1. Evidence can not be ignored for the simple reason that not one sane person can deny their existence. This of course depends on what you mean by evidence. Fossils are the evidence that there was once a living organism which died. But evidence does not speak for itself. It needs to be interpreted.
Fossils are far more than that.
And many religious types, particularly ID/creationist types ignore whole libraries full of evidence. If they didn't they wouldn't be creationists/ID believers because anyone with 5 firing neurons who examines the evidence can't fail but to see the undeniability of evolution through natural and sexual selection.
2. This is where it comes to your second point “…misinterpreting the evidence”. Your statement implies that there already is a given unchangeable and unquestionable interpretation of evidence and no other interpretation is whether allowed nor possible.
Not in the least. There are often a number of possible (usually similar) possibilities suggested by observation. These possibilities are then examined. depending upon the weight of evidence we may come to one or more conclusions. However, we do not do this and then say "Wow that is big/complex/beyond my limited intellect" and lurch for something totally unsupported like a belief in God/religion/creationism/ID/a universe ruled by a pink bunny called Roger.
But the problem with interpretations is that they are all created by people/scientists who are to a certain extent subjective and biased.
Which is why the process of scientific enquiry and peer review is conducted in the way it is. You can't just make stuff up and expect it to get published in a serious peer reviewed journal. if it isn't published in such a way it doesn't exist for all intents and purposes.
such an important part of I don’t believe there is one single person in the world which is clinically neutral for that seems to be virtually impossible if they were all born and raised on this planet.
Totally unnecessary to the process. Serious science has checks and balances in place to prevent invention being accepted as fact/best current theory.
So what then is the guideline when evidence needs to be interpreted? I don’t believe it can be the majority of opinions (for example most scientists believe there is no supernatural creation etc.)
To publish you need to subject your work to independent per review. This is a very stringent process. i used to be a reviewer for a mid level ecological journal and I rejected quite a few articles not because i thought the author was wrong but because either i didn't think they had sufficient evidence to draw the conclusions they did or that they didn't present their work in a way that enabled me to tell. Further work sometimes meant they got published later and sometimes they had to start from scratch.
if conflicting views come in different journals from different studies, as happens from time to time, the most rigorous discussions take place, often on the letters section of journals until one view prevails or (more often) a new study confirms one or other of the conflicting theories.
A choice between the two isn't take by a show of hands.
Many times in history the opinions of the majority turned out to be wrong in the end. The arrogance that I see in your explanation is that you seem to deny any other possibility oh how people interpret past events.
In general I think almost everything we currently "know" will be slightly wrong even if it is in small detail. However, anyone who interprets the fossil record as some evidence of god or thinks it shows that evolutionists are wrong is such an utter spastic that I wouldn't let them carry scissors, much less listen to their opinion.
Believe in a god by all means but as soon as that belief is used to attack and pervert science (such as the ludicrous and oxymoronic intelligent design movement do) then I will object.
Some opininIt seems hard for you to understand that what makes sense to you does not necessarily make and has to make sense to others- since we are still talking about interpretation. Dawkins would say it is not probable that God exists and of course it might not be probable from his but it might be probable from my point of view.
Then you would be utterly wrong. All opinions are not equally valid. Many are downright rubbish. Or at least are based on rubbish arguments. To be probably correct you need evidence to assess that probability and the lack of it makes your stance infinitely less probable. If you believe because you have blind faith then this is a reason to believe even if it isn't probable in any logical sense of the word.
In other words if you believe do so. If you are uncertain enough in your faith as to need proof then you are probably really an aethiest or agnostic screaming to get out
If there are things which are designed (or as Dawkins would say “which give the appearance of design”) and if the universe is fine-tuned (or at least to me it very much looks like it),
The evaporating puddle couldn't believe how well the hole in which it lived was designed for him. The ridges and cracks were so well fine tuned to his shape that any conclusion other than it was specifically made for him by God was ludicrous.
Simply because he didn't have any better explanation.
We do.
then why is it unreasonable to conclude it is too improbable that it just happen by chance, through a blind an unguided process and for no reason at all? There is no way of knowing, the only question is will our observation lead us to the same conclusion or not?
Because you are basing this on a simple statement of incredulity. People who have bothered to learn how it all works aren't at all credulous. It is a simple, elegant and in many ways obvious solution to the evidence of every living thing we see. All evidence points to ET being correct in all but minor detail with very few gaps left to fill. We know more about the nature of evolution than we do about the nature of gravity but you believe in gravity because stuff falls when you let go of it. Because evolution mainly happens on a scale you can't directly observe you put it in the "too difficult" basket.
And in my view, no matter how much I think about it, it seems absolutely impossible that there could be no design, no purpose, and no plan behind the existence of everything (space, time and matter).
The puddle would agree.
Right up to the point he disappears through evaporation.
3. The objection atheists often make is “if there is a God then who created God”.
I have never heard anyone over about the age of 10 bother with this argument. Having said that I have never heard a satisfactory answer.
Out of the mouth of babes and all that.
Let’s say I believe in a supernatural being called “God’- what difference does it make if I know or don’t know who or what created him?
Apparently none to you. To me I need a rational basis for life. But that is just me.
Things are not going to stop to exist because they don’t depend on the origin of God.
Did anyone suggest it would?
The Mercedes that I find one day in a garage is still going to be a Mercedes, with all his parts and mechanical complexities even if I never find out who created it. The car won’t stop existing if I can not answer who his possible designer was.
Again, who suggested such sillyness?
But based on that simple evidence (existing car) I will come to my personal, rational conclusion that this car definitely has a maker!
My rational conclusion would be that you had "rationalised" your predetermined solution, despite all the evidence to the contrary, on the usual simple basis of incredulity.
So the question “who then created God” is just another escape route you use because you know that it is quite impossible to answer.
If God exists why is this impossible to answer?
I think it is impossible to answer for the same reason we don't know who created Roger the large all powerful bunny ruler. My 8 year old thinks it is a good question because even he knows that it is ironic that people who don't believe in The Big Bang because "creation can't come out of nothing" then come up with an answer that depends on an answer before which there was nothing.
In my opinion that Higher Being by definition must be something out of space, space and matter, it must be undependable and have characteristics of infinite power.
Why?
Our of space/time? So you can't see him?
Undependable? Huh?
Characteristics of ultimate power? or ultimate power? Or ?????
In any case if there is even a semblance of infinite power how come nothing tangible has ever been achieved by the power of prayer? Some miracle. People pray for all sorts of things but the only ones that "come true" are unprovable. Nobody ever grew a limb back no matter how much they prayed and my guess is that some pretty devout amputees prayed pretty damn hard for such an outcome.
This might sound philosophical but that answer makes sense to me personally. I don’t see why I need to know who created God in order to conclude that there is enough evidence which points to his existence.
