Converting

[no one]

Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy
Giddy and foolish all day long
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?

A primate, its clan, and their imaginary friend
Fantasy converts towards certainty, when doth penned
Reality slipped from the crippled mind
Creating gods to be enshrined

Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy
Giddy and foolish all day long
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?

Where ever man,a family grow
Does the drivel of religion flow
Assurance of salvation for the earthly soul
Delivered from doom of the fiery hole

Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy
Giddy and foolish all day long
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?

[Paleophyte]

First of all, it's not clear that the religious figure of Adam coincides with the first modern human.  As both the label "modern humans" and the exact epoch when Adam supposedly lived according to religions are not precisely determined.

It's immaterial. In your story "Adam" represents a first and everybody before that just doesn't matter.

Second, if God picks modern humans to be the chosen creatures, where is exactly the problem in doing that?

If you can't see the problem with drawing arbitrary distinctions and creating second-class citizens then you're going to end up with bigotry, slavery, and genocide. There is no difference between the "first modern human" and its parents. Treating one like people and the other like animals is a vast problem.

And what makes you think whoever came before modern humans didn't know God in some other way, or whether they needed any guidance at all if they lacked cognitive ability to receive it.

Your "narrative".

[R00tKiT]

It's immaterial. In your story "Adam" represents a first and everybody before that just doesn't matter.

And what if everybody before that was truly an animal, with no cognitive ability to understand anything about god and transcendence ? Why should they matter ?

If you can't see the problem with drawing arbitrary distinctions and creating second-class citizens then you're going to end up with bigotry, slavery, and genocide. There is no difference between the "first modern human" and its parents. Treating one like people and the other like animals is a vast problem.

Except the other here is really an animal. If God treats an animal... like an animal, there really won't be a problem.

Your "narrative".

My narrative doesn't say all creatures beside human beings can't know god. It's actually the other way around.

[Paleophyte]

And what if everybody before that was truly an animal, with no cognitive ability to understand anything about god and transcendence ? Why should they matter ?

That isn't how evolution works. You get tiny, incremental changes over thousands of generations. You don't get something with the brain of a chimp, which is pretty sparky, giving birth to something with the brain of a human. There's a few million years between the two and a whole lot of intermediate steps.

[R00tKiT]

That isn't how evolution works. You get tiny, incremental changes over thousands of generations.

I think you're underestimating the effect tiny changes can cause, especially when they involve the brain. It's well known that the smallest brain incison might cause huge impairement in speech, memory, etc. It's not excluded then that our brains "became modern" as a result of a seemingly insignificant change in our neurological system. I mean, we had to become modern at some instant.

[Mr Greene]

It's immaterial. In your story "Adam" represents a first and everybody before that just doesn't matter.

And what if everybody before that was truly an animal, with no cognitive ability to understand anything about god and transcendence ? Why should they matter ?

If you can't see the problem with drawing arbitrary distinctions and creating second-class citizens then you're going to end up with bigotry, slavery, and genocide. There is no difference between the "first modern human" and its parents. Treating one like people and the other like animals is a vast problem.

Except the other here is really an animal. If God treats an animal... like an animal, there really won't be a problem.

Your "narrative".

My narrative doesn't say all creatures beside human beings can't know god. It's actually the other way around.

You are an animal.

[Succubus#2]

... we consider pure reasoning and studying historical figures...

No one in history claims to have met him, so you have nothing to study.

...prophets a good way to reach truth too.

Now as for prophesy, why not apply your pure reasoning skills. For prophesy to work, lets say, Matthew and Hosea, we have either:

1. Hosea travelled forward in time and popped into existence next to Matthew at the bar and they swapped microfilm?

2. Matthew read the story in the Hebrew bible?


Occam's Razor is a handy tool for this.

[Paleophyte]

That isn't how evolution works. You get tiny, incremental changes over thousands of generations.

I think you're underestimating the effect tiny changes can cause, especially when they involve the brain. It's well known that the smallest brain incison might cause huge impairement in speech, memory, etc.

Trust me, I'm not. You're talking large changes through the introduction of a small defect that disrupts communication between some very complex neural systems. You can do that. What you can't produce is enormous leaps forward through a small improvement that connects a bunch of complex neural systems. You need those complex neural systems to have evolved in the first place and there's simply no selection pressure to produce a non-functional brain structures that do sweet bugger all except wait to be connected at some future date.

It's not excluded then that our brains "became modern" as a result of a seemingly insignificant change in our neurological system.

Yes, it really is. Aside from adding a few hundred cc's of brain matter you'll need to produce a whole shitload of hellishly complex and entirely new neural systems. There's simply no doing that without a few thousand generations of intermediate steps. You'd have better odds of going from a hand-drawn cart to a Porche in a single leap.

I mean, we had to become modern at some instant.

No, we didn't. This is precisely where your thinking fails. The whole "modern-primitive" false dichotomy ignores all the intermediate steps. Your "narrative" fails to see the shades of grey because it was written by priests who knew absolutely nothing about evolution or biology. It is this ignorance that demonstrates a complete lack of divine inspiration or authorship.

[GUBU]

Just like the billions of humans and human ancestors who existed before the Abrahamic god appeared a few thousand years ago?

The religious narrative considers the fall of man to be the first event ever in human history, thus the first man and woman did know God. But of course, atheists can simply deny the occurence.

Humanity didn't fall. They evolved from apelike ancestors, hence why humanity is a type of ape.

[WinterHold]

"Impress" seems to be the wrong word to express and seek. Rather; you search for the truth and seek it.
Either harsh or relieving; you must be ready to accept if you found it.

Then, there's the "God" behind the religion; if he was there for you he would will and reward you with belief in his religion.

For me personally, the above "2" points were what I believed in before I decided.
It took me some time -7 years- to be where I am now.

Read is all I can tell you; Islam is all I advice you.

---

I remember Klor now ...
I'm out.

He is MysticKnight; the ultimate sock. He is stalking me and this forum.