Religion II

[hcap]

I find the workings of evolution amazing and awe-inspiring. The deeper I venture into how things work, including us, the more I am moved in almost a religious way. And unlike others, find incredible harmony between science and real religion.

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

― Carl Sagan

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

So early humans go back around two million years. As I said close to primates but smarter. Before they slowly transformed further they still had many of the defense mechanisms that allowed primates to survive. Maybe their teeth were not as sharp, or their tree climbing skills not quite as good, but soon their newer CLUB-swinging, arm-THROWING, and BRAIN-REASONING abilities slowly replaced and supplemented their earlier primate skills.

I repeat, there was NO INFANCY clearly demarcated and indicated in man's evolution. Man changed gradually and all along the way evolved new survival abilities as older ones were replaced. Your argument relies on the analogy of how human babies transform into human adults today. Not at all applicable.

Human babies have NO INDEPENDENT survival skills except caring parents and society.

Early man had many independent abilities to survive. And those ability grew in many ways beyond your absurd "teeth and claws" only example.

Got it bunky?

Stones and clubs, heh? How did they survive before they evolved to the point of figuring out that their hands were made for something other eating?

Plus stones and clubs would not have been enough to ward off a vast army of predators that greatly outnumbered early humans many times over. Your survival "explanation" would be laughable in comic books!

Oh wait...maybe your early parents had really bad BO that totally put off predators? After all, their brains would not have been developed enough to come up with under arm deodorant solutions, right?

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

The earliest hominids were very close to primates, but smarter. Are you telling us , monkeys and gorillas are an illusion.? Or maybe god helped them out with their evil predators too?

Many animals are hunted by other animals. They have evolved various defense mechanisms, other than teeth and claws, or biblical souls

Only one with a hammer born up his butt around here, thinks with those hammers and those environs.

Why don't you name those "various defense mechanisms" that the earliest, pea-brained humans had?

[Light]

Originally Posted by boxcar

How did the earliest hominids manage to survive in an extremely hostile environment surrounded by much stronger and faster predatorS that were naturally equipped to kill AND GREATLY OUTNUMBERED BY THEIR ENEMIES.

As asked earlier, how did hominids pass from cycle 1 to cycle 2 of their evolution and then pass on to cycle 3, then to 4, etc. How were they ever able to make it out of their INFANCY cycle 1 stage?

Every species that ever existed had to start at infancy and had many superior predators. Nature isn't as dumb as you.

[thaskalos]

The lowly mouse has not only "survived"...it has THRIVED! And yet...there may not be a more vulnerable creature than the mouse out there in our "hostile world". Is there a "divine" reason for this?

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Light

Every species that ever existed had to start at infancy and had many superior predators. Nature isn't as dumb as you.

But not every species was the last one to evolve. The earliest humans were the weakest of all species due to all the stronger and faster predators that predated them and the fact that the earliest humans had no natural defenses, [b]very much unlike all the other weak species who predated us but had natural defenses against stronger species. And spare us the drivel about how the earliest humans were the smartest entities on the planet, since the human brain was in its infancy form compared to what we are today. There is simply no way that a vastly outnumbered species in its infancy stage of development could have survived a vast army of stronger, faster and well experienced predators with finely honed hunting skills that they developed over the many ages.

By the way, nature has no mind. So...nature is actually pretty mindless -- therefore, pretty dumb at the end of the day. Using anthropomorphic language to describe the supposed mental acuity of "nature" is laughably absurd.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by boxcar

So..are you suggesting that dinos never had kids? They just came into the world as fully grown, 6-ton animals or whatever?

Oh...is that what happened? Noah transported two BABY dinosaurs on his ark. Okay then...that makes sense.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

The lowly mouse has not only "survived"...it has THRIVED! And yet...there may not be a more vulnerable creature than the mouse out there in our "hostile world". Is there a "divine" reason for this?

But they have natural defenses. As one, we could ponder reproduction. How long does it take for baby mice to grow to adults? And what is the average size of a mouse litter? And how many litters does the average female mouse produce in a year? Now...ask all these questions about humans, ponder your answers and then realize how patently absurd your comparison is.

It's no wonder at all that God scoffs at the wisdom of men!

