The "unified" theory of evolution

[SavedByGrace3]

I am unsure why coming from dirt is better than being transformed from a primate.

 

[dlamberth]

To wit:

"The first ape from which all the different varieties of apes, such as humans, gorillas etc descended."

vs.

"So we're not descendants of gorillas or chimps etc."

I think the term needed that corrects the reasoning of your questions is "primate". Not Ape.

 

[linux.poet]

It is just a simple fact that should have been learned by HS biology at the latest.

High School biology taught me this so called fact, and I failed to believe it. A chimpanzee would be unable to learn that fact, and would also be unable to reject it if they were given prior information to the contrary.

Humans psychology is part of human biology.

So why is human psychology a multi-billion dollar industry when the market for chimpanzee psychology is close to zero? If the entirety of psychology is biologically explained, why don't we just do all our drugs and talk therapy on chimps in order to understand the best methods of how to treat humans?

I also don't have a concept of god, like many fellow apes.

The fact that this was post was made to defend against an unwanted God-concept suggests otherwise. I believe that atheists have a God-concept that they are rejecting, which leads them to reject the existence of God entirely. One cannot reject what one does not have.

If one does not reject the existence of God, they are an agnostic, not an atheist. Chimps are probably agnostics since they don't know any better.

 

[Ophiolite]

Nobody is claiming that I am related to a bird or a fish. Claiming that I am a mere "ape" is somewhat psychologically insulting to some individuals. Chimpanzees do not wear clothes, do not have written language, have no concept of God, never went through an Industrial Revolution, do not have computers and cell phones and the Internet. There is something different about us that biology cannot explain that points to a God who created us, that said man and woman are made in the Image of God and have a soul and spirit that the other apes do not possess.

I am certainly claiming that I am related to birds and fishes and every other living thing on the planet. That's something I find fascinating and awesome and moving and delightful and a host of other positive emotions. That's not my belief, that's my acceptance of the best, currently- available, evidence-based, multiply-validated explanation for the diveristy of life.

There is an insult lurking in the terminology, however. The fact that the other apes have to share the descriptor with humans is something of an insult to them. They have avoided human hubris and have done very little if anything to severely damage the biosphere and initiate a major extinction event. Shame on our specific branch of the web of life; not very good stewards of the planet.

 

[Ophiolite]

High School biology taught me this so called fact, and I failed to believe it. A chimpanzee would be unable to learn that fact, and would also be unable to reject it if they were given prior information to the contrary.

Crows are capable of solving much more complex problems than a robin. Diversity of the character and behaviour of different, even closely related species, in not only possible, it is mandatory - it's what makes them separate species! Rejecting that possibility, as you appear to have done with several of your assertions. will naturallly lead you to the wrong conclusion.

 

[BCP1928]

The fact that this was post was made to defend against an unwanted God-concept suggests otherwise. I believe that atheists have a God-concept that they are rejecting, which leads them to reject the existence of God entirely. One cannot reject what one does not have.

I believe that atheists who come here to argue against creationism have a God concept that they are rejecting. But they are not here to reject the existence of God entirely, because they already did that. The proof of is in the number of Christians and other theists who come here to reject the same God concept.

 

[Larniavc]

I would love for you to post a pic of that common ancestor - or any link between her and humans, gorillas, chimps, bononos. Where's the beef?

There were no cameras around in those days.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

There were no cameras around in those days.

Me thinks that photos of fossils won't cut it either.

 

[Hans Blaster]

High School biology taught me this so called fact, and I failed to believe it.

If you are rejecting facts, I can't help you with that.

A chimpanzee would be unable to learn that fact, and would also be unable to reject it if they were given prior information to the contrary.

Since chimps aren't known to speak or understand any of our language, I'm not sure how you could even begin to test that claim.

So why is human psychology a multi-billion dollar industry when the market for chimpanzee psychology is close to zero?

Chimps are all communists. Everybody knows that. But seriously...

If the entirety of psychology is biologically explained, why don't we just do all our drugs and talk therapy on chimps in order to understand the best methods of how to treat humans?

Again, we don't speak their language, so it would be very difficult. Part of your post seems to be a denial of the biological aspect of mind, personality, emotion, etc. Chimps have all of those.

