Many years ago I was a practicing scientist and reached the same conclusion -- there HAD to be an architect, designer and project manager behind the origins and processes of life.
I could NOT support, in fact, the 100% naturalist/scientific point of view.
Indeed it IS a matter of substantial faith, not substantial evidence, to believe in the theory of evolution. I don't mind that people do believe in evolution as the '100% of life' but it saddens me to see "scientists" who won't recognize how little real evidence, befitting the scientific method, supports the theory.
Perhaps we should start calling it the hypothesis of evolution ;-)
If there is a God, and I believe there is ... (my faith) then He has the power to speak life into existence, design a dynamic intelligent system or just let it 'evolve'. I susbscribe to the theory of intelligent design and the Book of Genesis as a correct and accurate representation of how God wanted to reveal it to us -- the project kick off meeting if you will. Genesis says exactly what God wants it to say, and we have to respond in faith and obedience.
I welcome your comments.
;-)
This is an intersting discussion, but it dodges the real issue. The main point of Genesis in not the creation or how it came about, but rather the separation of man from God through sin. According to Genesis, death entered the world through man's disobedience. If evolution is a fact, even if set in motion by an 'intelligent designer', then there had to be death in the world before man. If that is so, then sin becomes irrelevant as the cause of death, and the writer of Genesis is sadly mistaken. No sin, no need for a savior, and you end up with just another explanation for a secular origin, dressed up in a more palatable theory for the faithful.
For secularists, the concepts of sin and redemption must be expunged from our culture. To get Christians or Jews to accept that Genesis is wrong, when it is the basic platform on which rests our subsequent relationship with God, is the first and most important step in doing away with Judeo/Christianity altogether.
People of faith ought not be so gullible as to try to have it both ways: Either God is active and personally and intimately interested and involved in His creation, or He is not, and merely set the whole thing in motion and left the rest to chance. But it can't be both, IMO. Otherwise, prayer would be a waste of time, asking God to intervene in that which he has chosen to allow to follow it's own course.
(Of course, I could be full of crap, too!)