Paladin wrote:Science is a problem for the "creationists". While it explains much of our known world, the nutjobs feed you supernatural garbage. The Universe is billions of years old. So is the earth. Hurts the" 7 Days "theory of the nutjobs. Then there is the fact that other species were here for hundreds of millions of years , leaving behind their bones & carbon dating. Even ancestrol man can be tracked back almost one million years which kills off the "Earth is only less than 10,000 years old "theory. While man marches forward with science blazing trails, the nutjobs want to denigrate science because it destroys the "teachings", and which now see fewer attending church, fewer members of a church, a declining number who "believe", making religion a threatned species itself. " Creation" is doomed and so are most religions. Science has a long and revealing future ahead.
Pass the popcorn. 8)
You have a reasonably valid outlook, but you are also only using the science that backs up your claim of no afterlife.
To assume that there is a continuity of behavior from the reactions of some protozoa to the conscious moral choices of humans is to totally disregard the fact that there appears to be different levels of behavior. There is a clear sense of duty within all of us from birth. This feeling of "I should or I ought to" is an important part of human moral consciousness. Therefore, if man is simply the outcome of the natural forces of selection, to be taught to conform to the ways of these forces would be of little value for him. The sense of obligation is meaningful only if there is that about man which is to a reasonable extent independant of those natural forces.
Plus, you are totally disregarding people who have had very deep spiritual, life-changing events happen to them. I will not, for one moment, believe that all these people are telling the truth. But there have been many, throughout history, whos lives and character have been beyond reproach.
I once watched an interview with Alice Cooper on TV. Im not saying he is beyond reproach in his life on some things, but, if I can see a persons face and their body, I can tell you if they are lying....it isnt a gift, its a taught science in behavioral sciences. Anyway, he was asked about rumors of him dabbling in "black magic". He looked like he was going to pass out from fright and said that you dont want to open certain doors into the spiritual realms and refused to answer any other questions about it, only stating that "You dont want to ask about things that deep down you know you dont want to really know". Vague answer? Yes....could that answer be taken either way? Yes, but if the answer is that there is nothing there, then why get frightened and refuse to answer? I know of many people that were athiests that experienced a spiritual awakening....
Also evolution alone without a "higher authority" guiding its process does not explain how the intellect/reasoning ability of all living creatures is a very slow, gradual curve until you reach humans, then its a straight vertical climb right off the charts.