Faith is active and visible, not something that just occures "in your heart".

I would like to apologize to my worthy opponent. He has entered into this debate which assumes the validity of the Bible, the sovereignty of God, and the need of mankind to have a savior because of our fallen nature. If we remove those assumptions, then this debate is meaningless, because there would be no need for faith in a god that does not exist. However, these assumptions are true. We were created by One all-powerful, all-knowing, always present God. He set the world in order, designed all the laws, rules, and systems that make the universe function (and are the basis of the Science that is so honored by evolutionary theory), and then gave man one rule. The first man and woman broke that rule, and so were cut off from God by their sin. God wants us, His creation, to seek after Him. He wants us to want a relationship with Him, but He demands that we be Holy (as He is Holy) before we can have that relationship. The only way for this to occur is for God Himself to forgive us, because it was our (mankind's) actions that broke the relationship in the first place. So, because one of the rules He set up was that the blood of a sacrifice is required to forgive sin, He sent Jesus, His son, to offer Himself as a sacrifice to cleanse our sins, and open a door back to relationship with God. Now, based on your opening statement, I would guess that you believe more in the evolutionary explanation of things. While evolution may seem to explain the diversity of life, and natural phenomena seem to explain the world around us, it cannot account for the beginning of life, because that would violate several of the most fundamental laws scientists depend upon. Namely, the second law of thermodynamics. Nature does not naturally tend toward order. It ALWAYS tends toward disorder. Life is the most ordered system there is. For life to have sprung from non-life, there would have to have been an intelligent ordering influence. For example, I direct your attention to the protein. For proteins to function properly, amino acids first must be arranged and connected in the proper order. Then that chain of amino acids must be folded in the proper way. If either of these steps is skipped, or done improperly, the result is not a functional protein. Proteins are folded in the mitochondria which is a structure inside a cell that is made out of proteins. So which came first? The properly folded protein, or the "machine" that folds proteins but is itself made of proteins? The mitochondria could not have come first because it, being made of proteins would require that the proteins already be in existence. But the protein could not have come first, because proteins do not fold themselves, ever. So the only logical option left to us is that an intelligent, powerful, reasoning, force (which I call God) caused these structures to be. We are now so far outside of the parameters of the original debate that it is ridiculous, but if you are interested in learning more about God I would be happy to correspond with your directly, rather than in this debate forum, where we can explore these matters to your heart's content. If, however, you are content not knowing more about Him, then we can continue for the sake of finishing the debate, and part as friends.