Abiogenesis and a question for Christian creationists

[Ouroboros]

Dust. It is a minor thing, but there is a difference. And who says that that breath of G-d wouldn't change the composition? Surely, if we take it literally, one's breath would include other particles. There would be some moisture, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and whatever else G-d's breath is composed of. So yes, it would change the physical composition of the dust.

Which sounds like a lot of trouble for nothing. He commanded the plants, fish, birds, and land animals to come forth from the planet (nature), or actually, he commanded earth, sea, sky to produce (create for him) the species. So, there's all the material he needed already. We eat these things and our body uses those amino-acids, fatty acids, CH2Os, C, D, E, K, iron, magnesium, and so on, that we get from them. All the things God needed to build a human could be found in a cow or a pig. No need to create from dirt/dust unless there was a message to be sent. What would that message be?

 

[Ouroboros]

If "validity" is nothing more than two or three people agreeing on something....

Isn't it funny that this "agreement of numbers of people" only apply to the religious views and not to science in the creationists mind? There are far more, percentage wise, scientists agreeing on evolution (99%) than there are theologians agreeing on the historicity of Jesus (70% according to Habermas, if I remember correctly). So evolution should be more valid just by winning in statistics.

 

[McBell]

Isn't it funny that this "agreement of numbers of people" only apply to the religious views and not to science in the creationists mind? There are far more, percentage wise, scientists agreeing on evolution (99%) than there are theologians agreeing on the historicity of Jesus (70% according to Habermas, if I remember correctly). So evolution should be more valid just by winning in statistics.

Religion is a major breeding for double standards.
Though I want to be clear in that religion by no means holds a monopoly on double standards.

 

[Ouroboros]

Religion is a major breeding for double standards.
Though I want to be clear in that religion by no means holds a monopoly on double standards.

Of course not. It's very human in fact. We compartmentalize ideas and keep different standards for those compartments.

--edit

But we won't recognize those double standards unless someone mentioned them to us. That's the only way we'll even recognize and deal with them, and hopefully also get rid of them somehow.

 

[gnostic]

People who don't understand the differences between Evolution and Abiogenesis and continued to argue against evolution when they should be arguing against , no matter how many times people tried to teach them they are not the same, is not just due to ignorance, but sheer and willful stupidity and their natural insecurity that lead to lie.

 

[TG123456]

Science teaches us that life is composed at a basic level of amino acids, which are themselves not living. Amino acids are made up primarily of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. These are the most basics elements of life.

Christian creationism teaches us that humans are made from the dirt of the earth, which is primarily made up of silicon.

Silicon makes up less than 1 % of the human chemical makeup.

If creationism were true, wouldn't the most basic chemical found in humans be silicon? But instead, we find that humans are made up primarily of the main chemicals in amino acids: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen.

How do creationists reconcile this?

I don't believe the Bible to be 100% correct or infallible, although I am a Christian.

However, nowhere does the Bible say that human beings were all created from dirt. This was true of Adam, but nowhere is it stated this is true for everyone else.

The only way you can prove the Bible's claim about Adam to be wrong... or right... would be to find his body and see what it was made of. Unfortunately, in most likelihood, it no longer exists.

 

[TG123456]

One is based on logic, reason, observation, and testable data. The other is based on myth and metaphysical speculation. I'd much rather accept something that I can see and feel, over something that I cannot.

Can you see life or feel life evolving from non-living organisms? Let me know when you do, I'd love to see such a miracle happen also.

Chemistry and biology make much more sense than creationism, even when the specifics of an idea in chemistry and biology can't immediately be known.

If the idea has not been proven to be true and remains a theory, how can it make more sense than a religious theory?

Both cannot be true. Either the world was created by a deity in six days, according to it's own laws and powers, or it was evolved over millions of years, based on it's laws. These two are irreconcilable. Which is why I pointed out what I did in the OP; either man was created by a deity out of the dirt of the ground, in which we'd see ourselves made up more of silicon, or abiogenesis is correct, in which we'd see ourselves made up more of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. Creationism is based on a book of religion, abiogenesis is based on chemistry. One is observable and testable, the other isn't. Chemistry isn't based on belief and opinion; creationism is.

There are more than only these two possibilities.

It is possible also that God created humanity over a timespan of millions of years and made only one person from dirt from the ground, and others don't exist in that fashion.

