What made your thinking, Mad? Other creatures don't think? Are animals just machines? Kinda runs counter to anything the animal lovers might think. "Humanity", though, is synonymous with compassion, charity. How can you use the fact that Creationism has no basis other than supposition when your own concept of "Humanity" simply springs form the forehead of Zeus fully-formed as well.

People decide to do things that make no evolutionary sense. Saving a busload of kids makes perfect evolutionary sense. Hospice, Assisted living, lovingly caring for the mentally retarded or severely deformed until they have lived a full, happy life makes absolutely no sense based upon the reality of nature. If you are not viable, you don't pass on your genetic material. This makes a healthy, prosperous species with plenty of resources to go around. That is how it works, whether by misfortune or purposeful culling by your peers.

So we spontaneously changed our mind in favor of... something entirely new and completely counterproductive? Sounds easily as implausible as Adam and Eve ( another literal item that I don't espouse ). You want me just to believe that people just decided to be different for no benefit to themselves, and I want to believe that they had an external, explainable reason to be different. Which makes more sense?

Man's creation of 'God' [in whatever flavour] was a long-standing attempt by him to find answers to the unanswered.

Fear of the unknown and more importantly fear of his own mortality and therefore insignificance demanded the existance [creation] of a superior entity to provide a breast at which to suckle....following the 'adult' separation from the mother [the erstwhile 'God' to a child].

Man's self-importance has always been to his undoing...and perhaps this 'superior entity' is a way of restoring a sense of relevance or balance....where the likes of Alexander the 'Great' can be humbled in the minds of the masses by a God the 'greater'.

I don't care for pidgeon-holing people with 'creationist' or whatever.....what I do believe though is in man's capacity to 'create' in his own mind the appropriate 'tools' with which to survive in an hostile environment.  In this case, a God came in handy as a palliative, just as a gun comes in handy as a threat suppressant.

So...to sum it up....Man created God....and through his insufferable ego created many permutations thereof, as each egotistical bastard demanded his 'creation' was superior....so we have Christian fighting Moslem, Catholic fighting Protestant....ad nauseum.

The Religious 'flavours' under which people congregate....whether it is the Peoples Front of Judea...or those bastard splinter group the Judean People's Front are simply the 'opiate of the masses'...mob mentality orchestrated for nefarious motive that has probably been forgotten over time.

If people would just create their God and allow others to create THEIR versions too the world would be a better place.

Think about it.....our current world racked by terrorism is all down to mass-mentality religions whose tenets are mutually exclusive and a lame excuse for war.

With tongue in cheek....come the revolution I'd have every organised religious leader shot.  They are a blight on society....

Nice, Kona. "good laugh" at what people have posted? So people's views, if not exactly like yours, are funny? I just can't understand that mentality.

I was referring to those who do not believe in God.

It is funny that someone could actually deny there is no God.

I actually feel sorry for those lost souls.

It puzzling to me that the atheistic view somehow separates Behavior from genetic evolution. There is no solid line between nature and nurture in my opinion. If you trace our behaviors back, they all will have parallels to behaviors that benefited our genetic forebears, however changed they are by our circumstances and tasks at hand. We learn, of course, but *that learning* should have a functional, evolutionary progenitor.

If you are gonna rely on Reason to explain who we are as people, don't take shortcuts. If you can explain our existence, you can explain it all, and you shouldn't have to say something like "We just decided to be different."


Aleatoric: evolutionary 'baby steps' take millions of years, not tens of thousands. When you compare how much we have changed, how we changed, and how long it took previous steps to occur for our progenitors, something is very, very different.

"We changed because we had to" is a reasonable explanation, but others didn't, and we have the ability to change our actions and behaviors at will, not through natural selection. We are intuitive even more than we are reactive now. We no longer have to change, we're fat and happy, but we continue fine-tuning who we are with values foreign to nature. Something besides necessity had to light that fire, because survival was possible without such a radical change. Ours is not 'specialization'. Specialization is a focusing of ability. Our abilities are diffuse and absorb everything we take to task, often far from necessity. We impress ourselves onto the world now, not vice versa.

What other species has survived in that way, diffusing their intellect over as many ideas and tasks as possible? "Do one job, and do it well" is almost alien to us now, but that is how everything else seems to work. Our continued progress tells us that we don't change because we need to, we change because we *want* to change. In that we differ from every other species on earth. How you explain that difference is the topic of the discussion.

BakerStreet (about your earlier response to me):

Well again this is my opinion. You are talking about "our ideals" and assumed they were human. If I'm saying "We can also think" then that doesn't tell much of what I think about animals. You are assuming too much. And I do believe we humans are able to select our destiny. I think humans are free to do what they want within the limits of their abilities and responsibilities. No need for a religion. We have done fine thousands of years without it.

About animals (a bit off topic): Every pet lover would agree that animals have a sense of fairness, but now scientists are investigating the subject. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_monkeyfairness.html

The fact is, this isn't about faith vs. reason. The average student that sits down to learn Evolutionary theory uses as much faith as the kid who sits down in Sunday School.

