Atheists: Have you ever stopped to consider?

Evolution is not unguided or random. It is guided by natural selection, which provides the basis for the adaptation of species to the environment.

You need to learn about something before trying to refute it.

"All of you say that the major problem with believing in God is a lack of evidence."

Correct.

"I would disagree. I would say the biggest reason is because of your interpretation of the evidence."

That's really funny because what YOU are about to do is completely misinterpret what counts as evidence.

"Stop and consider this, you are the evidence. Everything you see and touch and taste is the evidence."

Non sequitur. Please show how you went from A to B please.

"Why do we have hands? Why do birds have wings?"

Evolution and evolution.

"Such thoughts bring one to the conclusion that everything that exists serves some kind of purpose that is beneficial to life."

No, it's just that organisms are just adapted to survive via descent with modification.

Most organisms only benefit themselves, or benefit another species because it, in turn, is benefitted. Please explain how parasites that live in human eyes (and cause blindness even in innocent children) is beneficial? (If it was made by god, he/she/it has a lot of explaining to do!)

"What do you think the odds are that all of this could occur by random chance (or by an evolutionary process that was completely unguided)?? "

I don't believe it was random. Evolution is not random.

It is correct that evolution was not guided. Genetic variation and natural selection account for the wide variety of life without guidance.

"The evidence is there, you just refuse to acknowledge it in any other way than you already do."

No, you're just spinning things the way you want to see them, as I have just shown.

"Nope, Biology tells us how things work but it can never answer the why questions. There is purpose that you atheists miss. Our hands serve a purpose. A birds wings serve a purpose. Biology tells us nothing about purpose. It is simply breaking down how it works and what it's made of. That isn't a sufficient answer, and you've never really given it thought."

Biology tells us the purpose of hands is to grip things (which is advantageous for survival for obvious reasons). You're the one not thinking this through.

There's an American folk tale that says Paul Bunyan wrestled some other giant on top of Arizona Mountain, crumbling it to sand until it became the Arizona Desert. And we do see the Arizona Desert, so by your logic, that's evidence that Paul Bunyan existed.

If you disagree with that conclusion, maybe it's "because of your interpretation of the evidence".

>>Such thoughts bring one to the conclusion that

>>everything that exists serves some kind of purpose that

>>is beneficial to life.

Wrong. Just because something happens doesn't automatically mean it had a preconceived "purpose" behind it. Some things just ARE. And when you get enough things happening, the stuff that has a propensity to last and survive, tends to do so. Give things a few billion years to affect each other, and it's really no surprise that we see complex symbiotic relationships today.

Furthermore, it's not science's job to answer personal philosophical questions. That's what we have philosophy for.

>>The evidence is there, you just refuse to acknowledge it

>>in any other way than you already do.

Just like you do with Paul Bunyan, right?

The problem with your argument is your mistaken assumption that we all must be here to fulfill some "purpose". While I agree that our hands serve a purpose, and a bird's wings serve a purpose (both aid in survival of respective species), our existence itself does not. We're just here, for no real reason, other than the ones we attribute to our own lives.

Similarly, our own existence is not necessarily evidence for a creator. In the atheist mindset (existence without divine purpose), we see no problem or contradiction in the idea that, by some incredibly unlikely series of events, we just happen to be here, and have the capacity to be aware of it. Improbable? Absolutely. But it's a big universe, and clearly it happened. To use your example against you, I could claim, with equal validity, that our existence here is evidence that this incredibly, outrageously improbable sequence did in fact occur.

To address your Additional Details: You're right, biology doesn't really tell us "why" we're here. But what you have to understand is the answer might very well be "We just are, there's no other reason".

I hope this dissolves your silly notion that I've "never really given it thought".

No, our existence, and the fact that you are in awe of it, is NOT "evidence" for any invisible, magical, supernatural beings.

And yes, we HAVE given it thought. That's why we're atheists. As far as we're concerned, chalking our existence up to a magical being simply because it's complicated or amazing is "not putting much thought into it." People not agreeing with YOUR unsubstantiated opinions does not mean they haven't "put thought into it". How unbelievably arrogant a statement that is.

Snowflakes are some of the most beautiful, amazing, complicated-looking structures you can find. Yet, there is not someone out there hand-carving every snowflake. It is done by a completely natural process called crystalization. That's how the universe works. Everything that exists came about through perfectly natural processes.

What an absurd claim!!

So what if I say all you see and touch is evidence that the Devil is the supreme being and your god non existent?!!

Such silly claims harm christianity more than any atheist ever could!!

Now perhaps you should realize even the christian churches say your thinking is screwed!!

The Pope, Catholic Church, Church of England and mainstream churches all accept the big bang and evolution!!

Lord Carey the former Archbishop of Canterbury put it rather well – “Creationism is the fruit of a fundamentalist approach to scripture, ignoring scholarship and critical learning, and confusing different understandings of truth”!!

Nice that christians and atheists can agree and laugh together even if it is at your expense!!

Careful as you go now - we do not want you falling off the edge of your flat Earth!!

Things existing doesn't bring us to the conclusion that everything has a purpose. You're jumping from point A to point F. Just because you don't understand why something happened, or it seems like it couldn't come from random chance, that doesn't make it so. Random chance is a complete misinterpretation, there's nothing random about the laws of the universe that govern actions and reactions.

Saying the universe happened by random chance is akin to dropping a sponge and a rock into a bowl and saying it is chance which one floats and which one sinks.

I also have a extraordinarily honest grip of ways countless issues paintings and a few suspicion of ways others do. some issues i be attentive to no longer something of, and there are probable some the place my be attentive to-how is improper or incorrect. yet i'm streets previous to correctly stated human beings 250 years in the past, who weren't even attentive to the existence of oxygen, continental glide, the dwarf planet Pluto, the main planet Neptune, the existence of different galaxies, the genetic code, proteins, etc. desire i bypass on? So following your lead, immunologists ought to provide all of it away and soak up panorama gardening, maybe. Isaiah, eighth century. He could have had the concern right here, however the Indians have been directly to the belief in regards to an identical time or a splash until now.

"Stop and consider this, you are the evidence."

Of my parents, yes. Of previous ancestors, yes. Of life, yes.

Your god still would require supernatural evidence.

"Such thoughts bring one to the conclusion that everything that exists serves some kind of purpose that is beneficial to life."

Not everything as obviously mercury is not directly beneficial to most any life.

What an incredible leap of logic!! I have hands so there must be a God?

Noticing that I have hands is evidence for one thing only. It is evidence that I have hands. It says absolutely NOTHING about how they evolved. And more importantly, it says nothing about any invisible deities.

If that's the best you can do, it is no wonder the ranks of atheists are growing steadily.