Here are my thoughts in a nutshell: "Intelligent Design" is anything but; it simply states that there's no way to know how life began, so we should accept "magic" as a viable solution. Yes, there are problems with evolutionary theory, but they don't automatically mean we should turn to the invisible man who lives in the sky for an explanation.

And what about the idea of competing theories? A lot of people believe in creationism? Shouldn't that be taught as another option? Maybe. But a lot of people believe the Holocaust never happened; should that be taught as a "competing theory" in history class? Should the geocentric theory be taught as a "viable alternative" in astronomy? How about sex education; should "the stork" be a competing theory? There are any number of things people believe with no basis; either you teach the youth of our country what the general consensus of qualified experts believe, or you unleash every crazy with a crackpot idea on their impressionable minds, and let them go wild (which actually could be quite amusing). I'm not trying to set the standards; I'd just like to see them applied equally.

Sorry if I stepped on any toes; these are merely the humble opinions of a timid commentator. -Disturbly.

The theory of Intelligent Design does not, actually, turn to magic for an explanation to the mysteries of the universe. I do believe, that they rather prefer an alien creator? Some God like being that is not, in fact, a devine entity. That, at least, is my understanding. However, I wholeheartedly agree with your statements that the theory shoudl not be taught in school...

And I enjoy hearing everyone's opinions! No matter how humble or timid they may be...

To an extent, you're right. Intelligent design is careful not to specify *which* designer is being given credit (wink wink, nudge nudge, air-quotes). It's inability to do so is only one of the myriad reasons it's not actually science... But if you look at the people advocating and read the subtext, you know. Often, you don't have to read *any* subtext; many of it's advocates are vocally in favor of teaching a theory based on the Judeo-Christian God, as opposed to, I dunno, Norse, Chinese, Egyptian, or Sumerian creation myths.

(On a sidenote, how fun would that be? To have a chapter in your Biology textbook explain how prominent scientists believe that the universe began when Marduk slew Tiamat, and how the background microwave radiation in the universe we usually take as evidence of the big bang is actually just the brain waves of the great dragon? Sadly, not going to happen.)

In actuality, almost no proponents of the "theory" seriously argue that we were created by aliens; that would be cool. Rather, it's an argument for God straight and simple, based on the logical fallacy that "if I don't know where it came from, the Adonai did it".

While I agree with the sentiment, I must take issue with the way you phrased it. Although my specific views on the Christian faith amount to the same idea, I'd like to play Devil's (God's?) Advocate with your critique of the Bible.

Purely as a work of literature, the Bible *is* very good. Without it, our language would lack any number of proverbs, axioms, and aphorisms. I don't have a complete list, but I believe Richard Dawkins provided a huge number of examples in his book, "The God Delusion".

The stories the Bible tells are powerful, moving, and epic. I wouldn't use the term "fable"; "parable" is better. In addition, as a source of inspiration, there are few fonts as prolific as the Bible. Forget artists commisioned by the church; can you imagine what Hellsing or Trigun would be without the trappings of Christianity?

While I don't interpret the Bible as the sole word of God, or advocate any person doing so, as a work of literature, it is top notch. I wouldn't relegate it to the status of a children's book; better to contrast it against other religious epices, such as the Norse Eddas, the Japanese Kojiki, or the Indian Vedas. Just my tenth of a dime.

But delightful to believe.

Also, I see you did not include the Qur'an in your list...any particular reason?

Oddly enough, yes.

I was given a cd-r with a great number of e-books, among them the aforementioned Kojiki, Eddas, Vedas, and some of the fundemental texts of Buddhism, Zoarastrianism, Thelema, Hermeticism... also, some of the more prominent Gnostic Gospels. There was *supposed* to be a copy of the Qur'an on there, but the link doesn't work.

So, as I've never read the Qur'an (unlike the ones I named), I can't vouch for it's literary merit myself. I'm sure it is; but I couldn't assert it from personal experience.

I really must dig up about six CD-RW's and spend a few hours on sacred-texts.com/.

If you're comparing evolution to religion think about this for a second.

Evolution is saying for us to have FAITH that single-celled organisms adapted into human beings through a series of mutations(That have proven to never be beneficial in nature).

Faith is the key word here, because isn't that the basis behind any basic religion in the world? You have to have faith that your religion is correct? In which case, even though the theory of evolution has a bunch of sciency crap in between it all, the basics are based off of the idea that you have FAITH in something happening in such a way that it would create humans. In this way, evolution is the same as any other idea in any other religion. In which case, I beleive that evolution should be treated the same as any other religious concept. It is the aethieist's beleif of how we were created, and they have FAITH in it.

Evolution is a Faith. Not a scientific idea that should be taken seriously and treated like anything more.

Let me try the bolding fun

the concept of evolution is the idea species change due to changes in their nucleotide sequences (ie their DNA). Now, this is both a theory, a scientific concept, and a part of science. The idea that spontaneous generation of advanced structures like cells is impossible predates evolution. Therefore, logic says that evolution brought us from primordial cells that all assembled billions of years ago due to natural circumstances. There are some leaps that you have to make, like the development of the cell parts. This in no way counters the idea that God played a role in the establishment of life. If you must see this as having some sort of role in Christianity, it could be said that God guided/caused the assembly of cells and the seemingly random mutations. Get that through your head.

PS. What sense does the linking rule make?

