Evidence God Exists

[Thor]

You know, for a thread titled "Evidence God Exists", so far I haven't seen any.

Case closed

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/817047-jesu...frying-pan

Is this the pan that was used to make the Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich?

[fr0d0]

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Position of dominance in our own, specialized environment. I'm making the point that we are no more dominant and special than any other animal that is at the top of its food chain in its specific environment. We are nothing without specific tools and adaptations that we have developed over thousands of years. To think we were just created with some sort of divine dominion over species is not seeing the forest through the trees, and going against established facts.

Every single animal is unique. Our intelligence is a unique trait, but no more special than a lion's claws or a peregrine falcon's ability to dive. They are developed over time. Natural selection doesn't favor any one species over another. An assessment of "we are so unique that it had to have been God" is an ignorant argument and from personal incredulity.

Understand?

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Did you just repeat yourself without taking my points on board at all? It seems so.

[tavarish]

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Position of dominance in our own, specialized environment. I'm making the point that we are no more dominant and special than any other animal that is at the top of its food chain in its specific environment. We are nothing without specific tools and adaptations that we have developed over thousands of years. To think we were just created with some sort of divine dominion over species is not seeing the forest through the trees, and going against established facts.

Every single animal is unique. Our intelligence is a unique trait, but no more special than a lion's claws or a peregrine falcon's ability to dive. They are developed over time. Natural selection doesn't favor any one species over another. An assessment of "we are so unique that it had to have been God" is an ignorant argument and from personal incredulity.

Understand?

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Did you just repeat yourself without taking my points on board at all? It seems so.

I repeated my points because it's apparent they weren't considered. A human's uniqueness works only in this environment. If you're trying to make the point that this "specialness" comes from the development of humans over time, it makes even less sense to attribute that to an all powerful deity. Why include the extra unfounded variable in the equation, when our perceived uniqueness is a product of solely natural processes anyway? You're not adding anything to the understanding of the process.

[fr0d0]

I considered your points as I did everyone else that made the same point, and answered them. If you can conceive that dominance is real for whatever reason then you have to accept Angels point that it is indeed so. Yeah sure we can theorise about what other scenario might have been but that isn't what we've got.

[Welsh cake]

No I think the point Angel makes is that 'specialness' comes from our unique position of dominance and not the other way around. At this point in time our position reiterates the theology.

Of course there are other forms of intelligence and isn't everything that has no exact equal unique? I think his wording was poor, but he went on to clarify what he meant, which floors the many repeated rebuts on that count.

Our "dominance" as you put it is merely your perspective or subjective world-view on our current status, technically we're not the dominant species on this planet and never really have been.

While creating our own artificial environment instead of gradually adapting is certainly an ability we possess that established our success, this only makes us one-of-the-most successful species currently around. We can't make our own food the way plants do, Bees pollinate flowering plants that we get a deal of our produce from, anything happens to those little guys and we're all screwed basically. Afterall we're not the most successful life-forms in terms of sheer numbers, Viruses, Bacteria and countless pathogens have us beat there I'm afraid.

And for all our 'dominance' it only takes one extinction-event like the asteroid/comet that wiped out the dinosaurs to remove every trace of our brief existence from this tiny celestial body.

Many people and myself included honestly couldn't care less what beliefs you profess...

This is just a standard line that atheists love to feed all Christians. In this case it doesn't fit at all as I was merely stating that people, including atheists, are not going to give up their beliefs with every little argument that is presented to them.

What part of "couldn't care less" did you not understand? Believe whatever you want, in your private time its your privilege, making existence claims about evidence for god and asserting it as 'truth' in the public place however is a totally different can of worms altogether.

I have answered everything. If you really go through what I've written, you may understand that.

I think even you can appreciate you haven't answered anything as of yet. Anecdotes and analogies are not evidence for any god-like being. You still haven't met your burden of proof or demonstrated to us that god actually exists.

...why didn't your god concept make everything living on Earth have the same level of sentience to start with? Why have animals if humans were only capable of loving him?

People here expect me to 'listen' (by which they mean concede), when I get arguments like this. Animals support humans. They also provide scientific benefits for the earth, something you should know since you claim to be all about scientific facts.

Way to dodge my hypothetical. Can you answer one question? Or at least be a little more specific please? 'Animals support humans' is a rather vague statement that can literally imply anything. One can interpret that in too many ways, i.e. horses have practical uses as beasts of burden, lab mice are very useful if you need to test for carcinogenic agents, dolphins are friendly, and so on.

