Abiogenisis

[Valjean]

That is what I said. Science cannot see physical evidence. To be expected when science cannot detect spirit.

So if spirit be undetectable, is it reasonable to believe in it? Wouldn't that put it in the same epistemic category as leprechauns?

 

[Brian2]

We don't need a god hypothesis to account for matter, and science doesn't have any reason to address what you are calling spirit. Nothing need be added to the material ingredients of life for them to begin the process of metabolism, which is what life is - chemistry.

We haven't got a god hypothesis just faith in a God.

Science can address (empiricism) any evidence, including evidence of a god if any exists. It doesn't make sense to talk about evidence that is not evident. That's all evidence is and does - be evident.

I find evidence for God is evident. But I allow myself faith.

You only know that because of the way they were introduced. Put them in an ancient holy book and teach children about them from childhood like they're real, and they become indistinguishable from gods.

But they are not in an ancient holy book. God is in an ancient Holy Book and the Jews have had rituals and demonstrations of faith from the time the Law was given them till now and the stories that were passed down were stories of faith because they saw the miracles.

That's about as close as one can come to demonstrating that something doesn't exist. It's the same test used to say that leprechauns and vampires don't exist - lack of evidence.

But it is not impossible that God exists and that the stories passed down about Him are true. Meet those stories with faith and you find yourself believing in the God of the Bible.

So introducing a god into the mix is the cure for eliminating the magic?

A God explains life and consciousness without the need for magic in science.
It is only science that we are talking about here. Life is not science, science is not life. Science is a subject at school and it examines the material world and presumes no supernatural in it's work, but it does not speak for all reality.

Critical thinkers don't see that ability as an asset, but rather, something to avoid.

But you have faith in critical thinking. Is something produced by chance, something we can trust?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

We haven't got a god hypothesis just faith in a God.

You have a god hypothesis as I use the words, but also more, since you've gone beyond that to belief. You consider your hypothesis confirmed by that faith.

I find evidence for God is evident.

What is evidence for God to you, and how would it differ from evidence against God or evidence that doesn't speak to God? It seems to me that most people who point to something and call it evidence for God point to something that can be better or just as easily explainable naturalistically, which is not evidence for a God.

But they are not in an ancient holy book. God is in an ancient Holy Book and the Jews have had rituals and demonstrations of faith from the time the Law was given them till now and the stories that were passed down were stories of faith because they saw the miracles.

You seem to think that makes gods more likely. It only makes it such that more people are being taught and are consequently believing in gods than these mice, not that they are more real.

But it is not impossible that God exists and that the stories passed down about Him are true. Meet those stories with faith and you find yourself believing in the God of the Bible.

Isn't that also true for vampires and leprechauns?

A God explains life and consciousness without the need for magic in science.

There is no mechanism for gods but magic, and how does a conscious deity explain consciousness? How does it explain it to itself?

Science is a subject at school and it examines the material world and presumes no supernatural in it's work, but it does not speak for all reality.

I think it probably does speak for all reality, and that anything said to be beyond the ken of science doesn't exist. Be skeptical of the claim that something exists that is not even in principle detectable. That perfectly describes the nonexistent. That's true of every single thing that you know doesn't exist, including Superman, Sant, leprechauns and vampires.

But you have faith in critical thinking. Is something produced by chance, something we can trust?

Its efficacy is proven empirically. it works. It generates reliable inductions and deductions - ideas that more successfully anticipate outcomes than competing ideas. My trust in science is empirical. I don't use the word faith that way, even if others do. It's ambiguous and promotes equivocation fallacies.

 

[Valjean]

If science cannot discover a possible way that genes managed to become an information storage and using system, that could be a reason to say that the whole genetic system had to be designed to work and information needed to be installed initially.

1. Science does describe mechanisms by which genes became information storage systems, though all the details haven't been worked out.
2. Your conclusion looks like a false dichotomy.

I guess science does not say something like that because science is not designed to see that sort of stuff, only humans are, and especially humans who have faith in the existence of a creator God.

Not sure, but I think I see your point.
Yes, science cannot study the undetectable or unevidenced. But you're saying here that humans who already believe in a creator God are designed (?) to see a creator God designing and installing a genetic system.
Isn't this both unevidenced and circular?

Why would it be unlikely that the conclusion might be wrong because science cannot see or study spirits, which could be a prime ingredient for life?

Spirit by the process of elimination?

Nothing like spirits has ever been found, despite claims from time immemorial that they were responsible for all manner of unexplained phenomena. We keep finding entirely natural mechanisms.

