Controversial Topic Discussion

Very thorough and well explained arguments. Thank you for posting you've really got me thinking.

I can understand where you get confused. And I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to fill in the gaps...actually I'm pretty sure I won't be able to. Let's say that I believe in the science of the ToE completely, as I mostly do. I use my faith, both inherent in what I think and feel (illogical as it may occasionally be) and the evidence provided by scriptural texts like the Bible to supplement that science. You probably would call this corruption.

After all our advancements in science and technology, the bible and people believing in it have not just survived, but flourished for 2000 years amid occasionally very strong opposition. This is incredible. I'm only using that as one simple example from the field of weak physical evidence that I use to back my faith...it is mostly just illogical faith but I try to use it as an excuse as little as possible. So with that in mind I'll go back to my hypothetical. I believe in the ToE 100%. I concede that there could be an omniscient being out there somewhere that doesn't want to show himself completely so there is no way to prove he is there. If I believe these two things then I wouldn't be able to prove or disprove that this omniscient being did not start evolution and enjoy watching it progress and then decide to stick a more thoughtful, sometimes more intelligent being on the planet he had created, not necessarily following the rules of evolution that he set in motion before.

This is not exactly what I believe but it is a kind of simplified version. I can totally understand where you will see this as a corruption of science but I hope you can also understand where I am coming from, even if you can't believe it. This is why I tried to start out the thread pitting ToE up against something other than faith, unfortunately Intelligent Design is too flawed to hang in there. There just isn't any way that one person with faith can discuss these issues with another person without faith. If I didn't have the thoughts, feelings and experiences that give me my faith then I would not be able to understand where I was coming from either...

Sorry for my poor articulation, I hope I made some sort of point in there somewhere.