Killing the Watchmaker (Origins)

by dhw, Monday, May 30, 2011, 20:41 (4924 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: Well, some criticism still stands: Why does the eye only see one band of light, when there would definitely be an advantage if humans could also see IR? Lets remember that atheists are railing against essentially "special creation" that man is intrinsically special to the universe by our high and almighty creator, who is omnipotent etc. etc. It DOES stand to reason that if we were supposed to be superior, that we would have been blessed with stronger spines, IR eyesight, any of a number of different advantages that would actually stand to make us "superior." (I deeply question whether or not we really are "smarter" than most other animals just because we write plays... intelligence alone doesn't make us "superior...")-It would be an advantage if we were stronger, cleverer, immune to all disease, able to fly, able to run faster, jump higher, live longer....Such "criticism" seems pointless to me. Cars would be better if they used no harmful fuels, never broke down, never rusted, had built-in accident avoiders...Does all that prove they weren't consciously designed? The question is not whether something could have been better, but whether you can or can't believe that such complex organs are the products of a mechanism which...ah, well, you know the rest.-I agree with you on the subject of "superiority". I can quite understand why theists believe we are special, since as far as we know, we are the only creatures with the intelligence to recognize or dispute the existence of a maker. In fairness, I do think the sheer breadth of our intelligence, our technology, our art, our language etc. makes us different from other animals, as does our capacity for conscious evil, large-scale destruction, self-flagellation. "Superior", though, requires a hierarchical frame of reference, which we don't have. Bacteria will outlast us all. Ants have a far more efficient social structure than we have. Many animals have better navigational and meteorological skills. They are all "special". But as that wonderful whale story vividly illustrates, for all our differences and our powers, we still have basic common features with our fellow animals, and humans are no more "superior" to them than the Pope, the Queen, the President, the Prime Minister are to us folk at home. Such value judgements are figments of the human imagination, and they are dangerous because they are used to justify our unspeakable cruelty to all species including our own ... another "special" feature unique to us humans. -MATT: I will never forget when I voluntarily withdrew from alt.atheism some years ago. I had an... argument, where someone claiming to be the physicist Michael Gray. I was challenging him on several philosophical points, most notably that I thought saying "God does not exist" really IS an expression of faith, if we're to be epistemically accurate. Because its entirely within reason that "Everything man has ever thought about God is false except that it exists."-You were met with a series of vitriolic ad hominems. This is typical of fundamentalists. You cannot reason with them, although they firmly believe that reason is on their side!-******
I've just seen your "Atheist cannon..." (Please don't fire it. Just change it to a canon.)-"The statement 'God does not exist' is falsifiable."-What is that supposed to prove? It would be falsifiable if God appeared to us. But if he never appears to us, that doesn't mean he doesn't exist. The statement "life originated by chance" would also be falsifiable, if God appeared and showed us how he did it. So? How long are you prepared to wait?-*******-Hubble, Hubble,
Toil and trouble,
Let us burst
The Hubble Bubble.