God is the origin.

Out of darkness, God created light first.........."The Big Bang"

Spontaneous creation of energy and matter out of the nothingness of empty space.

Out of this lifeless matter and energy...

God created organic life.....

Life evolved to a point that it is capable of reason and cognizance...

Homo Sapiens.

God could now develop a relationship w/ this form of Life that He created....

Relgion makes perfect sense to me.

The only thing that bothers me is why Life must consume other Life to survive...it seems harsh for a loving God. It took me a while to come to terms w/ this.

However there is a food chain and a life cycle...everything that has life eventually dies to make room for additional life.

It's harsh in some ways yes, but the symmetry is beautiful.

How is that even a response? Describing in a semi-poetic manner the belief that God created everything is a non-sequitur response to JavaBlack's comment distinguishing the theory of evolution from theories of genesis.

You seem to insist that every comment in here must be in the form of an argument.

I'm not a lawyer by profession.

My post reflects how I developed a Faith based upon a journey involving both Reason & Heart.

Poetry reflects the human condition.

So I consider any of my prose being regarded as poetry as complimentary.

The Theory of Evolution does not contradict my Faith. I am not a Fundamentalist in that regard.

Fossilized dinosaur bones and the like are interesting to me, I don't deny the process of how Life evolves into different forms.

I am not opposed to evolution being taught in Schools as long as it isn't used as a TOOL to invalidate Religion

That I have a problem with, and HISTORICALLY this is what the Atheist is attempting to do with Science.

Invalidate Religion.

Invalidating Religion is UNCONSTITUTIONAL as it violates the 1st Amendment rights to freely practice a Religion.

Are we clear on that?

I've made it known in here I view the Atheist as my spiritual enemy...their agenda is to eliminate Religion off the face of the Earth.

They want to do it with Islam and with Christianity.

I view this as a Spiritual battle but many in Islam view it as a literal battle.

You atheists brought this all upon yourselves with this constant disrespect of those with Faith.

So what were we arguing about again?

I'm not trying to be argumentative here.

I'm giving my opinon.

Essentially, Religion...

in it's many forms is a basis to develop a relationship with the Creator.

Whether this is as a Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu ...

All are brothers and sisters in Faith.

Science is a wonderful tool to explore and understand our World.

It is not a sword to pierce the heart of God, it is an unveiling of the mystery of
creation and of God.

The Atheist has slammed the door in God's face...it worships human beings above all else and has no real foundation. It is a house built on a crumbling base. No matter how strong the house it will still collapse.

Atheism is the death knell of human civilization.

Read up on some theories of abiogenesis. I've seen a very promising looking one involved deep sea vents. It's a seperate theory from evolution, so of course evolution doesn't explain it.

Maybe you didn't get the memo, but atheists don't worship anything. And it's founded on something called reality. What stronger foundation is there? And if by human civilization you mean superstition, then I agree wholeheartedly, and welcome it's death.

I didn't say anything about forming arguments. I did say, however, that what you said was non-sequitur. Such posts might as well each be new threads because they don't have anything to do with the post to which you're supposedly responding. I'm not necessarily suggesting you need to argue, only maintain coherent conversation. Address the topics brought up by the person to whom you're responding, rather than just quoting them and then ranting about something else. That's all that I ask...

Science doesn't invalidate religion, nor can it be used as a tool to do such a thing. What invalidates faith is reason, something much more fundamental than science. You seem to imagine a situation analogous to a child doing the direct opposite of what his parents have instructed him to do, for the sake of rebellion. Science does not exist to agitate the religious. If it does agitate them, that is merely a side-effect.

Science continues to be be applied by people who have abandoned religion for for the use of of reason and empiricism, not to convince the religious of anything, but to learn for their own sakes, and the sakes of others. The only time scientific community even cares about religion is when the religious attempt to infect the scientific community with pseudo-scientific bull crap (and, of course, when they care to study religion as a phenomenon). Naturally they might react defensively by evaluating and debunking such pseudo-science to prevent people from falling into its trap.

Absolutely wrong. The first amendment states that the government shall not impose restrictions on your religion, and that it shall protect religions from having impositions placed on them by other parties. Atheists have never imposed general restrictions on the practices of Christianity... they can't because it's illegal. Atheists can, however, express their views about religion, this freedom also protected by the first amendment. Just because you take it as a threat to your ideal of the world doesn't mean your rights to practice the religion yourself are being infringed upon.

Religions, in the eyes of many atheists, are unrespectable. Atheists tolerate religions, but that doesn't mean they must validate them. Respect is not a right, but something you must earn.

Yuh-huh!

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People seem to think that evolution is wrong because how can "life" evolve from "non life." But what is life? Simply a classification. Like Phylum, Kingdom, Order. There is no structural sacredness which comes with being "living." Bacteria and some animals are immotile, do not think, just do the basic input output actions. Same thing with humans. We are "living" but only in a classification sense. We are no better than the rock, or the table at which we are typing up our arguments. We as simply conglomerations of atoms, arranged in such a manner that interactions between the large amounts of these atoms between each other leads to fast movement, generating action. This action can be nerve impulses, thoughts, feelings, emotions etc. Look what happens when you sever one nerve in a person's brain? The emotion, feeling, etc all can be lost. What is left? A malfunctioning machine. The sheer amount of mental ailments should be sufficient proof that human life is not "special" in any way shape or form. Simple morphological differences in the ways our atoms in the brains interact can have massive mental effects, showing how truly based on these atoms our thought processes are. It is only human arrogance that presumes a creator. We truly are no better than the computer we are typing this up on.

Intelligent design should not be taught in science class because it is not science. It belongs in debate class. As far as I understand it (and I could be wrong, please enlighten me if so) Intelligent design simply finds the gaps in evolution and goes, 'See- must be a designer here. No other way to explain it!'. That's not science. There is no way to prove it, and no experiments provided to prove or disprove that hypothesis.

Intelligent design advocates prey on the misunderstanding of the use of the word 'theory' in everyday conversation, and its use in science. They are very different.

What really irks me in this whole debate is that much of the arguement is supplied by people who have no idea what they are talking about, and don't understand evolution or science at all (this comment is not aimed at anyone here, just a general observation). It is kind of irritating to have a couple of lawyers/politicians go "Yes, I think ID should be taught along with evolution. It is good science." , while a bunch of scientists, who, you know, understand what they're talking about, take the opposing position.