It seems reasonable to expect this trend to continue. It seems reasonable to disbelieve, or at least withhold belief, in undetectable things.

 

[Valjean]

I understand that this God scenario has not been show to be wrong and I understand that this does not mean that it is correct.
I also understand that only people who reject God without verifiable evidence would even think that verifiable evidence is needed to believe in a God for whom there is no verifiable evidence.

Why would people need verifiable evidence to reject, or defer belief, in God?
No God is the epistemic default. No God is assumed. The burden of proof is on those claiming there is a God, not on the non-believers.

Why would you reject the Flying Spaghetti Monster or unicorns just because there is no evidence for them? Wouldn't you want verifiable evidence before believing?
See?

 

[Brian2]

Without evidence and implausible is grounds to reject an idea, especially supernatural ideas. Not only is there no evdience for a suvernatural, it isn't consistent with what the evidence shows us.

Implausible, why? People have experienced God in the past and now it is implausible that God exists. OK, that's an opinion.
Not without evidence, just without verifiable evidence. But as I said, that does not mean it is impossible. My faith tells me it not only is possible but is true.
The scientific evidence, what our physical senses tell us, is about the physical and not about the spiritual. It's a bit weird to want science to speak about the existence of the spiritual when it cannot know anything about it. Science is like a machine, no brain, no humanity, no consciousness. It comes to a problem and looks for a naturalistic answer and if it does not find one it keeps looking ad infinitum.
Humans can see beyond science and know there are other possibilities outside of the scientific sphere.

Which ius why it is irrelevant in a debate. We don't care what a person tells themselves is true, we care what the evidence informs us about.

It's relevant in a debate about faith and God and science. You might want to make up your own rules and keep faith out of the debate but faith is real and evidence that inspires that faith is real.

What are you talking about? Gods aren't known to exist. You might as well bring up unicorns. Are they relevant to anything? No. Stick to facts.

Here you go wanting to make the rules about what can and cannot be spoken about.
God is real, a fact, in the lives of people now and in the past and faith in God is real also, and evidence for God.

Gods are irrelevant.

Yes in science that cannot study or see or test spiritual things, Gods are irrelevant.

There is no evidence of a supernatural. Just follow evidence. And I suggest to theists that they examine their own motives. You seem hellbent on trying to find a gap to stick your God into, and get agreement from we critical thinkers. But we understand your mind tricks better than you do. You are fooled, we are not.

Yes I know it looks that way to you.

Another self-deceptive word game here. You aren't using evidence or reason, you are inventing an unlikely future event that would soothe your anxiety that natuyre caused the rise of life. This isn't an argument based in evidence, this is a desperate denial of what science has shown to be true.

Are you saying that science has shown that life and consciousness are chemical based?
That shows self deception imo, but I guess you don't see that.

Another deseperate attempt to define science in a way that aims to give your religious assumvtions some hope. Why not adjust your own beliefs instead of adjusting results in science? Do you really need your illusions that badly? Are you even aware of your motives of thiuking this way?

If science shows that abiogenesis is true then I can accept it as a Bible believer and it would teach me more about the Bible. So no I don't need abiogenesis to not be true. But I think I can see if it has been shown to be true or not and that I can't say much to convince someone if they think that science has already shown us that abiogenesis is true when even science tells us that it has not done this.

See, another example of having to hold onto beliefs that are not valid. Evolution is so well established in studies that it is considered a fact. Yet many of your fellow believers reject this science so they can interpret the Bible in a way that is contrary to facts and knowledge. We can't exvect believers to be rational and adjust their beliefs to what science reveals. Even you are resisting as I have pointed out. This is the toxic relationship Christianity has with many people.

If the Bible can cope with abiogenesis then it can,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, what can I say. Let me know what abiogenesis is shown to be true.

Science does an excellent job of being ethical and objective. It doesn't need theists to chime in when we see theists unable to accept facts and evidence when it challenges their religious beliefs. Believers need to get their own act together, and adjust their beliefs to fit reality. There's a reason Christianity is dying among liberals and moderates, and it is all the dubious concepts they hold.

Jesus pondered whether there would be faith on earth by the time He returned. He knew the deceptions that were on their way and the attacks on the truth of the Bible.

Here we go again with a mischaracterization of science. Why? To make science seem as if it is religious. Magic? No science claims that. You are a theist is, and doing so for self-serving reasons. This is bad faith in debate. Why don't you slow down and think through what you think and believe?

