(May 31, 2014 at 9:50 am)Chas Wrote: Just because you don't think eating raw gazelle is appetizing, you can't conclude that a lion doesn't.
Exactly.
A more drastic example is rotting meat.
We think rotting meat smells bad. But in actuality, there are various molecules produced by rotting meat that don't smell bad or good until they are perceived by an organism.
We think they smell bad because rotting meat could kill us. So we evolved a survival mechanism to avoid rotting meat by detecting it as smelling bad.
But the exact same molecules that we detect as smelling bad, are detected by vultures or flies as smelling good, and necessary for their survival.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
