Evidence of a Creator/Creation is obvious. Religion is another matter though

Speaking of magnitudes the human mind cannot comprehend:


Powers of 10

This video from the 1970's is still an eye opener today.

Quote: NowTheSerpent

No other animal has developed culinary arts, sewer systems, newspapers, shirts, marriage, court systems, transportation machines, or the Freedom Tower. And they don't look like they're suddenly about to.

That's a really interesting comment because it implies that all of those human inventions are important. They are -- for humans -- but certainly not for every other life form. Consider the common rat and whether those human developments are relevant to its society:

1) Culinary arts: rats don't care what they eat. Humans do -- in fact, we're one of the pickiest-eating species alive. That's why dogs hang around with us.
2) Sewer systems: rats don't mind walking around in their own feces. Of course, humans do. Related to the above, we have a very strong disgust reflex which is mostly absent from the remainder of the animal kingdom.
3) Newspapers: not even going to bother.
4) Shirts: rats don't need them. Humans need them both for protection and vanity reasons. Rats are better-evolved on both fronts, not caring about appearance and having a cozy protective layer of hair to keep them warm.
5) Marriage: not necessary. Rats are promiscuous and don't pair-bond for life. Certain other animals do, like ducks, but marriage isn't even necessarily the default human behavior. Unlike pair-bonding in ducks, 50% of human marriages end in divorce.
6) Court systems: not necessary. There is no crime in rat populations. For example, only a few species are known to commit murder, humans being one of them. Think about that for a moment.
7) Transportation machines: rats don't mind walking.
8) The Freedom Tower: not needed. For rat society, such a structure would be a waste of resource and effort.

In short, most of the societal features you mention are human inventions developed to mitigate, in one form or another, the defects found in our natural state of being. Just look at the sewer issue for a moment. It is clear that the natural state of things is for us to defecate on the ground where our digestive byproducts will be absorbed back into the environment as fertilizer. But we think that's disgusting, so we've developed a complicated system of pipes and porcelain receptacles to alter that natural process. So what's really more praiseworthy? The fact that we've developed sewers because we have a strong disgust reflex, or the fact that other animals don't have that disgust reflex in the first place and therefore don't need to waste time or energy building sewers?

Quote: 24Bingo

This is called the "inverse gambler's fallacy."

If you have half a million freshly shuffled decks, and deal five cards from each, chances are better than even that one of them will be a royal flush. If you have one, the chance is tiny. However, if you see someone deal five cards from a freshly shuffled deck, and they form a royal flush - how many decks are being dealt from? The royal flush tells you nothing.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you. (or vice versa).

I liken the universe not as walking in and seeing one hand dealt out of one unshuffled deck being a Royal Flush, but walking in and seeing billions of hands in the room already dealt and spotting a Royal Flush out of the billions of hands. The billions (trillions) of suns and planets each representing dealt hands. Each one with a chance for some particular consequence . I'm not questioning the number of "deals" before to be of question. I'm not guessing probablity must have happened, I'm ascerting we already are seeing the result of the deals all spread out in the night sky in the many suns and respective planets.

I use the configuration of a royal only as a marker, not to specify that it is more special than another randomly dealt hand.

Quote: s2dbaker

I was visited by two of Jehovah's Witnesses last week. I nearly had them recruited to team Atheist before they left in a huff.

A friend reports that once, when visited by a JW and her 7-year-old kid, he turned to the kid and said "Do you realize if you
needed a blood transfusion, your mom would let you die instead because of what it says in the Bible?"

The horrified mom grabbed the kid and took off down the road.

Hey, the truth shall set you free. I hope the kid learned a life-long lesson or two.