[This_person]

Originally Posted by Tonio

That's a false dichotomy. It relies on the baseless assumption that events are random if there is no intelligence to guide them. In reality there is no such thing as randomness in the universe, and it's more accurate to say that events have causes and not reasons. Each event is preceded by a specific series of events, and if some of those preceding events were different then the outcome event would be different. Some events may simply appear to be random because our senses aren't capable of perceiving all the preceding events.

By "random", I meant without reason. No intelligence causing it to happen. No meaning behind it.
Cars can be placed in gear and walked away from. The cause of the car's motion would be the random acts of unevenness in the road, the random misalignment of the tires, etc. If it hits a person, that's a random act that had a cause, but no meaning, no reason.

It's certainly possible that some intelligence may be causing events to happen in the universe for specific reasons. But that possibility is a scientific matter and not a philosophical one. The origins of life and the universe are questions for science and not for religion or philosophy. That is because the physical universe exists independent of human belief.

And, if there is an intelligence determining what's happening - that's independant of human belief also. I don't see your point, honestly. I guess I see science and religion as very similar - in search of truth. Religion and philosophy searches for reason, for meaning. Thus, religion is a compliment to both philosophy and science. Religions attempt to answer by whom, and why. Science attempts to answer the specific detail of how.

Criticisms of evolution sometimes claim to have a scientific basis, but they're really about scriptural beliefs or philosophical arguments such as life allegedly having no meaning. Neither of those has anything to do with whether evolution has any scientific accuracy. If new evidence surfaced that resulted in a different hypothesis about origin of species, creationism would still reject that hypothesis if it didn't fit the philosophical agenda.

But, evolution doesn't attempt to answer the origin of the life. Why we're as tall as we are, or why we're bipeds is a science question for determining the details of HOW. Where life comes from isn't addressed by evolution.

That's the real problem with creationism - attempting to explain natural phenomena according to what is philosophically or emotionally satisfying.

Actually, it's attempting to explain the source of "natural" phenomena.