And herein lies the fundamental difference. Either creationism is true, or what science tells us about abiogenesis is true. It cannot be both. I asked a simple question in the OP, and have yet to receive an actual answer, only avoidance and questions about why I'm asking in the first place. And this is the mentality and tactic of those who accept creationism. If one cannot answer the question, fine, but don't judge me for asking, or expect me to believe something when I have unanswered questions about the topic.

I don't judge you at all, but you provide only two possible scenarios, while there are many other theories.

I define creationism as the belief that God created the world. How He did so is not entirely known to us.

What makes you think abiogenesis is true?

 

[Ouroboros]

Can you see life or feel life evolving from non-living organisms? Let me know when you do, I'd love to see such a miracle happen also.

Every cell in our body.

The cells divide after "eating" enough dead, non-living matter like amino acids, lipids, CH2O, minerals, vitamins, ... Everything in a cell is by themselves dead. The only thing making them "alive" is the process of them all reacting and interacting in a big bio-chemical "dance".

Why do you think you need to eat food that contains nutrition? Is a heavy-seared dead-cow-meat patty alive and that's how you stay alive? You drink water, why? Is it because your body needs it to stay alive through all those bio-chemical processes in your body or is the water somehow alive?

Every second of your life, dead matter comes alive through these processes in your body and in other organisms. If we go down to the deepest level of "living" material, we end up with single strains of RNA virus. They don't have cells. Not even being a DNA. No process what-so-ever, until... it infects a "living" DNA, and the RNA code comes "alive". It's all around us.

And what's interesting is that there's some evidence suggesting that amino acids exist in space! Why would they be there if the world wasn't prepared to produce this kind of life? All points to a "creation" where life is abundant and do arise from the ashes.

 

[TG123456]

Every cell in our body.

The cells divide after "eating" enough dead, non-living matter like amino acids, lipids, CH2O, minerals, vitamins, ... Everything in a cell is by themselves dead. The only thing making them "alive" is the process of them all reacting and interacting in a big bio-chemical "dance".

All this is true, but we also know that these cells come from other pre-existing cells... also alive. Have you ever seen a cell be formed by non-living matter?

Why do you think you need to eat food that contains nutrition? Is a heavy-seared dead-cow-meat patty alive and that's how you stay alive? You drink water, why? Is it because your body needs it to stay alive through all those bio-chemical processes in your body or is the water somehow alive?

Great points, but I wouldn't be alive if my living mother did not give birth to me. My body needs water and food (formerly living matter) to stay alive, but neither a glass of tapwater or a barbecued cow can make me become alive.

Every second of your life, dead matter comes alive through these processes in your body and in other organisms. If we go down to the deepest level of "living" material, we end up with single strains of RNA virus. They don't have cells. Not even being a DNA. No process what-so-ever, until... it infects a "living" DNA, and the RNA code comes "alive". It's all around us.

I have to confess I don't have a lot of knowledge about this. Can you please send me some links so I can read and respond to you in a few days?

And what's interesting is that there's some evidence suggesting that amino acids exist in space! Why would they be there if the world wasn't prepared to produce this kind of life? All points to a "creation" where life is abundant and do arise from the ashes.

Can you please send some information on this so I can read? At this point I don't have enough knowledge to provide a response.

Many thanks.

 

[Ouroboros]

All this is true, but we also know that these cells come from other pre-existing cells... also alive. Have you ever seen a cell be formed by non-living matter?

But that's what it does. It forms new cells from non-living matter. It takes non-living matter and forms living matter. All living matter consist 100% of non-living matter. "Living" is only a signifier of the complex integration of a multitude of non-living matter that is processing non-living matter into "living" matter. That's all what it does. So yes, we can see non-living matter be processed into living matter.

Great points, but I wouldn't be alive if my living mother did not give birth to me. My body needs water and food (formerly living matter) to stay alive, but neither a glass of tapwater or a barbecued cow can make me become alive.

It's a different point to say, when and how was the first living matter made from non-living matter than to say that non-living matter cannot be changed into living matter at all. There's a difference to ask "where did the first star come from" and "the stars that we see form in the universe in telescopes, how are they formed?" The first question, more intricate to answer. The second is just stupid to ask since we see it.

I have to confess I don't have a lot of knowledge about this. Can you please send me some links so I can read and respond to you in a few days?

Kind'a hard since it's a compiled knowledge from taking a multitude of college classes (think thousands of pages of text books and hundreds of hours of study and listening to lectures). Do you want to spend hundreds of dollars to get the textbooks?

Besides, a few links here and there with some little information of this or that won't help you. If I have to explain to you, or someone else for that matter, how virus works, or bacteria, or the difference between eukaryotic or prokaryotic cells, then I think perhaps you should speak about "how" or "what" or come up with alternative answers.

