There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[It Aint Necessarily So]

it would be evidence that it takes an intelligent being to create life

No, it would be evidence that chemicals can passively organize themselves into living cells. Intelligence gathers the components to observe, but it does not cause them to do what chemicals do without intelligent oversight. There is good evidence that life arises spontaneously wherever condition necessary to support it exist. Those conditions include the necessary ingredients, a heat bath, deep time, and likely the absence of other life. Thermodynamics does the rest.

We don't have that kind of time in our labs, so we bring the components together and sit back and watch them blindly self-organize according to the laws of physics and chemistry. That is not an argument that abiogenesis requires intelligence, although intelligence likely requires prior abiogenesis (and subsequent evolution)

But it reintroduces the point that the faith-based thinker who asks for evidence as if it would convince him is misrepresenting himself. Where's your evidence for abiogenesis, he asks. Right here, he's told. Well that's not evidence for abiogenesis but for intelligent design, he then says. I'm pretty sure that if I had the power to recreate early earth and you and I watched life come into existence over how many millions of years that took with no active intervention, it wouldn't change your opinion that that never happened, because that opinion is not based in evidence and can't be budged by it.

Didn't you just say that life is meaningless? Didn't the book ask "What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?" My answer is that they can gain much. Now the book calls financial success, and the health, freedom, and leisure necessary to enjoy them, a gift. I agree. These are among the things that give life meaning. Add love, beauty, and freedom from shame and remorse, and that's a pretty meaningful and satisfying life.

Only because God gives the ability to enjoy those things.

Aren't you contradicting yourself now? You say life is meaningless without theism. I say that I find meaning there without it. Now you want to say that that is because of the god that I don't believe exists, that it rewards unbelievers. So how would a god belief add meaning to life?

You won't find the meaning of life in your holy book, nor by looking through the nihilistic lenses of a faith-based confirmation bias that shows you the empty world that you have accepted exists by faith.

I already have.

You just told me that life is meaningless without a god belief and presumably a belief that one will be included in an afterlife. That's where you say you find meaning - in a time and place you hope exists.

But rest assured, I don't believe you mean that. I believe you find meaning in life the same way I do. You call yourself wildswanderer, and based on what you said about your life, I'm imagining you as an outdoorsman. Such people generally find meaning in the activities of daily life and in their connection to nature. They may give lip service to God in these moments, but they are having the same experience as atheists doing the same things without a god belief. These are the things that actually give life the meaning it has, not hope, and you share in that.

 

[Sheldon]

What's that thing atheists always say? Oh yeah, " I'll believe in God when he reveals himself to me."

I have literally never said that, I have heard the odd atheist offer it as a benchmark for evidence, when pressed by theists, but it always struck me as a bit vague.

When I observe life coming from non life in nature with no interference from man then I'll believe it.

You already do, just substitute inexplicable magic for natural processes, oopsy.

As of now it sounds like fantasy land.

You might want to think about that for a minute, as it is another spectacular own goal.

Like something that happens in comic book.

Or an unevidenced archaic creation myth, using appeals to mystery and inexplicable magic.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Which means you are so dead set against God You wouldn't believe in him if he comes down and eats breakfast with you. Funny how you will accept what science says with less to no evidence...

I don't accept what science says. I have faith in it and accept that it could be Satan tricking me. But I have found no way of deciding if the world is from God or Satan. For you to know that, you would have to be God. Are you God?

 

[SkepticThinker]

...and all fictional characters. Not so, the Bible.
The Bible names real people, in real places, associated with real event... and archaeologist confirm it.
That's not fiction. That's fact.

Spiderman comics name real characters and real places as well. That doesn't make all of them real.
That people living at the time mentioned real people and places that existed at the time isn't very remarkable. And it doesn't make the extraordinary claims of the Bible true in the slightest, any more than mentioning New York City and Joe Biden in a Spiderman comic makes Spiderman a real person.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Last I read was an article from NASA which claimed they found the first molecule or something like that ever in the universe. My reaction is -- what??? No matter what chemical terms they used -- what??? they found the first molecule in the universe, or something like that. What?????

Sounds like you should have read the story beyond just the headline.

 

[Wildswanderer]

There is good evidence that life arises spontaneously wherever condition necessary to support it exist.

Then we should be able to observe it happening in nature.

 

[Polymath257]

If you can't see it happening now, it didn't happen.
But you have your faith...I have mine.

But we *know* the chemicals are in the right combinations *now*. We know they were NOT in the past. So, at some point, those chemicals went from not being in the right combinations to being in the right combinations.

And that is the point of abiogenesis.

Even *if* that was directed by an intelligence, it is *still* abiogenesis: the formation of something alive from things that were not alive. Nothing extra was added to make it alive; only the way it is put together.

Exactly what happened to bridge that gap is the question of abiogenesis. You seem to think that gap was bridged under the direction of a supernatural being. But, even if so, it was *still* abiogenesis.

I think this happened through natural processes given what existed on the early Earth.

but in either case, the question of precisely which molecules came together and in what way is the issue that needs to be addressed. And, even saying it was under some intelligent direction doesn't answer that question. Details are still required and those details can only come about by learning and understanding the relevant chemistry.

In other words, no matter what, we still have to do the same work of understanding how amino acids arose, how they linked together to form macromolecules, and how those macromolecules interacted to form life.
Simply saying it was intelligently directed doesn't answer anything about it.

 

[Wildswanderer]

I have literally never said that, I have heard the odd atheist offer it as a benchmark for evidence, when pressed by theists, but it always struck me as a bit vague.



You already do, just substitute inexplicable magic for natural processes, oopsy.