Science is constantly revising it's understanding of the universe. Troy was a myth until they dug it up. I know Evolutionary theory as well as the next high-schooler, but I didn't accumulate and interprate this data myself. When I accept it as something plausible, I use faith that I am being told the truth, and that the person has reason to believe what they are saying. I have to summon up as much faith to believe the average "Publish or Perish" scientist as my child as to summon up to believe in Santa Claus. The plausable, even the obvious, are routinely proven incorrect, and myths often become reality upon closer scrutiny.

I have been told that Australia exists, but I have never seen it, I talk to people that claim they live there, and I have seen pictures that people claim are of Australia. However much of that I swallow is faith. The most powerful words in science are "I don't know". They are its beginnings, and the words that keep it honest. If you accept that there are things that you do not know in the universe, you have to accept the possiblity of the existance of God. You don't have to worship him, or presuppose his character, to do so is bad science as well. What you have to do is keep an open mind and lean as little as possible on data you can't verify personally.

Baker....Australia doesn't exist....we made it all up one night down the pub getting pissed as farts....

MadIce: "We have done fine thousands of years without it."

We have? oddly, our earliest artifacts are fertility images and some of the oldest cave paintings show people in ritualistic attire. Shamanism predates, well, 'bout everything. As for now, there's a church a mile down the road form me. In light of that, I'm not sure what period you're referring too. From what I can tell, Religion is an instinct as old as we are as a species.

#328 by Kona0197 - 9/17/2003 3:30:33 PM It is funny that someone could actually deny there is no God.

My thoughts exactly Kona. I wouldn't have expected such wisdom from you...

Jafo: I KNEW IT!!! HAHAHAHA. i gotta go collect on some bets. Bah, kangaroos, people will believe anything...

lol, i've gone overboard again, posted like mad. I yield the field. I don't have a problem with anyone's beliefs. Please just understand that Ms. Leaky used as much faith as the average Catholic, and no one *knows* anything.

My thoughts exactly Kona. I wouldn't have expected such wisdom from you...

Actually I have all sorts of wisdom to share.

problem is no one listens to me.

And I play dumb!

#333 by BakerStreet - 9/17/2003 4:10:04 PM From what I can tell, Religion is an instinct as old as we are as a species.

Religion isn't an instinct, it's a construct. Religion was created by man, regardless of the influences they were under.

It is funny that someone could actually deny there is no God.

Yes, good wisdom. I don't deny there is no God either - I know there is no God.

Glad you've seen sense

#336 by Kona0197 - 9/17/2003 4:16:35 PM Actually I have all sorts of wisdom to share.

Re-read your post #328 Kona, but carefully. Pay attention to grammar and double-negatives and you'll understand my comment...

Yes, good wisdom. I don't deny there is no God either - I know there is no God.Glad you've seen sense

Whatever. You all know I meant to say the complete oppisite.

HOW CAN YOU ALL DENY THAT THERE IS A GOD?

It is all about believing? Whether you believe in a god or not? Do you believe in UFOs? Maybe they brought us humans here or brought us knowledge. There are people who truely believe that. We should keep an open mind to that too? For the moment the evolution theory has more structural proof than the other two, so I stick with that.

Someday you'll see the light. It does not matter what higher power you believe in, but the fact remains there is a God.

Do you believe in UFOs?

My take on Aliens and UFO are nothing more than the evil one, Satan, playing on peoples minds and beliefs in the form of demons. It is written that The devil can deceive in any form he chooses so he conjors up UFOs to take youir mind away from GOD.

#342 by Kona0197 - 9/17/2003 4:30:36 PM Someday you'll see the light. It does not matter what higher power you believe in, but the fact remains there is a God.

There you go using that 'fact' word again. For something to be a fact it has to be provable. Show me the proof and I'll gladly look at whatever this light is I'm supposed to be seeing.

#343 by Kona0197 - 9/17/2003 4:32:46 PM Do you believe in UFOs? My take on Aliens and UFO are nothing more than the evil one, Satan, playing on peoples minds and beliefs in the form of demons. It is written that The devil can deceive in any form he chooses so he conjors up UFOs to take youir mind away from GOD.

You know, that actually sounds crazier than the people who believe the aliens are among us. Your whole attitude embodies everything I despise about modern organised religion. You have your beliefs, so why not show some respect and let others have their own?
[Message Edited]

Proof=Bible

I doubt if I ever see the light. If there is a god then at the moment he has an off-age (meaning he doesn't do remarkably well the last couple of thousand years).

[Message Edited]

The Bible is just a book written by someone. How can that be proof?

In what way is the bible proof of the existence of God that Harry Potter books aren't proof of the existence of magic and wizards?

The evoulotion theroy was written by someone. How is that proof?

In what way is the bible proof of the existence of God that Harry Potter books aren't proof of the existence of magic and wizards?

It is the proof due to the faith Christains have that the bible was written by man from the words spoken from God.

Thank God I am not a mormon like my wife or we would be here all day.

Faith in God is all I need.

Evoulotion will never be proven.