The absurd need for logical proofs for God

[R00tKiT]

You have that exactly backwards - populations of organisms evolve biological processes to suit their environment (this is why the Negev Desert doesn’t have a population of polar bears).

What you’ve done is presumed that environments were deliberately designed to be fit for predetermined groups of organisms. That’s not how it works.

Formally, this is what you’ve done:

1. If God designed the universe, then human beings would exist.
2. Human beings exist.
3. Therefore, God designed the universe.

See the problem?

Boru

No,pal. The first premise is unsound, by the way. The second premise is unprovable in the atheist's worldview - only he, one human being, can say of himself he exists. I am afraid I will insist on the problem of other minds, since it clearly undermines the atheist's tendency to demand the kind of evidence for god he wouldn't demand in other situations of equal importance.

Ther agument actually goes like this:
1. One is certain other minds exists, despite the latter being subject to debate and cannot be formally proven.
2. It can be shown that the existence of God is based on the same analogy, however weak it is, that leads to the existence of other minds.
3. Therefore, if one rejects the existence of god, one rejects other minds. Otherwise, he will have a fundamentally dishonest position.

For the design part, it can be put this way:
1. We can see clear aspects of adaptation of means to end -i.e. design-, regardless of the process that led to it.
2. Design, as defined in 1., is more probably that not the product of a conscious, deliberate decision.
3. Therefore, our universe is more probably than not the design of a conscious agent.

If one defines design as manufactured things, then he's the one who is affirming the consequent. Since by his own narrow, discriminatory definition, nature is undesigned. The atheist simply asigns an ad hoc meaning to design to undermine an otherwise valid argument.

So, here's what the atheist does, formally:

1. I am afraid the universe really does look fine-tuned. My position is screwed.
2. I have an idea though, I am going to define design as human design only.
3. Therefore the universe is not designed.

See the problem ?

H, Klorophyll.  There are a lot of ways to respond to this, but my first intuition is to just as the most simple question that this line of thinking begs.  If I accept your argument as valid, this still leaves me with an incredibly profound problem.  Which god do I now choose?  And upon what basis do I make this choice?

If you accept the argument, and therefore think a god exists. Then it follows that he couldn't have let his creatures -us, without guidance. The most tenable candidates for that would be abrahamic religions, other known religions either self-affirm their godlessness or are by definition a collection of nebullous, and often contradictory wisdoms, christianity runs into the fatal logical problem of trinity. You're left with Judaism and Islam, the only strictly monotheist beliefs today.

If you agree with all what's above, we'll assess together which of the two remaining religions closely fits what would one expect from an all powerful god.

From the abstract of your linked article:

"We also report on studies that associate HERVs with human diseases of the brain and CNS. There is little doubt of an association between HERVs and a number of CNS diseases."

Thank you for proving my point. Worse than useless.

From the same article :

Another intriguing finding in human brain cells and mouse models was that endogenous retrovirus HERV-K appears to be protective against neurotoxins.

I told you, you're desperately trying to argue from ignorance

Horseshit. Any fool can show that a broken part is useless. The pseudogene that fails to produce vitamin C in primates for example. Useless. Worse than useless in fact, since it takes resources to reproduce.

No, liar. Parts of the gene are literally missing, not broken.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14703305/

We read : Only five exons, as compared to 12 exons constituting the functional rat GULO gene, remain in the human genome. A comparison of these exons with those of their functional counterparts in rat showed that there are two single nucleotide deletions, one triple nucleotide deletion, and one single nucleotide insertion in the human sequence.

It's another matter entirely if the entire gene was there and wasn't able to function nonetheless.

Even more, the mutation that made the gene stop being able to synthetize vitamin C may have been of beneft to early primates.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917125/
Vitamin C partially blocks the effects of fructose, namely stimulation of fat storage, which provides means for survival during periods of food shortage.

Point of order! Which side of this debate are you arguing? I ask because you're arguing that humans give things function, utility, and purpose, not god. I mean, thanks and all that, but I really wasn't expecting you to argue both sides of this debate. Why don't I just leave you to it.

You're not that stupid, pal. Read your posts again : you're arguing that some gene somewhere is "useless", and therefore not designed. My point is that this logical implication is invalid. Because we have abundant counterexamples to your assertion. And I gave the example of chemical elements out there in nature who stayed "useless" for centuries, then became useful when we figure out out more about chemistry.

In short: the terms "useless" are "useful" are entirely related to our condition, our science, our culture, etc. And one shouldn't blame the creator when he thinks that something is really useless.

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@Klorophyll

Because I’m not quoting that text wall:

You’re the one that brings up silly analogies like cars and buildings and other man-made objects to compare to all of extant nature, lol. Unless you’re asserting that god hand-designs every individual snowflake; a claim you would have to demonstrate, by the way; then yeah, you’re equivocating. Own it.

Sure, you can run. I have one definition of design, I will restate mine (and yours) in bold, if that helps :

Design (my definition) = adaptation of means to ends.

Design (according to LadyForCamus) = ........... human design

Your definition is circular, biased, and wrong too. And you're accusing me of equivocation ?