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Very true. Ever since the agricultural revolution, when humans learned to grow their own food, there has been no animal that could threaten the human species. Bacteria or viruses could threaten humans, but that is the case today as well.</p>
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<p>And according to Genesis, the agricultural revolution coincides with the time when humans had the “breath of life breathed into them” (ie, were given souls).</p>
<p>A young earth creationist would say that was right after creation. A theistic evolutionist would say this happened after humans evolved over millions of years. Old earth creationists might give you various other timelines.</p>
<p>So you can see how there is justification for considering humans to have special significance, as long as you aren’t an Atheist.</p>
<p>You have to understand how someone with my worldview looks at a human. Biologically, the creature Homo Sapiens is no different from any other organism. However, the thing called a Human Being is something more than a biological organism. It’s almost as though the biological body is a “host” for the non-biological (at least as we understand biology) soul.</p>
<p>Whether other species have souls is a philosophical question that can’t ever be answered unless we can be one of those species.</p>
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<a href=“http://www.wimp.com/carlsagan/[/url]”>http://www.wimp.com/carlsagan/</a>
In the case of impossibly falsifiability, the most rational stance is no belief at all - see Russel’s Teapot Analogy [Russell’s</a> teapot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell’s_teapot]Russell’s”>Russell's teapot - Wikipedia)</p>
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Nothing is self-evident - you are delving into the realm of circular reasoning. </p>
<p>Either your theory is better, in which you should provide evidence, or evolution is the best existing theory, and therefore a rational belief. What you are doing here is essentially an argument from ignorance - “I don’t know what happened, therefore God made all the animals at once”. In practice, you can just plug your ears and say “I don’t like the evidence, blablabla, God sounds good”. </p>
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If I were to guess, social dynamics developed alongside brain function. Other animals also display collective behavior with strong organization and rules. </p>
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This is actually a much more common argument among Muslims, funnily enough. Though I suppose a person living in a whale and giant boat with two of each animal aren’t strange at all if you are delusional enough. </p>
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Agreed - humans are inherently corrupt. The Bible doesn’t make any claim to be written directly by God, and if it did, it would be circular logic. </p>
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There aren’t any such things of souls, or I’ll rephrase - there’s no evidence to support such a belief. All I see are increasingly complex forms of consciousness. </p>
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It’s a quick time-saving way, not the base method. That is, once you date a certain chunk with a certain fossil, you can date all the rocks around it. That saves expensive radiometric testing and scientific resources.</p>
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<p>There have been objections to Russell’s Teapot. Also, you are assuming that MM holds that stance out of pure rationality, or at least that he/she ought to.</p>
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<p>Circular reasoning as a logical fallacy requires a belief in the principles of logic, which are considered self-evident.</p>
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<p>This assumes that humans have a definitive reason/purpose for existence which we have deviated from. What is the basis of your assumption?</p>
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There are objections to everything. Such statements are hardly meaningful at all. </p>
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By all means, he can admit that his beliefs are irrational, and the debate would go no further. </p>
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I would argue that even principles of logic are derived from experience. That is another debate for another time. [Self-evidence</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-evidence]Self-evidence”>Self-evidence - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>For now, I would just point out that the claim he makes is not self evident.
“Certain forms of argument from self-evidence are considered fallacious or abusive in debate. For example, if a proposition is claimed to be self-evident, it is an argumentative fallacy to assert that disagreement with the proposition indicates misunderstanding of it.”</p>
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No, it assumes that the bible is pure, God-like, and thereby free from human influence, which is susceptible to corruptibility.</p>
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<p>If humans have no soul, then the actions of their brains are no more significant than a rock falling to the ground.</p>
<p>If my belief in God is just the way my brain “fell”, I had no control over it, since “I” don’t exist, except as an arbitrary division of a set of matter and energy.</p>
<p>And your belief in evolution is equally meaningless.</p>
<p>In which case it is not reasonable to say I am “wrong” to believe what I believe and you are “right” to believe what you believe, since neither of us actually “chose” to believe it.</p>
<p>But all humans act as if there really are such things as “right” and “wrong”. By the very act of debating me and trying to justify your belief, you are implying that it is false.</p>
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You referred to Russell’s Teapot as if it were an irrefutable argument without addressing any of the objections to it.</p>
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That’s probably true.</p>
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<p>Yet if MM argues that his/her belief in God is derived from his/her own experience of the world, his/her belief in God is irrational/unreasonable?</p>
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<p>You asserted that humans are inherently corrupt, unless I misunderstood you?</p>
<p>I believe in Science but I follow Jesus…do I win?</p>
