News-Record.com

I can't imagine why. All the article says is that the majority of Americans believe it... not that there is any evidence to support it as a valid scientific principle.

This information was shared by Dr. Eugenie Scott at her presentation on Creationism/Intelligent Design and Evolution the first part of the month. She also had the figures for how Europeans "scored" on the poll. Their figures were very different than Americans. I can't recall right now the exact numbers but they were nearly reversed-more people believed in Evolution and the fewest in direct special event creation.

Dr. Scott also presented lots of strong scientific based evidence in support of evolution. Her comparisons of the ID beliefs with evolution were very compelling.

The biggie has not gone away! (You know, the fly in the ointment): how did the first cell appear in the primieval soup, with all it's VITAL parts and functions intact: cell wall, endoplastic reticulum, genes and chromosomes, and all the myriad chemical interactions that make for suvival for one second - Oh, and the DNA and mitosis neceassary for replication???? There is a VAAAAAAAST difference between a morphing rock or quasar and a living organism. Oh, and matter. (sorry, it really really really did have to come from somewhere) Oh, and and EXISTENCE ITSELF. Well, one thing at a time.

The flip side to Intelligent Design must be Stupid Chance. I, and many others who support the concpet of ID are not 6-dayers. We believe in original design and creation by the God of the Bible and a successive creation at puctutated times of the major levels of living things, with adaptive or micro-evolutionary development over millions and billions of years to maturity, with man being a very special and distinct creative act of the Intelligent Designer. But no one has all the answers as to how and when, do they?

That we are able to discern glimpses of how the process occurred (still replete with multitudes of questions and riddles)does not in any way preclude God's direct action in it all. The Genesis account is a TRUE and ACCURATE statement of fact - in a form comprehendable by those who received it, while still speaking to us the truth of divine initiation and superintendance of the entire process. The rub is really not this issue, it is the idea that a holy God, separate from our engorged intellects, actually exists.

It truly does take a great deal of blind faith to believe that all this glorious universal order just popped out of the primordial cosmic stuff, with absolutely no design or purpose or meaning. (So inspiring isn't it - makes you want to sit down and jot down a Cantata or Three Part Invention) Such poignant "faith" has led us into a depressing and meaningless philosophical and social morass.

Yea, a True and living God, who is holy and righteous and good and expects us to be so, is indeed the Designer. But to accept that we'd have to give up our free and perverse sex, existential artsiness, abortion and atheistic socialism wouldn't we. So, a silent, purposeless universe, with US at the helm of thought and action, makes us the Designers. Hallelujah! In the face of such awesome genius there is only one thing to do. Let us pray:

"O great and wonderful Selves, we adore you. You have figured EVERYTHING out and have put an end to crime, war, STD's hatred and drugs. O great Ones, the entire universe is just waiting for you to evolve a large enough brain to visit every planet in the cosmos to take the liberating gospel that tiny, pea-brained hominids can evolve to master and explain all things. We love us, we adore us and give us thanks for all we've done and created and figured out. May we live forever and design and create millions of other universes. Our glory is incomprehensible! A-Person" (worship feels so good, doesn't it?)

Nikos makes the old, ever popular error of "argument from ignorance." The ID gurus do the same. In an age of spectaular scientific advancement, that sort of thinking is truly "building your house on the sand."

I agree, Eric. Especially with the note about the poll numbers. This article (or, more correctly, this bit of data) tells us nothing about the accuracy of anyone's beliefs. Why and how we come to believ things has so much more to do with societal pressures, exposure and both conscious and unconscious desires, polls serve virually no use. They may, however, show us the diametrical differences in attitudes of Europeans versus Americans. To what can we attribute these? Do they have ancillary repurcussions?

While we have certainly attained some scientific advancement, it is far from complete, and is ever-changing. There was Piltdown, and the Cambrian puzzle, and multitudes of reappraisals and back-offs - scientific "ignorance" is far greater than our current knowledge. Even though the evolution-as-origins folks have a plethora of guesses and scientific speculations, they have no real idea how the first living cell, capable of replicating itself came to be - a kind of "ignorance."

The evidence, in the end, either cries out for a creator or it begs for a clear scientific explanation. Since there is no answer from the scientific community as to how anything came into existence in the VERY beginning, or how the incredible complexity of the simplest cell imaginable became organized, ID people have a perfect right to offer thier explanation as to origins. Since their opponents can offer only their own speculations in these pirmal areas, each should have equal time.

Evolution-as-origins scientists absolutely refuse any other "theory" until they can prove thier own atheistic theory - however long that may take. The bias is: There just can't be a God, there simply must not be one; even though it can't be PROVEN one way or the other. Again, the real rub is having to acknowledge in any degree whatsoever that God might just be, and that we are morally and spiritually accountable to Him. The entire humanist moral house of cards would come tumbling down if that were even hinted at; hence the almost fascistic stonewalling. The real fear is that the tangential social issues they champion, supposing that the Law-Giver is non-exitent, could not be justified.

There are many other attributes and phenomena of the universe around us that beg the ID question. Funny, that people (scientists, university professors, workers, doctors, carbage collectors -Saul on the road to Damascus) simply cannot restrain themselves from decalring with the psalmist: "The heavens decalre the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork." When you come to truly KNOW the Creator inwardly it makes perfect sense that He created the worlds, since He radically re-created you. Until then I guess it remains "foolishness unto the Greeks."