Another thing I don't understand about the creationist position...

[Shemjaza]

This is the uniqueness I am refering to where no other counterpart exist.

But it's not fundamentally different, that's my point.

 

[Shemjaza]

Science is a vacuum with a goal of only finding answeres that can be explained in it's vacuum. It is blinded to anything else. Science cannot prove God, this is true, but it also cannot disprove God.

Which is all well and good when we are dealing with things outside the scope of science... but it doesn't strike me as justified when people expand that to apply in instances when science can investigate and make conclusions.

 

[DamianWarS]

But it's not fundamentally different, that's my point.

If by fundamental you mean our biology then no we are not fundamentally different. If there is another compentent outside of biology that explains our unparalleled success then there is a fundamental difference.

 

[DamianWarS]

Which is all well and good when we are dealing with things outside the scope of science... but it doesn't strike me as justified when people expand that to apply in instances when science can investigate and make conclusions.

Sure, but both are at fault. Let science explain science and not justify there is no God. Science at it's core can only be agnostic about the existence of God.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Sure, but both are at fault. Let science explain science and not justify there is no God. Science at it's core can only be agnostic about the existence of God.

Who uses science to disprove God? It is only used to correct ideas that have been shown to be wrong. The thing is that some creationists seem to thing that refuting the stories of Genesis is an attempt to refute God. That is not the case at all.

 

[Shemjaza]

If by fundamental you mean our biology then no we are not fundamentally different. If there is another compentent outside of biology that explains our unparalleled success then there is a fundamental difference.

I fail to see any justification for assuming that. Some animals are just smarter than others.

Humans are the smartest example of a whole family of smart animals. Our technology is amazing... but we can see all the tiny steps it took from stone tools and fire to walking on the Moon. Our actual intelligence evidently follows the same stepwise pattern on a species level.

Sure, but both are at fault. Let science explain science and not justify there is no God. Science at it's core can only be agnostic about the existence of God.

People are rarely foolish enough to claim that science proves there is no God.

However, when claims about God are justified with point that can be explained by science then it is a reasonable response.

 

[DamianWarS]

Who uses science to disprove God? It is only used to correct ideas that have been shown to be wrong. The thing is that some creationists seem to thing that refuting the stories of Genesis is an attempt to refute God. That is not the case at all.

But that's not what the OP is addressing.

 

[DamianWarS]

fail to see any justification for assuming that. Some animals are just smarter than others.

Humans are the smartest example of a whole family of smart animals. Our technology is amazing... but we can see all the tiny steps it took from stone tools and fire to walking on the Moon. Our actual intelligence evidently follows the same stepwise pattern on a species level.

No other has taken those steps where an outside influencer could explain why

People are rarely foolish enough to claim that science proves there is no God.

However, when claims about God are justified with point that can be explained by science then it is a reasonable response.

What else would you expect? Everyone cheers for the home team even when it's irrational and there examples on both sides. If your point is there are more foolish theists than atheist so atheist get a point then take your point but I'm not sure what the game is and it's unproductive and anecdotal.

Science cannot explain God, but the boundaries it does draw also reveal a negative space of outside of science.

 

[Hans Blaster]

It's the message boards compentent then that the ape is unable to achieve.

I'd be willing to estimate that 100% of the designers, maintainers, and users of the board are apes. (Except for the occasional feline post to an ape's account.)

 

[DamianWarS]

I'd be willing to estimate that 100% of the designers, maintainers, and users of the board are apes. (Except for the occasional feline post to an ape's account.)

There is an aspect you are refusing to acknowledge even though you understand the point. Some would call that being deliberately obtuse. We are homosapien and it is the sapien charactistics I'm exploring.

 

[Shemjaza]

No other has taken those steps where an outside influencer could explain why

Humans are unusual, but our circumstance and background are unusual.

I makes no sense to justify something odd and unlikely, yet possible... with something literally inexplicable and impossible according to what we know about the phenomenal universe.

What else would you expect? Everyone cheers for the home team even when it's irrational and there examples on both sides. If your point is there are more foolish theists than atheist so atheist get a point then take your point but I'm not sure what the game is and it's unproductive and anecdotal.

Science cannot explain God, but the boundaries it does draw also reveal a negative space of outside of science.

I'm not bringing it up as a point scoring mechanism, I'm pointing out a common scenario where "You can't disprove God." doesn't apply.

You can't disprove a deity outside time and space. You can't disprove that reality follows his will.

But when clear statements are made about the physical world, then they can be investigated.

The evidence is that Earth is not 6000 years old; the evidence is that it was not destroyed by a flood 4000 years ago; the evidence is that humans share common ancestors with other animals.

Pinning gaps in our knowledge on God is basically always a losing game.

 

[Hans Blaster]

There is an aspect you are refusing to acknowledge even though you understand the point. Some would call that being deliberately obtuse. We are homosapien and it is the sapien charactistics I'm exploring.

What other than biological difference from other apes make us is some way remarkable?