Can you please send some information on this so I can read? At this point I don't have enough knowledge to provide a response.

Exactly. Yet you had no problem stating "If the idea has not been proven to be true and remains a theory, how can it make more sense than a religious theory?"

We have to start from the beginning with you. The very, very, ultimate beginning.

First, do you know the difference between what a scientific theory consist of versus the colloquial use of the word "theory"?

--edit

Just to still your mind about life-from-non-life, my example above that amino acids have been found in space, here are a few articles about it. Just for fun reading.
Amino acid detected in space - physicsworld.com
Found: first amino acid on a comet - space - 17 August 2009 - New Scientist
Deep Space Capable of Creating Linked Pairs of Amino Acids --Essential Building Blocks of Life
BBC News - Complex organic molecule found in interstellar space

And so on... But you could have found these link on your own. Google is your friend.

On top of that, there's been recent research showing how lipids can replicate, and that single cell organisms can evolve to multicellular (observed phenomenon), and there was something about how a natural occurring energy system (can't remember what exactly it was, have to look up) came about by itself. (Just give me a minute...)

...

Oh, found it.
Spark of life: Metabolism appears in lab without cells - life - 25 April 2014 - New Scientist

 

[gnostic]

I don't believe the Bible to be 100% correct or infallible, although I am a Christian.

However, nowhere does the Bible say that human beings were all created from dirt. This was true of Adam, but nowhere is it stated this is true for everyone else.

The only way you can prove the Bible's claim about Adam to be wrong... or right... would be to find his body and see what it was made of. Unfortunately, in most likelihood, it no longer exists.

The thing is that myths of humans being made out of the earth, predated centuries before the Genesis was ever written. Most likely the author(s) of Genesis have borrowed from the Mesopotamian sources:

1. The Eridu Genesis is a fragmented Sumerian poem about creation of humans and the Flood, with the Deluge hero being Ziusudra. The Eridu Genesis have been dated to the late 3rd millennium BCE, most likely during the 3rd dynasty of Ur. The story say that An, Enlil, Ea and Ninhursag were responsible for creating the black-headed people, hence the Sumerians, but the poem break off how they were created, but judging by the similarities between this story and the Epic of Atrahasis, the Eridu Genesis source is source for Atrahasis.
   
2. Another Sumerian poem - Enki and Ninhursag - was written around the same period as the Eridu Genesis. These deities created humans from clay.
   
3. The Song of Hoe, a story in which the Sumerian Enlil created humans with his hoe.
4. The Sumerian poem of Gilgames and the Netherworld, doesn't describe the creation of man, but it does speak of the gods dividing the heaven (sky) from earth (as do the Enki and Ninhursag narrative), and from the sea and dry land, similar to that in Genesis 1's 2nd day of creation.

Then there are Akkadian and Old (and Middle) Babylonian sources, whom use, copy or borrow from the older Sumerian sources.

1. The Epic of Atrahasis was Akkadian version of Sumerian creation and flood story, which i have alread mentioned above. Humans were made from clay and the blood of slain god (of intelligence), Ilawela.

The ancient Israelites may not have learn or heard from Mesopotamian stories, directly from the Sumerians, but they certainly did learn Akkadians and Babylonians in the Bronze Age 2nd millennium BCE, or from the Iron Age Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian sources of 1st millennium BCE.

The story of Gilgamesh and some of the Sumerian-Akkadian deities were so popular that they can be found in the west, such as in Bronze Age Hittite and Hurrian empires, in the city of Ugarit (north-west Syria), and even in Egypt, as well as some fragments of tablets, found in Megiddo, Israel.

Creation through which the god speak the word, like incantation, like Genesis 1:3, "Let there be light...", is not a uniquely, Hebrew religion/myth. In Memphis, Egypt, the supreme god Ptah used words to create the world. And the Heliopolian myths of Ra, Isis and Thoth, all used word of power, to create or to destroy. The word have powers, and they can used those words, to create something out of nothing.

And creating humans of earth, dust, soil or clay, is not unique in Genesis. But regardless where all these stories come from, they are still myths, with no scientific basis.

At least with Abiogenesis (not Evolution), we know that every gene, particularly the DNA, is made out of organic compound - the amino acid.


Sources:

All links to the Sumerian stories, come the website, The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), from the Oxford University.
I have other sources, books of Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian myths, at home:

Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps that Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation, Yale University Press, 1997

Andrew George, Epic of Gilgamesh, Penguin Classics, 1999.