The fact that this was post was made to defend against an unwanted God-concept suggests otherwise. I believe that atheists have a God-concept that they are rejecting, which leads them to reject the existence of God entirely. One cannot reject what one does not have.

No, this part of this post was made in response to long list of things that humans have and chimps don't that ranged from writing (which humans didn't have 6000 years ago) to cell phones (which humans didn't have until 50 years ago). So I picked the "god concept" claim. I don't have my own concept of god any more. I know a lot of people have them. I'm aware of many of them, but none make any sense to me at all, so I don't bother trying to have a specific concept of god.

If one does not reject the existence of God, they are an agnostic, not an atheist. Chimps are probably agnostics since they don't know any better.

Atheist = "doesn't believe in a god". Rejection of existence of all gods is not needed. I would add awareness of god concepts to the requirement otherwise you get silly things like atheist rocks.

"An atheist is a person who being aware of at least one concept of a god, does not accept or believe in any of them."

(I also reject the use of "agnostic" as a noun.)

 

[SavedByGrace3]

I am unsure why coming from dirt is better than being transformed from a primate.

Don't get me wrong, I know Adam and Eve came directly from dirt/dust/clay. But what came before, from chapter 1, was the primate who evolved from dirt and was transformed into "the image of the gods" by the gods. "Let us make man in our image..."
And either way, whether from the earth:

Genesis 1:24-31 KJV
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Or directly from the soil:

Genesis 2:7 KJV
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

From dust we came and to dust we return.

 

[Shemjaza]

The reason why, is despite the biological similarities (which I also would dispute, most apes have thick coats of hair which humans do not have, thus sparing them from the use of clothing), there is an enormous psychological gulf between humans and chimpanzees that biology cannot account for.

Humans have the same amount of hair as chimps, it's just finer and shorter. Clothing is also not really necessary in all environments... it's human ingenuity and technology that expands our possible range of environments.

Chimps have emotions, social structures and some ability to reason and plan.

Nobody is claiming that I am related to a bird or a fish.

You aren't a bird but you are a vertebrate.

But my point was that creatures we call "birds" and "fish" have significantly more diversity in size, shape intelligence and genetics than humans and the other apes.

Claiming that I am a mere "ape" is somewhat psychologically insulting to some individuals. Chimpanzees do not wear clothes, do not have written language, have no concept of God, never went through an Industrial Revolution, do not have computers and cell phones and the Internet. There is something different about us that biology cannot explain that points to a God who created us, that said man and woman are made in the Image of God and have a soul and spirit that the other apes do not possess.

Not all humans have gone through all those stages. And most concepts of god appear to vary by culture and background.

I would be more than happy to let biology describe things that are biological, and use psychology to explain things that are psychological, but that seems to be the explanation for resistance to the biological idea, a lack of ability to draw a distinction between those two fields. At least, that has been the problem historically, with the song "You can't make a monkey out of me" and whatnot.

You clearly feel strongly about not being identified as an ape, but religious conviction and personal emotional intuition are not consistently useful at demonstrating the truth.

Once you accept one "mutually exclusive religious interpretation" as true, other truth that aligns with the basic belief structures of your religion you can research and debate out into place.

That's the ring isn't it? You have skipped right to accepting one as true in contrast to all the different interpretations, or even fundamentally different beliefs all also supported by firm beliefs and patterns of faith.

From my perspective, what distinguishes one religious interpretation from another is a matter of historical and literary research. Christianity is based on actual historical events in my view. But that's getting off topic - this is the science forum. However, creationism and Christianity, I contend, explains the psychological gulf I mentioned earlier much better than evolution does.

There really isn't a gulf to explain when you consider the evidence for the historical state of pre-technological humans and the significant evidence for the variety of hominids demonstrating the spectrum between modern humans and the common ancestor of humans and chimps.

I believe that all sources of knowledge, not just science, need to be considered to form an accurate view of reality, not just picking and choosing the ones I happen to like.

But creationism in a separate rejection of basically every field of science and of evidence of the most ancient archaeological evidence of modern humans.

 

[The Barbarian]

The same individual stated:

"Again, the TOE doesn't say humans are descended from Gorillas or Monkeys (giant or not), only that we share a common ancestor."

And also stated:

"Human beings ARE classified as Great Apes, just as we are classified as primates, as mammals, as vertebrates, etc. It makes as much since to scream "I'm not an ape" as it does to scream "I'm not a mammal."

