He'll probably count to ten - or twenty at best, if he uses his toes as well - and then say that there are only as many integers as God defined by giving us that number of digits. Just like "kinds" of animals, the integers are limited only by Ray's imagination.

And you're right, Rachel - earth and life are far more complex than watches or any other man-made thing, which is why it's so ridiculous for Ray to try to contain the entire rich diversity of life within the confines laid out in a prescientific man-made text.

Speaking of sounding intelligent to someone who hasn't done their homework...no, actually, Ray, you fail there too.

The trouble with your simplistic notions of everything fitting into "kinds" is that you ignore so much of the diversity that exists within what you apparently define as kinds - 'animals', birds, fish, etc. Such a broad brush is bound to miss the details. So...are geckos and crocodiles both examples of "lizard kind"? How about ants and rhinoceros beetles both being examples of "insect kind"? And where do millipedes fit in? Or guppies and whale sharks both being examples of "fish kind"? What about lung fish? Not to mention the platypus and echidna, which both lay eggs yet also feed their young on milk...what "kind" do they fit into? Not to mention the fact that mammals, birds, reptiles and fish are all animals, but then we can hardly expect you to countenance such absurd notions as biological accuracy, now, can we?

Translation of Rayspeak: The only way to appreciate the beauty of nature is to try and squeeze it into a little box as the invention of an anthropomorphic deity. Otherwise you might have to think about where it really came from, and that might be a bit too much for you. So just let the Bible do your thinking for you, mmmkay?

Such a revealing post, Ray. You say that scientists are not absolutely certain of their findings, so you'll call everything they say bunk. That's a bit like saying that if your grocer stocks eggs in cartons of ten instead of a dozen, you'll do without eggs altogether.

More seriously, though, I've noticed that a lot of you evangeloonies like to claim certainty in your 'knowledge' of your God and the veracity of a literal reading of scripture. It's a shame, really, because if you think you already know everything you need to know, you're depriving yourself of the joy and excitement of discovery - something which motivates a lot of scientists.

It's funny, too, how you claim that evolution by natural selection - one of if not the most well-supported and powerfully explanatory scientific theories there has ever been - is "ridiculous and unscientific beliefs that turn people from God to a childish and unthinking fable", and then, presumably with a perfectly straight face, go on to claim,

I will continue to challenge anyone and everyone as to what they believe, and present the truth of Holy Scripture—that God created the world, made male and female--with the amazing ability to reproduce after their own kind. And I will be sure to add that He (in His loving mercy) provided a Savior who defeated death, and that He offers everlasting life to all those who repent and trust in Jesus Christ. That's a fact, not a fable.

I think we can all see who's living in a childish fantasy land here, folks...

You don't think the ancestors of grasses had seeds?

Clearly you subscribe to the Ray Comfort school of evolutionary biology, which teaches, among other things, that the first male dog to evolve had to wait for female dogs to evolve independently in order to reproduce, and that any species of animal - or plant, presumably - must be observed to produce offspring of a completely different species in order for evolutionary theory to be true.

It's an odd but easily explained phenomenon, that it seems to be so difficult for some people - in particular Christian fundies, but that's a bit of a special case - to grasp the implications of gradual evolution. We're used to seeing species in discrete forms, because all the intermediate forms are extinct (although you may want to read up on what are called ring species - it's fascinating stuff). But the thing is, evolutionary change across generations is simply an ongoing accumulation of minute changes, resulting in larger changes over time.

What this means is that every generation of a population will sufficiently resemble the previous generation to be classified as the same species. But multiple generations down the track, the offspring might not be much like their great-great-great-great...etc grandparents. As far as grass is concerned, we'd be hard put to pick any precise moment where plants that were not grasses became plants that were grasses. The seeds of the first grasses, then, came from plants that were very similar to what we know as grasses today, which in turn had come from plants very similar to those almost-but-not-quite grasses, and so on back along the chain of the evolution of plant life.

It's such an elegantly simple explanation that I'm continually surprised at people's failure to understand it. But there you go.

Fair call. Having ideas requires thought, and I'm pretty sure Ray has never engaged in that sort of thing - his religion demands repression of the intellect, after all.

Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc., aren't nature doing anything. They are evidences of the Genesis curse. We live in a fallen creation that is also evident by disease, suffering, and death.

Then again, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and tsunamis might just be nature doing its thing. Ever consider that, Ray? Disease, suffering and death are facts of life in a natural world, not evidence of any deity's displeasure with the actions of humans. Arrogance and servility all rolled into one twisted and deluded worldview.

And our death will be the damning evidence (the smoking gun) for sinful humanity. It will be the final nail in our coffin. God, the Supreme Judge of the Universe, will have the last word.

Or, alternatively, death will just mean that our life has run its course, and the collection of matter and energy that was us will eventually go on to make up other bodies and sustain other life. I think that's rather beautiful, really.

Then again, you don't need to wait until death comes to you. Instead of living in atheistic denial, you can have the courage to face it head-on, by trusting in Jesus Christ—"who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Believe it; appropriate it, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

Or, again, you could choose genuine freedom over man-made, dogmatic religious belief, and pursue your own life instead of debasing all your faculties and denying reality for the sake of hanging on to a failed hypothesis that only becomes more and more mangled and convoluted as evidence continues to pile up against it.

However, we know that evolution believes that after the Big Bang, the earth became multifarious--with seasons, clean air, tall trees, and diverse foods, etc., until the planet could sustain life.

And so Ray's ark of ignorance sails on, unaffected by the onslaught of reason.

Do you ever even cast an editorial eye over your posts before publication, Ray? Evolution doesn't believe anything. Evolution is a process, not a thinking entity.

Furthermore, you seem to be implying that there was a plan involved somewhere along the line - that the formation of stars, then planets, then the development of earth and life were following some kind of premeditated script. The earth didn't evolve because it needed to sustain life, Ray - life evolved because the conditions on earth happened to allow it to do so.

And apparently you think that trees and the vast majority of food sources don't constitute life. Weird.

AThe apostle Paul, who knew the resurrected Christ, answered your demand for evidence of God when he wrote, and I paraphrase, "The evidence of His power and Godhead is in His CREATION..."

Nowhere in Paul's epistles does it attest to Christ being an actual, physical human being that could be 'known' as such. Paul is making stuff up, like all the others.