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It seems self-evident to me, in spite of weaknesses in systematic explanations of cosmic or human origins, that we do have an intelligent design. If the result is, then it is unlikely that the cause was less so. For short, I'll just go on believing in God as the Creator.

I am a parent of 5 children in the public school system as well as a pastor (currently in between churches). As a believer for over 20 years, I have always believed in creationism or as now being called intelligent design. As I teach among my children as well as a congregation, I find many believers want to and hold to creationism, but they lack a deeper understanding of the incredible scientific proof. It is so easy for us as believers to buy into a cultural lie, that faith means we leave our intelligence at the door. I believe this is so sad. We live in a scientific world in which the enemy continues to teach us; intelligence is divorced from faith. This continually works to weaken our faith. In the work place Christians are able to continually use their incredible intelligence to strategize, make mergers, teach and lead many with great confidence, but when it comes to the area of sharing their faith it seems like a whole other world. This inward lack of confidence is often left unspoken of and often denied should anyone dare challenge us. The result for so many has been even a greater separation in our worlds between our Christian life and our everyday life that we live out. Too many will go to church on Sundays to worship a God they really love and hold dear, yet lack conviction and confidence in their everyday life that He is as awesome and powerful as His Word continually teaches us. This continually breaks down not only the individual believers but the strength and influence of the local church in it's community.
I am grateful for authors like Francisco J. Ayala, that continue to help us deepen our faith by clearly stating facts in a scientific manner that increase confidence. I continually look for sources like this to share with others through teaching and the pulpit ministry. I do not know if authors like Francisco realize it or not but the impact of their work goes far beyond just giving some scientific facts to a believer. This gives believers greater strength in their own reasoning which builds incredible confidence in their faith. This impacts not only our own faith in our day to day life but the ability for each one of us to share with those around us.
I like so much the new term. Intelligent Design says so much more not only about our creator but us as His creation. It should not amaze us the state of the world in which we live today. When so many are brought up thinking we were nothing more than an accident in an evolutionary chance. How much greater it is to grasp the fact that God intentionally designed us out of love and the desire to have a deep relationship with Him. I know this work will not only impact the believing community but those who are seeking answers that science can't answer.

I believe the subject of evolution and intelligent design needs to examined at length and in depth. The short comings of evolutionary theory need to be exposed and analyzed without the cover of "sacredness" given to it by many. And yet I believe Christians should come to the subject without defensiveness, as well. While evolution is far from a proven fact (and has many serious problems), evolution could be a scientific reality without contradiction with Scripture. Study what B.B. Warfield had to say about this subject.

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I have not read Mr. Ayala’s work, however, I have been considering the subject myself of late, and I believe that the church is in line for some incredible soon-to-come embarrassment. Let me summarize my conclusions with some Socratic postulates that will probably be somewhat offensive to many of you:

1. The church has been good for primary and secondary religious education, and everyone needs to partake, otherwise that is just about as far as the church appears to be going. Church teaching has not advanced much beyond the same old teachings and Bible stories of yester year! Isn’t it time to open up and move on, having said that discovering and recognizing God more in his works?

2. The church is afraid of post-education and tries to keep its members and anyone else from going beyond basic repeated Bible stories and other teachings that fit neatly into the churches little packages of belief; however, God is not restricted to what God did yesterday; God is doing things now!

3. The church is relying on the perspectives of well-intended individuals I am sure, who lived 2,000 years or more ago on which to base all of its foundational truths, however, much of the information is either uncorroborated, the writer’s are unknown and many times the teaching is suspect. The church refuses to accept the fact that many disparate writers and their separate books were voted into the Canon; and some may not be accurate. Think about it, God-breathed writings or well-intended historical writings that were voted in and some voted out that probably should have been included.

4. The church prefers faith over reason and usually rejects scientific truth, ignoring, everything in the world that is more scientifically-based than spiritually-based; why can’t there be an intersection between ‘faith and reason’? Did not Isaiah's injunction in his first book call out for reason by the Jews?

