There is plenty of evidence that humans evolved from non-human ancestors, that humans and non-human animals have common ancestors, and that no clear dividing line can be drawn between humans and non-human animals.
Wrong. There is only interpretation of a load of evidence.
indeed, interpretations, as is always the case when looking at evidence. But in the case of evolution it is an extremely coherent interpretation.
Looking at our ancestors, all intermediates between a human and a chicken once lived. And there is a possibility of human-animal hybrids, chimaeras and genetically modified humanlike beings. In other words; there is no essence related to homo sapiens.
Yet in all this, there are no provable links, where one form changed itself into another. That is interpretaion, wishful thinking, the stuff children's stories are made out of.
but there are plenty of fossils of intermediate species. With the fossils that are discovered, we can rather clearly see how species evolved. We can see how our ancestors looked like. Some 60 million years ago, our great great... grandfather looked like some kind of squirrel.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/zoo-animals/first-human-ancestor-squirrel-121018.htm1. There is a machine-like quality to the operation of the universe, in everything from inanimate objects to complex life. Machines have makers. The evidence for this is that man takes all his machine knowledge from the machine "knowledge" already planted in the universe... all of it. Man juggles the knowledge a bit, and comes up with some new forms of complex machinery. Complex machinery is designed by intelligence. Man hasn't come close to catching up to the complexity of the machinery in the universe. Whatever God is, He is there.
but then who created god? If he created our universe, he must be a very complex being...
And what about spontaneous emergence of complexity, such as we see in evolution?
2. There is no pure randomness. Everything that we call random or probability is based on our inability to see the causes for some effects. The whole universe operates on cause and effect and always has. Even the quantum math that has been developed, which might suggest that there is pure random out there somewhere, has been designed using cause and effect thinking.
some models about the origing of the universe did not have a beginning and hence were not caused (e.g. Hawking Hartle no-boundary state
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartle%E2%80%93Hawking_state)
The fact that we humans think the way we do - about everything including science and art - has its base in cause and effect, because something caused us to think the way we do. What is the Great First Cause that caused the chain of effects?
and what is the cause of that? What caused god? What caused god to make a causal universe?
3. Science doesn't have a handle on soul, spirit or consciousness.
soul and spirit are like the life force (elan vital) unscientific terms. But scientists are gaining knowledge on how consciousness works.
4. Stand the history of the various religious writings and traditions side by side. Look at them all in detail. The others are all blown away by the strength of the Bible. The history of the Bible, including the validations for it made by the nation of Israel, shows that the Bible can't exist. There are too many "things" in and about the Bible that make it impossible to exist. Yet it exists among hundreds of millions of people all around the world.
so?
At first, before there were mistakes made in this world, people were instructed to eat of the plants (except for the fruit of one particular tree, that they were instructed not to eat).
yes, acoording to the story, God made everyone vegan, even lions. But why did he put that particular tree in the middle of the garden of eden? Why did God ask for problems? If he didn't want humans to eat its fruits, why did he make it so tempting and easy for humans?
The mistakes were not in the plan. God thinks in such different ways than we that the mistakes were taken into account, automatically, without even having been though about.
so god is not that smart? Even I am smart enough to know that planting a tree with delicious fruits in the middle of the garden of eden, guarded by a seducing talking snake, is asking for problems.
God made man in the image of God so that man could recognize how good and great God is.
being extremely narcissistic is not my idea of being good...
It sounds silly: "oh, let's make toys that can adore me and see how great I am"
Then later, long after mistakes came into the world (the original perpetual nature of the universe was destroyed), God gave the animals to man for food along with the plants.
which is an odd move of God. Humans did something wrong and therefore God said that they are from then on allowed to harm innocents? Why did he make a vegan world in the first place? Why did God suddenly turned 180°? A bit crazy.
It was not God Who turned. It was man.
no, God turned. First he created a vegan world, so he was against unecessary suffering. And after someone ate from a forbidden fruit, everyone is allowed to kill and eat someone else and cause unnecessary harm?
Part of God's plan always was blessings for man. Among the blessings was freedom of choice.
then why didn't he create a free world in the first place? A world where everyone is free to kill and eat someone else?
Man's turning from God was so great that God had it in mind to destroy all mankind. Noah and his family were the only ones who continued to worship God.
so God killed everyone who did not worship him? That is what an extremely bad dictator does.
In the Flood, where God saved Noah and his family, but destroyed the rest of the world, things of the world changed. The world was no longer the healthy place that it had been. Animals were given as food to man because there are times when the kinds of plant life that are suited to man are simply not available in abundance.
he's crazy, this god... Absolutely crazy. Gone mad beyond imagination.
This whole thing is not easy to explain.
it is easy to explain if we assume god is absolutely crazy...
The whole purpose of the law is to benefit man. It isn't a thing to be picky about. The thing to be picky about is the direction in which a person goes in his life... in favor of God, or against Him. Why worry about the little imperfection of eating a few drops of blood, over against the big imperfection of attempting to fight against God?
but it was god who said we are not allowed to eat blood. He says it quite often, so it must be important to him:
http://biblehub.com/genesis/9-4.htmGod's seeming inconsistency is based on the inconsistency of man. God will always help the man who accepts Him, is on His side, believes in the Savior, and proves it by his actions though they are flawed at times.
but there are a lot of believers who became victims of war, genocide, earthquakes, disease, bad luck,... So god does not always help the believers. In fact, he quite often does not help. It seems he acts a bit arbitrarily.