The origin of life on Earth stands as one of the great mysteries of science. To find out if we are alone in the galaxy, we will need to better understand what geochemical conditions nurtured the first life forms. Several seminal experiments in this topic have been conducted at the University of...
news.uchicago.edu
Fascinating
I am not a Biblical creationist in the sense that God spoke and voila! this or that appeared as we know it today. I take the creation stories as metaphors for how it all came to be and to emphasize that it was all by God's hand/God's voice/God's will. (That is my personal belief though I do not presume to know why He did it the way He did. I hope to get that question answered some day.)
I have studied and would teach Darwinism with a clear conscience as mostly valid, but I would not teach science in an environment where some concept of intelligent design was not allowed or the students were not allowed to express their religious beliefs. I would not teach in an environment in which nobody was allowed to question or disbelieve.
I would not teach in an environment that didn't allow me to tell my students that science does not have an answer for every question, every contingency.
I cannot accept that sentient life as we know it just happened from inert substances no matter how chaotic billions of years ago.
Because I believe in a personal higher being that I call God, it is easy for me to believe He was the author of all that is. But if I was teaching science I would tell my students that there are many theories of how life began on Earth and very likely elsewhere in the Universe:
--the big Boss theory (the Biblical view.)
--the intelligent design theory (Spinoza & Einstein's view.)
--the everything just happened by coincidence theory (secular science.)
And as yet nobody has been able to scientifically prove any of them as fact. Which does not mean that any of them is wrong, that there is not some truth in all.
I will leave the intelligent design theory to Spinoza and Einstein and will leave the big Boss theory to your Rabbis, preachers, Sunday school teachers to explore with you.
This class will explore the pure scientific theories of how the universe began, how the Earth came to be, and why things are as they are. You are not required to believe it but you are required to know it to pass this class.