5. The church has historically had problems with accepting ‘present day realities’ as if God could not show more educated and enlightened people today things that believers 2000 years and before simply were not ready to be exposed to. How many of the early believers knew that there were microscopic organisms in and around them at all times; they never saw them, we have? How many of the early believers understood the galaxies, the universe or the space-time continuum?

6. The church has customarily fought science; consider Newton, Galileo and others when trying to deal with the ‘flat earth church’! Today secularists who could not find God through the institutional church are discovering the Singularity of God via scientific discovery, logical constructs and research, to the church, balderdash. But didn't Paul find God by what was, on that road to Damascus, as opposed to what he learned as a good Pharisee sitting under Rabbinical teachings and those of Gamaliel?

7. The church seems to be fixated with 2-4000 year polemics, and it is in turn trying to hold others in lock-stop with its anachronistic beliefs and beliefs systems, while it appears that God is saying ‘Come Forward and Know Me or Touch Me; consider Jesus at 12 found among the intelligentsia and scholars and making inquiry, or consider Paul at the Aereopagus.

8. The church appears to be afraid of Paul’s admonition in II Thess. 5:21 …’prove all things...’, for the church is afraid of being disproved; the church would prefer to depend on literary truth, some 2 to 4000 unsubstantiated teaching and conjecture as oppose to permitting God to interrupt it with empirical truth.

9. The church it would appear has brought its disciples just about as far as it is going to be taking them and I suspect that just as the Jews got stuck with the 613 or 631 precepts, God will have to do something new to take the church beyond the principles; what we call science maybe?

Are hominids not but a step in God’s evolutionary plan? Isn’t our present reality in life as we know it just a step in God’s evolutionary plan? Will we not experience complete metamorphoses in time, similar to the caterpillar and be reconstituted into another form? Are we not evolving back to the future, eternity or the beginning if you prefer where there is time-independence and pre-formlessness, or was it intended before everything that when we arrived that we would always exist in earth bodies?

Many miss this in the original version of the Jesus’ prayer, ‘thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, get it? Aren't we earthen vessels, who mistranslated that scripture?

Is it so inconceivable that we will experience transmigration of the Spirit when we reach the next step in our evolution, isn’t that what the church is waiting for and why it has stopped and is just having everyone to sit and wait or get ready for that 'great day? Don’t most Christians believe in divine Dispensations of time in which certain divine purposes will be met? Did Jesus stay in a coporeal body? Can we actualize now or should we keep focusing on the other world? Was it not a part of the Logos that, ‘we all would be transmogrified, and isn’t that a part of evolution in the Eternal plan of God?

As a Pastor and Professor of Science and the Bible with both a MDiv (ThD pend.) and a MS in Physics, I came to the realization that the lack of affirmative evidence for evolution should be looked at with both a scientific eye, as well as, a theological eye. My conclusions came out the same. There is intelligent design. Just reading and writing this article disseminates information, which requires ID, as does every bit of information in DNA.

But, more importantly, I want to raise one very important question and answer on evolution and creationism/ID.

What in the world does the establishment of a religion (1st Amendment) have to do with whether or not there is a God?

Why have Christians allowed the twisting of this Amendment and Thomas Jefferson's 'separation of church and state' to have anything to do with God's existence? God either exists or not regardless of man's religious beliefs. If we separate God from the bondage of this Amendment, then we have a better chance of winning court cases. Not even the Supreme Court will say there is no God (at least, not yet).

Once we succeed at this, then evolution and ID can be taught side by side (which by the way the Supreme Court has already agreed to) until scientists can finally admit that evolution is a dead-end theory. [Then school districts like the one in Dover, PA near me can get their sensibilities back. They lost a case last year on this topic due to very poor preparation.]

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To His Call
John Lepera

Kenny Mulligan said: I have always believed in creationism or as now being called intelligent design.

Ken,

You are way ahead of me on this subject I am sure, however, as I understnd it in the Katzmiller v. Dover Case, those who argued for Intelligent Design did so, saying that Intelligent Design and Creationism were not one in the same.

