Thanks for starting a new thread, Olympe. I was thinking it would be a good idea, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. (Have limited net access down here...)
My beliefs on belief:
1. There is no way to prove or disprove the existence of a creator. A creator, by definition, must have an existence outside of the known universe.
2. Given that there's no way to prove things, your guess is as good as mine. I may not agree with your beliefs, but you have as much right to them as I do.
3. The beliefs you come up with for yourself are very personal and very important. It is wrong to press your own beliefs on someone else unasked, and accepting a system of beliefs from any external source without stopping to question them is dangerous at best.
On Evolution:
It's not perfect. There's a lot we don't know. But there is a lot of compelling evidence for it. We've seen species grow, change, and adapt. We've seen fossil records that show traits being passed on from one species to another. Links between modern birds and primitive reptiles. Traceable genetic markers. Evidence that marine mammals had land-based ancestors. Modern species with vestigial traits (things that did their predecessors good, but which no longer serve any real purpose... the human appendix, for example).
The details and the mechanics as we currently have them may not be entirely correct, but I don't see any good reason to question the basic principles.
On ID:
Faith is, by definition, not science. In order for a theory to be scientific, it must be testable and observable, with predictable results. "God did it, for his own mysterious reasons" is not testable. It is not observable. It does not have predictable results. You're free to believe it, but don't call it science.
Pointing out that existing theories can't explain everything is not reason to throw them out. It's a reason for further investigation. "God did it" is not a helpful answer. It is an answer that discourages further exploration. It is, quite frankly, the easy way out. People used to believe that lightning was caused by the anger of the gods. They simply lacked any other plausible explanation. Now we know better.
If you want to say that there is a god of some sort, that's your business. If you want to be a scientist with that belief, go right ahead. In that case, science becomes a question of "how did he/she/it/they do it?" ID, however, tries to give "God did it" as the ultimate answer.
FSM has been mentioned. If you're going to claim ID as a valid scientific theory, then the pastafarians are right. You have to give them equal credence. At least they have scientific evidence which doesn't boil down to replacing "I don't know yet" with "God did it, and I don't know why." Now, some may point out that it's more likely that a correlation between the number of swashbuckling pirates and the average global temperature has more to do with the industrial revolution, but that's a matter of scientific debate...
Along the same lines, we have to give equal credence to the theory of Intelligent Falling. Scientifically, we can't prove that gravity exists. There's a lot of empirical evidence for it. There are some interesting ideas about matter warping space. But we can't prove that there is gravity or completely explain why it works the way it does. And there are some big problems with it, too. The numbers don't add up right. That's why they had to come up with the idea of "dark matter." IF can explain things without having to resort to such far-fetched and complicated theories.
Looking at the human body (with the aforementioned appendix, nipples on a male, extremely poor energy efficiency, incredibly high sensitivity to changes in temperature and humidity - performance drops off very quickly outside of a very small range, general fragility, dual mode plumbing, lethal allergies - there are a large number of people out there who could literally die from inhaling a bit of peanut dust, a now-unhealthy craving for things like fat, salt, and sugar which have been available in abundance for a significant amount of time, and numerous other flaws), I find I must call into question the intelligence of any purposeful designer.
Paul
