Ian Chesterton wrote:
Here are four ideas that were put forward by theists in the past:
1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
2. God created man as a unique creature, different from all other
forms of life because he was made in God's image.
3. Man's evil brought about God's judgement in the form of a
worldwide flood that fully explains the existence of the geologic
column.
4. The universe and the life within it were created less than 10,000
years ago.
Some people have always been willing to step forward and manufacture
answers; because people want answers. Supplying these answers has been
a livlihood since ancient times. This livelihood grew to become an
industry which proceeded to accumulated wealth, power and influence
like few others. Today the leaders of that industry are in a battle to
maintain their power and authority. Their primary goal is to get their
increasingly suspect material in front of the young and impressionable
in any way possible, and to bypass any who would try to keep them from
doing so. We can only wonder where the people in this forum fit into
this conflict and whether they might have an actual undisclosed
financial interest in the matter -- on top of an intellectual interest.
[...] Being unique in one or two ways would be no support at all,
but the many ways man is unique is so mindboggling that it inspires
man to believe that what makes him so unique is the deity which
created him.
Man is the most intelligent animal to have evolved on this planet. To
pretend that this in and of itself constitutes a "mindboggling" array
of evidence for a deity is entirely absurd. Clearly my dog feels she is
clever and intelligent and this may hint that we may not be the best
judge of our own level of intelligence. Perhaps it is not really so
wonderous and impressive. Being utterly outclassed by a $5 calculator
might provide some hint.
[...] ...to ask that evolution through blind time and chance also
explain how it managed to create in man his attributes that are so
unique as to be almost godlike...
Isn't it rather like begging the question to claim we are godlike? If
you were familiar with the topic you are pontificating on you might
have recognized that evolution is not a random process. It is sometime
said that a water puddle might be amazed at how well it fits the hole.
[...]...evolution... so far has already produced inadequate answers
to much lesser questions, such as what accounts for the abundance of
life that suddenly appears in the cambrian era.
The human need for answers. How can we tolerate partial incomplete
answers? Why should we worry about evidence? Good thing religion is
still around to step in and supply fake answers whenever there is an
opportunity.
[...] The atheist can deny that man's unique abilities are evidence
for a deity, but denials are not evidence. Neither is the assertion
that if we just give naturalistic science enough time and tools it will
explain all phenomena to the exclusion of a deity. If science cannot
see before Plank time and cannot explain the cambrian anomaly, then why
should naturalism be trusted more than the theory of intelligent
design?
Perhaps it is because science has established a proven ability to
develop real knowledge and uncover real truths, and this knowledge has
created the modern world. Religion has done nothing except create fake
"feel good" answers and do a lot of emotional hand-holding.
Please provide some significant evidence for the deity. If evolution
did not produce the variety of life here on earth then why did the
deity create all the fake fossils? Did the deity want to deceive us?
.