[tavarish]

I considered your points as I did everyone else that made the same point, and answered them. If you can conceive that dominance is real for whatever reason then you have to accept Angels point that it is indeed so. Yeah sure we can theorise about what other scenario might have been but that isn't what we've got.

I have to accept Angel's point that it is somehow dominion over ALL and divinely caused?

[fr0d0]

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Our "dominance" as you put it is merely your perspective or subjective world-view on our current status, technically we're not the dominant species on this planet and never really have been.

While creating our own artificial environment instead of gradually adapting is certainly an ability we possess that established our success, this only makes us one-of-the-most successful species currently around. We can't make our own food the way plants do, Bees pollinate flowering plants that we get a deal of our produce from, anything happens to those little guys and we're all screwed basically. Afterall we're not the most successful life-forms in terms of sheer numbers, Viruses, Bacteria and countless pathogens have us beat there I'm afraid.

And for all our 'dominance' it only takes one extinction-event like the asteroid/comet that wiped out the dinosaurs to remove every trace of our brief existence from this tiny celestial body.

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Granted. So you substitute successful for dominant. I can go with that.

I have to accept Angel's point that it is somehow dominion over ALL and divinely caused?

No you have to accept the precept. I don't agree with his summary either. Or should I say I don't find it a convincing argument to say the least. Definitely confirmation bias in my mind.

[AngelThMan]

I see no reason to believe our intelligence more 'special' than a lion's teeth are 'special'. If you can provide sound reasons why, then there is the possibility I might believe you.

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 it is their intelligence which has allowed them to achieve dominion.

...our intelligence is demonstrably not unique. It is a fact that a fair number of other 'advanced' mammals...

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

We are more adept with our intelligence than other animals on Earth... in the way a lion is more adept with its jaws than we are with ours. But that doesn't make us unique nor special.

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

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While we do hold a certain level of dominance on land, our intelligence is a product of our evolution into a changing environment. Our intelligence is no less special than a dolphin's sonar, a bat's echo location, a dog's hearing, or a cheetah's speed. Every single animal is the world has unique traits, otherwise it quite simply wouldn't be here.

Basically what you're saying is that our intelligence is a survival tool that we developed through evolution. So now explain what the development of art, science, entertainment, etc. has to do with survival. From an evolutionary standpoint, why are those needed for the preservation of our species?

It also makes the assumption that we cannot be "overtaken" by another "intelligently special" species by process of evolution.

You've been reading too many fantasy books. See what I have to deal with here?

We're so special? Put us anywhere without electricity or tools. The vast majority would die within days...

Who used their intelligence to invent electricity and tools in the first place?

These are the types of arguments I'm subjected to here. Then people wonder why I don't 'listen' (concede).

[tavarish]

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.

Dominion IN THEIR ENVIRONMENT. You think our intelligence would stand a chance in the lions' environment without tools? You think that we would survive ANYWHERE without intelligence? It's a trait forged by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and still isn't perfectly adapted for our environment. We're still killing each other over land that we think belongs to us, for fuck's sake. We still have very primitive emotional responses to lots of stimuli, and no amount of intelligence can shake the obvious attachment we have to our ancestors' behavior.

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

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

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.

If you want me to show you an advanced mammal that has invented a computer, show me a human that has developed SONAR naturally. It's just as ridiculous. It's like saying "monkeys don't show intelligence until they can fly the space shuttle". It's simply unreasonable at this point in time. However, I do contend that with time, anything is possible.

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?

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

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Basically what you're saying is that our intelligence is a survival tool that we developed through evolution. So now explain what the development of art, science, entertainment, etc. has to do with survival. From an evolutionary standpoint, why are those needed for the preservation of our species?

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/...ions_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?

You've been reading too many fantasy books. See what I have to deal with here?

The Origin of the Species is a fantasy book now?

Who used their intelligence to invent electricity and tools in the first place?

These are the types of arguments I'm subjected to here. Then people wonder why I don't 'listen' (concede).

Humans did. It still doesn't change the fact that we developed these traits over time and were not granted dominion over animals from a divine source. We would not survive in an environment that did not demand this from us, just as a slow-running cheetah would quickly die out in its environment. That's what i'm trying to point out. Your "dominance" is just the product of thousands of years of evolutionary development, still on-going by the way.

[Zen Badger]

Humans being smart is not conclusive evidence of god.

BTW over 99% of the life on this planet is composed of single cell creatures who don't even know we exist.

Would you contend that we have dominence over them?