Intelligent Design takes more faith to believe in than Evolution. Intelligent Design makes unnecessary assumptions that don't contribute to the power of the theory. Evolution acknowledges the existence of a chaotic system. Chaotic systems can be quite effective at hiding their source.

The Universe is large enough for there to be many more planets full of life that we will never find. Depending on the methods of the expansion of the universe, they might even be impossible to reach, even with traveling at the speed of light.

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Neither evolution nor intelligent design are theories. They aren't even hypotheses. They are nothing more than ideas. A theory is a hypothesis that has survived repeated testing and has still been proven true. In this way, neither idea qualifies. Nobody has yet set up an experiment designed to run a few billion years and take up at least an entire continent in order to re-create evolution. And God hasn't created life in observable, measurable conditions for the benefit of science. Yes, there have been some laboratory experiments where scientists have put a few chemicals in a beaker and added heat and electrical shocks and produced amino acids. However, this kind of experiment does not come close to proving evolution. First of all, they were run in controlled laboratory conditions, not the changing, harsh environment that would have existed. Secondly, the only plausible source of electricity in those times would have been lighning, which would be likely to destroy the amino acids as soon as it created them. Also, once you have amino acids, you need about 20 of them in exactly the right combination to form a protein. With 20 amino acids to choose from, that's 104857600000000000000000000 combinations, give or take a power of 10. Once you have that protein, you need hundreds more like it just to form one organelle in a cell. There are about 10 different types of organelles in a single bacteria cell, the simplest form of cell in existence. So, not only is evolution highly unlikely, it can't be proved by the synthesis of amino acids. Neither science nor religion can explain everything; if we recognize the limits of each, man's two greatest interests won't have to be at odds with each other.

I couldn't have said it better. The reason little children are taught to believe creation with little or no facts is because they can't understand it at that point. If you started telling little kids about macro- and micro-evolution, natural selection, convergent and divergent evolution, speciation, fossil records, and biogenesis, they'd be completely lost. For me, as soon as I was able to understand the concepts, I was taught the facts. This was in about 8th grade.

Let's look at it the other way. If you believed evolution, wouldn't you teach it to your kids? In elementary and middle school, evolution was presented to me as fact with very little evidence. It was essentially, "Charles Darwin published a book about how people evolved from bacteria to monkeys to humans, and that's what people believe."

That's one of God's greatest gifts to people, free will. What's the point of a planet full of mindless robots, doing only what He tells us? Any joy we bring to Him would be meaningless, because He would have made us do it. Any kind acts, acts of compasison or forgiveness, any glory we bring to Him would be dull and hollow. When a person accepts Him as their savior, it means so much to Him because that person wasn't forced to do it, but chose to. Can you love a machine you've created? Only in the sense that you're proud of your work. Can you love your child? People have amply demonstrated that you can. God loves us as his children and as his friends.

Continuing in that fashion, all of reality is nothing more than ideas and perception.

To call something that has and can still be observed, partially explained, and entirely necessary a mere idea undermines the apparent reality of existence.

Intelligent Design is more specific than Evolution, but the more specific parts have nothing to do with any actual evidence. It's baseless assumption, and assumptions require faith. The assumptions of the process of evolution are that the universe actually exists, and that nature isn't entirely random. Those don't take all that much faith.

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I agree, to a point. Religion has kept more people from God than anything else in the world. I'm not picking on or criticizing Catholicism or Catholics, but the Catholic Church during the renaissance provided a prime example of this. It was a political as well as religious body, which is never good for Christians or the world. The Church used its political power to convince the Byzantine Empire to lead an invasion into the Muslim world, the Crusades, in the name of Christianity. This was one of the saddest mistakes ever made by Christians. Even though I had nothing to do with it, I am still ashamed of it. Converting "by the sword" isn't a Christian principle; it's directly contrary to Christianity's beliefs. The Catholic Church is much better today. Although it is still in part a political body, it is much more focused on God. It limits itself to statements on political issues, not actions. Any actions it takes are strictly religious.

One of the reasons I like my church is that it is very focused on God. It may make political statements, but its main focus is on outreach, presenting the Gospel to people and allowing them to choose whether or not to accept it. It has benefited society in so many ways. It has contributed to and founded charities, sent missions groups to places like Germany and Mexico where they not only spread the Gospel but also improve the lives of people there, and has been a major help in the recent blizzards here, volunteering its building as a relief shelter for stranded and homeless people. It provides assistance to the poor in our city, helps find them jobs, and cares for them without asking anything in return. The pastors have repeatedly said that one of the last things they want for America is a theocracy. It is still an organized religious body, but does much more good than harm for society. Some of you may recognize the name, New Life Church.

I guess I wasn't clear on my point. By "idea," I meant that neither side can be justified or proven by science. I simply wanted to use a word that was less concrete than "theory." There is evidence both ways, and there are partial explanations for both sides, but both have major gaps that cannot be explained; they must be taken on faith.

I don't understand how you made the jump from evolution and intelligent design being ideas to all of reality being ideas and perceptions, but in a sense I agree. Perception, the information we gather from our senses, is the only connection we have to the rest of this world. I know that my computer is real because I can see it, touch it, and hear it (as well as taste it and smell it, but not nearly as much). If I could not perceive it with my senses, and never had, I wouldn't know it existed. Reality isn't limited to just perception, but our understanding of it is.

I guess you don't know that evolution is a fact. No faith required there. ID has nothing to back it up. Our perceptions are all we have, so there is no need to say 'we can't prove anything' when within our perceptions, we can.

These 'gaps' you speak of in evolution will be there for a long time, and it doesn't disprove evolution at all. We can't just simply know everything once we look for it. And the current evidence we have strongly points towards evolution as a fact

How can you keep saying that without substantiated your claim whatsoever? Show me one peer reviewed scientific journal that says there is no proof for Evolution at all. You're not going to find any because there are thousands of books worth of evidence saying that Evolution has occurred. There is no evidence at all for intelligent design.

When was this discovery made that evolution was fact, last time i checked it is still a "theory"

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Is God that one guy...who created everything...?

No he isn't, nevermind.

The current evidence we have, eh? That doesn't mean we have all the evidence to either prove or disprove evolution. There could be some major discovery that could disprove evolution found in the future...which means that evolution is a THEORY, not a fact. You just basically said that yourself.

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^^^ GOOD ONE LOL.