When I read the Old Testament, many phrases are very perplexing and don't make sense to me. That is, unless I visualize a model like this:

A COMMON COSMOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

I don't disagree that there may be verses that may describe an Earth floating in space, but as a whole, it's hard to reconcile the entire book with the modern heliocentric theory.

Of course, I don't think this means the Bible isn't a book worth understanding, but just that it is not really designed to be a scientific book, but a book about morals. I'm not even sure the authors took many of these details literally.

The point is not which laws exist, but when the thought of laws came into existance. Far before any other philiospher or physicist, the revelation of laws and principles which govern the universe, given in a very early time period, gives evidence of an intellegent designer and creator. We are not here to debate where laws apply, but the existance of a creator and the theory of evolution.

AS for the water cycle, again consider the timelines please. Conisder the date when that scripture was written, and when the water cycle was fully outlined in history. Im providing evidence of intelligent design. So many things are necessary for life on this planet. A house does not build itself, neither can a full ecosystem develop conditions necessary for life, when life is a necessary condition for an ecosystem iself!Oh man, im thinking too much right now...perhaps ive had too much coffee..

And, again, evolution does not answer where life origionally came from.

It doesn't try to though. Evolution is simply the theory of how the diverse species came to be starting with unicellular organisms, it doesn't mention how those organisms themselves arose.

By the way, what do you consider to be life? Is a virus alive? If so, how do you explain something like HIV which only showed up in the last century?

I have to go out for a client meeting, i will reply as soon as i can.

are you a jehovah's witness ? just wondering ...
i googled a few sentences from 'your' post and most of it has been copy/pasted from jehovah's forums ...

anyway ... what i'd like to know ...
if god created man, who created god ?

I have been studing the bible, evolution, theories,etc, for a long time now. Through my own study of history and world ive reached my own conclusions, and as a result, yes, i am one of Jehovahs witnesses. I dont like advertising that online because there are many who claim to be Jehovahs witnesses but who are not. Religious orentation is irrelevant for this debate however.

(continued)
Fossils of humans older then 6kyr have been found..

About complexity of organisms: You have not actually proved that it can not be changed in small ways and still function. In fact, you seem totally oblivious about (many!)biology science stories that talk about what a change in this or that gene does biochemically. The cells can be changed in small ways, to a degree that humans can actually tinker with them without know how it all works.(and that has been done)
Also, some things might be very hard to change, and do very little. But this does not refute evolution either.(indeed, vertibrates do have similar structure in respiratory and digestion systems.)

Unique planet: In position, it ignores the amount of planets that is in the universe, also ignores atmospheric effects on the temperature. Near-circular orbits might be very common due to how planetary systems are formed.
Tilt is could actually be a problem if directed at the sun at some seasons, but no tilt is no problem. Anyway, our planet might be unique, that does not mean all the bible stuff is true.
Life is not that specific to atmosphere as you claim either, we, and other organisms just evolved in that atmosphere, same goes for ozone presence being necessary. Also life created the atmosphere we life in. (like the only small amount of CO2) Also, indeed, high levels of O2 would mean fire, exercise: guess what substances is used in fire.
Most of the other planets have rotation rates of about the same ammount. (Mercury is syncronous because it is close to the sun)

Oxygen on earth is because of the plants, other planets do not have much of it, because oxygen tends to .. oxidate.

About the beauty of the sky. If it werent so, we would find beauty elsewhere, and, infact we do already. (Complex) Processes often produce something we consider beautiful.

A question of which the answer is hardly necessarily that 'god' created the universe. Tada: universe and creatures done! Hardly sounds like an explanation to me. I believe that the universe behaves consistently, and a creation process like you describe is not possible in this view. Also, it is known that simple rules can result in complex processes, and i believe that is the origin of life.
It also leaves the question open where god came from. (There is no such thing as proof by amazement)

of course it is (k...we'll drop a woman with him).

Who said at certain points God decides anything? If someone did say such a thing, what would be silly about it? ...and what has any of that got to do with flocks of birds and schools of fish?

Well, we have to accept that there are questions which we will never have the answer too. Where did god come from? If life evolved, how did it start? where did those elements come from? All we can do is provide proof for each theory. There is at least the conception of “infinity” in science and mathematics. We can imagine infinite space, and as far as astronomers can tell, the universe may be infinite, boundless. The farther their telescopes enable them to see, the more galaxies they behold.

Then, going in the other direction, into the infinitesimally small, physicists still cannot find the ultimate particle. When the atom was discovered, it appeared simple: The atom was the indivisible particle, scientists thought. Experiments with the atom, however, have shown their theory to be a fallacy. The list of particles, or supposed particles, making up the atom has grown quite long, and the end is not yet.

Can we not, then, conceive of a God who had no beginning—who existed forever? If it is possible, then it is our responsability to examine the evidence fully, not close our minds too all concepts. I do dont believe in evolution at this time because to me, it makes less sense then intelligent design.

How the millions of existing species came about is a question that has plagued evolutionists for a long time. For a species to be a species, it cannot interbreed with other species—even the one from which it is supposed to have developed. If progeny does result, it either is sterile (as in the case of mules) or dies before reaching maturity. According to the science magazine Discover, geneticists now say they have found “a rescue gene, a slight fault in the species barrier” that, while weakening the flies that carried it, enabled some hybrid males of a fruit-fly species to survive. “However, the gene didn’t completely break through the species barrier; it couldn’t render the males fertile,” notes the article. This raises a “troublesome question,” says Discover. “If the parents that carry it don’t benefit from it, and offspring that inherit it can’t pass it on, how could the gene possibly have evolved

ps: if someone is going to kidnap me and throw me in a desert with a woman, she better be my type...

