When is it OK to ask a RW to change her religion for you

[Blues Fairy]

Blues Fairy,
I apologize if I invoked the term "supernatural".  You know that I am calling nature, therefore, natural events as evidence of intelligence.  You have taken what's been uncovered by man, but created by God long ago, and said "look, we can understand how this works (though we can't actually replicate it ourselves) it's therefore natural and not God's handiwork!"  Talk about nonsense.   

If Child Protective Services, enters a home and finds children, nicely dressed, fully fed and the house in order but no parents about, would CPS then say, "these children are obviously orphans who have so well taken care of themselves without a parent!"?   Obvioulsy not, but it is precisely the logic you are employing here and will no doubt continue to employ. 

Ronnie,
I apologize if I continue to speak English instead of trying to conform to the special language of your own that you are obviously using to describe things.  To me, supernatural = non-empirical = divine, and natural = empirical = rational.  Your system of definitions is totally unclear to me, and constantly changing as the discussion progresses.

CPS is an incorrect analogy.  Parents's involvement is as rational an explanation as the kids' own self-maintenance skills, and both explanations are perfectly testable.  A person of your mindset, however, would immediately jump to the conclusion that there is a Housekeeping Fairy taking care of the place.

[Ade]

Agnosticism, SJ, is probably what you meant when you defined atheism as an absence of belief in dieties. And I wrongly ignored this conclusion...Sandro is right. Agnosticism being defined as "without - knowledge" (on the subject of God's existence) or ambivalence or no opinion.

No, not really, I meant what I meant. Agnosticism (or weak Atheism as defined by some) is more of an indifference or absence of an opinion based on what they see as the lack of knowledge.

Atheism then is not an absence of belief, but a belief in the absence of God (not the absence of a belief in God).  Most atheist have a very strong belief in the ability of science to explain what most (myself included) consider solid evidence of God.

Actually, no, it's an absence of belief. Yes, I know, there are a lot of playing with semantics and what seems to be conflicting definitions when it comes to Atheism and Agnosticism and Atheists don’t necessarily agree with each other on these things either.

I'd like to know what you consider to be "solid evidence of God"?

[Shadow]

What explains people like myself, a naturally evolved skeptic having no patience for man-made religion (including Darwinism), who views the world and universe as the purposeful creation of some undefined entity or entities with vastly superior knowledge and intelligence that of present-day man? 

Welcome to being agnostic.
If this is the definition of your belief system it means that you believe there has been a creation, however you do not know which entity has created it you are someone who 'does not know the answer' and there for agnostic. Which is kind of rare for people who believe in Intelligent Design.
However you seem to consider darwinism as a religion, which would point in another direction that you might not be willing to disclose.
All Darwin has done is create a theory on how lifeforms have changed from the fossils we find of extinct animals to the ones we know today. If you want to be awed by nature, think of the many lifeforms it has created in the past that once stood upon this world.
You would not consider the many fossilized skeletons that have been found as anything else than the work of nature now, would you ?

[55North]

No, not really, I meant what I meant. Agnosticism (or weak Atheism as defined by some) is more of an indifference or absence of an opinion based on what they see as the lack of knowledge.

Actually, no, it's an absence of belief. Yes, I know, there are a lot of playing with semantics and what seems to be conflicting definitions when it comes to Atheism and Agnosticism and Atheists don’t necessarily agree with each other on these things either.

I'd like to know what you consider to be "solid evidence of God"?

When I was married once before, decades ago, my fiancee assumed she could have her wish to be married in a church "as I didn't believe in God, so it wouldn't matter".  She was somewhat shaken when I told her that my denial of the existence of God (as commonly perceived) was probably stronger than the belief in God of most so-called Christians, especially when it comes to having church weddings.  In the end, with the services of a liberal vicar, we had our civil wedding blessed in a side chapel with a script in which I never once declared to a God.

So, no one is going to tell me that my Atheism is a non-belief.  It is belief in the non-existence of a God as popularly perceived, ie. a higher intelligence beyond this planet which is directly concerned with the miserable way we manage ourselves. Religion is entirely a man-made concept to explain that which we haven't worked out yet IMO.  Many of the earlier religious rules are to do with ordering of society that we don't starve or poison ourselves, or to maintain power structures, particularly that of men over women, and to ensure heredity and the matter of possessions, like money.  They can also be tribally specific for much the same reasons.

I will not be surprised, but indeed elated, if we discover life in some form elsewhere.
 
