elevator

No, but at least we know that the element we are trying to provide evidence for actually exists! My point here is that the existence of life is in no way proof of the supernatural. I have given you several examples of other religions with different ideas; for example Hinduisms eternal universe. Science even has hypotheses such as the primordial soup (read about the Miller experiment for example) or comet seeding. If you read up on various abiogenesis hypotheses you will see that there are many scientific suggestions in addition to religious creation stories. You just pick one explanation (for which, incidentially, there is no evidence) and presume it to be true.

You have also not answered my questions; you just turn it around want me to prove you wrong even though you are the one presenting the claim that God did it. So let me turn it back to you and ask you how is the "God did it"-claim better than any of the scientific hypotheses? What makes you reject those and accept that God did it? And how do you imagine God did it? Adherents within your religious doctrines have extremely varying opinions on this: some believe in the literal genesis translation (i.e. created 6000 years ago in their current form). Others accept evolution but claim that God "ignited" life billions of years ago. If we include other religions in the matrix the different accounts of creation are truly astronomical. What makes your account the best one?

sschlichter

Life on earth is the dragon crap, and comet seeding, and other unproven theories are your invisible dragons of choice. The dots do not connect right now but why have faith that they will some day. I am trying to make the point that our positions are similar. I have no problem admitting that I cannot prover that God exists but to say there is no evidence is to ignore common sense and cause and effect. I do not agree with the premise that because you cannot see God it is my burden to prove him to you anymore than yours to prove that bacteria came from other planets without an explanation of how they got on the original planet. the fact is that what is beyond us is beyond us both - and you have the same problem as me in proving it.

probably true, my apologies. I would be glad to attempt to answer your questions. first of all, I do not agree that the existence of God is contrary to the scope of scientific hypothesis. I do not reject scientific hypothesis at all. I beleive God reveals himself thru nature and this is the stuff of science. God also reveals himself thru special revelation (specifically, the person of Christ). Revelation is from God but science and theology are fallible.

You gave an example of fallible theology (using a 2 page account of creation to explain things it was never meant to explain). Science also is fallible. It was science that used to be be of the opinion that the universe was eternal until the hubble telescope discovered it was not. Here nature and scripture were both in agreement but both scientists and theologians were wrong about the details.

I don't imagine how God did it. I will await scientists data to let me know how he did it. He did not see fit to share that with us with any level of detail.

If you make me pick a starting point on why I beleive what I beleive then I would jump past any argument of the existence of God and point to the progressive revelation of the Hebrew God and his promise to bless all nations thru Abraham. Prophecies in the OT about the Christ and how God is to fufill his promise are evidence enough to me. However, I try to scrap everything I beleive and start over in a different point (admittedly, I am not capable of dropping my presuppositions at this point in my life but I try to at least recognize when I am catering to them.)

~Steve

George S

Perfect.

No one could imagine how a SuperPowerful Being did Creation.

Intuitively we realize that the fact that there is something that exists at all (much less is self-aware) is, well, a miracle of one sort or another.

There are kinds of miracle. The ordinary, everyday miracles that gods and goddesses are about. The prayer that works. The impossible odds surmounted.

These god-caused miracles are ordinary even when they are as huge as the Creation of This Universe. They have a ho-hum explanation: God did it, end of story.

There is another class of miracles, though. These may be rare or common, I am not really sure. But it is not an empty class.

In the universe where the Creation of same is God-caused, then the higher class of miracle explains "whence God." In this universe the rule is that ex nihilo nihil fit is false. As this God first becomes self-aware, of what preexisting stuff does he become aware? No God can possibly explain His own origin.

In the universe without the Creation being God-caused, then the higher class of miracle explains "whence the Universe." In this universe the rule is that ex nihilo nihil fit is false. No universe can explain its own origin from within.

In that state of absolute nothingness without even space in which a thing could be, a change occurred. That is the One True Miracle.

elevator

Our positions are not similar because although you seem to recognize that there are different theories surrounding abiogenesis (something we actually agree on), you still choose the "God did it"-claim as the best explanation. I don't pick any of them. I simply assert that no current claim, theory or hypothesis can currently sufficiently explain abiogenesis, so I don't know where life came from. Why do I need to make a stand on the issue? Why do I need to assert that I believe a certain claim to be more true than any other claim when there clearly is no evidence to support it?

