If the Bible's days are to be taken as something other than 24 hours, does the same arguement apply to it's years? Adam is supposed to have lived for 930 years. So how long is he supposed to have lived? Do I smell a contradiction here?

John Armour, Newtownards, Northern Ireland

The bible does not teach that the days of creation are 24h. Psalm90v1 says (One day with God is as a thousand years and thousand years as one day. The creative days are 7000yrs in length. Psalm95v8-11 speak of not entering into Gods rest. 2500 years from from end of 6th day, see also Heb4v1-11.

P Timings, Hampton,

Barry -- can you give us some examples of fossils that you know for certain are "transitionary"?

No matter how dogmatically you say "Evolution is true beyond any shadow of doubt", this does not make it true.

Clifford Wharton, Croydon, UK

There seems to be lies about evolution that are in danger of becoming fact through repitition "no transitonary fossils", "no evidince", "can't explain X", "just a theory"

Evolution is true beyond any shadow of doubt. By listening to the lies or simply not understanding it does not change anything

Barry, Newbury, Berks

Could I have been an ant? If Darwin is correct, then do we all come from the same source? Even if we do not come from the same animal, what created the first animal? I think there has been some natural selection, but to say we are all from one animal is beyond comprehension.

Michael Gibbs, Exeter, UK

When I hear that there are people in the 21st cenury who still believe in the literal truth of the Bible - a god creating Earth in 7 days - zap, pow, vavavooom, hey presto! - then it is this that reinforces my belief in Darwinism.

Idris, Llanelli,

Time will indeed tell who is right and who is wrong - the Bible or evolution. If 'time tells' that the Bible is right and God exists, and you have ignored and/or ridiculed the Bible and God, where will you be then? You could be heading for a very unpleasant surprise.

Clifford Wharton, Croydon, UK

Young-earth arguments are as old as the hills, and have been refuted time and again, yet creationists continue to spout the same nonsense. When will they ever learn? The great age of the earth and evolutionary theory are two separate issues. The former has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.

Jonathan Castro, Guildford, UK

Darwin himself worried about a fundamental problem of his own theory; how gymnosperms (early fern-like plants) changed into angiosperms (flowering plants with sexual reproduction). Some sort of "intelligent design" might be a reasonable explanation. Evolution has most of the answers, but not all.

david, Ligneyrac, France

Tom has latched onto the most incisive point. If God did not control evolution; he could not be certain that 'man' would evolve. If he did control evolution, why did he have to take 3000 million years for man to evolve from the single cell organisms?

Paul , northwich,

Simon Barlow parades the usual assumed arguement. The Bible describes the World as a Circle.

Tom Hill, St Just,

Christian/biblical 'faith' can be equated with belief in the ancient gods of Olympia - why would a Christian 'god' allow billions of years of human-free evolution to pass before we turned up? What were the dinosaurs for? Why would our 'salvation' have to depend on 'faith' in events 2,000 years ago?

Tom, London, UK

It is a bit easy for some religious people to now start admitting certain parts of the bible are incorrect. Why anyone would want to live by and believe a set of stories written when people thought the world was flat is beyond me. Being a good person doesn´t mean religious or imposing your religion

simon barlow, valencia,

Good for the CoE. They have some sense at least, although in my opinion anyone who lets a book of bronze age mythology tell him what to do is already in trouble.

Alex, London, UK

it amuses me as to how people get up tight about creation v evolution. me, i'm just waiting for someone to find at least one transitional fossil that shows change in any life form and advise me as to how the dna required to make that change came into being, before, during or after it had happened.

stephen baron, leith , tasmania

Scientists accept that we don't know how life began, no one does. The important difference here is that we are not prepared to invent something (like a god) to bridge the knowledge gap and make ourselves feel more secure. Rather, we are actively trying to find the answer and doing splendidly well.

Lindsay, Brighton,

Creationism or evolutionism? What does it matter?
Stick to what you believe if you dont like what the bible says it is time that will tell who is right or wrong. Evolution is a fact which God established so it is not new. Most of the commentators here just have too much of other peoples opinion.

Ajay Anthony, Sleaford, United Kingdom

Believe what you want it does not change what God did. Time will tell who is right and who is wrong.

Ajay Anthony, Sleaford, United Kingdom

Lets hope Anglcans will now debate the thorny issues of a) did a virgin birth really take place and b) does the Devil exist?

iain rae, tunbridge wells, t.w.

Everybody knows religion is the opium of the people. What I didn't know is that the CoE was a Marxist cartel.
Everybody knows God is joke, a handy tool to explain physical phenomenae to cavemen. And everybody knows the pyramids were built by Bronze-Age folk with copper tools. Out of boredom.

Martin, Coombe-Bissett,

For crying out loud, can't people realise that science and religion are two completely different things?
This so called 'aguement' is getting way out of hand.
It is fascinating however, that so many people believe themselves to be utterly correct in there views.

Matthew Powis, Sidcup, London, England

Something is seriously going wrong with science education if this debate is being held by adults.
If an experiment or evidence can prove my theory, then my theory is correct. If they disprove my theory, my theory is incorrect, no matter how much faith I have in my theory to the contrary.

