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I think most people tend to stretch their understanding of God to fit into the framework of scientific discovery.

But really... I like to think that we are simply misunderstanding our science to a great extent.

I've read it and the sequel. I have one word to describe them both: hilarious.

The books aren't written as comedies, obviously. That's the hilarious part.

"It's times like these it occurs to me, we were lied to by the Jetsons." Sorry, couldn't resist.

*Bows.* Yep. Buddy of mine is a diehard Kevin Smith fan, and I'd just found an AMV on my hard drive using that excerpt (thought I'd deleted that file. That's the problem with too many hard drives.)

I think that's the one. Had some footage from Excel Saga as well. I just downloaded it, passed it to BlckRobe, then got rid of it ... okay, the "getting rid of" took a little longer than I expected.

Having listened to and debated with some people who seem to think that it's up to me to "prove God exists" scientifically thinking, I know that this is true. Any scientist worth his salt knows you don't prove, you disprove. Science has failed to disprove God so those who try and look down at religious folks go about it the wrong way and try and force us to "prove" our views are right.

I've actually been to a retreat where a physist spoke to us about how he, like many scientists, see a divine hand in all the little "coincidences" that make up the universe and world. It was a very interesting and uplifting experience.

As a college student studying biology, many people have asked me about this very same topic. I've looked at it from both points of view, and both turn out relatively the same.

From a scientific point of view, the world, and space beyond, is extremely complicated. So complicated, in fact, that there is no possible way that things could have all come together by chance. It must have been designed by someone. This is true for both the beginning of the universe itself, and the developing forces that continue to shape it, such as evolution.

From a religious point of view, one can simply state that God designed the beginning of the universe. One of my favorite quotes from when I was a child was from a fellow youth friend:

"Maybe God farted, and that was the Big Bang!"

That isn't exactly common designing method, but I thought that would fit pretty well. Anyway, one could then go on to say that God then created the various forces, such as evolution, that would continue to cause changes to the universe.

This conclusion brings up an intriguing question, however. If God created the universe so that it could shape and develop on its own after the initial jump start, is God still at work creating, or is He simply enjoying the view of the fruits of his labor?

I have to admit, I didn't read everything in this thread, but I got to most of them. Personally, I believe, as others have said, that science complements religion. I just wanted to mention a few things I've learned.
First is that God is not a God of chaos, so it makes sense that there is a way to understand the world around us (science in this case), which I believe He provided for us - basically by giving us a mind.
Also, Darwin was the son of a minister, and when he spoke about evolution, he did not mean inter-species evolution. He studied birds, on islands, and came to the conclusion that, depending on the habitat where a population of birds was living, they changed to adapt to it over the generations. After a while, one population, suited better to the higher elevations of the mountains than the shore line for example, stopped breeding with the other one. That was how we ended up with two different kinds of the same class of bird. (Granted that was quite a bit simplified)
The idea that all life started in one place was an adaptation on his theory.
As for the big bang theory, that depends on something already existing to cause the big bang. So, for all we know, it did happen like that - it was God's meathod of creation.

An interesting bit about human development: We all know we start out as two cells combined, but it's actually about a 1/10,000 chance that, assuming all the circumstances and environment are right, the ovum will actually be firtilized before it dies. Yet somehow people seem to beat those odds without too much difficulty. Furthermore, once that happens, we have one cell type that divides at an astronomical rate (If we continued to grow at that rate, we'd be the size of the sun by the time we were an adult if I remember correctly). Somehow, this one cell type divides into 3 types, and then they devide into different types and so on, until we eventually have all the cell types of our body. The interesting thing is, nobody knows how that happens or how a cell knows what kind of cell it will become. No one has figured out how a skin cell stays a skin cell, or, when they devide (healing, for example, or growing) how the new daughter cell knows to be a skin cell when ALL cells have exactly the same DNA. I just think it's fascinating.
Another one is voluntary movement - it starts with a thought and motivation, but no one can explain where that comes from, since it's all 'just' electrical activity in the brain. It's similar to the heart, which generates it's own electrical impulse spontaneously (protection so that it's not totally dependant on the brain to keep going). These things (and more) are all evidence that God exists, for me.