Evidence God Exists

[tavarish]

It's laughable that you present beluga whales as proof of animals with sapient intelligence. Especially when they're performing tricks taught by humans, imprisoned in tanks created by humans.

I don't understand the analogy. Humans do that to other humans all the time. Have you ever heard of the concept of entertainment? How is this relevant to something possessing sapient intelligence?

NO ONE in the fields of science, biology, or marine biology consider beluga whales, or any other animals, to have sapient intelligence.

Provide evidence for your claim.

Humans are the only species with sapient intelligence.

Provide evidence for your claim.

You're dancing circles around the real issue, perhaps in fear that you won't be able to answer the real question: Why are humans the only species with sapient intelligence?

You haven't demonstrated that they are. First define your claim, demonstrate its truth, then postulate on why it is - all of which has to be backed up with evidence.

[downbeatplumb]

Neanderthals made complex stone tools, wore clothing and body paint and buried their dead with ritual.

These were most probably a seperate species to homo Sapiens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

So we are not the only species to display all signs of Sapience.

[AngelThMan]

Neanderthals made complex stone tools, wore clothing and body paint and buried their dead with ritual.

These were most probably a seperate species to homo Sapiens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

So we are not the only species to display all signs of Sapience.

Neanderthals are extinct. Further proof we are the only species meant to have sapient intelligence!

[downbeatplumb]

Neanderthals made complex stone tools, wore clothing and body paint and buried their dead with ritual.

These were most probably a seperate species to homo Sapiens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

So we are not the only species to display all signs of Sapience.

Neanderthals are extinct. Further proof we are the only species meant to have sapient intelligence!

So god stamps out all others eh.

Thats not very nice.

[Minimalist]

Neanderthals made complex stone tools, wore clothing and body paint and buried their dead with ritual.

These were most probably a seperate species to homo Sapiens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

So we are not the only species to display all signs of Sapience.

Neanderthals are extinct. Further proof we are the only species meant to have sapient intelligence!

Things are never quite so cut and dried as you like to think. It's a by-product of reading what you think is an "infallible" book.

BTW, why did your god create such imperfect creatures?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/0...8619.shtml

The proven proximity has fostered a debate over whether humans and Neander¬thals might have mated with each other as well. Ramirez Rozzi classifies Neanderthals as a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis, and therefore suspects that close relationships with early humans were rare. "I think early modern humans viewed Neanderthals as a different group, as ‘the other,'" he says.

But Erik Trinkhaus, a physical anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, thinks the two hominids had a much stronger connection. In fact, he controversially argues that Neanderthals did not really go extinct. Rather, he claims, they were absorbed into the larger, rapidly growing population of early humans migrating into Eurasia from Africa. "We will never know to what extent they were absorbed. The bottom line is that they were humans, and sex happens," he says.

They are only now beginning to sort out the Neanderthal genome. Even so, as we all seem to have come from Homo Erectus a find of Erectus dna would be far more enlightening.

Unlike your holy book of fairy tales, science is still asking questions. It does not pretend to have all the answers.

[Thor]

Neanderthals are extinct. Further proof we are the only species meant to have sapient intelligence!

And if Neanderthals had come out on top, I suppose that would be proof to them that they were the only species meant to have sapient intelligence....

This is kind of like the winner of a sporting event claiming that "God" chose them. In this scenario, "God" can't lose because there's always going to be a winner!

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

@Godschild

My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines 'sapient' as: "would-be wise,of fancied sagacity ;aping wisdom' Do you perhaps mean 'sentience'? All that means is "the power of sense perception ". What about self awareness? That's been observed amongst other primates ( as has compassion) Awareness of death? Elephants. Problem solving? Other apes do that, and rooks have been observed making a tool to make a tool. Morality? A survival tool based on pragmatism. A soul? I reject the existence of the soul.

We SEEM to be the only animal aware of its own mortality. However, the debate about what constitutes a person is far from over.


Are neanderthals extinct? Its seems so to me,but I don't know that for a fact. I will continue to accept their extinction until such time I see evidence to the contrary.

[Zen Badger]

To clarify, I didn't mean everyone on this forum. You are obviously older, and I can tell from your arguments. But the great majority of people here, on this thread at least, are youngish people who have not been atheists very long, and find comfort in the idea of no longer having to adhere to the standards of believing in a deity, mainly as a rebellion to oppressive church lives as youngsters. Ironically, this is the worst reason to be an atheist.

You are apparently more set in your belief, but these kids do not hold their views from a place of true contemplation. They do not clearly understand what they're into, and you can tell from their juvenile arguments, where they invent sci-fi-style scenarios and mimic popular atheist catch phrases.

To set the scene I was an atheist at the age of six.

We would have religious education(before it was sensibly banned) in state primary school.

And even at that age I could only regard the stories we were told as pure fiction.

And everything I have learned and experienced since has reinforced that.

My parents never expressed an opinion either way(atheism v religion) so I was free to

come to my own conclusions.

So to counter your claim youth is NO barrier to holding an intellient and informed position on this

subject.

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[Neanderthals are extinct. Further proof we are the only species meant to have sapient intelligence!

Funny how they got left out of the bible then.

[AngelThMan]

You're dancing circles around the real issue, perhaps in fear that you won't be able to answer the real question: Why are humans the only species with sapient intelligence?

You haven't demonstrated that they are. First define your claim, demonstrate its truth, then postulate on why it is - all of which has to be backed up with evidence.

Thanks for the high school debating rules lesson. You keep saying I've been soundly defeated, and yet all you can produce is arguments in which you deny humans are the only sapient species. Sapient -- as in homo sapiens. Talk about ad hominem. You proclaim that you won because you believe your own immature arguments, which are completely baseless, except they're supported by other similarly clueless kids on this thread. Look around and you'll see that even the older atheists are not using this argument about animals being on equal footing with humans. It's plain dumb! Get that through your thick head!!

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[Loki_999]

Neanderthals are extinct. Further proof we are the only species meant to have sapient intelligence!

So, if we go extinct it will prove that we were not meant to have sapient intelligence as well? Got it! So, its not a matter of whether we really have intelligence, it matters whether we exist or not. EPIC FAIL.

Intelligence really means nothing. All that matters in the universe is survival. The dinosaurs were surviving very happily until conditions on Earth changed to wipe them out (no, God didn't do it, we believe it was a natural event). Amoeba live quite happily in their microscopic world without intelligence (by the way, they are also a lot more complex than Humans having 290 billion base pairs in their genome while humans only 2.9 billion pairs - interesting fact i just learned). There are many creatures that can live in conditions that humans would find fatal. And, as Carl Sagan rightly pointed out: "Every one of us is a multitude". You think you are a single creature, divinely created by god? Go and take some basic biology courses. We are comprised of billions of living cells and at the center of each of those cells is a strange of DNA. We are wonderful creatures and amazingly complex, but we are nothing special, every other living thing on our planet also has DNA.

By the way, i'm 40, was brought up in a slightly Christian family (ie: my mum went to church and believes in a supernatural entity called God, she talks to him sometimes). I realized that "God" was no more valid than Santa Clause about the same time, younger than 10. I worked this out from observation and education despite being taught from a young age that God existed.

I guess the programming never took with me. Some people unfortunately all too easily succumb to the brainwashing or find the comfort of a fairy godmother (or god) watching over them to be so comforting they are willing to believe in it despite the complete lack of real evidence.