Is there some way that these seemingly contradictory claims are somehow reconcilable with each other that I'm missing?

Is not the former saying common ancestor, and the latter saying direct descent from ape to ape?

Is there an instance when an ape... is not an ape?

Proconsul. Mixture of monkey and ape traits. Not quite an ape, but pretty close. A perfect transitional form, as even YECs like Dr. Kurt Wise admit. There aren't nice neat divisions between most taxa and as we get more and more fossils, the few neat divisions are becoming fewer and fewer. This is what you would expect from common descent, but is incomprehensible from a YEC belief.

 

[linux.poet]

They have avoided human hubris and have done very little if anything to severely damage the biosphere and initiate a major extinction event. Shame on our specific branch of the web of life; not very good stewards of the planet.

Animals aren’t sinful, while humans are - at least, that’s the Christian explanation for why humans are destructive of life that is not our explicit prey. I find it interesting that this post concedes that humans are stewards of life and we have failed in our task of taking care of other species. That’s actually a biblical concept. Instead of thoughtful care of God’s creatures, we exploit them to repair and sustain our fallen bodies in a mindless pursuit of the immortality we lost at the Fall. And also in pursuit of profit at other humans' expense.

That's not my belief, that's my acceptance of the best, currently- available, evidence-based, multiply-validated explanation for the diveristy of life.

Belief is, actually, acceptance of something as true, and that can include scientific evidence.

I am certainly claiming that I am related to birds and fishes and every other living thing on the planet. That's something I find fascinating and awesome and moving and delightful and a host of other positive emotions.

Beliefs lead to emotions. If I believe that something is valuable, I will have positive emotions associated with it. The belief that one is related to the family tree of life is associated with positive emotions, apparently, that one does not want to give up.

Crows are capable of solving much more complex problems than a robin. Diversity of the character and behaviour of different, even closely related species, in not only possible, it is mandatory - it's what makes them separate species! Rejecting that possibility, as you appear to have done with several of your assertions. will naturallly lead you to the wrong conclusion.

Again, I don’t see crows building factories, mathematics textbooks, or altars to deities. At least the chimpanzees have mastered human sign language. Crows can’t even do that, let alone operate a cell phone. Humans are a highly distinct species on the tree of life that dictate the trials other species must face.

But they are not here to reject the existence of God entirely, because they already did that.

If rejection is an ongoing process, this is a contradiction in terms. They rejected God when it was presented to them at some point in the past, and thus continue to do so again and again.

According to New Testament and Literature: A Guide to Literary Patterns, by Steven Cox, people who argue vehemently against Christianity use more language that Christians use, ironically proving that they actually believe more Christianity than someone who doesn’t care about it one way or another. They are troubled by the implications that Christianity might be true, they believe enough Christianity to bother them. But that is literary theory and we are in the science forum.

The fact that a person believes that responding to my post denying that chimps and humans are related is a productive use of their time, as opposed to seeking out opportunities for biological fitness and reproduction, indicates that their atheism may not be as fully believed in as they think it might be. Beliefs create emotions which create actions. If someone is not acting consistently with what they say they believe, it’s an inconsistency which causes emotional pain and inefficiency in the biological brain, a cognitive science finding.

Holding two contradictory beliefs as true at once is called cognitive dissonance, which is consistently reflective of negative scientific outcomes. Here are some studies that reflect this point:

Liu, Y.-L., & Keng, C.-J. (2014). Cognitive dissonance, social comparison, and disseminating untruthful or negative truthful eWOM messages. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 42(6), 979+. http://dx.doi.org.sdpl.idm.oclc.org/10.2224/sbp.2014.42.6.979

van Veen, V., Krug, M. K., Schooler, J. W., & Carter, C. S. (2009). Neural activity predicts attitude change in cognitive dissonance. Nature Neuroscience, 12(11), 1469+. http://dx.doi.org.sdpl.idm.oclc.org/10.1038/nn.2413

Christianity is consistent with cognitive dissonance theory, because we believe that God gave us one truth that is consistent with itself and does not contradict itself. God designed our brains to just believe truth, not swallow a bunch of contradictory lies.

Since chimps aren't known to speak or understand any of our language, I'm not sure how you could even begin to test that claim.