Stephanie Dalley, Myths From Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, Oxford World's Classics, 1991 (revised edition 2000). (Translations to the myths of Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, and the Enuma Elish, can be found in this book.)​

Stories of that include some Mesopotamian deities can be found in the following collections of translations:

Simon B. Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, SBL (Society of Biblical Literature), 1997.

Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., Hittite Myths, SBL (Society of Biblical Literature), 2nd ed. 1998.​

 

[029b10]

Science teaches us that life is composed at a basic level of amino acids, which are themselves not living. Amino acids are made up primarily of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. These are the most basics elements of life.

Christian creationism teaches us that humans are made from the dirt of the earth, which is primarily made up of silicon.

Silicon makes up less than 1 % of the human chemical makeup.

If creationism were true, wouldn't the most basic chemical found in humans be silicon? But instead, we find that humans are made up primarily of the main chemicals in amino acids: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen.

How do creationists reconcile this?

Then saith he to Thomas, reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. John 20:27
One might consider it was reference to Genesis 2:22
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.Gen 2:22

My lie is based upon this premise, Before Genesis 1:1, the was the Eternal One from which the known and observe physical universe originated from. A eternal body of light.

And in such is the Progenitor Principle, which holds that all life forms of life originated and are perpetuated from a process involving a progenitor of two that this reflected over nature. And these pattern is reflected replicated over and over .

And from this body of light was produced a another body of light, and in such the analogy that a good tree can not produced corrupt fruit.

And from that new body of light, which is based upon the declaration that as the Father hath life in himself, he hath given the Son to hath life in himself.

And then the attacked occurred. It was so horrific that there are no words to describe but in the aftermath the the once Eternal Light had been divided into the Spirit and Word. or E=mc2 E or Energy or Eternal all refer to Light Perpetual; mc x c = mc2, in the scriptures being the two form of God, the Spirit of God and the Word of God.

E being removed by the seperation the universe expanse is the result of tiny particle of sin represented by m which occurs every thing the Waves of the Word the Rod of the Spirit would Light and bam you start getting these little light waves running the expanse, of course rumor has it that after 846,000 of them little truths, hard to believe but the theory holds that the days of man in the flesh, who is also a finite light with extension rights, only lives 120 years and there is only one documented record to validated in and several other principles that shouldn't be discounted even if assigned a low possibility of truth since everything is false in considered false just as a person is guilty under one holds to the principle that people are innocent until they are proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

That's how I reconcile the Bible,with principles the lie becomes visible and thus leads to the truth. Conscious light of the mortal kind so the dim bulbs get rejected before released into the world to come. Then you can see who the mortal might have a chance at life after flesh.

 

[Sapiens]

Then saith he to Thomas, reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. John 20:27
One might consider it was reference to Genesis 2:22
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.Gen 2:22

My lie is based upon this premise, Before Genesis 1:1, the was the Eternal One from which the known and observe physical universe originated from. A eternal body of light.

And in such is the Progenitor Principle, which holds that all life forms of life originated and are perpetuated from a process involving a progenitor of two that this reflected over nature. And these pattern is reflected replicated over and over .

And from this body of light was produced a another body of light, and in such the analogy that a good tree can not produced corrupt fruit.

And from that new body of light, which is based upon the declaration that as the Father hath life in himself, he hath given the Son to hath life in himself.

And then the attacked occurred. It was so horrific that there are no words to describe but in the aftermath the the once Eternal Light had been divided into the Spirit and Word. or E=mc2 E or Energy or Eternal all refer to Light Perpetual; mc x c = mc2, in the scriptures being the two form of God, the Spirit of God and the Word of God.

E being removed by the seperation the universe expanse is the result of tiny particle of sin represented by m which occurs every thing the Waves of the Word the Rod of the Spirit would Light and bam you start getting these little light waves running the expanse, of course rumor has it that after 846,000 of them little truths, hard to believe but the theory holds that the days of man in the flesh, who is also a finite light with extension rights, only lives 120 years and there is only one documented record to validated in and several other principles that shouldn't be discounted even if assigned a low possibility of truth since everything is false in considered false just as a person is guilty under one holds to the principle that people are innocent until they are proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

That's how I reconcile the Bible,with principles the lie becomes visible and thus leads to the truth. Conscious light of the mortal kind so the dim bulbs get rejected before released into the world to come. Then you can see who the mortal might have a chance at life after flesh.

Wow, your way of reconciliation takes you the long way around the island doesn't it?

 

[029b10]