without scrutiny? is the prolix of schizophrenia a useful source too?
I think I gave you a perfectly good example of usefulness. It would never have occurred to me to use the rarely used adjective 'prolix' in conjunction with schizophrenia. Nevertheless, I agree it belongs there. Perhaps it belongs with religious tracts also. On second thought, I'm quite sure it does.