Is intelligent design really creationism in your opinion, help bring me up to speed?

John Lepera,

In your opinion are Intelligent intelligent designand creationism one and the same?

Theistic evolution could be considered a form of intelligent design which proves the point that the discussion of ID belongs in philosophy and religion classes not the science class.

ivytuxqIt is a shame that so-called christians got caught up in the debate about Darwin and intelligent design, because both the people in the darwin corner and the ones in the intelligent design corner are totally deceived. the bible, which is the christian word of God ,clearly says that it is impossible to please God without faith . which means the entire christianity hinges on faith and since faith and science do not mix, how did those christian scientists manage to debate darwin? when a man goes to the lab and made some discoveries about nature , he will never convince a non believer to become a christian , because discovering the evidence is one thing proving that God put it there by just by His word is a another thing. and let me also add that Darwin came into the world naked meaning like and empty well. everithing that darwin had discovered were already there so if God did not want darwin to see them He could have hid them. in the debate against darwin instead of preacher and darwin we had christian scientist , if there is such a thing, against darwin . off course , the darwin people will win easily because darwin theory is base on scientifical evidence while the christianity is base on faith. obviously the school system will always err on the side of darwinism because it is impossible to teach faith. but if they were real christians arount today all they have to do is tell the governmemt if it is going to teach their children darwinism they are not going to send their kids to school. since 80% of the U.S population are christians I don't see how the government would not agree with the christians. but they call themselves christians but they are not, that is why they are in such a bondage today. some of those christians believe that darwin is right.

serious problem here, how in the world can you even start to contemplate teaching creationism along side evolution, have you completely lost your mind??? id like first of all to point out a flaw in your thinking, not trying to dissaude you of your opinion, you're definitley entitled to your own. To call evolution weak in regards to it merely being a theory you should probably think about your error in definition of "theory" gravity is a theory.. big bang is a theory, there are millions of theoretical things out there do you question all of them? if your answer is no, WHY NOT? critical thinking is extremely important in every aspect of human existence. Evolution is a theory yes of which there is great evidence, creationism is NOT theory it is a belief. Creationism by classical definition involves an earth that is only six thousand years old. Do you agree with that as well? i'm tired of listening to people pick and chose things that coincide with their beliefs upon their own satisfactoruy image of what makes up the universe. it's dangerous. we ALL live in "this" reality, not YOUR own perceived reality. so what of it? what evidence is there to suggest intelligent design. 50 years ago if you stumbled upon a computer connected to a strange network of other computing machines, you also would've called that intelligent design because the operation of this system is far out of reach of proven technology its too complex for us to figure out therefore it was created by a devine entity. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. it works both ways. but there is absolutely NO scientific evidence suggestive of intelligent design. we didnt even develop germ theory until the 1900s we didnt know what caused a common cold. now we do, just because the evidence it out of reach today doesnt mean we should push everything aside and assume there is none therefor god is just as credible as evidence. Things that you call evidence of god is in reality evidence of our limited knowledge. I'm not saying there is no god, i'm merely asking you not to be so determined to undermine thousands of years of scientific exploration just to uphold your religious grasp on reality, that's called ignorance. what's Theistic evolution????? who thought of that? if you're going to base your life off scripture then you have to completely dissregard knowledge of the earth being round, you have to destroy the evidence that dinosaurs roamed the earth. you have to blind yourself to geological carbon dating. scientific advances threaten christianity, but only if you believe they are tru, but if your going to deny them don't you dare try to corrupt the educational system by teaching outdated theologies along side scientific theory, it's dangerous, stupid, rediculous and a huge detrimant to our society. That science that you refute is responsible for saving lives, it's responsible for turning on your lightbulbs your airconditioning, your cars and suvs it lights your church powers your microphones. If you want the church to exist in 20 years it better catch up with the times. every day another discovery is made that wipes out a section of the bible and the old testament. The world changes but the word of the lord stays stagnant. i have one question and one question only for you, what do you need to live that your faith provides you?

john youre an idiot