Does the fact we have a spiritual side, as well as an appreciation for beauty and a desire to learn mean we may have been created?

A simple answer and a correct one is YES!

And, those that understand and appreciate beauty and design, often seek a Creator. The bible holds so much information on the subject. Best of all, it tells us how beautiful our future will be...right here on earth!

Pay special attention to Psalm 37:10, 11 on this link..and you can listen to it audible as well.

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books...

No.

1) Spiritual side - Research suggests religion is derived from teleology (or agent detection - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_detection), where we believe there is purpose behind things and actions in the world. It is probably in part, an evolved trait that allows us to be wary of noises in a bush that may be a tiger, even when it isn't. We didn't evolve to be good reasoners, but to use rough and ready rules that although are often wrong, when right they gave us an advantage.

From this comes the idea that natural forces such as lightning are from gods, it's a projection on the universe of our idea of purpose. And as civilization progressed, eventually the gods became a projection of us on the universe.

There is also the of loss someone when they die. To cope with this grief comes the idea of an after life. So an innate fear of death also plays a role.

And established religions use this innate teleology most of us have to indoctrinate us in religion, normally that of our parents.

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2) Appreciation for beauty - this is most often our middle brain at work. Our primitive brain regulates our heart, breathing, the every day stuff that we need to do without thinking about it. Our middle brain is the one that reacts to the outside world. As such it accepts millions of inputs every second, and needs to take short cuts to process these.

This works enough for us to function adequately, even when it makes mistakes, like the above tiger in the bush that does not really exist. And the fact that our brain has all these cognitive biases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_bi... is evidence our brains evolved, and were not designed.

It is the middle part of the brain that responds to what it perceives as beauty, which most often is just the desire for sex, food, or the fight or flight (danger) response. Just watch adverts to see this in action.

It is the middle part of the brain that makes our decisions for us, even though we think it is our higher brain that does this. This higher brain is responsible for language, abstraction, planning, and perception.

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3) Desire to learn mean - This is more interesting, as we don't always have a desire to learn, we just do. And we often learn just enough to get by. That's why many people just watch TV at the end of the day, because they want to keep their brain entertained rather than to learn something new.

But even here we have a problem with the idea of creation. We have developed tools that help us in learning, such as logic, science and mathematics. And we have needed to do this because of those cognitive biases leading us to faulty conclusions. And the fact that we had to develop these tools basically as software patches for our brain tells us that our brains evolved rather than created.

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I have simplified the working of the brain here, as it is a complex structure that shares work between regions. But the triune brain model is sufficient to understand the basics of what I have said, even though the basic model is not accepted by scientists today.

There is a lot of evidence for a loving Creator. There is also a lot of evidence that supports an indifferent Creator who is not directly involved in our lives today. Some of this can be related to our freedom to choose and our responsibility to live with the results of our decisions. I dont see how this can be applied to innocent children though that starve simply because they were born in a certain location. It seems that the qualities you mention in your question do apply to a humanity that was created with the potential to love and care for one another. This might be the only tools we have to build a better society. Christianity has recognized this since it was established by Jesus who went about doing good. Annually we donate more to needy charities than all other organizations combined. We dont know precisely what gifts we were created with but we do know the potential we have now to create a better world for everyone and this is what we have to go on. This is what Christ talked about when He asked us to build Gods Kingdom on earth. It is a Kingdom of love and understanding that includes everyone. It leaves no one out.

No.

The genes of people that did not enjoy life enough suicided and did not produce children, so these genetic variants do no longer exist.

The things on your list are, or were survival advantages. Magic is not the answer to this, not a rational answer at least.

Evolution is demonstrably responsible for all of that, we need not invent deities to pretend and to blame. Your conclusion here is not a rational conclusion.

Its cute how the majority of answers you've received so far put you down.

None of them offer a suitable alternate point of view ......just a put-down.

We have so much that is not essential for life, but evolutionists enjoy turning a blind eye to that fact.

I, for one, go along with your idea.

Fact is, you're living in the land of Make Believe. Say hi to King Friday XIII and Mr McFeely.

There's also the issue of altruism... the willingness to aid another without benefit to oneself. That's not survival and often costs the individual. That point was brought up by Dr. Francis Collins, who spearheaded the Human Genome Project and now heads the National Institutes of Health, in his book "the Language of God".