lol, my friends hardcore atheist too, he just is really good at looking at both sides. What he was trying to say is that basically that things can start out simple and end in something more complex, therefor if God is all complex, then something even simpler than he could have created him as we were created from primordial ooze.

he was saying that it's not fair to ignore the fact that we are saying that we came from something less complex than ourselves, so if there is a God what says the same rules couldn't apply to him.

The concept of a god/religion began when small hunter-gatherer groups had time on thier hands when not worrying about the next meal. The god idea started simple enough, likely with a concept we would call LUCK (Why wolf kill Grog and not me?). It evloved into itemized concepts, (God of lightning.....god of the wind.....god of...etc.) from there it evolved into more complex religions we are embarrased by today. Linguistic studies point out language came first, about 45,000 years ago, with god concepts about 5,000 years later. No one said evolution was fast.

I must appologize for not being able to do links like everyone else can seem to do. But you got me on my favorite subject. I do not automaticly assume burrying someone you love with flowers and thier personal possesions is an act of religion versus a simple act of honoring the departed. The wikipedia entry agrees with me on this point in its first two lines, they slant towards religion - I may be too much the athiest. Animal 'whorship' as described in the Kalahari might better be described as the pre-game gab-fest before the big hunt. This shows honor for or understanding of the animals they wish to eat, I would not call that a religion; it would evolve into religion. Religion as the concept we understand today can't exist without verbal language, try describing your latest dream in full detail, useing only sign language, and make your audience understand every nuiance. Neanderthals never had the ability of speach, I bet it led to thier extinction, they coúldn't organize the ideals on how to avoid extinction with sign language alone. The Cro-magnons had the one thing other homanids and primates never had, a voice box. This larynx was NOT AN ASSET for the first 200,000 years (more likely it evolved in over the 200,000 years) With a larynx you can choke to death on food!! Neanderthals and primates can't do that, only modern humans have this detriment to survival, a detriment unless you can use it to verbalize organized ideals. According to experts human speach has been around about 45,000 years give or take a few thousand. I think much longer but I'm no expert. Earliest or oldest words relate to the family circle and basic survival, one syllable words dominate. Meny generations later religious ideals come along with thier two and more syllable words. One day I hope science can find the genome in DNA that is the voice box, from that human speach can be more accurately dated.

It's a cute idea, and I think it's one Dawkins entertained when he was interviewed for Expelled (or "Crossroads&quot. Unfortunately, it still ends up with a being of supernatural capacity. Once you take the though experiment into the realm of the supernatural, that's when I start having a problem with it. todangst did a thorough piece on that, with the conclusion that as soon as you enter the realm of the supernatural, natural rules don't apply. That is, if we imagine this creature that evolved "so much" that it developed the capacity to create a universe (or whatever arbitrary powers your friend wants to assign to this evolved god), then that creature can't be discussed with the same rules as you'd talk about an elephant, for example.

But it's still a cute idea. There certainly could exist some super-sentient being that seeds life on planets or something. But (to use the now-tired refrain) until evidence pops up that there is such a thing, I'd say it's idle chat.

If he's good at arguing, yeah, get him to sign up. I do this for fun, and as far as theistic debate goes, this is the big show. He won't find a more difficult arena to argue theism, so ask him why he wouldn't want to test his skill.

"Proof" is a funny thing, since it seems to never happen outside of math and philosophy, and even then, proofs are looked at with a great deal of skepticism. So disproving doesn't really take that much effort if you know which questions to ask.