An argument for God's existence

I think you may have missed the point Wooden Shoe, and it isnt' my quote I'm not vain enough to say it came from a great individual and mean myself. You did raise a good question though, "Why has nature evolved imagination?" Surley not for survival, some of the creatures that have remained the most unchanged by evolution survive quite well without it.

Hi dparrot.

Oh I think I got the point just fine, this person wanted to use this lame statement as a proof of a deity and our duty to obey some deity.

By the way, I did write that it was your quote, and I did not say I was quoting you.

Regarding imagination, it is not limited to humans, however humans have it in a much larger measure.
It is the very best ability we have, it is exactly related to our survival, it has allowed us to imagine and make weapons and tools to give us an advantage. Without imagination there would be no humans.

Regards, John.

The idea of god is that it cannot be proven. It thrives on faith. A great line from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy:

     
“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bog-gglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets
himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”

Douglas Adams is brilliant.

Hi dparrot.

Oh I think I got the point just fine, this person wanted to use this lame statement as a proof of a deity and our duty to obey some deity.

By the way, I did write that it was your quote, and I did not say I was quoting you.

Regarding imagination, it is not limited to humans, however humans have it in a much larger measure.
It is the very best ability we have, it is exactly related to our survival, it has allowed us to imagine and make weapons and tools to give us an advantage. Without imagination there would be no humans.

Regards, John.

Plants, viruses, and Sharks are getting along just fine without imagination.
On the subject of fish here is another one of those statements. "When we fall in the water we feel wet. Fish never feel wet." I think this goes along with the other statement.

On your quote "Without imagination there would be no humans." Are you reffering to God? Before humans developed an imagination they were not human? What were they? What in evolution is the precurser to imagination? In other words what did imagination evolve from? if it is not a gift from God.

Hi dparrot, you wrote:On your quote "Without imagination there would be no humans." Are you referring to God? Before humans developed an imagination they were not human? What were they? What in evolution is the precursor to imagination? In other words what did imagination evolve from? if it is not a gift from God.

Without imagination humans would not have survived, we do not have enough ability without imagination to compete with rest of the the creatures.
As to what the origin of imagination has been I do not know, but what is known is that other mammals have it in varying degrees and that they dream.
Many pet owners have known this for a long time, and it has been proven at a university.
A personal observation. I had a cat who loved to play chasing a ball, and when I rolled it a distance would bring it back for me to repeat it. But as I at times was busy, he solved that problem by bringing the ball on the table, and then give it a good swat so that the ball would bounce away and he would chase it, bring it to the table and repeated this for a while.
This to me clearly showed imagination.

Regards, John.

Eric and Clogs. If you both have decided that nature did not make a determined effort to create us, what are the alternatives? Chance? Chance has to be the only alternative( not unless you can dream up a third choice) so we must consider the odds of intelligent life occurring. If nature is blind beast that has no direction only circumstance what are the odds? We have no other planet to examine so the odds have to imagined. Can either of you give us your considered odds?

Eric and Clogs. If you both have decided that nature did not make a determined effort to create us, what are the alternatives? Chance? Chance has to be the only alternative( not unless you can dream up a third choice) so we must consider the odds of intelligent life occurring. If nature is blind beast that has no direction only circumstance what are the odds? We have no other planet to examine so the odds have to imagined. Can either of you give us your considered odds?

Xris I can only assume your talking about me and Clogs. So my odds are out of all the other living things on earth humans are the only ones that have developed an imagination so great that we can use it for things other than survival. With Clogs's example of the cat I don't believe the cat taking the ball on top of the table and knocking it off to simulate John throwing it is imagination. Instead I think it is the same thing as a monkey picking up a stick out of a termite hill and realizing it has food on it so the monkey tries it again. Animals can learn, but knowledge and Imagination do not equal.

Eric and Clogs. If you both have decided that nature did not make a determined effort to create us, what are the alternatives? Chance? Chance has to be the only alternative( not unless you can dream up a third choice) so we must consider the odds of intelligent life occurring. If nature is blind beast that has no direction only circumstance what are the odds? We have no other planet to examine so the odds have to imagined. Can either of you give us your considered odds?

Xris I can only assume your talking about me and Clogs. So my odds are out of all the other living things on earth humans are the only ones that have developed an imagination so great that we can use it for things other than survival. With Clogs's example of the cat I don't believe the cat taking the ball on top of the table and knocking it off to simulate John throwing it is imagination. Instead I think it is the same thing as a monkey picking up a stick out of a termite hill and realizing it has food on it so the monkey tries it again. Animals can learn, but knowledge and Imagination do not equal.

