The Anomaly that is Man

[Dolorian]

A theist is no longer justified in concluding that, in light of scientific findings, understanding logic, and that we now understand the importance of evidence when forming our beliefs.

Oh, I agree. I'm just wondering, given his statements, what Pickup thinks.

[Mudhammam]

All you've said is special is defined by how we differ from everyone else we know, and in particular how we differ from everyone we know in ways we like to be proud of, therefore we are by definition special.

I happen to think none of the traits you mention has any specialness about them. They are all likely to be mere undistinguished points somewhere along continums of different aspects of biological capabilities that, to the best of our ability to infer, the universe can and most likely have produce an almost infinite number of separate occasions. We are extremely unlikely to represent any extreme value on any of those continums. and we are also extremely unlike to be the first to every attain our point along any of the continum on which we can be measured.

In other words, nothing that we distinguish ourselves with is likely to be something other than common place in the universe, as far we our most reasonable inference of how the universe works can tell us.

We only marvel at ourselves because we are so provincial that we've never seen anything but our own cradles.

I wouldn't say you're wrong, but simply that we disagree about what is meant by privilege or special-ness and how it relates to the question in the OP. Sure, you can chalk it up to egoism, but that ego is in my mind the distinctive feature that separates our species from any other, and is, I think, a case where the difference it makes makes all the difference in the world (well, to us, you might reply, to which I respond: In what other context could anything take on significance or meaningful sense otherwise?).

A theist is no longer justified in concluding that, in light of scientific findings, understanding logic, and that we now understand the importance of evidence when forming our beliefs.

Oh, I agree. I'm just wondering, given his statements, what Pickup thinks.

I agree with Exian. Theism offers no satisfactory explanation (if any at all?) for why things are the way they are whereas naturalism, while it leaves certain brute facts about the antecedent laws or materials required for existence as we know it unexplained, has very adequate and plausible theories and just-so stories (because we can actually observe and make predictions about their equivalents today) for how our species evolved (I find Chuck's response satisfying on this point).