Okay, since I live in Ohio, I just had to reply to this thread.

I find the following rather interesting reading:

http://www.crosscurrents.org/darwin.htm

One of the points the author makes is:

"[Stephen J.] Gould writes eloquently, vividly, and graphically of natural
selection; he uses one metaphor after another, but he assiduously avoids
religious metaphors. In fact, he favors images drawn from the age of
machines. He calls natural selection the "primary mechanism" of evolution.
In another context, discussing human evolution, he writes: "We are here for
a reason after all, even though that reason lies in the mechanics of
engineering rather than in the volition of a deity."(35) One wonders why it
is more acceptable to see nature working like a machine. A machine is a
human contrivance. To see evolution working like a machine does not solve
the problem many scientists have seen in religion. If it is misleading to
refer to creation as an act of God, it is doubly misleading to describe it
as a machine. In making the transition from the former metaphor to the
latter, one has only complicated matters, resorting to a more obscure form
of anthropomorphic imagery."

And:

"In fact, when one summarizes all the things which Darwin has natural
selection doing toward the creation and improvement of life on this planet,
one has an exact duplicate of what Paley and theologians generally attribute
to God. Thus if natural selection does everything that God is supposed to
do, don't we simply have God by another name?"


Jim Phillips                           Information Systems Manager
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Phone: 330-527-2124                         P. O. Box 285
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I WANT MY MPE!

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