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Ah, the good old evolution debate. Here's my position in a nutshell. 1. Evolution as a force of nature is an established scientific fact. 2. Evolution by natural selection, whereby one species has the potential to change into a new species, is a scientific theory grounded in empirical evidence, so there is no need to "believe" it is true unless the existance of an emperical material world is a matter of belief. 3. Evolution is a theory. So is gravity. So is plate tectonics. Theories may change or have more added on to them, but they are the cornerstones of all modern science. Throw out evolution, and you have to recreate most of the biological sciences from the ground up. 4. Evolution does NOT say that humans evolved from apes. It says that humans and apes share a common biological ancestor, and that the human species diverged from the evolutionary line which would one day produce apes around 100,000 years ago. 5. Forms of creationism - whether they espouse that God created humans or aliens created humans - cannot be taught as science in classrooms because neither of these is a valid scientific hypothesis. To be real science, a hypothesis must be disprovable. Science cannot prove or disprove the existance of God, therefore there is no way to test the validity of the statement, "Humans were created by God." Therefore, teaching such a position in a science classroom of a public school would not be teaching science. The same goes for extraterrestrial creation. 6. That being said, the science of probability, as well as what we know about the pattern of biological diversity on THIS planet, both suggest that it is more likely that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. We already have conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial life in general - fossilized microbes from Mars. So, from a spiritual standpoint, I believe humanity was given consciousness by God, but that God works through the forces of nature as described by science. So, in a sense, we were "created" human by God, even if our physical forms are the result of evolution.
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