Looking at the idea of inanimate, unconscious matter becoming conscious one day sounds like magic to me. But not to you. It is only magic to you if a living, conscious creator put life and consciousness into dead matter.
God is what is magic because God is spirit and science cannot see or test spirit, so God does not exist except in our fairytale child imaginings and rocks can become conscious. (oops a mischaracterization of science)

Look at your own behavior in your response. Look at the bad faith, the attempts at deception, the false claims, the false assertions, etc. How can you be critical of atheists when we have to constantly correct you believers and all your unforced errors of thinking? You have the opportunity to learn and hone your reasoning skills, but you are more interested in trying to deceive, both yourselves and others. Many believers are so absorbed in their beliefs that they can't consider the possibility they are mistaken.

Mistaken? Me?
It would be better if you pointed out what I am saying that you think is inaccurate and why. But you don't have to. I seldom debate in a proper debating style.

And here you go again. You have awareness that your religious beliefs lack evidence, but you want some credibility so pretend that you and atheists are on equal footing. You elevate your position and deflate the atheist position, which is not true or honest. Your dilemma is that atheists follow evidence and use critical thinking, and theists lack evidence and rely on learned beliefs and tricky, deceptive thinking. You don't seem willing to admit that.

It is tricky thinking to be able to dismiss evidence for God because science cannot see or study spirits. So you say God does not exist because God has no evidence.
You have thrown away faith and trust in God because you want the wisdom the world can give and the world cannot see God.
1Cor 1:21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,…

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Did the Miller Urey experiment produce life?
Yes or no!

Wasn't it already explained to you how that experiment's goal was not to create life?

Why do you repeat falsehoods?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Abiogenesis.

If it can be proven with evidence, show it..

Or admit it isn't proven

Nothing can be proven with evidence.
Not abiogenesis, not evolution, not gravity, not anything.

Its that simple! Maybe's, could be's, etc need to step on.

Clearly, science is not for you.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

"but we haven't figured it out yet"

That's my point. To claim otherwise isn't science.

Nobody is claiming otherwise, aside from creationists.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You lose again. That's five tonight.

@Subduction Zone is only losing at pigeon chess.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that he's fine with that.
You can fly away claiming victory, pretending you accomplished something.

 

[nPeace]

Notice that the article asks what Truth is, but never answers it. Just like faith the word truth has numerous definitions. What the author means by his usage is philosophy and theology, both are subjective truth, not objective truth. Because this usage of truth is subjective, and non-factual, it is irrelevant to science. This article was written to confuse believers like yourself, and tyo bolster a prejudice against science. The author might be a scientists but I suspect he is a fervent believer. My uncle was a chemist and also a creationist. He was able to do research because he learned the science, but he had confused beliefs about reality. Michael Behe is a biologist and a creationist, and he has lost jobs due to his religious beliefs. These fringe scintists are irrelevant in the big picture. But they are a sort of laughing stock among critical thinkers.

So you say you are interested in truth? Your posts back you up. You are interested in your religious truth that is not objective or factual, and in many ways contradicts facts and science. So to say you are interested in truth is ironic, because you are actually interested in your belief, not having an understanding about what is true about reality. Your bullet points above betray your true intent, and it isn't knowledge.

Rather than attack the poster, and make unsupported claims, why not provide some sort of credible information against the article.
Just saying whatever, on a public forum, is easy. No one here just takes your words as credible truths.

I have a lot of obsolete science books and it is fun to see what they report of science back in the 50's or 60's. Science is the best source of knowing what is true about the universe, and it gets more accurate and vrecise over time. It's not like a Quran and goes unchanged for centuries (I would have said the Bible but it has suffered through edits and additions over the last 2000 years). Oddly your religion has changed and transformed as well, so your "truth" is not as stable as your believe. It has changed a great deal over the many centuries, in cluding buring people alive for witchcraft, so be careful.

More words from you. So many books, and nothing credible, that we can read here. That's telling.

More irony. You are in a religious box that you wont question. The science literate understand science gets more accurate over time as it gathers more facts, data, and better instruments. That requires an open mind. You don't even accept evolution, so what sort of closed mind does that require? A religious one.


You work harder to justify your religious beleif than you do to understand science.

More baseless empty words. That's all you got. Okay.

 

[nPeace]

A straw man, nPeace?

No! The point is, it "probably happened" because it DID happen, life appeared on a lifeless planet. We both seem to agree on that.

Life from lifelessness is abiogenesis, by definition. Both the religious and the scientific believe in abiogenesis, the only question is mechanism.