Again, we don't speak their language, so it would be very difficult. Part of your post seems to be a denial of the biological aspect of mind, personality, emotion, etc. Chimps have all of those.

This is incorrect, since we have trained chimps to speak sign language. The famous documentary Project Nim explains that pretty well.

Not only that, chimps and other primates gesture as a type of communication already:

Close cousins

In 2007, Victoria Wobber visited a wildlife sanctuary in central Africa. Called Lola ya Bonobo, this sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo housed

www.snexplores.org

The young girl, chimp and bonobo used similar gestures, the scientists found. For example, they often pointed at or reached for objects. They raised their arms to ask to be picked up. And they frequently looked at a caregiver or repeated their gestures to further encourage that person to respond.

The girl mainly used gestures to communicate before learning to say words. The chimp and bonobo also depended mostly on gestures before learning to point to lexigrams. That might mean the common ancestor of humans, bonobos and chimps communicated with gestures before evolving the capacity to use symbols such as words or lexigrams.

We’ve also done therapy on deaf people with sign language being used to communicate.

Anderson, M. L., & Leigh, I. W. (2010). Internal consistency and factor structure of the revised conflict tactics scales in a sample of deaf female college students. Journal of Family Violence, 25(5), 475+. http://dx.doi.org.sdpl.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s10896-010-9308-6

That's just one study of therapeutic methods being used on deaf people. I don't want to belabor this point because I do think that deaf people don't deserve to be compared to monkeys, as that is demeaning to deaf people.

The reason why we haven’t done psychotherapy on chimps is because chimpanzees don’t need therapy. Neither do crows or squirrels. This points to a disordered nature of the human mind in particular that other species do not share. Christianity does a better job of explaining that than evolution has. And yes, I’ve heard the hypothesis that modern life has created a world that is not good for our brains and disrupts our biological rhythms. But that ignores the fact that we created modern life with all of its attendant problems and distractions in the first place. Chimpanzees don’t do that, but we did. Chimpanzees might suffer from cruelties at the hands of humans, but they don’t engage in self-destructive cruelty like ours.

We have wandered far from our biological mandate of eating, breathing, and reproduction. But refocusing on that doesn’t seem to help us as much as focusing on our relationship to each other. (cite source) We seem to have something else going on that continually pulls us away from said biological mandate, which cannot explain human behavior.

Meanwhile, I am aware of the biological aspects of the human mind, and the mental function models that declare that human minds are a function of the whole of the biological parts. I am not about to sit here and defend the false idea of the homonucleous. I had CPTSD and the biological function models for what that disease damages, in my case, turned out to be accurate. Scientific analysis states that the amygdala, which governs fear and anger, leads to diminished cognitive mental processing in the frontal lobes and diminished mental performance. Here's one study example, though I mostly received this information during the course of my trauma treatment.

Denkova, E., Wong, G., Dolcos, S., Sung, K., Wang, L., Coupland, N., & Dolcos, F. (2010). The Impact of Anxiety-Inducing Distraction on Cognitive Performance: A Combined Brain Imaging and Personality Investigation. PLoS ONE, 5(11), e14150. http://dx.doi.org.sdpl.idm.oclc.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0014150

I experience that as correct. When I am scared or afraid, my mental performance goes down. That is consistent with a Christian worldview which states that human beings were not created to live in a threatening environment. It is inconsistent with an evolutionary biological mandate, which would indicate that greater cognitive performance in threatening situations would provide greater protection for the young and greater reproductive odds. Meanwhile, instinctively we know that fear and anger damage social relations and produce poor cognitive outcomes without me having to tell you.

Various biological exercises I was taught improved my treatment outcomes. If there was no biological aspect to the human mind, none of those would have worked. There is a biological and spiritual aspect of the human mind, and those are designed to work in perfect concert. Damage one aspect, you damage the other.

Humans psychology is part of human biology.

Human biology is part of human psychology.

Atheist = "doesn't believe in a god". Rejection of existence of all gods is not needed. I would add awareness of god concepts to the requirement otherwise you get silly things like atheist rocks.

"An atheist is a person who being aware of at least one concept of a god, does not accept or believe in any of them."

