No, as has been explained yet having a position about religion is not the same as being religious. It's not like religious is a derogatory term, it's just that the definition of the term in a dictionary is not that: religion postulates trascendent forces with a free will. If someone finds the "meaning" and "motivation" of life in nature and other people that's a phylosophical and ethic stance, but not a religion.

No, there are no facts that have given "validation" to the theory of a young earth in a scientific sense. Please point me to one such fact that resisted disproving by the scientific community at large.

Wrong, there's plenty of scientific facts that support the theory of evolution. Many have been named in this same thread, all of them are researchable. Plus as it has been explained, you don't prove a theory. You change your models or gain more confidence in their predictivity by trying to falsify theories.

Wrong.  You're making the mistake of the layman assumption all scientific theories are just theories.

Theory as a word has multiple meanings and sadly, with literacy being what it is, most people assume one meaning - particularly creationists who persist in chosing the meaning where theory is simply a theory vs the correct meaning in this context which is a proven theory through observation and test.

Accepted scientific theories are essentially viewed as facts based on tested observations vs a theory that hasn't yet attained this status.

Also, not believing in supernatural deities isn't just a variation of faith or a religion in and of itself - it's a different proposition based on known facts only not faith without evidence nor necessarily the belief in some supernatural state, aferlife or deity.

Arghh!  I'm posting in here again!  I must stay out of this thread it's just too annoying.

I know.   I've got it on my bookshelf!  I'm trying to avoid getting sucked in to this, though.

But now you've mentioned it...

Everyone interested in this should read this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Greatest-Show-Earth-Evidence-Evolution/dp/055277524X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276607070&sr=8-1

Agreed.  I believe he just takes a methodical approach that really builds the evidence very nicely until it really strikes you how extensive and persuasive it is.

Thank you for sharing on of life's opinionated point of views.

I've been meaning to read some Dawkins, I just haven't got around to it. Though I did read Hitchens god is not great which I found really illuminating and interesting. Not to mention his style of writing is lots of fun.

Are you serious? There is overwhelming facts and evidence proving that evolution happened and is currently happening. You also seem to not understand what a theory means in the scientific community. A scientific theory, which is what the theory of evolution is, is an observable explanation in nature. Theories are based around facts. There is no such thing as an unproven theory since that implies it has never been proven thus contridicting what is required for a hypothesis to be upgraded to a theory. Hypothesis must be proven in order for them to become a theories

Let's take this step by step. Facts are verifiably accurate data. A hypothesis is a testable, potentially falsifiable explanation of facts/laws. Laws are statements which are always true under certain circumstances. Now a theory is a unifying framework explaining a sum of laws, hypothesis, and facts. So based on what I stated evolution has been verifiable and tested.

We've seen change in allele frequencies, transitional fossils, natural selection, speciation, etc. everything we see in biology is 100% compatable with evolution.

It's not about opinion, it's about lexicon and meaning. When you said

Having a religion simply means believing in something that gives some kind of meaning/motivation in our lives.  That applies to ALL of us.

you're posing a very general statement that also applies to phylosophy and ethics, but certainly does not strictly define a religion as it is commonly understood. Once again: a religion actively postulates that there are trascendent/spiritual forces which act as free will agents, namely the gods. Not an opinion of mine, just any dictionary's take on the term.

Hey hey hey, this is my kind of topic.

My point of view is that Creationists are free to believe whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt anybody . Although from my point of view it does require the special kind of wilful ignorance that is shared by people who believe the earth is flat and the centre of the universe.

Creationism (and by that I mean all young-earth creation beliefs, I don't care if you call it ID or if it isn't a Christian belief) requires you to contradict half the major fields in science. Astrophysics, biology and geology all contradict it in fundamental ways.

Old earth creationism, specifically the belief that God started the universe with the big bang and then kind of guided it along, I'm even more ok with. It doesn't actually contradict anything in science and almost certainly never will, unless we somehow gain insight into what was (for want of a better word) before the big bang.

But note in my first paragraph I said 'as long as it doesn't hurt anybody'. I believe interference in science from religion is inexcusable. I also believe that using religion to justify discrimination against people (currently notably homosexuals), discouraging contraception (which is a major obstacle to stemming AIDs, especially in Africa) or criminalizing abortions is wrong.

Edit: Also why does a discussion of creationism always come down to evolution? It's only one of a multitude of scientific theories that contradict the Biblical account. For example light from stars millions upon millions of lightyears away reaches us. We can see cosmic background radiation from 13 Billion years ago. Landmasses on the other sides of huge oceans are made up of the same material (which is easily explained by plate tectonics but requires millions of years).

I thought that was obvious.  The reason for many religious groups pushing creationism is they don't like the concept we evolved from animals.  They're fine with God creating a Universe that's very old or that light takes a long time to get here from Stars, but they aren't keen on the idea we aren't 'special' creations above all other animals with a Soul rather than evolved simians.

That's the core element.  If the theory of evolution excluded us as special and only stated animals evolve I doubt there'd be much fuss at all.

Creationism is basically an attack on the Theory of Evolution and an attempt to push it from accepted fact (how I wish people would understand the difference between theory as generally - and wrongly - used and theory as it applies here) to an unproven concept of equal stature (or ideally less than equal) to Creationism.