Pardon me while I roll my eyes and giggle. :chuckle:

Shin -
Creationists = god/Emeril said �Bam!� -> Man on earth, walking talking and sinning.
evolutionists = primordial ooze -> millions of years pass -> man.

me = millions of years pass life occupies every niche including volcanic vents deep on the sea bed recovers over and over again from near total extinction.Life seems almost inevitable once conditions were right.
Its not the “miracle of life” that does my head in Its the miracle of self consciousnes that ‘seems’ to have come about only when homo sapiens hit the scene.

I’ll have what he’s having.

Beckah, you are being too sensitive.  No, wait, hear me out.  Sensitivity is what’s wrong with discourse today.  We’ll never get to the bottom of any issue or really understand one another if we’re constantly grabbing our little heads and saying, “ooh, you hurt my widdle feewings!” (...and in today’s offices and schools; “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!")

Sensitivity just makes a real exchange of ideas almost impossible.  If people know you can’t take it, they’ll usually tell you what they think you want to hear instead of what they really think.

When someone tells you that you are full of shit, they’re not (necessarily) being hateful, they’re being direct.  Couching everything in “polite” language puts everything in code.  It’s that old “let’s agree to disagree” thing and never really find out the other’s real thoughts.  It’s a waste of time and doesn’t result in any understanding.

I’d rather someone just tell me I’m full of shit and why, and if they misunderstood me then I can tell them that they’re full of shit and why, and in the end we might end up actually understanding each other.  As C.S. Lewis said, “Don’t mistake refinement for virtue.”

Grow a skin.  If you believe something you ought to be able to handle criticism.  If you want only polite language, go visit Oprah’s website or something.  If you want to communicate and understand, this is a pretty cool place, atheists and all.

Oh, and I forgot to say, if that mutation had turned out to be some kind of an advantage, the baby would have prospered and been more likely to procreate and pass it on.  As it happened, that mutation was not an advantage; some are, most are not.

I can picture the prehistoric Weekly World News headline, “Child has freakish opposable thumbs: a gift from the Sun God, says mother.”

So maybe we should tell parents of deformed babies, “Don’t worry, maybe the next mutation will be beneficial!” (Gawd, I am such a terrible person… ;-} )

Hi Solop:  Actually, it’s been shown that chimpanzees have self-awareness, a quality not limited to humans.  If you look at recent data from the Yerkes primate center in Atlanta, they’ve shown that chimpanzees make moral judgments and have their own system of justice; understand and use language, numbers and tools; and recognize themselves in mirrors, indicating their self-awareness.  URL is http://www.emory.edu/WHSC/YERKES/news1.html

SG