Having said all this, I do take an interest in religions as they, for good or ill, are the key to the earlier roots of various human societies.  There was one famous English Bishop recently who seemed to be saying that God was only within us, not elsewhere, which is to say 'be good'.  I can do that.  I don't need mumbo-jumbo to do it.
 
BC, regarding fossilised skeletons, I see many of them walking the planet in the name of religion.  Can nature be that dumb?   

[Ade]

On the whole I agree with what you are saying but however much I would also like to explicitly deny the existence of god(s) I can't and remain true to objectivity. The proof of gods non-existence does not exist and never will, therefore, to say categorically that he does not exist is as much a leap of faith as it is to say that he does exist.

Of course, knowing what we do about the universe it is fairly obvious (to some of us at least ) that there is such a vanishingly small chance that a deity does exist that we may as well say it doesn't.

Religion on the other hand is a different story and I fully agree with you there; in my opinion the world would have been a far better place if people could have gotten by without it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that seem to need the psychological support that religion gives them in order to be productive members of society; not everyone seems to be able to come to terms with a meaningless chaotic universe and a finite lifetime.

FWIW I also had a civil wedding and I'm a member of the secular humanist society (HEF) here in Norway.

Norway is interesting in that it is very common here to have civil services including funerals, weddings and confirmations that are run by HEF (in English the Human Ethical Society). The national church is still partly funded by the government; people are automatically assumed to be members of the church upon birth and an amount of money is given to the church for each member. People have to explicitly opt out if they do not want to be members (actually the main reason why I joined HEF) and the money allocated to the church then goes to the new "religion".

When I was married once before, decades ago, my fiancee assumed she could have her wish to be married in a church "as I didn't believe in God, so it wouldn't matter".  She was somewhat shaken when I told her that my denial of the existence of God (as commonly perceived) was probably stronger than the belief in God of most so-called Christians, especially when it comes to having church weddings.  In the end, with the services of a liberal vicar, we had our civil wedding blessed in a side chapel with a script in which I never once declared to a God.

So, no one is going to tell me that my Atheism is a non-belief.  It is belief in the non-existence of a God as popularly perceived, ie. a higher intelligence beyond this planet which is directly concerned with the miserable way we manage ourselves. Religion is entirely a man-made concept to explain that which we haven't worked out yet IMO.  Many of the earlier religious rules are to do with ordering of society that we don't starve or poison ourselves, or to maintain power structures, particularly that of men over women, and to ensure heredity and the matter of possessions, like money.  They can also be tribally specific for much the same reasons.

I will not be surprised, but indeed elated, if we discover life in some form elsewhere.
 
Having said all this, I do take an interest in religions as they, for good or ill, are the key to the earlier roots of various human societies.  There was one famous English Bishop recently who seemed to be saying that God was only within us, not elsewhere, which is to say 'be good'.  I can do that.  I don't need mumbo-jumbo to do it.
 
BC, regarding fossilised skeletons, I see many of them walking the planet in the name of religion.  Can nature be that dumb?   

[Ronnie]

Darwin proposed theories...it has been left to others to form a quasi-religion around them.

I've gotten quite busy with my work lately...it ebbs and flows.  I did ask what would you call someone like myself...  Well, I've been doing to research and found others have expressed the same thought, but well head of my time.  Isaac Newton, John Locke, Voltaire,Thomas Jefferson and the first American member of the Russian Academy of Sciences...Benjamin Franklin.

Here, cut and pasted, are Franklin's views on religion and morality...I especially agree with his comment, "if men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it."  I think about that myself.

From Wikipedia on Ben Franklin:

Virtue, religion and personal beliefs
 
A bust of Franklin by Jean-Antoine Houdon.Like the other advocates of republicanism, Franklin emphasized that the new republic could survive only if the people were virtuous in the sense of attention to civic duty and rejection of corruption. All his life he had been exploring the role of civic and personal virtue, as expressed in Poor Richard's aphorisms.

Although Franklin's parents had intended for him to have a career in the church, Franklin became disillusioned with organized religion after discovering Deism. "I soon became a thorough Deist."[30] He went on to attack Christian principles of free will and morality in a 1725 pamphlet, A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.[31] He consistently attacked religious dogma, arguing that morality was more dependent upon virtue and benevolent actions than on strict obedience to religious orthodoxy: "I think opinions should be judged by their influences and effects; and if a man holds none that tend to make him less virtuous or more vicious, it may be concluded that he holds none that are dangerous, which I hope is the case with me."