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

Oh...is that what happened? Noah transported two BABY dinosaurs on his ark. Okay then...that makes sense.

Yeah...it makes sense. Adults would have put his ship below the water line and endangered all aboard.

[hcap]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Why don't you name those "various defense mechanisms" that the earliest, pea-brained humans had?

When I was younger my girlfriend had a spider monkey as a pet. Teeth were very sharp, was able to climb almost smooth walls, and as fast and agile as a cat.

I suspect he would understand the way things worked far better than you, incvluding logic.

I can not believe you are this dense. Spider monkeys are one of more than 260 different types of monkeys. Monkeys are one of up to 350 species of primates.

All with pea brains larger than yours

Earliest humans evolved from primates having double or triple the size of the pea brains of other "dumber" primates while maintaining many of their spider monkey defense abilities. Ever get bitten or scratched by one of your cats?

Imagine 10x the damage and pain. Primates survived and continue to survive. Btw they mostly all lived in social groups and that alone provides a defense mechanism. Ya know like herd animals like slow and dull tooth cows.

Why aren't cows extinct?

Give it up bunky, you lost this one. What apologetic site did you find this malarkey on?

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

When I was younger my girlfriend had a spider monkey as a pet. Teeth were very sharp, was able to climb almost smooth walls, and as fast and agile as a cat.

I suspect he would understand the way things worked far better than you, incvluding logic.

I can not believe you are this dense. Spider monkeys are one of more than 260 different types of monkeys. Monkeys are one of up to 350 species of primates.

All with pea brains larger than yours

Earliest humans evolved from primates having double or triple the size of the pea brains of other "dumber" primates while maintaining many of their spider monkey defense abilities. Ever get bitten or scratched by one of your cats?

Imagine 10x the damage and pain. Primates survived and continue to survive. Btw they mostly all lived in social groups and that alone provides a defense mechanism. Ya know like herd animals like slow and dull tooth cows.

Why aren't cows extinct?

Give it up bunky, you lost this one. What apologetic site did you find this malarkey on?

The problem, Humpty, is that humans in their infancy cycle of development weren't spider monkeys. The more spider monkeys evolved into a human form, the less the future human resembled the spider monkey. That transition cycle in between animal and human would have left the human most vulnerable. Not nearly as smart as a full-fledged human or as physically strong or fast or adaptive to ward off predators who greatly outnumbered them.

Go have some pea soup. Maybe it'll improve your cognitive abilities...or maybe not.

[hcap]

Originally Posted by boxcar

The problem, Humpty, is that humans in their infancy cycle of development weren't spider monkeys.

Amazing you don't follow the simplest concepts.
Your posts are jumbled of non-sequiturs. Let's take this one bit at a time. I said

I repeat, there was NO INFANCY clearly demarcated and indicated in man's evolution. Man changed gradually and all along the way evolved new survival abilities as older ones were replaced. Your argument relies on the analogy of how human babies transform into human adults today. Not at all applicable.

I repeat for the 100th time, Primate survival characteristics were very slowly and gradually replaced by human characteristics. Evolution is in a constant state of a MIX of of features. There was never an "infancy stage" where at any point along the evolutionary scale, any of the early stages resembled a helpless baby crawling along the ground.

EACH stage, perhaps millions, went thru complete normal biological growth from infant to adult. Each baby primate survived at each "cycle". Fully functional primate defense mechanisms continued until they were GRADUALLY replaced and supplemented by more evolved human-like survival mechanisms.

Fade out monkey, fade in man. No either , or. No black, white. A thousands shades of grey. Got it bunky?

Your helpless infancy analogy is a bust. Primate transformed into man. God did not need to defend primates from their evil predators.

Prove your" helpless infant" analogy first, then we can go from there......

[Actor]

I don't expect to educate one who is willfully ignorant and wishes to remain so. That said ...

Originally Posted by boxcar

There is simply no way that a vastly outnumbered species ...

Can you prove this claim? How do you know that early hominids were "vastly outnumbered"?

Originally Posted by boxcar

... in its infancy stage of development could have survived a vast army of stronger, ...

Another claim! How do you know the predators were stronger. All the ape species (humans are apes) evolved from a common ancestor who may have been as big as a gorilla. And they lived in groups (called troops). Are you seriously suggesting a troop of gorillas could not mount an effective defense against a pride of lions?

