Evidence God Exists

[AngelThMan]

First of all, lions' sharp teeth or fangs are not unique to their species. Plenty of other species have them. Even if they were unique, sharp fangs don't give any species the ability to conquer the world as humans have. Humans themselves have unique physical traits, but is their intelligence which has allowed them to achieve dominion.

It's like talking to a wall.

I can say the same thing about you. You're falling into the trap of thinking that just because you believe something, it must mean it's true. Isn't that what atheists constantly say of Christians?

Dominion IN THEIR ENVIRONMENT.

No, dominion all over. Have you ever seen a zoo run by animals with humans in display?

You think our intelligence would stand a chance in the lions' environment without tools? You think that we would survive ANYWHERE without intelligence?

Our closest cousins, the chimpanzee, survive without sapient intelligence or tools. So, yes.

It's a trait forged by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution...

So? I've never denied evolution. It doesn't matter how we arrived at our intelligence, or the time it took. What's important is that God influenced the process.

...We're still killing each other over land that we think belongs to us...

This is veering off into politics and moral agenda. It's not relevant to the topic.

Show me any 'other advanced mammal' that has invented computers.

Are computers the only bearing on intelligence a mammal could have?

Now you're really missing the point. I used computers as a metaphor for science, a manifestation of our intelligence unequaled by any other animal. I shouldn't have to explain this.

How about communicable language? Self-awareness? Tangible emotional responses to stimuli? Working concepts of life and death? Established hierarchy and society? Expression of music? There are animals that have all of this and more.

Can you find one other species that has all of these traits? Humans do. When these traits are found in animals, they are usually limited, and developed solely for survival.

What humans can achieve with their intelligence is far greater than what lions can achieve with their jaws. There's no comparison.

Greater in what sense?

I'm tired of explaining how humans are superior to animals. You know we are, but are just being difficult. I think you love the concept of being an atheist, and are avoiding the real issue, because you know getting sidetracked with denying our superior stance is an easier target than explaining why we are the only species, out of millions, to develop sapient intelligence.

How are you certain humans will remain "dominant" in the future?

I cannot base an intelligent argument on what may or may not happen. No offense, but this is just not a very bright comment.

[quote='tavarish']http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/04/12/art_for_evolutions_sake/

Art, by contrast, is not about automatic responses to pretty things, expressive movements, and compelling rhythms, but our aesthetic activities and sensibilities in all their capricious diversity, from cave art and oral epics to museums and raves. It's that very flexibility and creativity - that humanity, in a word - of art which Dutton sets out to explain in evolutionary terms.

Some biologists have argued that art is an evolutionary accident, the fortuitous product of adaptations produced for other ends; Dutton disagrees. Far from being an accident of evolution, imagination is a useful survival tool, and thus almost certainly an adaptation in its own right. Dutton swiftly enumerates situations, from the Pleistocene age to the present, in which imagination proves its utility. One of the most important dimensions of our imaginative faculty, he argues, is its virtuality. Early hunter-gatherers would have derived immense benefit from a capacity to imagine and surmise: What's in the next valley? Do those caves harbor sheltering alcoves or dangerous bears?

To me this is just a lot of hogwash -- scientists trying to explain a phenomenon, and failing miserably, and in the process contradicting each other's theories. What's important to note is that even these scientists agree that the development of art in humans is significant as a piece that doesn't quite fit the puzzle of evolution, and therefore they have a need to try to justify it. Maybe they can also try to justify the development of math and science, which takes our intelligence to levels far above what is necessary for the preservation of our species.

Tavarish, I think I've fully explained why your arguments have failed to convince me. So please, let's not go around in circles.