Science is exploring a promising mechanism. Religion is not.
Religion claims God did it, but God is not a mechanism, it's an agent. Religion is trying to compare apples and oranges.

Only science is researching mechanism. Religion is researching... nothing.

Creationists attempt to bolster creationism's a priori beliefs by undermining science and the scientific method; attacking science's methodology, premises, minutiae of research findings, and character. It offers no objective evidence in support of its own claims of God and magic.

The religious have difficulty in recognizing that science is fundamentally different from religious faith. They seem to see it as a competing, faith-based religion.

And here is an example of religion's attempt to undermine science by mischaracterizing the claims, reasoning and assumptions of science. nPeace has here constructed another straw man.

Actually, science has explanations by scientist, which are subject to change at any time, and are uncertain - likely very wrong, and cannot be verifiably proven.
Go ask any scientist, if you object.
So you do have faith.

 

[nPeace]

Scientists test "guesses." They use a rigorous methodology to rule out any other possibilities.
Science is not guesswork.
Various people have haphazardly applied certain mechanisms of the scientific method for several thousand years, but as an organized methodology, science is a new thing.

I'm not sure what you mean by "only path to truth." Truth about what? value? purpose? -- or ontological truth about the nature of reality and how the world works?

Questions about how the world works are outside the domain of religion. Religion doesn't have the tools to investigate them. In fact, it has no interest I can see in investigating them at all.

So why does religion keep trespassing into science's area of expertise, with alternative claims of how things work, supported by no objective or empirical evidence?

"How the world work"... does that apply to the physical things, and not the mental, emotional, or spiritual?
For example, learning why people desire peace but cannot seem to achieve it, has nothing to do with how the world works?

 

[nPeace]

I agree. Science explores questions of objective reality, like how the world works. On questions of value, purpose, meaning, &c, it's out of its depth. It avoids these areas.

Religion, likewise, should avoid science's domain of objective reality and testable facts. It doesn't have the tools to navigate these.
What box? Science stays in its box, for the most part. It's religion that does not.
Again, I quite agree.
Science does not attempt to squeeze religion into its box. Religion, on the other hand, is always trying to fit objective, scientific facts into its own.
Ok... and this is science's proper domain, isn't it? It's the domain you imply religion should stay out of.
So what's your point? Are you disagreeing with this?

Why do you speak of personal beliefs and people as though it is science?
Science is a study. It is not a person. Science does nothing, nor thinks nothing. Scientists do.

I said nothing about science squeezing anything into a box. You do that. Science does nothing.

 

[nPeace]

No. It works fine with no direction at all, just through the mundane, physical mechanisms it describes.
There is neither evidence for, nor need of, any intentional or planned direction.

Q:
A. Life a natural, emergent property of chemical interaction.
B. Life requires some undetected, insubstantial, amorphous, essential "fluid" or "spirit" to exist.

Natural selection is unguided then.

unguided - not guided in a particular path or direction
chance - the occurrence of events in the absence of any obvious intention or cause


Do you see a problem with your arguement?

 

[nPeace]

So what is truth? Does it even exist? How are we to discern it?
Scientific models and theories are the best evidenced facts or interpretations available at a given time. They're the epistemic gold standard.
Ideally they're observable, reproducible, productive, tested and peer reviewed.

Science investigates. It makes new observations and discovers new facts, details and relationships.
When new facts are discovered, they're added to our corpus of knowledge. These changes add to our knowledge. They increase the accuracy of our knowledge. Why do you see this as problematic?

In science, people are encouraged independently to repeat reported observations and criticize interpretations That's how science works. It's how it eliminates bias and uncertainty.
Another part of the process is testing. Scientists are encouraged to find flaws in and try to disprove the reports and experiments of other scientists.
This, again, increases reliability, yet you find it suspicious.

Is there anything you would trust; anything you'd find credible?
You should abandon your interest in truth. By your metric it's unknowable.
And what does death have to do with this?
How are you defining proven? It clearly has no relationship with the common understanding of the term.

How do you discern and test this truth, if you reject evidence as a metric? Is it whatever is emotionally satisfying or familiar? Don't people everywhere do this, and come to wildly different conclusions?
That doesn't sound like a very reliable metric.
What does truth have to do with happiness or benefits? Are we talking about psychotherapy, or ontological fact?

Continued...

If you read what I wrote there, and can say I reject evidence, either something is wrong with your understanding, or your bias is showing.

 

[F1fan]

Implausible, why? People have experienced God in the past and now it is implausible that God exists. OK, that's an opinion.

