No way. We can't admit we don't know just because we don't know.

What are you thinking, you subversive?

The more deeply a person reads about evolutionary theory, the more sensible it becomes. And for many of us, it doesn't even take deep reading for it to make implicit sense.

My personal belief is that all religion was created to ease the minds of people with questions. The universe is a big place and it is a scary place. We are in this big, scary place all alone, so lets make up some stuff to make us feel comfortable and make us behave a certain way.

#1 ... IMO, most people believe in God b/c they can "feel" God. They "feel" differently than they did before they had a relationship with God. They can see the influence that God has made on their life. If it were not for this life-changing, life-influencing (for the better) aspect of God ... religion wouldn't last. All of the sacrifice and discipline needed to obey God, etc would not be worth it if believers could not "feel" his presence. It is true that religion and God does comfort people in a scary world and attempt to possibly explain it ... that does not mean that is the #1, or even sole, reason for belief. Expand your mind to new possibilities.

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Your science post starting out making good points ... and then you just jutted into philosophy for no apparent reason. Why not just start a thread saying that religion is a crutch and leave it at that?

I am going to make a suggestion that I'd like you to consider. Perhaps with all the increasing knowledge, every new minute thing we discover ("even the fleas have fleas"), the more we learn about the universe, quarks, and we learn about the increasing complexity and organization of life, combined with how the natural laws seem to be "just right", and most things in nature work so well as sustaining life, etc ... that some people see how well it works, and how organized it is (even at the most micro of levels), and just see nothing but "design" (even if that design could be accomplished through natural processes), that the odds of it all be accomplished by natural law directed random processes (without the programming or intent of a Creator) is just too unlikely to accept. Granted that is philosophy of science, not science itself. I am not advocating its teaching.

I typed this next stuff in a previous post. The info is taken from Christian evolutionist and Brown professer, Dr. Ken Miller. Ken Lehner has linked to his site before. He really is a smart and well, pretty good guy.

Anthropic Principles -- "The Physical constraints of the universe in which we live have to be favorable to human life, because if they were not, nobody would be around to observe them. (Miller, p. 223)

Gravitiational Constant (comments based on Hawking's research) -- "The value of the GC is just right for the existence of life. A little bigger, and the universe would have collapsed before we could evolve; a little smaller, and the planet upon which we stand would never have formed" (Miller, p. 223)

Gravity is one of four fundamental forces in the universe.

Nuclear Force -- "If the NF were just a little weaker, no elements other than hydrogen would have formed following the big bang. If it were just a little stronger, all of the hydrogen in the universe would be gone by now, converted into helium and heavier elements. Without hydrogen, no sun, no stars, no water." (Miller, p. 223)

Electromagnetism -- "If another fundamental force, EM, were just a little stronger, electrons would be so tightly bound to atoms that the formation of chemical compounds would be impossible. A little weaker, and atoms would disintegrate at room temperature. If the resonance level of electrons in the carbon atom were just four percent lower, carbon atoms themselves would never have been formed in the interiors of stars. No carbon, no life as we understand it." (Miller, p. 223)

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Miller quotes Hawking ... "The odds a universe like ours emerging out of something like Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications." (Stephen Hawking's Universe, p. 121)

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I'll also link to the thread, so you can read responses to my post, etc.

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...20Principles;#297852

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

On the off chance that anyone might have misread this, TripleThreat is referring to Dr. Miller, not me, when he says he is smart and a pretty good guy.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

These are sometimes referred to as Carter's Principles. However, these have no Rinkavage Corollary.

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