A few years later, Franklin repudiated his 1725 pamphlet as an embarrassing "erratum." In 1790, just about a month before he died, Franklin wrote the following in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, who had asked him his views on religion:

“ As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble....[3] ”

Like most Enlightenment intellectuals, Franklin separated virtue, morality, and faith from organized religion, although he felt that if religion in general grew weaker, morality, virtue, and society in general would also decline. Thus he wrote Thomas Paine, "If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it." According to David Morgan,[32] Franklin was a proponent of all religions. He prayed to "Powerful Goodness" and referred to God as the "INFINITE." John Adams noted that Franklin was a mirror in which people saw their own religion: "The Catholics thought him almost a Catholic. The Church of England claimed him as one of them. The Presbyterians thought him half a Presbyterian, and the Friends believed him a wet Quaker." Whatever else Benjamin Franklin was, concludes Morgan, "he was a true champion of generic religion." Ben Franklin was noted to be "the spirit of the Enlightenment."

Walter Isaacson argues[33] that Franklin became uncomfortable with an unenhanced version of deism and came up with his own conception of the Creator. Franklin outlined his concept of deity in 1728, in his Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion.[34] From this, Isaacson compares Franklin's conception of deity to that of strict deists and orthodox Christians. He concludes that unlike most pure deists, Franklin believed that a faith in God should inform our daily actions, but that, like other deists, his faith was devoid of sectarian dogma. Isaacson also discusses Franklin's conception that God had created beings who do interfere in wordly matters, a point that has led some commentators, most notably A. Owen Aldridge, to read Franklin as embracing some sort of polytheism, with a bevy of lesser gods overseeing various realms and planets.

On July 4, 1776, Congress appointed a committee that included Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams to design the Great Seal of the United States.[35] Each member of the committee proposed a unique design: Franklin's proposal featured a design with the motto: "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God." This design was to portray a scene from the Book of Exodus, complete with Moses, the Israelites, the pillar of fire, and George III depicted as Pharaoh.[36]

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when the convention seemed headed for disaster due to a vitoral debate, the elderly Franklin recalled the days of the Revolutionary War, when the American leaders assembled in prayer daily, seeking "divine guidance" from the "Father of lights." He then rhetorically asked,

“ "And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?... I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?
We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that "except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest. I therefore beg leave to move - that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."[37]
 ”

Franklin may have financially supported one particular Presbyterian group in Philadelphia.[38] According to the epitaph Franklin wrote for himself at the age of twenty, it is clear that he believed in a physical resurrection of the body some time after death. Franklin's actual grave, however, as he specified in his final will, simply reads "Benjamin and Deborah Franklin."[39]


Virtue
Franklin sought to cultivate his character by a plan of thirteen virtues, which he developed at age 20 (in 1726) and continued to practice in some form for the rest of his life. His autobiography (see references below) lists his thirteen virtues as:

"TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation."
"SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."
"ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time."
"RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."
"FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing."
"INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."
"SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly."
"JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty."
"MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve."
"CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation."
"TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable."
"CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation."
"HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates."

[Eduard]

Here, cut and pasted, are Franklin's views on religion and morality...I especially agree with his comment, "if men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it."  I think about that myself.

Better human beings?
why not?
Other than Stalin, all the most evil people that made history by their horrific deeds came from a strong religious background. The type of people who are super achievers and are born to rule usually are chameleons anyway IMO, and just like Vladimir Putin who was an atheist during Soviet regime, because that was the only acceptable ideology and he had to believe in whatever was required in order to be successful. Now he is a Christian, because religion is back in Russia. Stalin would have been a devout religious zealot in another place at another time IMO. He would have done whatever it took to get the power. And by the way Communism was marketed as a replacement for religion and pretty much became a religion on it's own in the USSR. If you didn't believe in Communism you would have faced the Inquisition of KGB organs. Not that much different from midevil times...
I personally reject the idea that religion makes people better. It can provide comfort, piece within, guidance, social and career benefits and many other things but IMO it doesn't change the nature of men. If you are by nature a con man, a murderer a thief a lier, you will still be just that even if you are raised in a very religious home and study Bible every day. You can be an Atheist and be the most moral, honest, kind and giving person in the world. I'm 48 years old and in my personal life experience some of the best, kindest and honest people that I met where Atheist, and some of the worst - liars, cheaters, thieves and even killers were waving the bible every chance they got.
I'm not here to judge anyone, but all I'm saying that I disagree with Jefferson's quote.
I also don't understand this debate on "Evolution Theory" I thought it was called a theory when it was first introduced  and also in science I understand that the word "Theory" means "theoretical" knowledge. Just like in music, musicians study "Music Theory" in school, a method, and not some proposed, unproved thing that someone made up. I thought that by now everyone knew that evolution is a scientific fact. All living things evolve, why do some people choose to hook onto the word "theory" and  try to devalue the scientific fact that way? Why do they choose to use science when it serves their ideology and reject it when it contradicts their beliefs?
Are we going to throw Einstein in the garbage because his Relativity work was also called the "Theory of Relativity"?

