If you'd have said 'primate', yeah. But when I think of apes I think of a specific kind of primate, which we can't successfully breed with.
You're referring to the biological definition of a species. The other great apes are all different species from man and one another, and no interbreeding occurs among them except between chimps and bonobos, which suggests to me that they should be classed as subspecies of a single species.
And in biology, taxonomy, and cladistics, humans are apes. That's not controversial or falsifiable. It's not arbitrary or mere semantics. It means that humans and all other extant and extinct great apes have a common great ape ancestor.
It seems that you aren't accustomed to thinking in biological terms. You lean toward lay definitions of ape, as with the ape house at the zoo, which excludes caged human apes and never mentions that they have done so. But biologists include them all in the metaphorical ape house - family Hominidae
Humans do not fit the biological definition of "ape" because humans are humans, not apes. Humans are not apes, humans are humans
That's not a rebuttal to the claim that humans are human apes. If you're implying that because human are human that they cannot also be apes, then you are assuming your conclusion, and can just leave out the irrelevant tautology that follows it. Your argument is unsound as this one: Woodpeckers don't fit the biological definition of birds because woodpeckers are woodpeckers, not birds.
Also, humans are apes according to biologists just as woodpeckers are classified as birds.
Does that mean you can prove what you said is true?
If you can't do that it is not a fact
Disagree. The threshold for factuality is not proof. It is convincing evidence and for the ability of an idea to be successfully employed to predict outcomes. Proof never enters the matter of correctness. The fact that the tree of life evolved from earlier life forms over deep time is established beyond reasonable doubt, but can and need never be proved. It's simply not the standard for belief. It's not your standard for belief in your daily life. What can you prove? You can't prove that you're not dreaming or anything else. You are simply convinced beyond reasonable doubt of the correctness of certain ideas that have been reliable in the past when deployed to effect desired outcomes, like how to make a recipe you like. You don't get or need proof there, either.
Quoting Abdu'l-Baha I said: "only humans discover the realities of things and become cognizant of their peculiarities and effects, and of the qualities and properties of beings."
Disagree. My dogs do all of that. The difference is that they don't think in language, just sensations, urges, nonverbal memories, and similar nonlinguistic conscious content.
That's incorrect two ways. Humans are considered apes in biological circles
Being descended from apes does not make humans apes.
Yes, it does. Anything descended from an ape is another ape.
That would only prove evolution in the eyes of someone who embraces the theory of evolution.
The theory is correct beyond reasonable doubt. It is logically possible to falsify it if it is false, but if it isn't, that will never happen. Correct ideas cannot be falsified. It's been over a century-and-a-half, and its never been falsified.
Honest scientists know full well that Lucy was a hoax.
That's a creationist conspiracy theory and false claim. It's made by dishonest creationist apologists and intended for anybody that can be made to believe it.
If you're in love with the idea that you're an animal, and specifically an ape, no amount of Truth is going to change your mind.
You don't have truth. You have sincerely but uncritically believed religious beliefs.
The endless accusations of the atheist evolutionist that knows far more about God and the Bible than any True Christian. Most people who don't believe in God know far more about Him and His Bible than anybody who does believe in Him and studies His Word.
Yes.
I'll bet that every atheist posting on this thread knows more about the Christian god and scriptures than any creationist. It doesn't matter how much time or energy or zealotry the believer brings to the matter. It matters only how he processes information. The believer's agenda is not the same as the critical thinkers. Nor are his values or his methods for determine what is good or true. However much time he devotes to studying his faith, he can't see truth unless his approaches them critically, that is, dispassionately, open-mindedly, and logically.
you use multiple definitions yourself in your religion of science.
Does calling science a religion mean that you disapprove of religion? I know you disapprove of the science that contradicts your faith, so why call it a religion unless you also disapprove of that?
Fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom.
As with truth, you also have a different definition of wisdom than I do. The fearing of a god is the beginning of a kind of enslavement of a mind. I'll leave that to you. For me, wisdom entails avoiding or escaping that.
I fear no god. I worship no god. I subjugate myself to the alleged commands of no god. I am a free citizen and an autonomous moral agent, one who decides what constitutes upright behavior for himself.