And if one were to objectively examine the scientific data, you will quickly realize that the scientific "dragon" is not entirely invisible. The Miller experiment, for example, which I briefly mentioned in my last post illustrated that a primeordial atmosphere (assumed to contain elements such as Water (H2O), Ammonia (CH4) and Hydrogen (H2)) can in the presence of atmospheric lightning form organic compounds such as amino acids, proteins, sugars and lipids which are the basic building blocks for life. Although not really proving anything, it certainly illustrates that these scientific theories are not simply, as you say, faith or belief.

elevator

Reading this post it seems as though we actually agree on a lot of things. Such as the current unknown state of the origin of life and the fact that scientific research is useful to, hopefully someday, explain these unknown areas of our existence. What we disagree on though is the preconception that God (preferably that of Abraham) is at the bottom of it all.

George S

The thing is that the general principle "as above so below" is blown out of the water in modern day physics.

We have General Relativity that works to remarkable precision at the scale of the large. And has this pesky singularity when projected back in time.

And then we have Quantum Mechanics that works to remarkable precision at the scale of the very small. And clearly fails at even our mid-sized body range, much less in the very large.

We may figure out, over time, just how things work in greater and greater detail. We may find a way to knit the math together and make it into a Theory of Everything. But even then, with all the explanations well in hand, doesn't the question of Being itself always remain?

It is a rather unimportant question, by the way. We aren't part of that era when it was important. Change happened and continues to happen.

Existence is founded on change. "All there is to Being is interactions among real, sensible things." -- Lee Smolin, String Physicist

With apologies to Dr. Smolin: All there is to Being Human is interactions among other Human Beings being human and other real, sensible things.

sschlichter

quick blurb from Duke Universities web-site.

There has been a recent wave of skepticism concerning Miller's experiment because it is now believed that the early earth's atmosphere did not contain predominantly reductant molecules. Another objection is that this experiment required a tremendous amount of energy. While it is believed lightning storms were extremely common on the primitive Earth, they were not continuous as the Miller/Urey experiment portrayed. Thus it has been argued that while amino acids and other organic compounds may have been formed, they would not have been formed in the amounts which this experiment produced.

even if not the case, amino acids is a long way off from useful to proving anything. Even if successful, it is evident that it has to be organized in order to produce life. This to me, makes you choose between incredibly fantastic chance and an organizer. I look around and I see an organizer. When Darwin showed up, the cell was assumed to be a blob. Now, we know it is more complex than anyone could have imagined. I have great a appreciation for Darwin, but I think he would be revising himself now.

George S

Of course he would.

The choices for the first cell are legion.

1. Extraterrestrial seeding.
2. RNA world.
3. (I like this one just for the biblical hint Clay evolved into one that acts as a catalyst for polymerization.
4. Intra-mineral origin. Cell-sized shapes naturally occur as certain minerals cool. The RNA could have started cooperating there.

There are more, of course. Hours could be spent researching abiogenesis.

Life is about cooperation among certain crystals of molecules (RNA, DNA) in a self-perpetuating anti-entropy loop. The existence of an enzyme that can, get this, convert triplets of sequences into chains of amino acids is amazing.



Aminoacyl_tRNA_synthetase

[eta: a better tRNA reference] http://www.biochem.ucl.ac.uk/bsm/xta...trna/trna.html

elevator

The website says they may not have formed in the same amounts. They still formed though. And of course you are right; and I admitted that in my first post, that the miller experiment doesn't prove anything. But it introduces a mechanism to ignite life and allow evolution to begin. My point is that there is no reason to assert a designer anymore than there is a reason to assert that the primordial soup theory is right. So why pretend that one is better than the other? Objectively though, the primordial soup theory at least has some physical experimentation and tangible data behind it.

I also want to stress that Darwin's theory had nothing to do with abiogenesis, and as such there would be no need for revision of the theory of evolution. Evolution has proven itself in a scientific context time and time again.

ohmi

Since even a virus cannot replicate without a cell , the smallest form that first life can take is a primitive cell.

So creation of life without God assumes that the whole set of enzymes and membranes necessary for nucleic acid replication and the nucleic acid capable of creating these same enzymes and getting them inside a membrane of a new cell , this vastly complex mechanism just happened by chance ? I do not think so ...

Making a few amino acids with electric discharge really ain't even remotely close to the necessary complexity of the self-replicating mechanism required for life.