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Topic: CREATION OR EVOLUTION
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Either answer requires a big leap of faith, science or otherwise, since none of us were there to witness the beginning. I have to lean towards creation as I can't imagine (perhaps my imagination is limited) an unthinking, accidental process creating thnking, self-aware, artistic beings, even if those traits took millions of years to develop. That doesn't mean I don't believe in evolution as well. I think evolution is the creator's way of having his "work" tweak itself over the millenia instead of having to do the work himself. It's a part of creation.
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Chernev, I see it in a similar way. I believe that a kind of "creative energy" (that some may call "god" or the "holy ghost") permeates all matter and directs evolution of all things towards states of increasingly higher complexity.
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Creation Or Evolution?
Does the Earth orbit the sun? Must one debate God vs science to believe that it does? Remember the holy fallout that Copernicus feared and Galileo withstood? Once the Church accepted the sun as the center of the solar system (rather quickly in hindsight as the evidence was too overwhelming to ignore), was this a triumph of science over God? Of course not! (I believe that it was a triumph of humans' capacity to reason and create understanding over small-minded conservatism as practiced by men who claimed to represent God, but that's a slightly different matter.) No reasonable person, religious or not, today disputes the model of our solar system. For a theist today, God created it that way.
So why the debate over evolution? Thru observation, study, and a brilliant and insightful intellectual leap, Darwin constructed a theory. Thru observation and study of organisms and ecosystems, thru study of the fossil record, with ever more varied and detailed research in genetics and molecular biology, and with the support of scientists working in any number of other branches of biology and other sciences, scientists have only strengthened this theory. Not a whim, guess, or hunch. Not an opinion, speculation, or hypothesis. Not wishful thinking. Not a political, social, or theological argument. A scientific theory. (The misunderstanding of what a scientific theory is as opposed to the informal common usage of the word unfortunately misleads the debate, in my opinion. Look it up.)
Evolution is THE keystone in modern biological sciences. It is a unifying theory that runs thru all of biology. Looking at the diversity and resiliency of life on Earth, how could anyone not be awe-struck? Study evolution and really understand how it works, how it gives us insight and understanding of how this richness came to be, and it is (for me, anyway) magnificent, marvelous, awe-inspiring, and elegant. Kinda like the solar system.
So, if a personal God is part of your life, why not embrace the theory (again, look up the word) of evolution as a triumph of our God-given drive to understand and ability to reason in exactly the way that God intended it to be? Why not allow that He is revealing His unfolding creation story to us today?
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Well, to make everyone happy, the two can be merged by partially applying the Big Bang theory to, for example, the creation ex nihilo as described in the Genesis (I'm not too sure how it's described in other religions), and from where on life evolved to its present state 
Creation cannot be positively excluded, but personally I believe (and there's also plenty of evidence to support it) we weren't created in our present state, but evolved from lower lifeforms, but sometime in the distant past, billions of years ago, creation could have taken place, although personally I don't think so.
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Hello Gil,
Regarding where I "place the science,"...
Isaac Newton conceptualized and communicated a theory that explained how things move on Earth and in space in the early 18th Century. After other scientists built on and extended this theory over more than 200 years, Albert Einstein took a quantum leap forward with his own theory that built on and extended Newton's theory. Advances in physics that use both Newton's and Einstein's theories have led to applications and technologies that have profoundly changed, transformed our world and human experience over the last 200 years. Is this bad? Is it good? Right, wrong? Where do we place the science?
The science as a way of knowing just is what it is. It just is. Do I worship it as a God? Do I reject it as a threat to my God? Do I judge it good, evil, right, wrong? Useful? Inconvenient? Any of my judgements of what science is, apart from what it is as a tool for working to know and describe phenomena on Earth and in the Universe, is purely ethical moral judgement and belief.
Or do I judge it as the best, most valid, most demonstrably useful way to interpret the stuff I see happening in my world and universe? I choose this.
Ethical and moral judgements and beliefs are hugely, profoundly important to who we are as social living beings. These have much to do with how we interact with our universe and world as we know it, and these have nothing to do with how science is used to discover, discern, and uncover facts and truths about out world and universe. How we use the scientific knowledge, well THAT is open to judgement, debate, ethical and moral opinions.
Evolution is a theory so well grounded in scientific evidence gathered and worked over the last 150 years that I, most people, and the scientific community accept it as fact. Does it fly in the face of someone who chooses--based on belief only--to accept biblical texts as truth. Yes. And, well, science is what it is. Belief based on blind faith is what it is.
My personal, ethical, moral, spiritual framework is informed much by science, and it is informed also by my sense of possibility. Does magic happen? Yes, it's magic to one who doesn't understand it and can't explain it. Maybe it could be explained, maybe it couldn't. And, by definition it works magic for those experiencing it. Do all kinds of things that I don't understand inform my life and help me to create meaning in my life. Yes.
Enough. I'm babbling again. I hope anyone who reads this and who has a thoughtful response enter his head responds.
As good a definition and discussion of science out there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
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