I disagree. Natural selection can only act by allowing for something that already is present to be successful. Success is not guided. It happens in the result of some change in the genes but that is not a guided process. If for instance a plant needs less water to survive and the environment gets less rain this plant will survive better than those that need more water. Nothing guided there, just a chance happenstance that allowed for the survival of the plant. Natural selection doesn't guide, it allows for change, but doesn't have a reason behind the changes or how that will allow for that change.
Not consciously guided, but again it doesn't need to be conscious. I'll revisit my earlier metaphor - a cold day can 'guide' you to put on warm clothes. There are elements of chance to it - environment can change, mutations can modify traits, etc. But its not entirely random and it happens without conscious reason. It doesn't need one.
The simplest nervous system has to already be pretty remarkable in itself. We find a living form that could be as old as 1 billion years old and at least 400 million that already has a functioning nervous system and digestive system. In a very simple life form. So we know that this system was so far back that if it was to evolve piecemeal it had to be a pretty quick time frame in very simple life forms.
Personally, I find life in all its forms from simple to complex to be remarkable. From what I've read, the earliest known form of life appears in the fossil record some 3+ billion years ago. In the same way that the eye is thought to have originated as a cluster of cells slightly more sensitive to light than others around them and gradually growing in complexity towards something like the human eye (or other better animal eyes), I can imagine the brain and nervous system developing from similar modified cells.
IF it were a man made construct, the non-existent aspect of the issue would not arise from observation as we can not observe something that does not exist.
We appear to have gone on some kind of tangent - I confess I'm not sure what we're discussing on this point.
Lets take it down to the bare minimum, if behaviors are mainly based on survival; which means food, shelter and adaptations for staying away from predators, how can that determine moral issues?
When you get living creatures who band together into groups for mutual benefit. Then you need to work out ways of behaving towards one-another and getting along.
You have claimed that even the less intelligent animals show morality in some ways, so this had to arise earlier.
To be clear, we're looking at these other life-forms through the lens of our own preconceptions and ideas about morality. We can see some behaviors that we regard as moral, and others that we might not. Humans might consider their own ideas to be 'right' morally, and so regard animals acting differently to be morally 'wrong.' But again as I've mentioned, nature isn't deliberately aiming for any specific idea of morality.
It had to arise in simpler life forms that in some way benefited from something that brought about the behavior in the beginning. Myself, I find this hard to relate to. Why are plants not intelligent? The earliest plants were under similar environmental pressures and needs for survival.
I mentioned in earlier posts that banding together in groups is a good survival mechanism, but it is not the only one. In a world with as many different environments, ecological niches, and living creatures as Earth, all of them in flux and ever-changing, there is of course no guarantee that any specific trait will necessarily be expressed - certainly not in
everything. While plants do react to stimuli, producing natural pesticides or unfolding blossoms to absorb sunlight etc., they've done all right without intelligence.
Case in point, you think in a naturalistic mindset. You don't find it remarkable that the amount of water on earth is fine tuned. You don't find it remarkable that the universe is fine tuned. You just take it for granted that it is that way because it is that way. The miraculous requirements are there and yet you claim that there is no God that provided it. You just take the miraculous result and claim He didn't have anything to do with it.
I do not see it as evident that the amount of water on Earth is 'fine tuned'. Ditto for the universe. I can ask
why it is that way, but I don't see it as evidence of the miraculous in and of itself. God could miraculously produce life
regardless of the universe's 'tuning', couldn't He? If He wanted to there could be redwoods growing out of deserts without any water at all, or whales flying through the air feeding on clouds. Humans could live alone on a planet of glass and just soak up sunlight in defiance of all known physical laws. Nothing like that happens.
Why should I consider it evidence of God's existence for the universe to be 'tuned' exactly as it would
need to be to allow for life that
isn't supported by any violations of that tuning?
No, I am saying that He was so precise in His creation that it shows His intelligence in the creation of it.
Why did it have to be precise to
any degree? Couldn't God have
made things work anyway?
Ok, and if there are certain truths, how if they are not objective do we explain that?
I'm saying they would be objective - they would always be true. There might be some lunatics who think differently, but we can ignore them as wrong. This is why I brought up the math - the solution is evident and we don't have to listen to people who disagree.
People can not come to objective conclusions, that is an impossibility. We as humans look at the world through our own subjective outlook. To be objective means it must be the same regardless of time, it must be the same in the past and future; it must be something that is discovered rather than be something invented to be objective. It must be true regardless of whether someone believes it to be or not. It must be true universally to be true at all.
That's why I've been saying there are certain truths we can discover about how we behave towards one another.
OK. So I will take that as you have never actually sincerely asked God to reveal Himself, is that a correct assumption?
Not in the slightest. I ask almost every time I come this site. I remain ever-open to communication from Him.
What you seem to not understand is that we are all that way. No one wants to believe in something that isn't true. People know what is real and what is not, or if not no one does.
People can know what is real, but they can also be mistaken. I have seen comments from people who claim nothing could change their minds - to me, that would not seem to be the position of someone who is truly interested in whether or not what they believe is true, but wants to believe it is no matter what.
I most certainly did not mean to be condescending. So I am wrong that you wouldn't have a problem with people thinking you were stupid?
Nope. They're entitled to their dumb opinion.
Well, saying someone has mental issues I think is pretty harsh.
No question. Is it more or less harsh than 'your spirit is dead and you're going to Hell?'
I must have missed those threads. I've not seen that on here in the threads that I have been in.
I'm not quoting anyone from this forum in particular - this is a sentiment often expressed by theists. "Our deeds are as filthy rags", etc. What we
do doesn't matter one way or another. Any crime can be forgiven and wiped away at death - except atheism. No amount of valor matters should one die an atheist. And there's a place for atheists when they die that is not considered very pleasant.
I do not consider you any of that. I find you to be kind and intelligent. I find that you debate without making personal attacks. (That is why I want to assure you I was not being condescending to you at all.) I think that all people whether atheist or Theist can be moral or immoral. It is about who you are. If Christians would call you filth or as bad as a serial killer, I would say that they are not following the teachings of Christ.
Do Christians not believe that all people are born with original sin? So that even one who lives without sinning will still have this original sin through being born?
That the
only way to be free of sin is to believe that the Christian God exists and pledge themselves to Him by accepting Jesus as their lord and savior?
That any who die without being free of sin are condemned to an afterlife of torment in Hell?
That anyone in Hell deserves to be there?
If they don't, then I have been grossly misinformed by a great many people claiming to be Christians.
That is simply not true. I must believe that you are not spiritually alive. You do not have the spirit of Christ within you. I must believe that you are the same as we all were prior to becoming Christians maybe better than some or worse than some but equally lacking in the spirit.
I could be the best atheist who ever lived and it wouldn't do me any good if I died an unbeliever, would it?
Anyway... point of all this was that if you think it's all wine and roses on the side of the atheists when it comes to dealing with hurtful rhetoric, you're mistaken. Calling someone a sinner is an infinitely (literally,
infinitely) more poisonous sentiment than calling someone stupid, even if neither party realizes it.
