by Nathaniel Williams

Created on: May 27, 2008

My argument consists of two appeals: the first is to nonbelievers, the second to believers.

Concerning evolution: my biggest problem isn't the idea that life developed on Earth through a transition from simple to more complex forms, it's the idea that such a process could happen all by itself. According to science, the Universe came into being through something called the Big Bang-an effect without cause. Once you've taken that logic leap, cosmologists give you some more brain busters to chew on. After the Causeless Effect, matter just happened to shamble itself together into these lumps, some of which became stars. Around a number of these stars were things called accretion discs-which, over time, randomly coalesced into planets. Still with me? One of these molten lumps cooled into somewhat of an Earth-like shape, gradually helped along by the presence of the moon (a Mars-sized planet which ran into the young Earth and caused matter to kick up and form a satellite completely by accident) and water possibly brought by icy asteroids that smacked into the surface and evaporated to create an atmosphere. The Earth is just the right distance from the Sun, the moon is just the right distance from Earth, and these are all complete coincidences. Moving right along...

On the young Earth, amino acids in the primordial ooze randomly collided to form a perfect double-helix shape. That's equivalent to breaking open a gumball machine on the floor and having the gumballs form letters. Funny thing is, a scientist would tell you that the latter phenomenon is all but completely impossible. Later on, brainless chemical compounds figured out that they would be better off if they pulled themselves together into some kind of simple life form, like a virus. Not ones to rest on their laurels, the viruses decided to upgrade to bacteria, which upgraded to fish, then to amphibians, insects, lizards, mammals, and finally human beings. All of this is due to adaptation. Adaptation to what? What challenges were the floating chemicals facing that forced them to become life forms? And, if complex life is more fit than simple life, why are people killed by bacterial infections? If lower life forms evolved into us, why are the lower life forms still around? Look at the fractal patterns of trees, the spiral of a chambered nautilus, the radial symmetry of an orange. All these just sort of...bounced into place? Scientists say we should stop believing in fairy tales. What bigger fairy tale is there

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