(I also reject the use of "agnostic" as a noun.)

belief​

noun​

be·lief bə-ˈlēf

1. a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing

2. something that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion : something believed

an individual's religious or political beliefs

3. conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

(I.e) belief in the validity of scientific statements

Source: Definition of BELIEF

So I’ll rerun this. 1. A statement of confidence that “gods” do not affect me and I can safely disregard what they say. 2. not having an opinion about God, failing to think that God’s existence is true, or failing to hold an opinion that God exists. 3. Lack of conviction that God’s existence is true.

Eh…this opinion sounds more like “gods may exist, but they don’t affect me, so I’m good” rather than “God doesn’t exist”. I suppose I should just allow for the subtlety. (If a god were mad at you for your lack of conviction or belief in them, how would you handle it? The confidence that you can handle it and it’s all no big deal strikes me as interesting to say the least.)

This definition strikes me as more of an emotional rejection of the powers of “gods” rather than an intellectual rejection of “gods” or God’s existence. Still rejecting God’s claim of being more powerful than you and His ability to affect your life in good or catastrophic ways. I think we have just moved the goalpost from existence to claims.

You clearly feel strongly about not being identified as an ape, but religious conviction and personal emotional intuition are not consistently useful at demonstrating the truth.

Neither are sensory data and intellectual ability and determinations. Malcolm Caldwell got misled by his intellectual models and got killed by Pol Pot in Cambodia:

Malcolm Caldwell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Then there's this guy with his false claims of population collapse.

Paul R. Ehrlich - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

For every person led astray by emotional intuition, there is at least one killed by scientific or intellectual models they didn’t update to match intuitive reality. The MBTI is not scientific: all human beings use intuition, thinking, feeling, and sensory data to determine truth. Using two faculties at the expense of the other two does not produce an accurate result, no matter which two you select

Furthermore, I actually don’t care whether biologically humans are classified as apes by evolutionists - they can believe what they want, as evidenced by my previous topic. I was trying to explain a psychological phenomenon where others were taking offense at evolutionary biological determinations, which this topic appears to be about. To me it’s all words and classifications.

You have skipped right to accepting one as true in contrast to all the different interpretations, or even fundamentally different beliefs all also supported by firm beliefs and patterns of faith.

Skipped? Nope, I researched the other belief structures before I came to the conclusion that Christianity was true. Granted, my sources were somewhat biased by what my parents gave me, but I did spend some time in the public school library reading around. I also had trauma going on back then. What did I know?

After I came down with CPTSD symptoms, I ended up doing even more psychological and religious research to try to manage my crazy brain. I also have a professional degree in literature which forced me to consider the beliefs of other languages and cultures. I sat through lectures on Buddhist and Hindu philosophies and practices as part of my psychological investigations, and I even found that useful in navigating certain difficulties. But consistently, over and over, I found that all of my intellectual gallivanting landed me back in the same place: Christianity is true. 12 year old me was wrong about a lot else, but she was right about that, and accepting the Gospel proved to be an advantage in navigating my horrific situation.

There really isn't a gulf to explain when you consider the evidence for the historical state of pre-technological humans and the significant evidence for the variety of hominids demonstrating the spectrum between modern humans and the common ancestor of humans and chimps.

And yet all human beings and cultures, pre-technological or not, all have a concept of God or gods. Science, evolution, atheism, etc are all relatively new phenomena. How do you explain belief in a deity as the human default psychology, which no other apes share?

But creationism in a separate rejection of basically every field of science and of evidence of the most ancient archaeological evidence of modern humans.

Absolutely not. Any valid belief in creationism needs to be consistent with God’s creation. The creation, if there is a Creator, should point to the fact that is was created. If I build a piece of artwork and stick it on the wall, there will be indications in that drawing that I made it and not someone else.

Not to mention the archeological discoveries that support the truth of biblical narratives.

The problem is that there are still enough scientific and Biblical unknowns for belief and unbelief, knowledge and ignorance, to make it so people don’t understand that science needs to be consistent with reality, and reality needs to be consistent with science. Science is just a tool to examine God’s creation in great detail and thus it can be used for good or ill; there’s no need to get bent out of shape over it. Also, God’s creation does not lie, and if science didn’t work it would no longer be science.