[Blues Fairy]

I also don't understand this debate on "Evolution Theory" I thought it was called a theory when it was first introduced but that by now everyone knew that evolution is a scientific fact. All living things evolve, why do some people choose to hook onto the word "theory" and  try to devalue the scientific fact that way? Why do they choose to use science when it serves their ideology and reject it when it contradicts their beliefs?
Are we going to throw Einstein in the garbage because his Relativity work was also called the "Theory of Relativity"?

Eduard, a the word "theory" is generally misused by the Creationists, because in science a theory is a well-supported, grounded explanation of a phenomenon.  Science is composed of theories: gravity, relativity, electromagnetic field, string theory, etc.  Theories emerge in the course of research and either survive the testing, or are substituted by other theories which provide better explanation and are better supported by evidence.  Evolution is a theory that withstood 150 years of rigorous testing and continuous attempts to debunk it; it is supported by vast factual evidence and provides the best and most elegant, to date, explanation of the structure of life forms on Earth.  To dismiss it as a "mere theory" is a misuse of the term.  But it is NOT a scientific fact, strictly speaking.

[SANDRO43]

Eduard, a the word "theory" is generally misused by the Creationists, because in science a theory is a well-supported, grounded explanation of a phenomenon. Science is composed of theories: gravity, relativity, electromagnetic field, string theory, etc. 

In olden times, a well-working theory became a law (e.g. gravity), a term no one dares to use any longer today because changes and adjustments to apparently well-established theories now occur at a considerably faster pace than before .

[BC]

In olden times, a well-working theory became a law (e.g. gravity), a term no one dares to use any longer today because changes and adjustments to apparently well-established theories now occur at a considerably faster pace than before .

Isn't the difference between law and theory the fact that a 'law' has been observed or experienced?  Take Newton's laws we can observe every day vs 'theory', ie. Einstein's theory of relativity where a human being or other instrument has never achieved near light speeds?

[Blues Fairy]

Isn't the difference between law and theory the fact that a 'law' has been observed or experienced?  Take Newton's laws we can observe every day vs 'theory', ie. Einstein's theory of relativity...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_pulsar

[BC]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_pulsar

Then I guess Sandro's theory about laws is correct.. at least for the moment.. 

[Ronnie]

Living things evolve..therefore there is no creator.

There are good people who are atheists and there are bad people who are religious..... therefore atheists are better people.

With such reasoning afoot the ongoing vexation can be of little surprise and likely cannot be resolved by reason alone.

[Blues Fairy]

Living things evolve..therefore there is no creator.
There are good people who are atheists and there are bad people who are religious..... therefore atheists are better people.

With such reasoning...

To continue:

The great scientist Ben Franklin was a proponent of a generic religion, therefore all atheists are wrong. 

Ronnie agrees with Ben's statement "If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it" - ergo, religion is better than atheism.

Atheists on RWD happen to be defenders of evolutionary theory; ergo, they must think that "Living things evolve..therefore there is no creator", ergo, their reasoning is fallacious.

Etc.   

[myrddin]

(There is actually a lot of observational evidence supporting General Relativity, beginning with explaining a quirk of Mercury's orbit and gravitational lensing first observed during the eclipse of 1919.)

[Shadow]

(There is actually a lot of observational evidence supporting General Relativity, beginning with explaining a quirk of Mercury's orbit and gravitational lensing first observed during the eclipse of 1919.)

There is a lot of observational evidence for any accepted scientific theory, else it would be called a hypothesis. 

[Ronnie]

To continue:

The great scientist Ben Franklin was a proponent of a generic religion, therefore all atheists are wrong. 

The conclusion does not follow the premise.  No one has made the argument at all. Blues Fairy has fabricated it as a red herring.

To continue:


Ronnie agrees with Ben's statement "If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it" - ergo, religion is better than atheism.

