Religion
In reply to the discussion: Did the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus [View all]skepticscott
(13,029 posts)But even if that were the case, we belittle "extraordinary" beliefs on this site all the time. Like the belief that climate change is a hoax. Or the belief that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Or the belief that cutting taxes on the rich will boost the economy. Given how much of public policy in this country and all over the world is dictated by religious beliefs, why should they not be subject to at least the same level of scrutiny and criticism, especially when they violate known laws of physics and biology?
As far as the origin of life goes, you really haven't thought about it very deeply, have you? How exactly did your actor capable of "conscious volition" or an "act of will" come into being out of energy and non-living matter in the first place? If a "god" or "creator" or "prime mover" (or however you want to label it) complex enough to deliberately create the "extremely complex" life that we see could arise that way, it is fundamentally more likely that the life we see arose without him/her/it/them. No matter how you slice it, if you add another link in the chain (especially a link without a shred of affirmative evidence), the likelihood goes down.
And I hope you're not going to say "we don't understand how god/the creator came into being...but it happened!"