The absurd need for logical proofs for God

[Spongebob]

And there's the problem. Klorophyl want's you to believe his god and no other. 

What he fails to understand is that the same argument applies to whatever deity, and there is no evidence for any of them None.

You don't have to take my word for it. Ask him to present evidence for his god or any other god. He won't because he can't.

So that's it, eh?  I've chatted with many Christians who take the position that god chooses NOT to provide evidence because that makes it too easy or some such nonsense.  Belief without the evidence is more valid to them for some reason.  I will say when people believe in something without evidence, they do tend to be more devoted.

[Paleophyte]

It's not hard to find studies showing potential roles of these retroviruses, here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26818265/

From the abstract of your linked article:

"We also report on studies that associate HERVs with human diseases of the brain and CNS. There is little doubt of an association between HERVs and a number of CNS diseases."

Thank you for proving my point. Worse than useless.

I already told you, and you're not listening; saying that something in our body is useless is always an appeal to ignorance, unless you figure out some unprecedented way to establish the uselessness of a body part.

Horseshit. Any fool can show that a broken part is useless. The pseudogene that fails to produce vitamin C in primates for example. Useless. Worse than useless in fact, since it takes resources to reproduce.

Apparently you're unable to draw the distinction between designed and useful. Design doesn't logically imply usefulness. Many chemical elements, for example, were around us for aeons of time and remained useless until very recently.  Lithium wasn't discoverd until 1817, and didn't really "become useful" until we started manufacturing batteries.
So, the function of something out there in nature largely depends on culture, technological advancement, etc. All of them are human-related processes.

Point of order! Which side of this debate are you arguing? I ask because you're arguing that humans give things function, utility, and purpose, not god. I mean, thanks and all that, but I really wasn't expecting you to argue both sides of this debate. Why don't I just leave you to it.

[Mister Agenda]

@Klorophyll

Evolution couldn't have occurred without fine-tuning. Natural selection depends on a large set of chemical and biological processes that can't be ascribed to coincidence.

You have that exactly backwards - populations of organisms evolve biological processes to suit their environment (this is why the Negev Desert doesn’t have a population of polar bears).

What you’ve done is presumed that environments were deliberately designed to be fit for predetermined groups of organisms. That’s not how it works.

Formally, this is what you’ve done:

1. If God designed the universe, then human beings would exist.
2. Human beings exist.
3. Therefore, God designed the universe.

See the problem?

Boru

Right, fallacy of affirming the consequent, one of my favorites since it's brought up so much, and pretty funny and obvious when you think about it:

If I am Tommy Smothers, I am highly proficient with yoyos.
I am highly proficient with yoyos.
Therefore I am Tommy Smothers.

[LadyForCamus]

@Klorophyll

Because I’m not quoting that text wall:

You’re the one that brings up silly analogies like cars and buildings and other man-made objects to compare to all of extant nature, lol. Unless you’re asserting that god hand-designs every individual snowflake; a claim you would have to demonstrate, by the way; then yeah, you’re equivocating. Own it.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why cars and buildings? Rocks are just as designed as they are. Swirling the same drain so often. If someone is asking us to look at design and insisting that by seeing design we can know that there is a god - they have to contend with how wrong our observations of design must be to think cars instead of rocks.

How is an observational capacity so clearly in error, in that case, supposed to be an indicator of anything...? We've already impugned the credibility of the witness.

[Spongebob]

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of DNA and evolutionary biology cannot support the idea of design. You have two choices, either evolution is true or life is designed to look as if it evolved just the way evolutionary biology describes it, which makes any "designer" a liar and possibly worse. There are reams of evidence to support this conclusion. Design has nothing but a hypothesis.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Klorophyll


You have that exactly backwards - populations of organisms evolve biological processes to suit their environment (this is why the Negev Desert doesn’t have a population of polar bears).

What you’ve done is presumed that environments were deliberately designed to be fit for predetermined groups of organisms. That’s not how it works.

Formally, this is what you’ve done:

1. If God designed the universe, then human beings would exist.
2. Human beings exist.
3. Therefore, God designed the universe.

See the problem?

Boru

Right, fallacy of affirming the consequent, one of my favorites since it's brought up so much, and pretty funny and obvious when you think about it:

If I am Tommy Smothers, I am highly proficient with yoyos.
I am highly proficient with yoyos.
Therefore I am Tommy Smothers.

My favourite is ‘the generic fallacy’ - just as good as brand name fallacies, but costs less.

Boru

[Ranjr]

I believe the correct term is modus klorens.

[The Grand Nudger]

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of DNA and evolutionary biology cannot support the idea of design.  

Oh IDK.  It's probably more accurate to say that evolutionary biology provides a candidate for natural teleology.  That we have teeth because teeth are good for chewing, and there's a process (a set, really) that organizes life around that natural teleology.

Why aren't teeth good for curing cancer, instead, for example?  Why aren't toenails ghost detectors?  Why is it that it seems that the purpose or design of x y and z invariably boil down to a natural teleology... teleology that doesn't need any god to explain?

In a world made for god purpose, by god purpose, it was more god-purposefully important that our knees not be good for jumping to the moon than that our souls be immune to the corruption that would necessitate their destruction.

What the actual fuck?

[Spongebob]

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of DNA and evolutionary biology cannot support the idea of design.  

Oh IDK.  It's probably more accurate to say that evolutionary biology provides a candidate for natural teleology.  That we have teeth because teeth are good for chewing, and there's a process (a set, really) that organizes life around that natural teleology.

Why aren't teeth good for curing cancer, instead, for example?  Why aren't toenails ghost detectors?  Why is it that it seems that the purpose or design of x y and z invariably boil down to a natural teleology... teleology that doesn't need any god to explain?

In a world made for god purpose, by god purpose, it was more god-purposefully important that our knees not be good for jumping to the moon than that our souls be immune to the corruption that would necessitate their destruction.

What the actual fuck?

Forget all that other stuff for a moment and explain what in the world about the evolutionary connection to DNA is teleological?