Summations Only

Alternatively, maybe they say it because it's true. This would be something to think about before you get all psychoanalytical.Similarly, before you start trying to explain my claim that there are no fairies at the bottom of my garden in terms of my deep-seated psychological hatred of fairies, you might take a peek at the bottom of my garden.The known mechanisms of evolution do in fact have no goal (any unknown mechanisms are ... unknown, like those elusive fairies at the bottom of my garden) and the fact that evolution cannot think or plan ahead is in fact necessary to understand phenomena that would otherwise be puzzling. Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins are actually two different people.

But that's just equivocating on the word "goal". If you and I both drop bricks, they'll both move in the direction of the center of the Earth, but that doesn't mean that gravity has a "goal". Yes, the bricks have a direction, but no, gravity does not have a goal.Compare this with how we would hit golf balls from the same tee. We would (I suppose, I don't play golf) both direct them towards the hole. Then their common direction would have a teleological explanation --- a common goal --- without which we would be unable to explain the phenomenon.

Monkeys probably also aren't sitting around saying: "You know, other monkey, I like eating bananas because it fulfills God's will". "Yeah, amen to that, other monkey". Unless God does a miracle every time a monkey eats a banana, there is still a secondary causal explanation not involving God. N.B: not an actual quotation from "Science".

Then before you can attribute monkeys' desire for bananas to God, you first have to establish that it's a good thing. Perhaps it's an abomination before the LORD like so many other things that no rational being would give a flying fuck about.

But is it good that monkeys should eat bananas? Perhaps it's sinful. How would we know?

What are the ill-effects of wearing mixed fabrics? Or picking up sticks on Saturday? Or sitting on a menstruating woman's bed but not subsequently sacrificing a dove?

* head spins *It's wrong ... because it has ill-effects ... the ill-effects being ... that people will stone you to death ... because it's wrong.* head spins some more *So if people start stoning monkeys to death for eating bananas, will it become a sin? After all, it will then be bad for them. Well apparently before I can understand why monkeys eat bananas, I first have to understand the will of God. This is one of the many, many difficulties in carrying out a creationist research program.

It beats me, but then it beats me why anyone would stone a man to death for picking up sticks on Saturday. People do odd things. What? In order to assert with justification that "God supplied bananas for monkeys" it would indeed be necessary to know God's will, since that would be the subject about which you would be making assertions. Does this "one thing" have anything to do with Baker Street?

But I don't see anything in a man picking up sticks on Saturday that tells me he ought to be stoned to death. And I might have thought that I saw something wrong in a bunch of people stoning him to death. Likewise if I saw a man sitting on a menstruating woman's bed, I wouldn't have straight off said to myself, "by heck, that guy had better sacrifice a dove real soon".Now I think of it, I probably wouldn't having seen anything wrong with Adam and Eve nomming the forbidden fruit, either. I certainly wouldn't have seen the problem with a Jew enjoying a few tasty rashers of bacon and a nice sausage.Clearly God's will is not always readily apparent. Hence, just because I see the monkeys enjoying bananas doesn't mean that I can conclude that God wanted them to do so, it could be a Satanic corruption of God's plan whereby the Evil One tempted them to eat the Bananas Of Sin.

Are you saying that it would just have been obvious to you?You'd see a man picking up sticks, you'd glance at a calendar and notice it's Saturday, you'd instinctively grab the nearest rock ... ?You'd see a man sitting on the bed of a menstruating woman, you'd think, "Obviously that guy needs to sacrifice a dove"? Why would it be in the Bible about monkeys not eating bananas? Monkeys can't read.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No, it's not obvious. That's why they needed to be told.There's no commandment to believe that the sky is blue, because that is obvious. There is a commandment saying not to interplant different kinds of crops, which presumably was necessary because the reason for that is not readily apparent.Did God tell you anything about monkeys one way or the other? I still have no idea what you're talking about.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

That is not English. You were right the first time, I am from the UK originally, though the nearest I've been to Baker Street is the Tube station of that name, which is presumably located somewhere underneath it. But I still have no idea what you're talking about.