This thread is ultimately about why some people (namely creationists) have a problem (emotional, or whatever it is) with humans being biologically made of the same stuff as other animals, other mammals, other primates, and other apes. You seem to acknowledge this (as far as I can tell) but then want to talk about something "special". I have no idea what beyond biology could be different between us human biological organisms and other biological organisms.

 

[DamianWarS]

The evidence is that Earth is not 6000 years old; the evidence is that it was not destroyed by a flood 4000 years ago; the evidence is that humans share common ancestors with other animals.

that discussion would be outside the scope of the OP.

 

[DamianWarS]

What other than biological difference from other apes make us is some way remarkable?

This thread is ultimately about why some people (namely creationists) have a problem (emotional, or whatever it is) with humans being biologically made of the same stuff as other animals, other mammals, other primates, and other apes. You seem to acknowledge this (as far as I can tell) but then want to talk about something "special". I have no idea what beyond biology could be different between us human biological organisms and other biological organisms.

my point is not naming it but recognizing there is a difference. we are apes and our biology is the same but yet we have no counterpart. An orangutan is an ape and has unique abilities over other apes, including humans, yet none that is able to overshadow the abilities of another to the degree that humans can to do. no other species seems to have been able to take these necessary steps to compete on our level and biology insufficiently answers why we are alone at this level. so the argument then is fundamentally not about biology as biology seems to lack an answer why. the OP only considers biology as if nothing else exists, creationist opinion will widely vary on it but at the very least would agree theistic influence would be unique.

 

[Hans Blaster]

my point is not naming it but recognizing there is a difference. we are apes and our biology is the same but yet we have no counterpart. An orangutan is an ape and has unique abilities over other apes, including humans, yet none that is able to overshadow the abilities of another to the degree that humans can to do. no other species seems to have been able to take these necessary steps to compete on our level and biology insufficiently answers why we are alone at this level. so the argument then is fundamentally not about biology as biology seems to lack an answer why. the OP only considers biology as if nothing else exists, creationist opinion will widely vary on it but at the very least would agree theistic influence would be unique.

I think generally that people underestimate the power of detailed transmission of ideas and developments to allow those developments to build upon themselves. The invention of writing accelerates this even further. This is why we seem so much more advanced than other creatures, even other apes.

 

[DamianWarS]

I think generally that people underestimate the power of detailed transmission of ideas and developments to allow those developments to build upon themselves. The invention of writing accelerates this even further. This is why we seem so much more advanced than other creatures, even other apes.

there is still a difference that even under a lifetime of instruction they are unable to take the steps necessary to develop further or teach their own to do the same. Human technology builds upon itself with earlier developments in languages and things like writing but our gift is that we are able to continue to progress and carry these advancements to the next generation. Other species do this at different levels but there appears to be a ceiling as to how far they can go that humans far exceed. There is nothing to suggest that over written history an animal today is anything different than yesterday in terms of the capacity to learn

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

And that's where the doubt is reasonable.

Sure, we can have reasonable doubt about whether any other creature has yet reached the complexity and sophistication of our cognition. That's not the same as reasonable doubt about whether it is possible - we ourselves are an example that shows that it is possible.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

We're not the only ones with big brains but humans are still markedly different. Biology of course explains the biological components but is unable to explain anything outside of itself. Because we are the only ones operating at these levels that no other species is known to cross over into it can suggest an influence that biology is blinded to.

The size of the brain is less important than the way it is organised. Some birds are capable of intelligence and self-awareness that matches or exceeds most primates, with a brain that is a fraction of the size (albeit far more densely packed with neurons).

There is no evidence of anything 'beyond biology' in human capabilities, and all the evidence we have points to the brain as the source of our cognitive superiority.

You can speculate that there could be some other non-biological contribution, but to be more than vague hand-waving, there needs to be some argument for it - what does it do? how does it do it? where is it? what does it consist of? and, importantly, how can we test this idea? what predictions follow from it?

 

[DamianWarS]

Sure, we can have reasonable doubt about whether any other creature has yet reached the complexity and sophistication of our cognition. That's not the same as reasonable doubt about whether it is possible - we ourselves are an example that shows that it is possible.

the longer we are the only example the greater the doupt is that any other creature can obtain these heights. So far no other creature has demonstrated an ability to progress as humans have. This starts to point to outside controls that may be influencing development. It sufficiently answer the why it's just not a biological answer that makes us different.

 

[DamianWarS]

You can speculate that there could be some other non-biological contribution, but to be more than vague hand-waving, there needs to be some argument for it - what does it do? how does it do it? where is it? what does it consist of? and, importantly, how can we test this idea? what predictions follow from it?

An outside influencer would have to be outside of our space-time continuum and so cannot be described using biology or science as those are limited inside our space time continuum. The boundaries of space-time itself outline a negative space for outside the space-time continuum even if we can't understand it or see it. Since we are bound by our limits inside there is no way to describe the outside but the very notion of limits describe something outside those limits.