<p>^ Some here seem to believe those things are mutually exclusive…</p>
<p>…Ok… Going back to a few questions addressed to me:</p>
<p>Did I create this thread to bash creationists?</p>
<p>No. Obviously if there wasn’t a creationist on this thread spewing faux-philosophical and illogical garbage left and right and butchering biology to the extent that would make a biologist weep (either due to laughter or fury) I wouldn’t talk about this at all. </p>
<p>MM, so you admitted that you can’t prove your beliefs. So where are you going with this? Just trying to slaughter evolution by shrugging off or blinding yourslef to the evidence and using every logical fallacy available to argue against it?</p>
<p>@ksarm: Youre completely missing the point of the analogy. I’ll write this as simply as possible for you. Holocaust deniers exist just as evolution deniers exist. Both of them are wrong. Thats all it means. Comprehend? You pointlessly try to press the point that evolution is irrelevant to genocide. Well no ****. That wasn’t what the analogy implied and doesn’t make my main point invalid. Misunderstanding it is a logical fallacy on your part. And trying to taunt me into insulting you is just stupid.</p>
<p>^Where I am going with this is that Evolution, while claimed by some (less so by actual evolutionary scientists than by people in online forums) to be overwhelmingly proven with no chance of being false, to the point where a skeptic of the theory can be compared with a Holocaust denier, is in fact at best an unproven hypothesis.</p>
<p>If your basic assumptions about the nature of the universe rule out the idea of anything supernatural existing from the start, then naturally you will reject any alternative to Evolution. But you should not expect everyone else to fall in line with your personal values.</p>
<p>^^^
If you want people to get the point of your analogy, don’t use a bad analogy. Evolution is a continuous process over vast amounts of time whereas the Holocaust happened in a more discrete time frame (relatively) not so long ago. I would posit that modern humans have been connected more directly to the Holocaust as a historical “event” than to evolution as a process. Evolution is a scientific theory, open to rectification and even rejection. You cannot say the same thing about the Holocaust.</p>
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<p>Really? Which logical fallacy? </p>
<p>I must admit that I am starting to grow slightly weary of the way people are throwing accusations of logical fallacy left and right in this thread. You may assert that people’s beliefs are illogically and unreasonably held. You cannot assert that they are definitively Wrong. This is a fallacy known as argumentum ad logicam, “the fallacist’s fallacy.”</p>
<p>^ This.</p>
<p>Also, am I the only one who finds it ironic that you are accusing Adenine of the fallacy of accusing opponents of fallacies?</p>
<p>Accusing opponents of fallacies is not a fallacy in itself; I was merely pointing out that destroying a fallacious argument (if this has indeed been done) does not prove that the conclusions of that argument are wrong. Perhaps I should have separated those two statements, but I find that self-gratification due to finding logical fallacies in others’ arguments, or assuming that doing so reinforces one’s world view, is foolish.</p>
<p>^ I know, I just found it somwhat ironic.</p>
<p>You guys have discussed quite a bit I see, 85 pages to be exact hehe. I will put in my personal beliefs; basically I am on the science side of the argument since I do not follow any particular religion. I will not rephrase all the reasons why I believe science more important than religion because I’m sure this thread is full of it. </p>
<p>I’d like to say that since I’m not religious, the only good things I see in these organized religions are the good morals/ethics they teach (I know someone religious will say the afterlife/going to heaven etc.), but for my argument’s sake I’ll single out the good things religion teaches.</p>
<p>It is easy for children to be religious and learn these good morals/ethics because often it’s what their parents do and they can’t question any of it, or to be more exact, they don’t have a reason to question it. Some people see religion as their science, as the way how the world works. I believe this is crucial in why this is one of the most frowned upon topics of discussion because it never gets anywhere.</p>
<p>I think that besides the good morals/ethics religions teach, nothing else that’s good has sprung from organized religions, but instead numerous wars and conflicts are solely based on religious reasons. (Again overlooking going to heaven/miracles/etc since I’m not religious). I for example, have read some religious readings and learned the morals of the stories from them, but I dont believe in the stories themselves. I think that it is wrong for parents to make kids follow their religion from birth without the ability to decide for themselves. You can argue that kids can convert or change later on in life, and yes it’s possible. But most of the time the kids who grow up with the religion will NOT be able to question it as an adult because the degree of embodiment is the same as lets say you believing that the moon is real.</p>
<p>For the person who said <a href=“paraphrased”>if you look at negative religious results it’s “crusades”, then negative scientific results would be “hiroshima”</a>. Look at the positives, I see positives coming out of religion being morals and ethics (again no heaven/afterlife for this point), which can be taught by parents even if religions were completely removed. Now the positives of science cannot be instilled if science was to be completely removed. Just my thoughts.</p>
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<p>A lot of science in the past has been funded/supported by religious organizations. Many educational institutions have been founded through religious motivation, such as [this</a> one](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University]this”>Harvard University - Wikipedia).</p>
<p>The atheist/areligious position largely seems to be that religious organizations have simply outlived their usefulness to society since the rise of science and are now mainly a nuisance if not downright harmful to society.</p>
<p>Hehe funny reference. But do you think that if religions were nonexistant, than there would be a void all the schools and things funded/founded through religion? As in we would be behind as a society? Genuine question.</p>
<p>I honestly believe that we would not be as scientifically and socially advanced as we are now if religions had never existed.</p>