Atheism Cannot Rationally Explain Morals.

No, don't make stuff up.

The things you've made up are not inescapable implications. Don't make stuff up.

It says nothing about the meaning of life. About mutations, it says that they occur and are random.

Stop making stuff up.

Faith, if it was obvious then you and Dredge between you would have found it possible to argue for it instead of just saying it over and over again. Since you do not refer us to these people, I take leave to doubt that. Well, when he writes "Science says human beings are no more important than bugs" this is made up, since science does not say in fact say that. So he made it up. I don't see what part of this concept is giving you problems.

And this is something that Dredge has made up. It is not clearly inferable, which is why Dredge cannot infer it, he can just say it over and over. As I have pointed out, the problem is that just because two things have one quality in common, you cannot "infer" that they have everything in common, or any given thing you please in common. That is not inference, that is insanity.Yes, like a bug I am a product of evolution, and an arrangement of chemicals. If someone were to "infer" from that that I have the same weight as a bug, or the same number of legs as a bug, or the same diet as a bug then we would think --- would we not? --- that that person was deranged, Faith, loopy, mentally ill, incapable of reason, a gibbering buffoon.So when a creationist loon "infers" from the same premises that I have the same value as a bug, this too is not actually an inference; this too is insanity.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Again (how many times is it necessary to explain this?) being "brought about in the same way" does not make things the same in every respect, or in any given respect. It does not necessarily mean that they have the same weight or color or temperature or value.If it did, then creationism would lead one to the same false "inference" you wish to draw from science. Humans and bugs, you claim, were both brought about by God doing magic. Therefore, by Creationist Logic, a human is no more valuable than a bug.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And evolution doesn't say that everything made of atoms is identical in every respect. Do you deny, then, that humans have intrinsic value?

But that or some equally false proposition seems necessary to your argument. You need to get from "everything is made of atoms" to "everything is equally worthless". How do you propose to do so? I get what your point is, I just haven't seen you make so much as a token effort to justify it. Why would the intrinsic worth of the same person, having the same qualities, differ according to what he's made of? So long as I am the same person with the same thoughts and feelings, how does it affect my worth whether I am made of flesh and blood, invisible soul-stuff, or a mixture of mustard, alpaca wool, and zinc? Nor am I. I'm dependent on it for an understanding of how he came to be --- but what he is is completely unaffected by this question. I am exactly the same person whether the first humans evolved from australopithecines or were made by God out of dirt. Either way, Faith, I am who I am, I have the same thoughts and talents, the same hopes and dreams, the same height and shoe size. No discovery about my antecedents could possibly change who I am.

The bit I quoted.

Yes, it sounds like a moron is parroting me for no particular reason. If the things that you pretend are inescapable implications of science really were inescapable implications of science, then you'd be able to come up with some argument (maybe even an inescapable one!) that science implies them. Speak for yourself.

How does being made of atoms make us nothing special?How does being made of atoms make us less special than people who have identical properties but are made of something else? Well, I would have said that if the individual persons have worth, then so does the species that they constitute.But no biggie, let's just rewrite my question to be about the species, as follows:"Why would the intrinsic worth of the same species, having the same qualities, differ according to what it's made of? So long as we are the same people with the same thoughts and feelings, how does it affect our worth whether we are made of flesh and blood, invisible soul-stuff, or a mixture of mustard, alpaca wool, and zinc?"Happy now? Once again, we have the same personal qualities whatever we're made of. How could it be otherwise? Reading your posts is like listening to someone say (for example) "My shoes are comfortable if they are made out of leather, but they are tight and uncomfortable if they are made out of synthetic material." What would we say if we heard someone talking like that? That's not how anything works. The comfort of his shoes is a given, nothing he can find out about their constituent substance can change it. If, as you claim, I have an inherent value, then that is among my qualities, or is a fact about my qualities.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Misunderstood how?It may be simple but it appears to be flagrant lunacy, as we can see by considering someone saying something similar about anything else: a computer, a rose, a pair of shoes, etc. "As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return." --- Ecclesiastes, 3:18-20.The biological fact that humans are animals has been obvious for a long time; I don't know if anyone has ever doubted it. And, as you can see, people have always been capable of being unreasonably miserable about it.

And yet the passage from Ecclesiastes does not contain the words "under certain rare and unusual circumstances".

Heh, good luck with that.Anyway, the idea's there in the plain literal reading of the text, and so it must have occurred to some people (wrongly, if you insist) that what it said was actually true.But we digress, I am not particularly interested in your views on Biblical exegesis.