Tim Read, Lancaster, England

Why do so many people believe in evolution? Could one reason be that they want to evade any responsibilty to God?

Clifford Wharton, Croydon, UK

Why do so many people mix up the process with the reason? There should be no dichotomy with the acceptance of Christ and the acceptance of evolution as a process. The time scales are different (billions of years as opposed to 6,000 ) but do we still accept a flat earth or the sun around the planet?

Bob Ericson, Tewkesbury, Glos,

The greatest evidence for evolution is the fact the some of us understand it while others don't. Those of us that have the intelligence to question the millenia-old creationist nonsense are the ones who show signs of human evolution. Dogmatic believers of the bible are throwbacks.

Andrew, Shanghai,

To Brian P O: Check out lifeforms with short life cycles such as bacterias to see it happening in front of your eyes.Or just live another 10000 years if you want to see crystal clear signs evolution in our own specie.You do know life evolved over hundred of millions of years to get where it is now?

Tom, London,

Evolution is just a fake theory. The only truth is God's creation.
http://www.atlasofcreation.com/ , http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/

MAry, Istanbul, Turkey

Randy, please don't embarrass Canadians by spreading your wilful ignorance over the internet.
Here is a question you won't be able to answer:
If microevolution can occur but macroevolution cannot, then what biological or logical barriers prevent the former from becoming the latter?

AJ Brightenstein, Fort Erie, Canada

Evolution is a philosophy. Variation within species is observable, micro evolution. None of Darwin's finches became sparrows and they adapted back and forth based on climate change. Evolution has 3 issues - how life arose from non life, order from lack of order, intelligence from non intelligence.

Randy Baker, Edmonton, Canada

kr

Your definition of 'process' may require a goal at the end of it, but it is not inherent in the word and is unnecessary anyway.

Of course we don't know if there is a higher form of intelligence (whatever that means) in the Universe, but that must also include a god.

Alan Henness, Glasgow,

Finally something sensible to come out of a Church.

Mike Laughton, Runcorn, United Kingdom

Why is it that the British find it so hard to accept an entity is higher then them, better than them? They act this way in life all the time, like punks. Forget religions as we know them but do you really think that humans are the highest form of intelligence in the universe? Silly really.

kr, Cap Ferrat, FRANCE

Leave man's religions aside.Evolution is a process, by definition it has to be heading towards a goal. That goal has to have been defined by some higher entity.The results can seem random but not the goal. Get smart and stop being so arrogant. I'm not religious but I accept a higher force than me!

kr, Cap Ferrat, FRANCE

Christianity has nothing to do with believing in Noah's ark, adam and eve, or that the world was created in 6 days. Its about helping your neighbour, and reaching your full potential in life so you can help others reach theirs.
God continues to create, through evolution.

charlie/expat, los angeles, US

the issue is not whether darwin was wrong, but that it is demonstrably not true that the world was created in 6 days. end of discussion about creationism. does that mean there is no god? of course not, only that literal interpretation of the bible is simplistic and faith is anything but that...

stephen, china, china

What an odd view of God and the universe!

Steven Calascione, St. Julians, Malta

Anglicans are so lovely, they just accomodate anything and pass round tea and cakes- bless em.

iain rae, tunbridge wells, U.K.

"Look at the stars, the complexity of DNA. Could man create these? Of course not."
I'm pretty sure no scientist or indeed any sane person believes man created DNA or life.it was just a random progression from
more simple molecules then to organelles and organisms.

Kieran, Halifax, U.K..

Religion is nothing but childish superstition - Albert Einstein.

greg, wigan, England

Evolution is true and demonstrated in world around us.

Another God view could be - we can never know what is true genesis and should accept that premise. 100 years ago microchip was unimaginable and impossible.
Man is not special: merely arrogant. No more than random part of everything.

Leigh Vernier, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Charles Darwin was not an atheist.

Martin, Newmarket, Suffolk

No evolutionist has ever suggsted that evolution was an accident. Mutations may in themselves be "random" (please look up the scientific definition of this word) but natural selection is not random. Evolution explains the complexity of life not the origin of life nor the universe.

S Bleasdale, Lancaster, U.K.

There is a vital difference between 'teaching' evolution and 'debating' it in school -To stand before a class and announce that creation is a scientific theory is hugely different to having an open, fair and honest debate about the various possible modes of genesis.

david, london, uk

Secular atheism getting too dogmatic? This from a representative of one of the worlds great dogmatic religions. Perhaps the "Secular atheists are finally not standing any longer for being force fed the culpable stupidity of religious belief.

Paul, Cairns, Australia

Darwin did NOT deny his observations (not theory) before he died. Why does lying come so easily to American christians?

paulbe, Cairns, Australia

Darwin was initially a theology student and a Christian. His study of the natural world gradually changed this; he was agnostic.

Yvonne, your question of Man is a non sequitur. As for the suggestion of an accident, evolution and the naturalistic origin of the universe is far more refined than that.

Michael Winter, Bristol, UK

Darwinism is upheld by the theory of natural selection, which mostly is true, however it has no answer as to why man's brain is larger that its usage.

