Adam,

Like yourself, I'm an agnostic. IMHO, the apocalyptic nonsense is a mild form of collective insanity. I do not believe that Christian fundamentalism has ever really impacted manned Space Exploration. Where Christian fundamentalism might have a minor impact is on the exobiology issue. A very literal reading of the Bible could lead one to believe that all life in the Universe originated on Earth. Such a belief is incompatible with searching for life in other star systems. I think a fundamentalist might be able to weasel out of the religious impossibility of life on Mars by arguing that terrestrial life could be transported there through meteors. I'm personally skeptical about Mars ever harboring life because Mars is too dry, cold and probably never had oceans. However my skepticism is empirically based and can be change with the appearance of better data (it's not based upon religious faith). I would be very surprised if the Earth was the only world in the galaxy that harbored sentient life (the Earth, Sun and Solar System are not that unusual).

Concerning apocalyptic Christian myths: A religious scholar once told me that there were many different apocalyptic stories associated with early Christianity. Apocalyptic stories were very popular within the early Christian community due to the slow collapse of the Roman Empire and the bar Kochba revolt. Most of those early myths were later excluded from the canonical Christian Bible. This process of exclusion occurred during one of the early Christian synods that determined what literature was appropriate for the Bible. Supposably these early synods were in a real dilemma concerning what to do with the various conflicting apocalyptic stories. I've been told that there was an opinion (a wise one IMHO) that all apocalyptic tales should be rejected as apocryphal including the Book of Revelations. However this religious opinion was rejected and the Book of Revelations was included in the canonical Bible.

Gary