What4 writes: Deep, I see design in nature, and you see random chance. I see a human being with a brain, heart, complex ciruculatory system, lungs, and a chest that all work together to capture air, convert it to oxygen, and supply oxygen rich blood to all the other complex organs that are needed to sustain life. Those things working to perfection and working together in perfect harmony defy chance.
W4, those things are easily explained by evolution. Haven't you read up on it?
Let's discuss random chances. Genetic mutations do happen randomly, but natural selection is anything but random. It is a filter that dismisses 99% of genetic mutations as disadvantageous. Only the rare mutation is beneficial.
There is an element of randomness in life, but the rest of the system is well ordered. Similar to backgammon, where dice are used, but otherwise there are specific rules and a way of deciding winners and losers.
I frankly don't see how you can discount evolution, since we are obviously evolved creatures. Everything about our physiology, genetics, and natural history demands this conclusion.
Why do you strain so strenuously, so ineffectually, against evolution? It happened. So what? Why does this distress you so? Can your religious philosophy not reconcile the demonstrated fact of evolution with God? If that is the case, you must give up God, because evolution is a matter of fact.
DF
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Deep, if you remember we argued for what seemed like months once before.You continue to believe that it is possible for chemicals to somehow magically come together and create life, and you believe that Murphy's Law did not exist, and that accidentally that scrawny half-formed life form that was barely alive found a way to overcome all the impossible odds against it and eventually become a human being with feelings, intellegence, and all sorts of abilities that the chemicals in the beginning never had. We simply have to agree to disagree on this matter. W4, some sort of abiogenesis is an inevitable conclusion. We can learn from the biochemists who speculate on its origins or we can believe in magic. Science has shown that the chemicals necessary for life can and do arise spontaneously under certain conditions, including those likely to have existed on Earth billions of years ago. Please see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...&feature=related
I didn't come here to debate with atheists. However atheists seem to constantly want to challenge Christians. I can understand that somewhat. But Christians are not standing in the way of progress as you believe. If we were not here, then I believe that scientists would not be held near as accountable, and all those missing links that were hoaxes might not have been ever checked out. I beleive we are holding the scientists feet to the fire and making them sweat. If they had clear evidence to prove their case, then they would be all smiles. But even the most staunch atheists have no proof that God does not exist. And the most stauch atheists cannot tell anybody how life accidentally came on the scene. So how can you be so sure that you are right? But, debate you do! 
Not only Christians, but Muslims and other parties of the gods certainly stand in the way of science. Surely you are familiar with stem cell research. G. Bush prohibited new stem cell lines because of an irrational superstition regarding single-celled zygotes having souls. Galileo was imprisoned for years for daring to suggest that Copernicus was right about the Solar system, with whom I presume even you now agree. The hoaxes and mistakes of earlier scientists were found and publicized by other scientists. The real hoaxers and frauds are the likes of Ian Juby and Kent Hovind who prey on the willful ignorance of the anti-science element of our society.
For some reason which I could explain to you, but I'd rather have you explain to us all, that anti-science element fears science. Please explain why this is so.
Deep, the way I see the creation account in Genesis, many of the things that scientists have found can be explained without believing in evolution as you see it. What I believe doesn't conflict with what scientists have dug up and what they see. It simply conflicts with their conclusion. Science doesn't challenge my faith at all. I don't have to ignore God's word and remove discard entire books of the bible to believe in God and accept his word as truth. I can accept what scientists have found. I simply do not respect their conclusions. Because they have left God out, then have no real hope of solving the puzzle. By leaving god in, there is no hope of solving any puzzle. God is the end of curiosity. Saying "God did it" ends the discussion, unless one is brave enough to realize that scientific naturalism is a better way of exploring nature.
The same evidence does not come to more than one satisfactory conclusion. If you understand how the fossil record and the geologic column consistently coincide, yet you believe that fossils were laid down in layers that appear chronological because of the Great Flood, then you are simply wrong. Yes, I've heard the apologists tortured and painfully desperate attempts to explain why there are no mammals found in the Cambrian stratum. In light of the fact that they now know the real truth, there is no alternative but to conclude that they are lying in order to buttress the Bible and their faiths. A faith that depends on lies should concern you as much as it does me.
I will say one thing in closing. I actually respect the fact that you try to use reason rather than intimidation in your debates. I strongly disagree with you, and I believe your stand is dangerous and could cause some to be led away from God and lose their hope of salvation. However, you do have my respect in other ways. We may continue to be adversaries, but I do not dislike you personally. Durn glad to hear it, I don't dislike you either. You have, however, got the dangerous beliefs backwards. Making people, especially children, suspicious of science with Creationist booshwah threatens to turn America into an intellectual backwater in the world. When the scientifically literate children of China, India, Europe, and South America exceed our children in scientific and technological fields, we will be at their untender mercies. We have real problems like medicine, economics, energy, agriculture, sustainability, and water supplies that will require further discoveries and implementation, and NONE of those problems (among other problems) will be solved by further rationalizations of the Bible. Not one.
Take care. You too.
DF
