GROK,

I don't know whether you still read this thread, but I have one point to make regarding your Mount Rushmore analogy.

It is always dangerous arguing with analogies. You seem to try to make the analogy that when we see Mt. Rushmore we conclude that what we see has no natural cause but has been created and that therefore when we look at humans we also must conclude that they have been created.

But I know no religion that would say each new human is created from scratch. In the Mt. Rushmore pictures noone would say that after the first was created the others were recreating themselves in a natural way. Similarly, noone would assume that the Mt. Rushmore pictures have been created by a supernatural act of will ("and there be Lincoln and there was Lincoln"). If we look at these and other artifacts we conclude a creative but completely natural way of production.

Usually I know that analogy with watches. You look at a watch and you are sure that is has not been created without intelligent interference. That's a fine analogy. Let's see how far it carries. If you go into a shop with many different watches you would not assume that each watch has been made by the same intelligence, would you? You'd bet that different people have worked on different watches. So what tells us this analogy about the 'creation'. Different animals have been made by different gods. That analogy leads straight into polytheism, but it usually is used by people arguing for monotheism (and one particular). From that analogy I'd opt for different gods for different animals.

That was just for to tell you what is unconvincing in your analogy.

Wolfgang