The comment itself is a question rather than a statement, but I agree the question infers a conclusion. 
The point is that as Eduard pointed out, there are evil men who claim religion, even do their evil deeds in the name of religion or in the name of God/Allah;  and, there exist good men who do good deeds without being guided by religion or a faith in God.  Illustrating those facts pretends to, but fails to address the essence of the question Dr. Franklin proffered.   Would the same man (or mankind on the whole) be more or less evil after acquiring a religion?  Franklin clearly believed religion, with all it's faults, served to make mankind better and less corrupt.  It was his opinion based upon his observations of human behavior.  I have witnessed doers of bad deeds improve their behavior after acquiring religion far more frequently than any opposite empiricism.  Where religions are at their heart, a code of ethical conduct, it it difficult to conclude that a person's conduct would tend to worsen with such code.  Shall we then conclude that societal laws are equally detrimental?
 

Atheists on RWD happen to be defenders of evolutionary theory; ergo, they must think that "Living things evolve..therefore there is no creator", ergo, their reasoning is fallacious.
[/i]

Your first "ergo" is contrived. The "living things evolve" was quoted from Eduard's last post who seems to infer that because of this "fact" atheists are correct in professing that God is nonexistent.  That has been the central theme in this debate:whether or not, it is a "fact" that all living things evolve, such is not probative of the theist/atheist viewpoint.  In the first place, "living things evolve" fails to answer how things came to be living.  Further, the argument that any degree of evolution is prima facie evidence that there is no creator is based upon a presumption that a creator would have designed living things perfectly from the outset.  Therefore, the need or tendency for living things to adapt is proof of the absence of a creator.

I have argued and repeat, that we cannot presume to define God's level of perfection.  Indeed, the concept of perfection is delimited by our own frail perceptions. 

Further, I argued earlier that adaptability to changing environment are more the product of a of higher level of design as evidenced by the modern computer-controlled automobiles which sense changes in the environment and make adjustments to fuel mixture, ignition timing, etc., so that the machine operates more efficiently in the new environment.  To argue that a perfect designer would not need to set such sensors or adaptive mechanisms in place borders on absurdity.

[SANDRO43]

There is a lot of observational evidence for any accepted scientific theory, else it would be called a hypothesis.

Does that mean that I should downgrade my Psammothermophonetic Theory (www.floriani.it/teoria-eng.htm) to Psammothermophonetic Hypothesis ?

I'm shattered .

[SANDRO43]

Where religions are at their heart, a code of ethical conduct, it it difficult to conclude that a person's conduct would tend to worsen with such code.

Basic codes of ethical conduct probably either pre-date religions or evolved simultaneously, as positive evolutionary behaviours (killing fellow tribe members, stealing their wives, humping relatives, etc. was not very conducive to successful tribe survival and progress ).

[Blues Fairy]

The conclusion does not follow the premise.  Blues Fairy has fabricated it as a red herring.

Your first "ergo" is contrived.

Wow, you are sharp!    In fact, all of my ergo's were contrived.  But those only continued the string of your own ergo's, in the same style.   

I have witnessed doers of bad deeds improve their behavior after acquiring religion far more frequently than any opposite empiricism. 

That only proves that religion props weak-minded people and coaxes them into goodness.  People who are good without religion, on the other hand, may be considered even firmer in their goodness precisely because they have no prospect of afterlife gratification or punishment, but simply because they are good, their actual beliefs notwithstanding. 

I argued earlier that adaptability to changing environment are more the product of a of higher level of design as evidenced by the modern computer-controlled automobiles which sense changes in the environment and make adjustments to fuel mixture, ignition timing, etc., so that the machine operates more efficiently in the new environment.  To argue that a perfect designer would not need to set such sensors or adaptive mechanisms in place borders on absurdity.

Another incorrect analogy.  Individuals do not develop new features; species do.  Fine-tuning of species to new environments occurs as a result of lengthy and gradual evolutionary process.  But if you compare all creatures to "intelligently designed" adaptable cars, you, Ronnie, as the crown jewel of God's design, should be able to grow gills or wings at will, or cure all your illnesses by manual therapy, or breathe car exhaust and not get sick.  Can you? 

[mendeleyev]

Other than Stalin, all the most evil people that made history by their horrific deeds came from a strong religious background.

Both parts of this statement are indefensible.  Simply untenable with no basis in fact.

Obviously a few historical footnotes managed to escape the writer:  (Ио́сиф Виссарио́нович Джугашви́ли) Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, whose code name before the revolution was 'Stalin' meaning "Lenin's man of steel" because of his brutality in bringing other party members in line under Lenin's control, was in fact a very religious man at the outset of his life.  He studied for the priesthood in his home country of Georgia.

