I'm not an American, so not familiar with the particular religious beliefs of US founders. Gnosticism covers a wide range of beliefs (as does Christianity itself); does your version include Christ? The historical record of Roman Catholic intolerance of anything they considered heresy is widely known and accepted.

I will take issue with you on your last comment, though. The "happened by accident" line is one often put forward by 'intelligent design' proponents, but it's what is known in philosophical terms as a 'straw man argument'. That's where you misrepresent your opponent's argument to make it easier to refute.

Evolution does not advance by accident. It is a teleological process: the goal being survival. Each singular mutation may be accidental, but which mutations make it through to the next generations is not an accident.

Just imagine you had a jar of different coloured jelly beans. You hate yellow jelly beans - this gives yellow jelly beans a high chance of surviving. You take out a handful. You eat most jelly beans, but throw the yellow ones back. You come back later, take another handful, throw the yellow ones back, and so on. After a while, any colour other than yellow will be very difficult to find. Uniformity has been created from diversity by way of a targeted campaign carried out on each random sample.

In this process, the jelly beans you take out on each occasion is like the mutations: what is in your hand is random. But the survivors that live on are not determined randomly, they are determined by selection - being non-yellow takes that bean to an early death, removing it from the 'gene pool'.

The brain is incredible machinery, and it is difficult to comprehend how it could be the result of natural processes. But, if you think about it, a creator is even more incredible. I've never understood why people think that coming up with something even more incredible is a good way to explain the first incredible thing.