Um, you do realise that scientists' use of the word "law", to mean those equations or statements that predict the results of physical experiments, is a metaphor, don't you?

how do you figure? if you mean that man has the power to break one kind of law and not the other, then i agree, but hardly see how it is relivant. or perhaps you mean one kind of law describes what "should" be done and the other describes what "is done, well ok, but i still dont see quite how it is relivant. i also noticed you overlooked my mathamatical example.

If you'd written "There are quigs which govern the universe, but they did not produce the universe" (although "describe" would have been a better word than "govern") then it looks a lot less obvious that they did not produce it.

Can i condense this to:
"There are quigs which describe the universe, and because they describe it, it seems obvious to me that they must have produced it"
First, i agree with your preference for the word "describe". Second, if what i have rendered above corectly reflects what you belive, then pardon me if i call it silly (since you've done as much with my beliefs). I can stand here all day and describe the mona lisa in intracate detail, its not going to suddenly appear on the wall infront of me, now is it? or, to take a more scientific example, i can sit at my desk doing equasions concerning the flight and path of bullets, but at the end of the day i still wont have a gun now will i? likewise, you can talk all day about how an amoba woud evolve into yourself, but you still havent accounted for the amoba.

Indeed, my mental picture of the world relies on faith in the integrity of my perceptions and of my memories of my perceptions. So, I believe, does anyone's; it's hard to imagine any way of removing faith from those beliefs. That has, IMO, no bearing on whether or not it's a good idea to try and replace faith with logic or proof in those beliefs where it is possible.

here, i think, is one thing we agree on, though we might debate on what is possible

Fortunately, we are not entirely incorporeal beings: we can perceive and interact with physical reality -- we can demonstrate physical laws to each other, and point at compelling evidence of events we were not present to witness.

So it seems that you agree with Lewis and me, in that, in order for our rational thoughts to mean anything they must be more than simply the product of our enviroment. The modern God-debunking psychologist and sociologist does not, i think, agree with you.

Which, of course, is merely a suggestion of how natural selection itself could give rise to a capacity to search for truth, and not a suggestion that anyone's personal belief in natural selection is superior or inferior to their personal desire to seek the truth.

point takes, however, im still asking which you take to be the better man, the one does everything with the purpose of being the "fittest" for natural selection, or the one who regards truth, in and of itself, for the sake of being true, to be the most desirable thing? because if you say the man who goes for natural selection, then i say, "to heck with truth for its own sake, when it helps me survive, then truth is good, when it doesnt, i should toss it away as 'excess baggage'" on the other hand, if you say truth is important in and to itself, then i say that reaks of a morality not associated with darwinsim.

I don't think you answered there the point which you were replying to.

i dont see at all how you come to that conclusion. "He created the laws of nature" + "He created the universe which interacts with them" does not equel "the creator has no choice about how things happen."

Yeah, almost as if time were no object; or maybe because said Being created time as well..

Mark, i can't thank you enough for that statment. its been 25 posts (pertaining to this discussion) since anyone backed me up on anything, i was begining to get lonley. 2 days of fighting out numbered is wearisome.

In general regard to Peter's final paragraph:

Do you even understand the definition of God? Do you know what we are talking about here? God is outside of time. He created it. He is not subordanate to its "quigs". If God is what we say He is (and we say He could be no less) then you would expect a massive, insanly complex universe. It goes without saying almost. But furthermore, you seem to be under the notion that creating the universe is something God did, then stoped doing, then might "tinker with 'later'". but dont you see that if time is not relivent to Him, then you cant look at it that way. the world being created, Himself going down into it, dying on a cross, coming back to life on the 3rd day, the end of all time when all shal be renewed, this is all in the same "moment" for God. This isnt a new theory, the people in the Old Testament knew this. and of course nothing is diffacult for Him, because there is nothing for Him to struggle with, He created it all. So all your talk about "laboriously" and "tirelessly" is just nonsense. Perhapse you should learn who God is before you go around talking about Him, hmmm?

Faced with all the fake evidence for His non-existance that He planted

what evidence?

burying fake dinosaurs

i dont seem to recall saying the dinosaurs were fake, nor do i recall the bible saying they were fake, infact, i seem to recall the bible mentioning a few things that sounded like dinasaurs. further more the bible states that man was created after animals.