now, let's slow down, here. you could say that the theory of evolution has some merit... after all, it COULD explain the many traits that living things on our planet have. however, at this point, the only physical evidence we have is a collection of warped bone fragments and other small fossils. whos to say, for example, that lucy wasn't an extinct primate species, or even a regular human?

to clarify, i believe the universe is many billions of years old. similarly, if you asked me if i believed dinosaurs or trilobites existed, i would say, without a doubt, "yes".... because we have more complete fossil evidence. do i think the theory evolution could be true? sure. does that mean intelligent design is false? absolutely not.

i do believe that there is a higher being out there. i do not follow religion, however, because not only are there many ways to interpret sacred writings, there are a great number of deviations regarding theology from culture to culture. the only way to find out the truth will be to wait and see, i suppose. 

no where in that statement of mine did i say ID is false. I don't believe in it, but i dont mind others believing in it, but when they try and spread creationism - young earth theory etc - to others i think it wrong. Also bolded part is wrong. Scientists have THOUSANDS of fossils that explain evolution- transitional, ape like creatures etc etc. They also have physicsal evidence in the form of DNA, anatomical similarities, heriarchical pattern of living things etc etc. I don't mind people believing in whatever, as long as they dont force it onto others, and the case of young earth creationism and similiar ideas, they pass it onto, say, children as if it were fact./

I came across this light hearted video a few days ago, it may be worth watching to cement the views of people who are willing to debate against creationism...

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/5/Penn-and-Teller-Bullshit-Creation-Vs-Evolution-496514.html

I see it as worth my time for debate for good reasons.

It's when people want their theologies to have equal ground as scientific theories in the scientific domain. There are obvious reasons why this shouldn't be the case.

Rationality exists on a spectrum. I agree that to an extent all people are irrational; but a person can be gauged as how irrational they are (in the sense of creation ideas) based on what they are willing to believe; and each person will be different.

A common example I would cite is between the current model of the big bang theory and the creation story of the universe being created in a week.

The Big bang theory is based on pretty hard evidence (The observed metric expansion of the Universe, the abundance of Hydrogen, Observed galactic evolution, etc). Whilst it may be irrational to accept the current model of the big bang to some degree because there still exists a certain (small) degree of valid scepticism, it is far more rational than believing that a static Universe was created in its current state in a week, an idea for which no evidence exists and plenty that contradicts it.

I may not be able to prove a God does or does not exist, but I see believing in a God (especially a personal one) as being a significantly more irrational choice over accepting other explanations which have a more solid base of evidence and thus being a more rational explaination to accept.

The onus is on the person that asserts something is real, not on the person making no claim, to prove something exists. And exceptional claims need exceptional proof to be verified. I fully accept that people have faith that God exists, but for a person like myself, who has little faith in things that are outside of the natural world and not supported by evidence outside of supposed personal experience (and unrepeatable and unmeasurable experiences at that), I see no reasons to have faith that God exists. I however do not have to have any real amount of faith to think God doesn't exist, at least not to the same degree that thinking God exists requires. Because I'm not that one making the claim that an extremely complex and omnipotent being created the universe. I'm making no claim at all beyond disbelief in the supernatural.

At the end of the day, Religion is based on faith. Which is perfectly fine if thats how you want to live and think. But faith thats blind has absolutely nothing to do with Science and should thus stay within its own scholarly disipline. This is the threat of Creationism. It attempts to inject faith into a place where it doesn't belong. Simple as that.

you're missing my point.... i didn't say you called ID false. i apologize if my statement came across as that. i merely stated that there is still some reasonable doubt to the theory of evolution as we know it, while at the same time asserting that ID and evolution technically have no conflict with each other.

yes, we have many fossils that could point toward evolution. do broken bones and fossils paint an entire picture, though? not really. could they mean something? certainly. there is so much that we don't understand about evolution that to say it is undeniable based on what we currently have doesn't make much sense to me. feel free to disagree with me. in fact, i encourage you to do so. just remember that, like the bible or quran, fossils can be interpreted in many different ways.

No they don;t, that's why I included other reasons why evolution is corretc- DNA, anatomimcal similiarities etc. When looking for a specific thing in fossils e.g. continuiing charactersitics, there rarely is more than one way of looking at it...

How evolution works exaclty e.g. how much of a role natural selection plays in it, is still being debated by scientists. BUT the theory itself is correct and undeniable.

if you read the muslim book (like the bible i forget what its called) allah actually guides the creation of humans so evolution happened but allah helped it move forward and this book was writtin a looong time ago way before darwin wrote his book.Also in the muslim revelation mohamad fights the devil with jesus.christians,muslims and budhists all believe in jesus.

Evolution couldn't have happened on its own.It did happen but somebody helped us move forward to each new step.

To some degree, all aspects of life that people trust in requires faith.  Even a belief in rationality is an act of faith.  There is some weird things in reality that defy rational thought. 

If you want to talk about purely rational, then I can bring in Popper and say that you can't even prove anything at all, including causality.  This means you merely disprove things.  But then, you only disprove for a certain set of conditions and not univerally for all conditions in the universe (God would fit this).  So, thus, you can't even prove anything at all.  All you can do is have reasonable inferences from that which is, and hope it is consistent enough you can trust in it.  The reality is we can't prove that the laws of science work everywhere at all times, or the same laws will continue to work.  We can't even prove that the universe wasn't created last Thursday, and just set in motion either.

But, all this talk doesn't lead to any practical dealing with anything.  We go to science, because it works relatively well for the human race as a methodology to get control over the universe and make plans that will come to pass.

As far as "rationalism" doing anything, science has found that human beings tend to have emotions in their decision-making and they have difficulty making any decisions unless emotions are involved.  There is also the case of people intuitively making decisions, and these decisions can be very good ones.  As far as saving money, I am fully aware that myself telling myself that "you need to save money, because it is rational" doesn't cause me to save money. 

when i read that they say that earth is only 10,000 years old i started to laugh, there are even objets older than that.