Originally Posted by boxcar

... faster and well experienced predators ...

Humans are an African species. All humans on other continents can be traced back to Africa. So what species were these predators? In Africa there are only two candidates, viz., crocodiles and big cats. Crocodiles live in rivers, fairly large rivers at that. Stay away from big rivers and the crocs are not problem. They may grab an occasional human who gets too near the river but are hardly a threat to the survival species. That leaves big cats: mainly lions, leopards and cheetahs. The smaller cats are unlikely to target a full grown human and probably prefer mice.

Cats are lazy, as are most predators. If their stomach is full they are not going to bother hunting down anything. With the exception of the cheetah they are ambush predators. Their success rate is rather low, something like one in four, and that's with prey that is not as intelligent as humans.

I'll close with a quote from the late Senator Moynihan. "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

[Actor]

Originally Posted by boxcar

The more spider monkeys evolved into a human form, the less the future human resembled the spider monkey.

Humans did not evolve from monkeys. Humans evolved from an ape-like animal.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Actor

I don't expect to educate one who is willfully ignorant and wishes to remain so. That said ...

Can you prove this claim? How do you know that early hominids were "vastly outnumbered"?

Finally, we get a decent question from you. How do you know that early humans weren't outnumbered? Did Mother Nature give mass birth to humans? If so, how many did Mother Nature evolve at one time? But if Mother Nature -- if natural forces produced humans large mass, then why don't human follow their "Mother's" lead and reproduce in large mass? But if Mommy Nature didn't "give birth" to a very large number of humans at one time, then it stands to reason that the population all the wild beasts of the world, who had a huge head start on human evolution, would have far, far exceeded early human population.

Another claim! How do you know the predators were stronger. All the ape species (humans are apes) evolved from a common ancestor who may have been as big as a gorilla. And they lived in groups (called troops). Are you seriously suggesting a troop of gorillas could not mount an effective defense against a pride of lions?

Because the early humans weren't apes? You see...at some point in the evolutionary cycle the "great apes" (to borrow Hcap's phrase) ceased being great apes in order to "cross over" to become more like you and me. At some specific point in evolution, the earliest humans became extremely vulnerable because the lost they had gradually lost the physical strength and speed of their ancestors, while at the same time were far from realizing their cognitive potential. In other words, they would have been "slow" upstairs (the head) as well as slow and weak downstairs (the rest of the body) in the infancy of their evolutionary development, making them easy targets for a world full of predators. So...what "may have been" doesn't exactly count as fact!

Humans are an African species. All humans on other continents can be traced back to Africa. So what species were these predators? In Africa there are only two candidates, viz., crocodiles and big cats. Crocodiles live in rivers, fairly large rivers at that. Stay away from big rivers and the crocs are not problem. They may grab an occasional human who gets too near the river but are hardly a threat to the survival species. That leaves big cats: mainly lions, leopards and cheetahs. The smaller cats are unlikely to target a full grown human and probably prefer mice.

Cats are lazy, as are most predators. If their stomach is full they are not going to bother hunting down anything. With the exception of the cheetah they are ambush predators. Their success rate is rather low, something like one in four, and that's with prey that is not as intelligent as humans.

I'll close with a quote from the late Senator Moynihan. "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

There's nothing factual about your post. It's all conjecture that you're attempting to back-fit into the model of evolution. For example, you have no idea how many species of predators existed gazillions of years ago -- probably far, far more than what exists today! After all, man wasn't on the scene to ruin the wild jungles, or the environment or to encroach on the environment of wild animals. Seems to me, all animals would have thrived greatly in a pre-human world, providing those at the top of the food chain had enough to eat, and those at the lower half of the food chain had sufficient natural survival mechanisms to protect them against their stronger predatory counterparts. And this is sound reasoning. Even God agrees with me.

Deut 7:22
22 And the Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you.
NASB

Perhaps later on today, I will unpack this passage and examine its implications. Recall the old adage, "Nature abhors a vacuum"? This is certainly one of the inferences to this text. And I'll explain why later.




Nor do you know that all life, including man, began in Africa. Why not the Middle East, which many believe is the "cradle of civilization"?