Not sure if you've followed this court case in some hick(!) State in America in which the parents of kids took the Education Department to court. They were challenging the Education Departments policy of teaching Darwin's theory of Evolution to the kids in class. The challengers wanted this 'Intelligent Design' theory brought in to replace it.
I'm not exactly fimailiar with Intelligent Design but it essentially suggests that us Humans were made or created by an intelligent being and were not at all here due to evolution. Of course, this 'intelligent being' is God - a Christian one.
I'm not really going to get into the Court case as I don't want to influence the jury /haha/ although i'm not sure that we should start mixing Government and Religion. They are both different entities. One we have a choice over and one which we don't but for both to become mixed and intertwined sets a dangerous preceent with certain Governments going down that particular path.
However, the reason I bring this up is the 2 conflicting 'theories' on how we got to where we are today.
Having a scientific background, I'm more concerned and interested in facts and evidence. Something hard and tangible which sways me towards the evolution side of the coin. It makes some degree of sense. Darwin suggests that 'only the fittest survive' and in my mind that is true. Humans with some genetic disease don't generally survive to produce offsprings resulting in the end of that particular genetic combination. One could argue that this is also true within other animal communities with more 'suitable' members of that community going forth and mulitiplying, enabling the next generation to live. And in turn this generation adapting to it's surroundings and continuing the cycle until 'something' happens with prevents the next generation from being produced. They are more longer able to adapt. When this happens, extinction occurs. It appears Dinosaurs could not adapt and paid the penalty. It could be that Humans eventally pay the penalty also.
Darwin and his peers presented this against a backdrop of evidence and it has yet to be proved wrong beyond all reasonable doubt, hence it's general acceptance.
This Intelligent Design, though, is essentially the Bible story in Genesis in which God created Man et al. and sent us on our way. The inherent problem with this is it's lack of concrete evidence to prove it. Equally, there isn't anything compelling enough to completely disprove it. Yet this particular idea does cover all the bases. Dinosaurs came before Humans, so where do they fit in? And what of the this fossilised evidence? Further, nobody has actually seen God. He /or she/ tends not to visit anymore. Despite any definite pointers to the authencity of this, there are believers, so much so that they want it taught in mainstream Schools. There have been believers for 2thousand years.
Science though is a way of explaining what is around us. It's a best fit model of 'everything' based on the evidence available. Perhaps something will turn up to prove or disprove the most fundamental aspects of our lives or existance. And that is the difference between the 'believers' and the rest. Evidence.
Whether or not a 'God' did create us is open to question.
Perhaps. I'm sure some unknown force did help us on our way. I would be naive to suggest that it all happened completely by chance or as randomly as it seems given the size of the 'universe' but I do hace serious misgivings over the Christian concept as it is too simplistic and doesn't answer the most fundamental of points. Whether we will ever get an answer is something but we are only as good as the evidence allows us to be.