SM, well put.

A breakthrough: Everything else has existed for thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of years; but Man was created at 4.30pm on a Friday in January 5999 years and 361 days ago to the dot (it was a leap year). (But his name wasn't Adam; and it took a further full year to iron out the bugs in his prototype mate - and unfortunately a few quirks still remained, but some bits were added to compensate.)

The existence of God does not require a proof, only belief or non-belief. As I have indicated previously, I choose to believe (intuitively) - in an all-encompassing energy/source giving credence to the magnificant order observable in the Universe, and mostly in thankfullness for this extraordinary home, our Earth, and for the feelings I have when I stand in awe gazing at the night sky, or at our Moon or Sun, or in astonishment at the almost incomprehensible magnificence of Life, in all its diversity, its splendour and its superb complexity and simplicity. I feel blessed to be able to appreciate, to wonder, to love and be loved, to exist.

I feel for those who wait patiently for another 'burning bush' or staves turning into snakes, or talking serpents, or a verifiable new word from God. It should be enough to be grateful for all the true 'blessings' with which we have been endowed. How bereft of faith to ignore all this, or take for granted, choosing instead to wait for confirmation, for a new messiah perhaps?

It is well and truly time to focus on that which may bond humanity in harmony and in caretaking of this our home - for we are all our brother's keeper when it all boils down, and we sink or swim as one. Still, I am not a fool. There are so many deaf ears, so many vested interests, so little hope of universal fellowship. Seers, Rabbi's or philosophers ('prophets' if you like), far wiser than I, have endeavoured to convey the real humanitarian message, but enlightenment evades.

SM,
Sorry for the delay in getting back.

You mention the the tooth fairy? If anyone bothered preposing to debate the tooth fairy I'd imagine the thread would be pretty short. Yet this has now gone over 250 posts. Are there many other debates on OLO that generate this level of response? Not many, yet here we all are again.

In Dover, a school board passed a resolution requiring teachers to tell students that Darwinism was ‘not a fact’. Teachers were instructed to inform students that they could learn about an alternative theory of origins, intelligent design (ID), by consulting a reference book in the school library, entitled “Of Pandas and People”.

This was not an attempt to impose ID as fact. It was an attempt towards freedom from the 'straight-jacket' type thinking that imposes evolution as the only possible option for biological origins. If you don't like contentious ideas being taught as fact, then you wouldn't like evolution.

The problem with the Dover court ruling is that the court went too far in establishing ID as a religious view. So now even if the scientific arguments in support of ID were shown to be true it could not be considered science simply because it requires an entity which is supernatural.

So the danger is that the court has outlawed the liberty to discuss a possibly true theory. (And this court case was supported by the oddly named ACLU, the 'L' standing for 'Liberties'.)

Saltpetre,
I appreciate your last post. You say, 'I am not a fool', and I doubt anyone here thinks of you such. But to add to what you said, I think it reasonable that there are those who would want to flesh out, or add detail, to what it is you claim to believe in intuitively. We have been blessed with the gifts of language and logic with which to reason and explore and get a handle on what we think is the true way of living.

Such faculties are what separates us humans from other created beings. Intuitiveness is perhaps also a blessing, but I don't want to leave the important questions there, and only live life on that level. I believe in a God who is willing and able to communicate words and ideas clearly, has indeed done so, and invites us to do the same.

For Pericles (for him who has ears to hear),

You make a good point here. I overstepped in saying that evidence for a design necessarily implies a designer, when it is really only suggestive of one. It would be more logical to say:
-evidence for design implies evidence for a designer, or
-(proof of) design necessarily implies a designer (in this case, perhaps a Deity).

Now, no one I know of is claiming to have conclusive proof. Even Dawkins does not claim 100% that God does not exist. Yet I did claim that there is ample FACT based evidence pointing one way. You ask me where is such evidence already put forward on this thread?

To refresh your memory, I put forward earlier that it is fact that the small changes we currently observe as living things reproduce do not involve increasing genetic information, such as is required by evolution to proceed from the lower life forms to the higher. The changes we see evident are heading the wrong direction.

Raycom has described some of the facts of the fossil record. The fossil record is in fact what it is, even if others interpret its implications differently to Raycom.

In Sarfati's article, which is linked above, it points out how scientists have queried the usefulness of evolution as an idea to biology. He quotes one leading biologist as stating it as fact that 'almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.'

DSM,

ID is not an alternative theory, it's religion. That's the point.

While any trial verdict can never be proven absolutely, it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Evolution has been proven way beyond reasonable doubt.

ID, however, has far more than reasonable doubt.

Children believe in the tooth fairy until adults tell them she does not exist.

Sorry, Dan S de Merengue, that is not a fact, just another creationist argument that fails to stand up to even the most cursory examination.

>>To refresh your memory, I put forward earlier that it is fact that the small changes we currently observe as living things reproduce do not involve increasing genetic information, such as is required by evolution to proceed from the lower life forms to the higher.<<

I assume you have read the instant rebuttal, here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

Permit me a short extract:

"Some mutations add information to a genome; some subtract it. Creationists get by with this claim only by leaving the term "information" undefined, impossibly vague, or constantly shifting. By any reasonable definition, increases in information have been observed to evolve.

We have observed the evolution of i) increased genetic variety in a population (Lenski 1995; Lenski et al. 1991) ii) increased genetic material (Alves et al. 2001; Brown et al. 1998; Hughes and Friedman 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000; Ohta 2003) iii) novel genetic material (Knox et al. 1996; Park et al. 1996) and iv) novel genetically-regulated abilities (Prijambada et al. 1995)

If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place."

Since you would obviously have come across this objection before, I'm sure you will have a response. However, your "fact" has already moved into the realms of "another unsubstantiated assertion", has it not.

>>He quotes one leading biologist as stating it as fact that 'almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.'<<

Why do you see that as at all significant? More to the point, how does that magically turn into a "fact" that supports your young-earth creation ideas?

>>Even Dawkins does not claim 100% that God does not exist<<

Maybe so. But both he and I can safely "claim 100%" that there is no evidence that God does exist.