Quote Originally Posted by BlueBlazer
Really read the entire book from cover to cover and you will experience a lot of doubt.
after having read the sacred texts of many of the world's religions, i have found they all have one thing in common. they are all as open to interpretation as any other writing. even the language they are written in is merely a translation (an interpretation) from another language in most cases. though a christian may claim his faith is based on the words of the bible or a muslim may cite the koran as the impetus for his chosen way of life, it is always someone else's interpretation they are placing their trust in. merely reading the words is not enough, one must be able to suspend their disbelief in order to fully accept what we all know is nothing more than a collection of the words of man. the claims of burning bushes, mysterious golden plates and divine inspiration are merely tools we use to allow us to suspend our disbelief and immerse ourselves in the improbable.

our friend chris has obviously done quite a good job of suspending his disbelief. he has done such a good job of it that he is able to transfer his resulting faith from the ethical disciplines of religion to the more tangible areas of scientific endeavor. he is willing to invest himself in the improbable and rather contradictory concept that the appearance of code-like behavior implies a sentient force behind the creation of our dna. he disingenuously asks us to cite any example of code that is not engineered by a higher intelligence, but we must use his definition of code and he will always have a way out by merely stating that all of nature is a part of the creation of his god. there are codes within the songs of birds and the petals of flowers because a code is nothing more than the representation of concepts we understand couched in symbolism we are unaccustomed to, but these instances are easily discounted by the insistence of the faithful that all this is the work of the ultimate architect.

10 or 12 bible versus your pastor had you memorize
theology is the work of a lifetime and simple minds will never study more of it than they must. our religions have been centuries in the making and to expect anyone but a devoted theologian to do much more than memorize a few passages of scripture is asking too much. the bible is a confusing mash of allegory and symbolism that such simple minds must have interpreted for them by those who claim to have studied and come to some limited understanding of those texts.

belief is not understanding, it is acceptance.