You might want to think about that for a minute, as it is another spectacular own goal.


Or an unevidenced archaic creation myth, using appeals to mystery and inexplicable magic.

I acknowledge that I believe in miracles. You claim they don't happen, but now are expecting me to believe in your version of a miracle. Funny how you are arguing against yourself.

 

[Wildswanderer]

But we *know* the chemicals are in the right combinations *now*. We know they were NOT in the past. So, at some point, those chemicals went from not being in the right combinations to being in the right combinations.

Or something else created life here. Something not from this planet.

 

[Polymath257]

Not if you steal from nature to do it .. That's like saying if I can assemble a bicycle that I made all the parts too.

That's called moving the goalposts.

The question of abiogenesis is figuring out how things went from the simple chemicals that existed on the Earth at first to having living things less than a billion years later.

So, we are given those simple chemicals (like water, ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane, etc). if you want to know where those molecules came from, that is a different topic.

 

[SkepticThinker]

We have known the essentials for day one...when we literally walked with God. Men have a tendency to forget however.

Literally walked with God?
Really? God has legs?

You avoided the point again. Why? Because you cut it out of my post when you responded. That's not an intellectually honest way to have a discussion.

 

[Polymath257]

I acknowledge that I believe in miracles. You claim they don't happen, but now are expecting me to believe in your version of a miracle. Funny how you are arguing against yourself.

No, we are arguing that natural laws allow for much more than some theists like to admit.

That isn't advocating miracles (violations of natural laws).

 

[SkepticThinker]

Or something else created life here. Something not from this planet.

Like aliens? Or universe-farting pixies? Or a universe-vomiting turtle?

 

[Wildswanderer]

No, we are arguing that natural laws allow for much more than some theists like to admit.

That isn't advocating miracles (violations of natural laws).

You just refuse to acknowledge what is obvious to everyone else. It's not happening with the natural laws we have now, so you are claiming something that isn't observable... something outside of what science can show evidence for.

 

[wellwisher]

Faith is the belief in things not seen. This is not only true in religion, but all secular innovation uses the same schema. This topic is saying if you come up with a new embryonic idea, that is not yet tangible, so others can see it, you need to forget about it.

Such a world will stop in its tracks, at a point on time. That point in time was built on the shoulders of past visionaries, but no new visionaries after that. This is common thinking for those who think now is the best of all times, and nothing new needs to be added, and all change need to be avoided, instead of embraced.

The faith of the believers, of all things not seen, both religious and secular, is the living spirit in the otherwise sterile world of temporal perfection. The resistant to the unseen future, is often less about maintaining temporal perfection and more about power and keeping the seat at the big table. If the horseless carriage was to success what becomes of the horse and buggy and all those who now live large?

The faithful in religion, sense the future that forms via the spirit; thought and imagination. It appears in material reality for all to see only after it can be transposed into material form. They set an example of faith, for others to see and follow, even if they are not religious. The living future, has many paths.

The religious and all faithful, they have a connection to time; future and timelessness, that give some the feelings God. People of all kinds and walks of life, get this extra feeling to compensate for the struggle, this gift of seeing, can create. This gift and the feeling of timelessness makes it hard to shake their faith.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Then we should be able to observe it happening in nature.

We do observe chemicals coming together and interacting in nature all the time.

 

[Polymath257]

Or something else created life here. Something not from this planet.

At which point, evidence that such a thing exists would be necessary.

We would then have three models:

1. The chemicals that we know existed on this planet underwent reactions of the sorts we see in our labs and gave rise to increasingly complicated molecules (like we see in our labs) that eventually formed the structures we see in life (which are all chemical in nature).

OR

2. The chemicals we know existed on this planet were directed to react in particular ways by an intelligence for which we have no other evidence. That direction lead to the chemicals forming structures that we see in life today.

OR

3. Something from off planet, for which there is no other evidence, came along and violated conservation of matter and energy by introducing materials that were not already on Earth to produce structures we see in life (which are chemical in nature).

You seem to be advocating the third model, which requires violations of known laws of nature. As such, it can be summarily dismissed.

I am pointing out that the first two both involve abiogenesis since they both go from known chemicals to those of life through natural processes, even if those processes are directed in the second case.

 

[Wildswanderer]

At which point, evidence that such a thing exists would be necessary.

We would then have three models:

1. The chemicals that we know existed on this planet underwent reactions of the sorts we see in our labs and gave rise to increasingly complicated molecules (like we see in our labs) that eventually formed the structures we see in life (which are all chemical in nature).

OR

2. The chemicals we know existed on this planet were directed to react in particular ways by an intelligence for which we have no other evidence. That direction lead to the chemicals forming structures that we see in life today.

OR

3. Something from off planet, for which there is no other evidence, came along and violated conservation of matter and energy by introducing materials that were not already on Earth to produce structures we see in life (which are chemical in nature).

You seem to be advocating the third model, which requires violations of known laws of nature. As such, it can be summarily dismissed.

I am pointing out that the first two both involve abiogenesis since they both go from known chemicals to those of life through natural processes, even if those processes are directed in the second case.

The chemicals didn't create themselves. And since it can't be replicated, the other options are not more feasible or scientific than God doing it.

 

[Wildswanderer]

So, we are given those simple chemicals (like water, ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane, etc). if you want to know where those molecules came from, that is a different topic.

Oh good grief... just admit you have no answer.

 

[Wildswanderer]

We do observe chemicals coming together and interacting in nature all the time.

And creating life?

 

[SkepticThinker]

And creating life?

I'm going to ignore the fact that you moved the goal posts here and say yes. You know what happens when a sperm and an egg come together, right?