"Accident" and "chance" are not the same thing. Saying that life on Earth was created by accident is incorrect. An accident is unintended, while chance is merely something that may or may not happen. We can't even be sure of whether life on earth was a "small" chance or not--life may well be common throughout the universe. It may not have been chance at all...Life may be an inevitability on earth-like planets and such planets might not be uncommon. Or, life may be a fluke. With current technology, we have no way of knowing.
As for evolution...Darwin-style evolution based on spurts of random mutation is increasingly being shown to be incorrect. Nonetheless, evolution happens at least to some extent, although its a gradual process. Look at the different races of people. No matter whether you believe in strict evolution OR biblical creation, it's not even in dispute that all present-day humans come from a fairly small number of ancestors. In a relatively short time (thousands of years) we have changed and grown quite distinct from each other. Is it REALLY such a stretch to think that in a longer period of time--millions of years--we might keep growing different until we could no longer reproduce with each other? I think not. Sauropod dinosaurs continued getting larger and larger over a long period of time--we DO have the fossil record to show that form of evolution happening. Evolution happens, at least in some forms. You can't even belive in the Bible without believing in some degree of evolution.
Creationists argue that you don't have to believe in strict Biblical Creation to believe in Intelligent Design. That is true. It is equally true that you don't need to completely agree with Darwin to realize that evolution happens. At the basic level, believing in Intelligent Design doesn't mean you can't believe in evolution either. Just because a process happens doesn't mean there isn't something "intelligent" (as opposed to nature) guiding that process.
ID proponents often ask "Where did matter come from?". A reply is often along the lines of "Then where did God come from?". If someome is prepared to accept that God simply exists, then why can't he also accept that perhaps matter/energy always existed. If you can't accept that possibly energy/matter always existed, then you can't logically just assume that some OTHER force (God) always existed, either. No matter what belief you subscribe to, there MUST be some sort of starting point.
If there IS some sort of intelligence guiding the process of creation, then it isn't intelligence in the human sense. All known forms of "real" intelligence are forms of life. All life is born, needs food to sustain itself, and eventually dies. Something with the power to guide the formation of the universe couldn't even be alive in that sense of the word. To believe in Intelligent Design, then, we must do one of two things. We must either be willing to "bend" the traditional meaning of "intelligence", or we must believe in some sort of higher level of Existance. The latter is pure conjecture. If you're willing to do the former, then perhaps the natural order itself is that "intelligence".
It all boils down to this--we just don't know. It makes for good dicsussion, though.
J_A_B
