I see that a second-year student "industrial design" could have designed a smarter body than we humans - or just about any other animal - currently have - hardly the work of a deity.

Well, that's no more and no less of a believable assertion than someone walking on water or making wine from water.

How can you say that? The human body is an amazing machine. A second year industrial design student can barely understand the body, much less design and build a superior one.

- extremely susceptible to bacteria
- extremely susceptible to viruses
- inefficient wrt nutrients
- most important organs without redundancy
- the most important organ relies on two very much unprotected arteries
- the arteries around the second-most important organ are prone to degradation
- reproduction, while fun practicing, renders the female unusable for a prolonged period around birth
- and the offspring needs a full fifth of his average natural life to become mature.

Do I need to continue?

Edit - the brain itself is a pretty neat thing, but if a deity can design a brain then totally foxtrot uniform the rest I certainly wouldn't call it "intelligent design" and more something like "cobbled together". Or evoluted.

That's not true at all. Your "god" is Time. My god is God. I have no problem you saying you have faith in Time. Given enough time, in this case billions and billions of years, your Time will create life from inorganic materials, carbon, oxygen, water, etcc...

May I remind you again, God created an Earth that was VOID AND WITHOUT FORM. Strange that an almighty, perfect, God would create such a mess? Imagine an hostile earth, volcanoes, violent.. wow.

But science teaches that only in recent history as "new" disoveries...

Time has no purpose other than that which we give to it. That doesn't sound like much of a god to me. It doesn't matter to me whether we're the only life in the universe, or if life forms on every rocky planet with an atmosphere and liquid water orbiting in the habitable zone around its particular star.

Or is lightning still a sign of an angry god?

And to further raise the validity of your questions... What about the millions and millions of humans who existed during the early times who had never heard the Hebrew/Judaic doctrine of religion? What about the Chinese people thousands of years ago? What about the Japanese Samurai? What about the American Indian? What about the African tribes who existed during the time of Christ? A tremendous question indeed.

I abhor any religious view which is exclusive, in other words, says only these people will "make it".

So, just what does the Christian Bible say about this? The answers are in there.

The Bible says that God "winked" at these other religions. Winking means he let it pass. Apostle Paul also mentions the fact that the Greeks worshipped the one true God without even knowing it, they marked a statue, "To The Unknown God". How many other peoples were also worshipping God in their own way? One only can imagine.

But the one thing that is very consistent in Humans. We all have a conscience, and a desire to seek something higher. Whether it be the African tribesman or the Japanses Samurai or the American Indian, they all "knew" there was something higher than theirselves.

So.

1) I am not a proponent that the Bible creation story is literal. At the same time however, it is amazing how real it relates the history of the universe, almot in the same fashion that science has discovered today. Those thousands of years ago when those words were first penned, they had no knowledge of how the universe was created, that the Earth was a small entity in something much larger, yet even so, Genesis states, God created the Earth and it WAS VOID AND WITHOUT FORM. Just stop and think about that for a moment... and then think about where the Bible also mentions that a "Thousand years to God is but one day, and one day a thousand years". It is emphasizing the fact that Time stands still for a Divine Being who is everywhere at the same time. A billion years to this Divine Being is but a twinkle of an eye. There is no time with God. So how is it the universe can seemingly be 15,000,000,000 years old or more? I believe it cause the Bible insinuates it.

2) Because the Bible contains a multitude of analogies and parables. In fact, Jesus spoke almost entirely in parables, at least what is recorded. Revelations is one huge parable.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not important to my personal salvation and my belief in Christ. Whether I believe in Adam as a true single human, or whether he represents a a generation of peoples is not important and does not affect my personal belief in Christ.

Many many years ago, belief in a god was prevelant because people had no other answers for the questions about the universe and life. The irony of science, at least for myself, is that the more science discovers about how the universe ticks and the complexities of even the smallest form pof bacterial life, the more I believe in a master Creator. In essence, the wonderful discoveries of science have done more to bolster my belief in an Almighty than it has to reduce it.

But *that* was the intention. God created the foundations of science so that the more we discover, the more we draw closer to Him. Man did not create science, God did, and we are only starting to learn how to use it.

Well Legend, you are now taking the subject a completely new direction where you want to argue that God doen't exist because of the "crappy" design of life... Interesting.

May I remind you again, God created an Earth that was VOID AND WITHOUT FORM. Strange that an almighty, perfect, God would create such a mess? Imagine an hostile earth, volcanoes, violent.. wow. At least that is my interpretation of void and without form. Void meaning no life whatsoever. Amazing these words were penned thousands of years ago. But science teaches that only in recent history as "new" disoveries...

If you want to talk about how crappy a design life is, please start a new thread. And let's leave God out of it. I'm sure it'll be an interesting discussion.