(December 6, 2013 at 5:20 pm)Natedeezy Wrote: The point is, sharpie, watch, dildo, the object doesn't matter. There is no proof that it was created, maybe there was a sharpie tree that existed long ago? We don't know.You've warped the example into uselessness. If we're talking about a stone-age man in a world where there are no indicators of our past, and he comes upon a magic marker, what would he think? He'd probably wonder what it tasted like.
You are aware that the oldest religious writings we have found are tales of gods who quarrel among themselves and battle demons and dragons and treat humans with a mixture of whimsy and disdain? Early man took a look around him and apparently decided that god was a bitter and cranky bastard who took it upon himself to make life miserable for people. He didn't seem terribly awed at the wonder of creation and how it showed an intelligent and thoughtful designer. He thought that god created the universe out of the carcass of a dragon he slew.
"Intelligent designer" is how we view creator gods today, perhaps. But for a long time I think the title "malevolent designer" might have been more readily accepted.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
