Evolution is a Religious Issue

This thread began life as Message 23. It was off-topic and so was used to begin this new thread. --Admin"Anyone who doubts this is a religious issue need only spend a little time here watching the less experienced Creationists talk about God and the Bible in threads that are strictly about science."This is the real crux of the debate. It is a God issue. Evolution requires a staggering amount of faith, moreso than creationism in my opinion, and since God alone, or nobody if you are an atheist, was present "in the beginning," neither side will be able to "scientifically" prove their assertion. It is from this viewpoint that I am contemplating the practicality of participating in these discussions. It really is a God issue.I imagine that I will be criticized for the following unsupported statements, but please permit me a few cursory observations regarding this site:1. Horizontal variation within a genotype is quite a different thing than vertical evolution. Genetic mutation leading to increasingly complex processes/organizations is illogical and "unscientific." While being overly simplistic, reading about the assertion that taking 200 steps backward (negative result of a mutation/Devolution) and one step forward (some perceived "beneficial" mutation/evolution) has resulted in intelligent life from a primordial soup is outright comical, except for the fact that it has so many proselytes.2. When you boil evolution down to its quintessence, all you really have is spontaneous generation standing upon some magical amount of time that is "theorized" to overturn everything that current, repeatable, observable, scientific inquiry tells us - life does not come from non-life, or for that matter something from nothing, which would by definition speak of a First Cause, but I digress.3. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. It's a bit late, so I'm not going to elaborate. A rudimentary understanding of physics, I hope, will render this citation self-evident.I apologize in advance if this post is a bit off topic and out of place.Regards,
BryanThis message has been edited by Admin, 02-06-2005 09:19 AM

Thank you everyone for your responses to my initial post. After reviewing the replies and reading a few other threads, I have a better idea as to the true nature and tone of these forums. My time spent here has not been fruitless. Thank you again for taking the time to respond.Regards,
Bryan

Quetzal,
Thank you for the tone of your reply. I agree with your position. Unfortunately, I do not have the available time to contribute thoughtful, detailed, documented positions and back them up in a manner that would be acceptable to me regardless of how my posts were to be received.In light of this, I apologize for posting. I had no intention to post a "hit and run" as it has been called, and I certainly did not intend to waste anybody's time.I would suggest though that dialogue is encouraged when the general tenor of the forum is more akin to your and Gary's posts. Personally, I find condscension and invectiveness to be rather off putting."Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."Regards,
Bryan