One more dogma to add to the rest.

[Minimalist]

Little Rik Wrote: I really can not see any difference between a religious fanatic that only believe in creation or that there is the hell and an atheist that go around saying that the peak of evolution or that the ultimate in evolution is being a human.

None of whatsoever.

It's not obvious that you can understand much of anything.

You're probably right.  You should stick with your fairy tales.  They seem to be at a level you can handle.

[Simon Moon]

I don't say that humans are the ultimate in evolution and I still don't have a cause.

Of course you are wrong.

Oh, I see.

So this comment below mean something else isn't it?


We are the ultimate in human evolution. We are what your species will become. We are the perfect survivors.
Also horny.

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There is no peak of evolution. There's just how well a species fits its environments. Some species can get stuck in an evolutionary dead end, as with the peacock. There is also the red queen effect where previous adaptations get forgotten only to be rediscovered later on, as with predator and prey adopting new strategies.

How do you know that .......There is no peak of evolution.........
Have you got any evidence to back your statement?  

Evolution is not a ladder leading to some ultimate being or consciousness.

Evolution, by DEFINITION, is only concerned with survival and reproductive success. If members of a population do not have these as a priority, they do not pass their genes into the future, where evolution can continue acting on the population they belong to.

The person that made the quote that you quoted, either does not understand evolution, or you are taking it out of context.

Not sure why you make the assumption that every atheist understands evolution...

[Brian37]

Oh, I see.

So this comment below mean something else isn't it?


We are the ultimate in human evolution. We are what your species will become. We are the perfect survivors.
Also horny.

---

How do you know that .......There is no peak of evolution.........
Have you got any evidence to back your statement?  

Evolution is not a ladder leading to some ultimate being or consciousness.

Evolution, by DEFINITION, is only concerned with survival and reproductive success. If members of a population do not have these as a priority, they do not pass their genes into the future, where evolution can continue acting on the population they belong to.

The person that made the quote that you quoted, either does not understand evolution, or you are taking it out of context.

Not sure why you make the assumption that every atheist understands evolution...

BINGO, like I said in a prior post. Evolution isn't about claiming humans are better at everything because we are humans. Penguins don't have to make cloths or build houses to survive 90degrees below zero. Most human females give birth to one child at a time, where as, depending on cockroach species you are talking about 15 to 30 offspring. Humans are good at being humans, but we suck at being penguins or cockroaches.

Humans are actually an very dangerous invasive species. No, I am not saying all humans are evil or bad. But our developed brains have the bad side effect of assuming that nothing we do can effect our ecosystem, when it is clear we do.

Theism is nothing more than our species artificial comic book gap answer to fake species superiority. There are tons of other life that is far more likely to survive what killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Humans are the least likely to survive a meteor impact of that size.

[downbeatplumb]

The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land.

But can they carry a coconut?


I get the feeling you may have watched the holy grail lately.

[mordant]

The other mistake Rik is making here is that evolution DOES NOT CLAIM that humans are the apex of life, but merely one species among many.

Well what he's actually claiming is that someone supposedly SAID humans are the apex of life, this person is supposedly an atheist, therefore all atheists somehow hold this view, the view is wrong, therefore checkmate atheists.

Even a casual perusal of the responses in just this thread bely that notion; clearly, all atheists are not in lockstep (how could they be? there's no atheist pope giving orders). Also, quite probably most atheists are like virtually all of us here -- we don't believe humans are the apex of evolution. Furthermore, evolution doesn't demonstrate that humans are the apex of evolution.

Therefore, the OP's critique of atheism is completely unsupported for multiple reasons, not least that it is patently false. Like many fundamentalists, the OP thinks lying for Jesus is a virtue.

This is where people get into trouble, they have a set of assumptions about another group (atheists in this case), assume those assumptions to be true because they came from the pulpit or whatever, and then set about telling others how they think and why they think it rather than actually LISTENING to them to find out what they ACTUALLY think and WHY. When errors are pointed out, they do not address them, they merely deflect or ignore them altogether, then double down on whatever falsehood they were pushing.

It is amazing to me that theists claim to have a superior morality when they behave so shamefully themselves.

It is actually the opposite with humans when it comes to religion. Theist get taught that they are the top of the chain and that a divine power gave them dominion over all other life. The problem with this mentality is that it teaches us to abuse our environments because there is an afterlife so who cares what we do now.

In fairness you're assuming that the OP is a dominionist. He likely is, but I would not want to lower myself to his level by assuming he is. Of course he may not even know what the term means, yet still holds dominionist notions. More broadly, though, religion generally and fundamentalism particularly are about how special and privileged the believer is; after all, the believer is supposed to have the creator and ruler of the universe on their "side", looking out for them, has special rewards for them, and has special anti-rewards for the likes of us. If that is not "top dog" status I don't know what is.

So when the theist cannot defend claims of magic and poof, they attack scientific method to falsely vilify it. The irony is that they do so while using computers, the product of scientific method.

Religious faith is rife with special pleading -- about god, the supernatural, and certainly about the parts of science or anything else that contradict their chosen dogma. They think they get to pick and choose what parts of science they get to use. Aside from thinking they can reject the Theory of Evolution and accept Information Technology, they also are blissfully unaware how much of modern technology relies on and derives from Evolution. Some of their lives have been saved by it.

The Old Order Amish, the Mennonites and others have glimpsed this and reject any technology invented since maybe 1800 or so. But they still use the wheel, steel plows, etc. And, back where I used to live, I knew an Amish family that bothered their non-Amish neighbor so often to use their phone, that they installed a phone extension on the fencepost between their properties so that the Amish could use the phone without bugging them.

This is the kind of silliness that results from thinking you can cherry-pick convenient truths and leave the inconvenient ones alone.

[Cyberman]

The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land.

But can they carry a coconut?

They could grip it by the husk.

I get the feeling you may have watched the holy grail lately.

Not for ages, actually. It's just one of those things that are in the collective unconscious now, I suppose.

[vorlon13]

Looks like the ultimate in evolution to me . . . .

---

---

[vorlon13]

The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land.

But can they carry a coconut?


I get the feeling you may have watched the holy grail lately.

Hmmm . . . 

I wonder what rule #34 has on coconuts . . . . .

[Cyberman]

In coconuts, more like.

[Simon Moon]

This is the kind of silliness that results from thinking you can cherry-pick convenient truths and leave the inconvenient ones alone.

NO!

A theist being intellectually dishonest?

Tell me it ain't so!



____________________________________________

Here's a tip for debating against atheists, Rik:

First step, ask them exactly what they believe. Then argue against those beliefs of that specific atheist.

Whenever I get into a debate with a theist, I NEVER assume anything about their beliefs. I always ask them first, "What do you believe? And, most importantly, why do you believe it?".

Then I can debate their exact beliefs, without looking as idiotic as you have on this thread.