Although he had spent several years questioning the religious faith instilled from his mother, it was only after meeting Lenin, an athiest, did he (Josef 'Stalin') finally decide to jettison entirely all of his religious upbringing.  Perhaps from that we could conclude that it is the effect of athiests on religious people who turn them into evil monsters?!  (I don't believe that--but it makes as much sense as the original assertion.)

As for the idea that all the evil people who made history came from religious backgrounds, I'm not ready to entertain something so outrageous until you've done a complete study of all evil people in history, tallied them up in two columns (religious versus non-religious) and then come back with a scientific and rational accessment.  I can think of quite a handful who had no 'strong religious background' and were very evil and made history for it.

[Ronnie]

Another incorrect analogy.  Individuals do not develop new features; species do.  Fine-tuning of species to new environments occurs as a result of lengthy and gradual evolutionary process.  But if you compare all creatures to "intelligently designed" adaptable cars, you, Ronnie, as the crown jewel of God's design, should be able to grow gills or wings at will, or cure all your illnesses by manual therapy, or breathe car exhaust and not get sick.  Can you? 

I did not compare creatures to cars in the way you suggest.  I used the illustration of how cars are now designed to adjust to the environment to refute your contention that adaptability of something actually disproves design because it was not made right in the first place.  A point of reasoning I find odd.  Equally odd is the your point that if a human was "crown Jewel of God's design" he should be able to grow gills or wings at will...." 

Madam, I just don't follow you.  Maybe it's my weak-mindedness.  For what it's worth, I may not be able to grow wings, etc. but I, as an individual, can adapt to pollution, poisons and diseases via my immune system.  My respiratory and circulatory system can adapt to varying oxygen levels and my body can adjust to temperature changes.  New features you ask?  If I go without shoes for awhile or play guitar, my feet and fingers develop new "features" called callouses that help me cope better with the pain.  When not needed anymore, they are sloughed off and replaced by softer skin.. My pet's coat gets thicker in the winter and my chameleon alters his skin pigment to match the surrounding colors and textures.  Some lengthy and gradual evolutionary processes these, madam?

If you wish (and apparently you do) to hold to your absolute "knowledge" that there is no creator, no intelligent designer, no God and that all living systems are the product of chance alone, you may do so as long as your heart desires it.  To me your conclusion seems imprudent and in defiance of reason and logic. 

It may be of interest to know that my former Congressman, Pete Stark (former only because I left his district) is regarded as the most venal and profane of all the 435 members, even by his own home-town newspaper (SF Examiner).  Coincidentally, he is the only avowed atheist in the Congress. 

Now I say to myself that if my belief system were shared by people such as Stark (not to mention Larry Flint, Penn Jillette, Stalin, Freud, Sartre and Marx), and in opposition to that of Jefferson, Franklin, Newton, Locke and virtually all the great minds of the ages, then I might want to take a fresh look at the question. 

[Shadow]

Ronnie, with describing the reaction of living creatures to the environment you have just given an example of evolution at work.
If you were to walk outside naked, you would develop a fur as well. If al people would, we would look like our cousins.
The changing of animals as reaction to outside circumstances is exactly evolution.

The belief system as you described, an agnostic believer in a creator, was definetly not shared by the great minds of which you speak.

[Eduard]

Both parts of this statement are indefensible.  Simply untenable with no basis in fact.

Obviously a few historical footnotes managed to escape the writer:  (Ио́сиф Виссарио́нович Джугашви́ли) Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, whose code name before the revolution was 'Stalin' meaning "Lenin's man of steel" because of his brutality in bringing other party members in line under Lenin's control, was in fact a very religious man at the outset of his life.  He studied for the priesthood in his home country of Georgia.

OK, I was wrong...I guess Stalin was no exception and also had a strong religious background..

[Ronnie]

Ronnie, with describing the reaction of living creatures to the environment you have just given an example of evolution at work.
If you were to walk outside naked, you would develop a fur as well. If al people would, we would look like our cousins.
The changing of animals as reaction to outside circumstances is exactly evolution.

The belief system as you described, an agnostic believer in a creator, was definetly not shared by the great minds of which you speak.

I have a better idea...why don't YOU walk outside naked and perform your little experiment.  They'd arrest me but you could probably go unnoticed in Amsterdam...at least until your fur starts to grow...then someone might start to show some major interest!

Seriously Shadow, I don't know what to think about your post...you were kidding, right?