Sheila Roberts, Telford, England

It would seem to me that many scientists would prefer to think of the universe and themselves as the consequence of a random, meaningless incident. That way the can relegate any notions of "evil" to the realms of fantasy. How sad that it will be too late for them when they are kneeling before God.

Simon, Sydney, Australia

Charles Darwin was not an atheist, quite the opposite, he was a devout Christian. His interest in science and his studies on the galapagos islande led him to conclude the basis of natural selection. By the way, evolution isn't a theory, it is a fact. Religion is nonsense, please open your eyes!

Patrick, London,

Oh the irony ... "The C of E expressed..." as if there was one view with that body on such things! Evolution is one theory, with some evidence for it, but with big gaps that have still to be addressed, teach it as theory, but true scientific thinking means exploring other hypotheses as well..

Ian, Bury, UK

Simon

Why do you believe god is infinite?

Alan Henness, Glasgow,

Dear Mario,

Darwin was not an atheist, whatever you may have been lead to believe. He was about to be ordained before leaving on his historic trip, and when he returned took 20 years to release his book, he spent his entire life in conflict, since his theory shook his beliefs (needlessly).

Karl, Ryde, England

The creationists' position is essentially "I cannot imagine how it happened, therefore a supernatural being must have done it".

To propose teach this to children as "science" is on a par with proposing to teach physics as a branch of witchcraft.

Martin, Falaise, France

As far as I am concerned, anyone who seriously poses creationism and a credible alternative to evolutionary science is a dyed in the wool thicky or a looney. Simple as.

Yakoub, Huddersfield, UK

It's funny when people say 'what if children come into the science room with different beliefs'. But that's the point - science isn't about belief - it's about proof. If you don't trust demonstratable evidence and reach a natural conclusion then this would impair a childs ability to judge.

Joe, New York, USA

Sean, Richmond - I think you dont see. The crucial fact about God is that He is infinite. A 'beginning' or source applies only to the finite - like us; not God. PS, there is no 'we' or 'I' in athesim, just a mass of matter. In athesim conciousness is necessarily an illusion..

Simon, Birmingham, Britain

Mario - you should really read about evolution before you criticise it. You see evolution at play all the time, dog breeding, flu virus being different each year, a baby having his mother's nose and father's eyes, etc.
Evolution is the impact that these characteristics have on survival rate.

Joe, New York, USA

Darwin denied his own theory before he died. Evolution is trash and these so called ''educated and intelligent'' scientists don't even realize how stupid the whole theory is. Its nothing more than a theory and a dead wrong one at that. Look at the complexity of the human body for just one example .

brad, durham, USA

'Something' convinced the theistic, religiously aware Darwin to become a doubter. I wonder what that could have been?

Tim, Edinburgh,

- if I heard his daughter died of tuberculosis and then the change in this beliefs.

Philip, Nr. Haywards Heath, England

.'Something' convinced the theistic, religiously aware Darwin to become a doubter. I wonder what that could have been?

His granfather, Erasmus - a humanist. You realise that Darwins theory was based on an idea that was hardly new?

Oh and, everyone is 'religiously aware' to some degree or other

Simon, Birmingham, Britain

I am 73 years old and have yet to see anything, much less a human evolve. Anyhow, if evolution is true it cannot happen without God.

Brian P O Cinneide, eThekwini, Afrika Borwa

why should we, as humuns be told that a scientific theory is wrong just because it conflicts with extremist veiws? if the church dosent keep its scilly beliefs to itself then the humun race will never advance, especielly with the pope posining the minds of nearly every catholic person. who makes what he says right?

john stewart, belfast, united kingdom

Darwin may have been an atheist, but before his evolutionary discoveries he was a pupil at a church school and then a student of Theology who planned to become a Clergyman.

'Something' convinced the theistic, religiously aware Darwin to become a doubter. I wonder what that could have been?

Tim, Edinburgh,

I became an atheist when I read the following sentence;

"The concept of God is epistemologically useless."

This means that the concept of a god does not explain how we got here.

Ask the question, where did God come from?
Ask the question, how did the Big Bang happen?

See?

Sean, Richmond, United Kingdom

Too bad so many people don't realize that Charles Darwin was an atheist and that his view of evolution is in fact that the human race evolved from an accident billions of years ago. No creation, just an accident leading to evolution. What rubbish!!!

Mario, Winthrop, USA

It is much better and wiser to believe in the creator of God than the God itself...... mankind!

Ali Akademir, Bishop's Stortford, HERTS

After 30 years as a lawyer and 52 years of life I believe in what God says not man. Look at the stars, the complexity of DNA. Could man create these? Of course not. Could they happen by accident? Don't be ridiculous. How beautiful is God's creation. How wonderful, and worthy of trust, it's Creator

Yvonne Hossack, Kettering, England

Why cant people see we are such a small spec on the cosmos,why should we think we are so special,im sure people just dont realise how big the universe is,the human species is so naive and full of self importance its just ridiculous,we need to face up to the reality of life.

KEV, PLYMOUTH,