[orionblamblam]

> How can someone bring down his religion by believing in it?

Because you are focussing on the fairy-tale, allegorical aspects of it and demanding that it be seen as scientific truth. Creatinists are making it *very* easy to dismiss Christians as a whole as a bunch of uneducated superstitious boobs. It is a slow process, but it's certain death for a religion to be laughed at.

> The evidence for evolution is far from conclusive.

No, it's not. It's quite conclusive. The only real debates left are the details.

> it necessarily points to spontaneous generation of life.

Defien your terms. At what point to complex chemicals become "life" in your view? Is a virus "alive" if so, scientists have assembled synthetic virii from much simpler components. The virus was as alive as virii get, and was able to reproduce.

[Tax-chick]

Is a virus "alive" if so, scientists have assembled synthetic virii from much simpler components.

You don't see that this statement argues against your spontaneous generation point?

[Fester Chugabrew]

It is a slow process, but it's certain death for a religion to be laughed at.

Hmmm. Wonder why Christianity has done so well throughout history when so many of its adherents faced not only laughter but certain death for their beliefs. If your assessment above is any indication of your ability to assess facts and evidence, well, guess we know who is more likely to subscribe to a fairy tale.

[jwalsh07]

The virus was as alive as virii get, and was able to reproduce.

If you isolate virii in the marriage suite from other organisms how do they reproduce?

[fr_freak]

> The evidence for evolution is far from conclusive.

No, it's not. It's quite conclusive. The only real debates left are the details.

You'll forgive me if I don't believe that just because you say so.

Here's what I find fascinating, and I've mentioned it on evolution/creation threads before: modern evolutionary theory is extremely complicated. It goes far beyond the relatively simple Darwinian theories (in fact, Darwinism has pretty much been rejected). You would be hard put to find a single person, who is not a dedicated scientist, who understands all aspects of the theory. However, you find many, many laymen who swear by evolution and ridicule Creationism as superstition. My question is, if someone doesn't fully understand the theory, how can he be so certain of its veracity? The answer is that he can't. So, the supreme irony is that the average evolutionist is taking all of the arguments against faith, on faith.