My father is an airplane engineer, my brother is has a physics degree and is studying biology as we speak to become a doctor, and both of them are Christians. If airplane science was inaccurate, no planes would take off. If medicine was bunk, no healing would be done by the doctors at all.

While I am a literary professional and not a scientist, part of what helped me to accept the Gospel was Lee Strobel’s analysis that evolution made no sense in terms of denying the existence of God. Therefore, bashing science and disregarding it makes no sense to me. I believe that science, history, literature, and theology are all separate fields of study, but they are all consistent and they all shake hands. Whether our fallen brains are good enough to find all the points of consistency, I do not know, but they are there. I may have to wait for eternity for the Lord to explain them.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I have no idea what this was about, but apparently I had to define atheist for you.

So I’ll rerun this. 1. A statement of confidence that “gods” do not affect me and I can safely disregard what they say.

They certainly don't and I do disregard their messengers. (I've never heard of anything conclusively from any of them.)

2. not having an opinion about God, failing to think that God’s existence is true, or failing to hold an opinion that God exists.

I definitely have an opinion.

3. Lack of conviction that God’s existence is true.

I certainly can't say I have conviction the being you call "God" exists.

Eh…this opinion sounds more like “gods may exist, but they don’t affect me, so I’m good”

Never been affected by one.

rather than “God doesn’t exist”.

Don't think he does.

I suppose I should just allow for the subtlety. (If a god were mad at you for your lack of conviction or belief in them, how would you handle it? The confidence that you can handle it and it’s all no big deal strikes me as interesting to say the least.)

None of the gods I don't believe in have ever both to indicate any thing to me about their displeasure, so no, I'm not worried about it.

This definition strikes me as more of an emotional rejection of the powers of “gods” rather than an intellectual rejection of “gods” or God’s existence.

What definition? You gave three.

Still rejecting God’s claim of being more powerful than you and His ability to affect your life in good or catastrophic ways.

Since I have no communication from God or any other god, all I have to reject is the claims of their various followers. I certainly don't trust those people about their various deities.

I think we have just moved the goalpost from existence to claims.

I have no idea what you are trying to communicate in this response at all. Something about an old thread and a response to multiple posters that goes on for page after page.

 

[The Barbarian]

While I am a literary professional and not a scientist, part of what helped me to accept the Gospel was Lee Strobel’s analysis that evolution made no sense in terms of denying the existence of God.

Surprising that Lee was unaware that in On The Origin of Species, Darwin attributed the origin of life to God. You probably shouldn't be taking instruction on things from people who don't even know what those things are.

 

[AV1611VET]

Surprising that Lee was unaware that in On The Origin of Species, Darwin attributed the origin of life to God.

From AI Overview:

Darwin did not attribute the emergence of life to God in the traditional sense of a divine creator. His theory of evolution, particularly natural selection, describes a process of change over time driven by environmental pressures, not by a supernatural entity. While Darwin acknowledged the possibility of a "Creator" who established the initial laws of nature, his focus was on the natural mechanisms that drive the development of life.

Albeit I believe he recanted on his deathbed.

 

[Ophiolite]

Animals aren’t sinful, while humans are - at least, that’s the Christian explanation for why humans are destructive of life that is not our explicit prey. I find it interesting that this post concedes that humans are stewards of life and we have failed in our task of taking care of other species. That’s actually a biblical concept. Instead of thoughtful care of God’s creatures, we exploit them to repair and sustain our fallen bodies in a mindless pursuit of the immortality we lost at the Fall. And also in pursuit of profit at other humans' expense.

Yes, being a former Christian I am aware of the concept of sin. I think you also appreciate that I no longer accept that explanation as plausible.

Now, I must nit-pick your choice of the word concede. I made no concession that humans were stewards of life. That implies a reluctance to agree that this stewardship is a "fact". Indeed to the extent that I consider anything a given, then this is one that I insist upon. We are stewards of the biosphere (with my standard caveat of "based upon all observations and explanations currently known to me"). And, yes, I am aware that stewardship is a Biblical concept: that's why I chose the word steward rather than alternative. It is an implicit criticism of those Christians who ignore the responsibility.

Belief is, actually, acceptance of something as true, and that can include scientific evidence.

I don't accept anything as true. I merely accept some things as being more likely than others and act, pragmatically, on that basis. Scientific evidence, or rational argument are the two most common ways by which I would arrive at such acceptance.