Again, once the question of where the water goes after the sea is asked, only two options remain, mysterious disapearence/sinkhole would seem far-fetched, and this water does come out of the sky, ah well.. They could see water evaporate in small ponds and containers and such too.
That it was not in any writing that we found, does not mean they never thought about it.
The conditions for life just has to pass by, and once life somehow appears, the life evolves to fit the conditions.(and likely not many other cases it does not encounter, although it might have luck about it) On our planet life has affected conditions a lot though, and you were referring to some conditions which were resulted.
Your jubilation about our atmosphere is a bit exaggerated, i can not even breathe underwater, and how cool that would be! Bastardish god!
No that had another name(i forgot). It could have been a single event somewhere, is it that bad that we do not know how it happened? I am pretty sure that it did happen, because it was certainly not pulled out of gods magic hat. No inconsistent behavior of physics.
Well, if god created life, he decides something and pulls life out of his magic hat. That, while all our own lives he does nothing. Also, billions of galaxies billions of stars dozens of significant planets and moons on each, and god meddles with the tiny surface of our planet, that is silly about it.
About the flocks and fish, i was referring to emergent behavior, as evolution is emergent behavior too. Not sure what to say more about that.

About infinity of the universe, we can only see as far as the particles have traveled towards us. The farther we look the farther we look back in time.
We could in principle see finiteness of space. Assuming space is similar everywhere, curvature of space being positive suggests a finite space. Also, if we see things twice, space could be connected to itself similar to those civilization game maps. (connect back to itself)

Ok, what is your type?

but didnt we evolve from creatures who came from water? where did our gills go and why didnt we keep them? And where are the missing links of evolution? the solid evidence to support it?

my type..hmm..Likes art, music, kind of crazy but in a the fun way. The, ok, im going to race you up that mountain way, not the, im a psychopath who throws cats at people way...

Believe it or not, fetuses have a stage of developmemt where they show gill-like slits, tails, and other artifacts. It's like the millions of years of evolution replays within 9 months. Pretty strange stuff if you look at the pictures.

In general though, an organ that's not used will slowly become a non-functioning organ (there's nothing to select for working ones), and eventaully not even present itself in the species. For example, a fish that lives in total darkness often has little eyes, but is blind.

An Index to Creationist Claims

here is an excerpt on mutations :

Try guessing what having gills means for creatures that live solely on land, please. Gills are not very useful on land, creatures that have disfunctional gills on land can simply reproduce. They probably disappeared because it is a hole of protection, weakness for infections, loss of water due to evaporation.
One could ask the question why we breathe through the same hole we eat from, because of which we can choke on food. Somehow, is simply to complicated for evolution to solve the problem of redirecting the airways, while not increasing chances of infection and such. (like a hole in the chest could in principle be better for humans)

1. The Bible is a compound of history, legend and knowledge mixed so that it's difficult to know where one ends and another one begins. It has the knowledge about the reality that some people in Mesopotamia had a few thousands years ago. If you look at writings from the ancient Egypt, China or Peru you will find also a lot of knowledge and also you can interpret it in some ways so that they appear to describe accurately something advanced while they are not. Ambiguity is not your friend. Science is clear, it's based on Mathematics and formal logic, it does not tolerate ambiguity.

2. Evolution is not about how life came to be (that is called abiogenesis), but about how species SLOWLY change and how changes in our world controls population, favoring the survival of the most prepared specimens. How different species are formed is explained by mutation, genetic recombination and natural selection when MILLIONS of years passes. You cannot see natural evolution in action in the course of your life unless you were to live thousands of years.

3. About the origin of the Universe there are theories that suggest some possibilities without recuring to God in any sense. Some have greater probabilities of being true but there is one thing that they share: They are based on evidences that can be measured and verified today.

re: getaceres

If you notice on this forum, more than statements are made. Explinations/examples are stated. Please support your statements.

I asked and I fail to see what is silly and you have not explained what is silly about it? Not that you can't or shouldn't think that way, but that you haven't explained why, is all. You did hint to "while all our own lives he does nothing", but that's your personal experience, not everyones. So is it silly to you because you feel neglected? What have you done to seek him? Some sit around and wait for a hand out, others seek the fruit of their labors. In both cases God has been realized. I can understand your thinking it is silly. What I have a problem with is your assumption that all should have the same experience.

really? then why is so much of it theory?

For the first one: Ancient civilizations (that didn't know anything about Jeovah) constructed astronomic observatories (think of Stonhege) to measure and predict the stars movement and to measure time. That means that they knew that the Universe had laws too. I'm just saying that Jews were not stupid, they knew how to observe and as many other civilizations, they knew about certain natural laws and how to use them in their own benefit.

For the second one:
I'm just describing evolution.
Take specimen A. Mute some ADN, pass it to its child B and add also genetical recombination from the other parent. B is now different from A, not much, but different. Now repeat this millions and millions of times, add to the mix some changing conditions like temperature changes, droughts, over-population or under-population of some competing specie so that only the most prepared will survive. That most prepared specimens will repeat this process millions and millions of times too. Remember we are not talking about a 6000 years earth but about an earth of millions of years old.

For the third one, just a link to the wikipedia.

Big Bang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I like the theory of the oscillating Universe, but I have to admit that evidence seems to suggest that a Big Crunch is not likely to be passing.

that is one thing which i love about this kind of debate the words: Theory, If, Why, perhaps, maybe, guess, believe, etc..
Those words which basically are meant to make you confused and wish you had some advil..Right now, i need some advil...Or perhaps a nice trip to the desert...HINT HINT