Sorry paro it was for Eric and Clogs (wooden shoes=clogs) my silly name for him. The capacity of the brain must play a part in our ability. The dolphin family have the nearest size to ours and they find time to play and have social exchange. I do not think we should underestimate our fellow creatures. I watched a monkey, at the zoo, encourage a group of old ladies to approach his cage by the making the most terrible noise. When they were three deep, laughing at his antics, he urinated on them with great delight. Now that required a sick sense of humour, a great deal of foresight and a deep understanding of human behaviour.

Hi Xris.

I have no way of knowing the conditions necessary for the initial life forms to come into existence, so will not even try to give the odds.
I have at times toyed with the idea of seeding via asteroid, but that just places the question one step back.
I do think that life started in a number of places, so there must have been a very first, and the condition that enabled life to start must have existed for an extended period of time.
And yes my friend, I think it was the right circumstances which came together that caused life to start, because of the lack of evidence for any other.


Hi dparrot.
I think you are stuck in a creationist kind of mentality that cannot except the evidence.
You want to believe that humans have a quality all their own, and therefore never before seen in nature.
We are connected to all other life forms, and we are what we are because of all that has preceded us.

Regards, John.

No doubt here that there are very intelligent animals but will you agree that there is a difference between intelligence and imagination? Children are known for their great imaginations not their intelligence.

Clogs, I am not asking for the odds of life initially forming but the odds of us becoming what we are once life had occurred. If you are denying a determined nature then you must be saying it was all chance. A series of lucky coincidences. I would find the odds of that occurring extremely high.

Paro, do you not understand that the monkey had to have imagination to understand the consequences of it's actions.

Hi Xris.

Australia is for me a perfect example of the conditions which have to come together in order bring different life forms into existence.
If it was some type of driving force other than natural selection, the diversity of life forms should have been a lot greater, however it got stuck in one mode because of the conditions there.
Why did humans originate in one geographical area and not all over, which would have given a much larger chance of succes.
The only answer I can think of, is that the genetic mutations happened in Africa and not elsewhere.

Regards, John.

Hi Xris.

Australia is for me a perfect example of the conditions which have to come together in order bring different life forms into existence.
If it was some type of driving force other than natural selection, the diversity of life forms should have been a lot greater, however it got stuck in one mode because of the conditions there.
Why did humans originate in one geographical area and not all over, which would have given a much larger chance of succes.
The only answer I can think of, is that the genetic mutations happened in Africa and not elsewhere.

Regards, John.

Sorry John but you are not answering my question. Natural selection is the determining determination that nature uses to seek perfection. You have been denying this, telling me it was pure coincidence. Nature works with what it has and it attempts to find the most perfect. If you look at the sea and an octopus, it has intelligence and dexterity but is restricted by the environment, so it never reaches the same degree of perfection. I have heard that if the asteroid had not wiped out dinosaurs we would probably find biota similar to us but derived from Troodons. Catastrophes and failures simply delay the inevitable advance to the most perfect.

I must make this point again, if nature is refused it's determined ability then what is it? I ask again is it chance? If it is chance then we must consider the odds. What are the odds of us appearing by constant chance events?

Hi Xris.

I have no way of knowing the conditions necessary for the initial life forms to come into existence, so will not even try to give the odds.
I have at times toyed with the idea of seeding via asteroid, but that just places the question one step back.
I do think that life started in a number of places, so there must have been a very first, and the condition that enabled life to start must have existed for an extended period of time.
And yes my friend, I think it was the right circumstances which came together that caused life to start, because of the lack of evidence for any other.


Hi dparrot.
I think you are stuck in a creationist kind of mentality that cannot except the evidence.
You want to believe that humans have a quality all their own, and therefore never before seen in nature.
We are connected to all other life forms, and we are what we are because of all that has preceded us.

Regards, John.

So you are saying that there is no difference between imagination and knowledge? Dolphin's are very smart creatures and so are monkeys but to prove that their imagination is a product of evolution is much different then proving that there intelligence is a product of evolution.

-- Updated Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:00 pm to add the following --

Also how do you assume I'm stuck in a creationist kind of mentality when I'm using evolution to help exlplain my point. I think your making the mistake of just righting everything off on evolution. Imagination is not neccesary for our survival but intelligence is. So why do we have Imagination?

Hi dparrot.

Imagination is seeing what is not.
In the story of the monkey, it first had to imagine what to do, and have the intelligence to execute on the imagination.
With humans, they first had to imagine a rock attached to a stick might be a good weapon, but then they had to use their intelligence to figure out how to make a knot fot the leather straps that would hold.

Regards, John.