Beliefs lead to emotions. If I believe that something is valuable, I will have positive emotions associated with it. The belief that one is related to the family tree of life is associated with positive emotions, apparently, that one does not want to give up.

Interesting thought. I rather think it is the reverse: emotions can lead to beliefs. That can be dangerous. Consequently, I prefer to carefully monitor my emotions to avoid any such corruption.

Again, I don’t see crows building factories, mathematics textbooks, or altars to deities. At least the chimpanzees have mastered human sign language. Crows can’t even do that, let alone operate a cell phone. Humans are a highly distinct species on the tree of life that dictate the trials other species must face

The success of chimpanzees with sign languages have almost certainly been overrated. On the other hand it is only within the last year or so that we have managed to understand how complex chimpanzee communication actually is. (With the usual caveat of "I'd like to see further researchers produce similar results, depsite a critical attitude to the original research before accepting it as the best explanation . . . .")
You see, from my perspective, you are judging these fellow creatures by human standards. By human standards, no other creature can hold a candle to us. However, I find myself insufficiently species-centric to assume human standards are the right ones.

You may be completely correct in your beliefs. I may be deluding myself. I'm reasonably sure that I must be deluding myself in several ways, else - all the evidence currently available to me suggests - I would be a unique human being. But I am as sure as I get on anything, that my views expressed above won't be far - (Usual caveats) -from a sound explanation. If I understand your point correctly the uncertainties I see are removed for you through faith. I acknowledge the power of faith, I just don't accept its value. (Correct me if I misrepresented your position.)

 

[Bradskii]

The fact that a person believes that responding to my post denying that chimps and humans are related is a productive use of their time, as opposed to seeking out opportunities for biological fitness and reproduction, indicates that their atheism may not be as fully believed in as they think it might be.

Just waaay too much to respond to in one post, but this stood out. In the first instance, evolution and atheism are not the same side of whatever coin it is that you're thinking about. Secondly, no-one believes in atheism. And thirdly, not everything we do is related to biological fitness and reproduction. That equates to:
'I watched all the Godfather films yesterday'.
'Aha, so evolution is false!'

While I am a literary professional and not a scientist, part of what helped me to accept the Gospel was Lee Strobel’s analysis that evolution made no sense in terms of denying the existence of God.

It makes no sense to me either. I hope he didn't spend too much time trying to convince anyone of something so obvious. But 'evolution doesn't deny God, therefore the Gospels are true' doesn't make much sense to me. I must be reading it incorrectly.

 

[Gene2memE]

While I am a literary professional and not a scientist, part of what helped me to accept the Gospel was Lee Strobel’s analysis that evolution made no sense in terms of denying the existence of God.

Strobel's analysis of evolutionary biology is about as balanced as a ladder with a leg missing and reads about as true as a Roman coin marked 'VII BC'.

The Case for a Creator isn't the worst apologetics book ever written. But, it doesn't actually deal with the meat of any of the scientific topics it professes to address. It's a book written to reassure believers that their existing beliefs are correct.

It doesn't actually challenge any of the conclusions of evolutionary biology. Strobel is just flatly wrong about Archeopteryx, and he's wildly off the mark about the Miller-Urey experiment (in puropse, conclusions and follow on). He shamefully mis-represents the work of Darwin and Haeckel.

He also just trots out apologist after apologist (Craig, Moreland, Meyer, Behe et al) to run through their own tired apologetics. The cosmological argument, the teleological argument, various iterations of intelligent design (which is just creationism with extra steps) and the hard problem of consciousness.

Not once does he actually engage with any of the counter arguments to his own apologetics, nor those of the professional apologists he engages with.

All in all, it was a giant yawn.

I have vastly more respect for someone like Francis Collins or Timothy Keller, who actually look at skeptical positions and counter-arguments. While I don't agree with their conclusions, at least there is a sense that they've actually engaged with ideas outside of the little insular pond created by a certain kind of Christian orthodoxy. Their books don't actively give off a stink of pious fraud.

 

[The Barbarian]

Albeit I believe he recanted on his deathbed.

You have it backwards. The story, which has been debunked, is that Darwin recanted on evolution on his deathbed. Darwin did, late in life say he was leaning toward agnosticism. But he formed his theory as a devout Anglican Christian.