Originally Posted by Zephyr
Death is not to be feared, though I admit trepidation at the path there. I am curious about what lies beyond, primarily. One of many great unknowns in our world, wouldn't you all say? :)
I don't believe in gods or their absence, but recognize that there is no proof either way, and only rationalizations by people who are either disillusioned by science's inability to answer every fundamental question they have at that moment, or so disillusioned by the world that they refuse to believe that any intelligent being could allow such things.
For example, evolution versus creationism. Creation has absolutely no proof in its favour, and to draw a quote from Feynmen as he originally applied to a different theory, "It's so ridiculous it can't even be proven false!" Evolution, by contrast, was taken as the extension of natural selection, which has been demonstrated repeatedly in nature (for instance those examples ganandorf stated already) to a larger scale, that the accumulation of changes via natural selection over time would lead eventually to a new species. While certainly not observed yet in nature, there is not necessarily anything proving it false (The absence of conclusive proof is not the presence of disproof, your comment to the contrary, Vash), and circumstantial evidence can be used to "prove" it as at least partially correct. Now, I believe the Theory of Evolution, as it stands, is incomplete and ultimately too flawed to be a valid scientific fact, but I am far more inclined to believe it than Creationism (Six days to create, a day to rest, and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden birthing all of humanity - admittedly the inbreeding implied in the last would explain much stupidity in the world, though ;)).
