Creed,
All you did with your post is commit the Ad Populum argument fallacy. Since all the intelligent, well-educated believe, then I will believe. I could turn around and say that since the far majority of humans on earth believe in a creator of some sort, then I should believe. Since every culture on earth at one time or another had some sort of religion, then I should just accept there is a creator. Does that sound reasonable to you? It doesn’t to me either.
You and I have both written reasonable posts, or at least I hope I have. Your posts have been very well presented.
While I mention the idea of reasonableness, notice this:
“A typical protein has about one hundred amino acids and contains many thousands of atoms. In its life processes a living cell uses some 200,000 proteins. Two thousand of them are enzymes, special proteins without which the cell cannot survive. What are the chances of these enzymes forming at random in the soup, if you had the soup? One chance in 1040,000. This is 1 followed by 40,000 zeros. Written out in full, it would fill 14 pages of this magazine. Or, stated differently, the chance is the same as rolling dice and getting 50,000 sixes in a row. And that is for only 2,000 of the 200,000 needed for a living cell. So to get them all, roll 5,000,000 more sixes in a row!” (The Intelligent Universe, by Fred Hoyle, 1983, pp. 12-17)
The fact is, that the fossil record does NOT show evidence of evolution. Carl Sagan wrote: “The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a Great Designer.”(New York, 1980), p. 29.
Combine the lack of evidence, true hard evidence in the theory of evolution and you have faith, or rather credulity.
Every animate object that you and I are familar with, came from animate life. Everything we see, going back one generation, came from something animate. For instance, you were a baby and had a mother, your mother had a mother, your grandmother had one too. This is identical for every human on earth. Tell me why we should believe that that wasn’t always true?
Many of us here on this forum have stop watches. They can track many laps, tell you the shortest lap and the longest lap, they can tell you the avg, and they can tell time and the date. When it tells time, it is telling you what part of the rotation of the earth we are in, when it tells you the date, it tells you what part of the revolution the earth makes with the sun is. We both accept that those watches were designed by someone or some group. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to then assume that the very events they are keeping track of were also designed?
This country has sent humans to the moon. It could be calculated with an extreme degree of accuracy at any given moment where that spacecraft was given certain data such as speed, mass, gravity, etc. With that kind of precision, with the constants we can see in the universe, is it reasonable to assume or believe that it happened by chance and is working correctly?
There are no animals today that show signs of evolution. The fact is, that we never worry when a family member gets pregnant, that she will give birth to anything other than a human. In fact, we can trace DNA back and tell whether or not someone is related to Thomas Jefferson!
Creation by an intelligent being is reasonable. Blind faith or credulity is never reasonable.
I do appreciate your posts. I choose now not reply to your post (if you choose to post). I feel I have made a point, and you will make yours. We won’t change each other, but you made me think, and for that I thank you. It isn’t often that when it comes to religion or anything else, a reasonable discussion ensues. I do that you for that. I respect your intellgence and your right to disagree, and I feel that you have shown me the same.