Notes: To prevent spam, you may only create clickable links pointing to fanfiction.net, fictionpress.com, and youtube.com.

WTF?

I found out that Jesus Christ is really the answer, which changed my thoughts about evolution. My thoughts about evolution didn't change overnight. Many a night I would wonder how evolution played into God's creation, but I really never could make the two adhere to each other. After a couple of years of basking in the love of God I came to the conclusion that evolution was dead wrong.

There are Christians I learned, who still believed in evolution. These people, called theistic evolutionists, try to unite the theory of Evolution with God's creation, and many of them think that they are successful. Such people, I think, really lack a lot of faith in God, thinking that it was too hard for the Master of The Universe to create all that we see in just a literal 7 days. They look at passages in the Bible that might have dual meanings, or words that have that same way, and they twist them to meld their love for evolution into Biblical Christianity. It's too bad that they just can't believe the Bible literally.

There is a strange thing in this whole evolution versus Christianity thing though. I have not heard of any evolutionary scientist who is trying to bring the Bible into an evolutionary light. Scientists are either hot or cold where the Bible is concerned. When a scientist learns and accepts the truth of Creation, they change totally and become strong Bible believing Christians.

The important thing here is to define what science is. According to the dictionary, the definition of science is:

Science: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method ..... the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding.

So we see by the above definition, that true science should be defined as facts, backed up by tests using the scientific method. So, what is the scientific method? It is defined below.

Scientific Method: principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.

From the definitions above, we know without a shadow of a doubt that something can only become a scientific fact if it passes all of the rigors of scientific method. When a theory is established as fact, it becomes a law of science. Laws do not have to be proven anymore, they are established and concrete.

Take for instance the Law of Gravity. It is readily observed, you can experiment to your hearts delight and it still stays the same, because it is a law. On the other hand, theories are mere conjecture, as is stated in the definition below. They should not be presented as fact and certainly not taught as fact. But we must remember that to become a theory, there has to be a reason to believe that the speculation could be true.

Theory: Pronunciation: 'thE-&-rE, 'thi(-&)r-E Function: noun Etymology: Late Latin theoria, from Greek theOria, from theOrein Date: 1592 The analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another : abstract thought :SPECULATION : a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena wave theory of light : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b : an unproved assumption : CONJECTURE.

What part in the Bible do they advocate slavery and killing naughty children, if this is true?

Pwned.

And science is 'explanation of the natural universe without invoking the supernatural in any way, shape, or form.' If you think that that parameter is erroneous, then bring me a true scientist that will object to it.

I'm not questioning your faith in evolution. I respect your beleif in that. I'm just saying that we shouldn't force our children to learn a beleif system that people like me(for instance...) beleive is crap and will teach their children it's crap until they find somehing that makes it more than a theory. I look at evolution as a beleif system/religion, and if you beleive it, that's fine. But don't force it down the throats of america's youth if you're not going to teach other theories of creation either.

There's proof that the Holocaust happened (such as remains of consentration camps and 6 million missing(killed) people and witnesses) whereas there is no scientific proof that humans evolved from a uni-cellular organism that mutated by a chance of luck to be beneficial which has been proven to never happen in nature. If you beleive in that, that's fine, but don't force me or my children to learn it if you're not going to teach other beleifs of creation as well. And evolution is a scietific theory, The Intelligent Designer. That's why it's called the THEORY of evolution. Look it up.

This is the problem. They teach it as a fact, not the theory that it really is and that's what makes me upset.

Let me try and beat this into you.

Are you going to deny the fossil record?

Are you going to deny genetics?

Are you going to ignore that evolution is happening right now?

Are you going to ignore that only religious fanatics that refuse to believe anything but what they were told first are willing to deny evolution?

This is as much a scientific theory as the Sun-centered solar system. We couldn't witness it, but we could observe effects of it in our everyday lives. We could compare chunks of data to prove that it was true. But the Church denied that the sun was at the center of the universe. It denied it, and forbade the knowledge that was eventually proven true from being spread to the masses.

The Church also places teh creation of the earth at about 6000 years ago. Yet, things like carbon dating prove that the earth is indeed nearly 4.6 billion years old.

I would like to continue this, but my lunch bell just rang and now I have to go to sixth period =(

Like I said before, there's no talking me INTO believing evolution is real, I'm always going to think it's a load of crap. I'm just saying, that if they're going to continue to teach evolution in schools, they should teach other theories of creation as well, or at least give a little insight into it, for, though you may believe "science is truth" I believe the Bible is the way to go and that's what I believe and will always believe. So, in my eyes, evolution is just as screwed up as you see the Earth being created in 7 days by God. It's about opinion, and I don't beleive that one person's opinion should be placed upon someone else's in the form of education in America when it comes to theories. Scientific or not.

If that's how it is, yes, all those theories should at least be represented in education about the subject, "The most acknowledged theory for this is...But another idea that's less widely talked about..." You get what I'm saying? At least get the point across. And, just mind you, I beleive that the Bible is rational. To me, the most rational explainable idea, is that God created the Earth in 7 days. Just because you don't think it's rational, doesn't mean it's not.

And where's the source for your statistics? You know that statistics can be changed and shaped into whatever the person that uses them wants them to look like right? I've taken a Stat class, I know.

was that a simpsons reference? =)

I'm going to take this a step further. Why not teach eugenics? Why not teach the idea that men are better than women, and whites are better than blacks? THese are opinions, too.

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