Why do you believe people actually had experiences with Gods versus are embellishing?

It is implausible that any of the many claims about gods are true because many of these claims are contrary to fact and knowledge. The extraordinatry claims themselves have no extraordinary evidence, so they can be dismissed by default. Creationists are certainly wrong in what they claim and thse debates exopse their errors of belief. There ate no known gods existing, and there is no valid evidence that any gods exist. Believers like yourself adopted beliefs, you didn't have a unique exverience with a burning bush. Believers who claim to experience a God explain circumstances that suggest they took learned beliefs and manufactured experiences in their minds.

Not without evidence, just without verifiable evidence. But as I said, that does not mean it is impossible. My faith tells me it not only is possible but is true.

Bad evidence leads to bad beliefs. Verifiable evidence is the only acceptable kind. Believers are very motivated to find some validation for the ideas they are exposed to and they play mind tricks on themselves. And sort of cultural believe requires an individual willing to fit in to a social norm, and they will adopt whatever is most prevalent. Believers are not going to process this as evidence AGAINST adopting religious ideas, they will ignore it.

The scientific evidence, what our physical senses tell us, is about the physical and not about the spiritual.

This is a typical excuse used by believers. What exactly is "spiritual"? From what believers explain it is synonymous with imaginary. A guy like Scott Roeder kills an abortion doctor and his defense in court is that God told him to. That is "spiritual" evidence. If one of your loved ones was murdered and the killer said it was God's command, would you accept it?

It's a bit weird to want science to speak about the existence of the spiritual when it cannot know anything about it. Science is like a machine, no brain, no humanity, no consciousness. It comes to a problem and looks for a naturalistic answer and if it does not find one it keeps looking ad infinitum.

Yet religions can't offer any evidence that is verifiable for their claims. Science has studied religion and it makes obsevaions about this human behavior and has many explanations why humans believe in these non-rational concepts.

Humans can see beyond science and know there are other possibilities outside of the scientific sphere.

Critical thinkers are by far the best at doing this. Believers belief in ideas that have no factual basis, and not even plausible. The question science asks is: what are otherwise smart and rational humans believing in non-rational concepts?

Believers are not reliable to answer this because they have ulterior motives and identity to defend from scrutiny.

It's relevant in a debate about faith and God and science. You might want to make up your own rules and keep faith out of the debate but faith is real and evidence that inspires that faith is real.

The only side that wants their own rules is theists. Look how you want to ignore objective facts and claim evidence in a "spiritual" side. It's irrelevant because skeptics understand "spiritual" as synonymous with imaginary and non-existant, and the religious think there is some there there. They just can't show any evidence of it. These believers act as if they have some special powers, but it's clearly just them making things up.

Here you go wanting to make the rules about what can and cannot be spoken about.
God is real, a fact, in the lives of people now and in the past and faith in God is real also, and evidence for God.

Sorry, this is absurd. Look who is making the rules, you are claiming that God is real. OK, demonstrate this fact. If you can't, then you are being deliberately dishonest. That is on you.

I will admit that believers assume and think God is real, and that is a different claim, and you didn't make it. Imaginary friends are real in the minds of children. Santa is real to children who get gifts from Santa. When you get money for a tooth under your pillow, the Tooth Fairy is real to those children. They are eperiencing the effects of these imaginary characters just as believers do. It's the most likely explanation. If theists all over the world had the same exverience of a God, and had remarkable moral standing, that would suggest an actual influence. But we don;t see that. We see theists believe in thousands of different gods. We see believers murder people in the name of God. We see frauds, liars and cheaters doing God's work, so we can't ignore these data points.

No doubt you adopted a set of religious concepts and you have decided they are meaningful and true. Great, knock yourself out. Live your life. It isn't evidence of anything except that you have conformed to social norms and now are an agent for those ideas. Your belief is consistent with Hindus, Muslims, Shinto, or any of the many rituals perfomed by tribes in Africa.

Yes in science that cannot study or see or test spiritual things, Gods are irrelevant.

Science can study why children like Mickey Mouse, but can't examine the nature of an existing Mickey Mouse. If believers think their version of God exists, but there is no evidence, how did these ordinary mortals end up believing? It wasn't through facts and reason, it was something else.

Are you saying that science has shown that life and consciousness are chemical based?
That shows self deception imo, but I guess you don't see that.

Science has the most credible explanations, based on facts and objectivity.

If science shows that abiogenesis is true then I can accept it as a Bible believer and it would teach me more about the Bible. So no I don't need abiogenesis to not be true. But I think I can see if it has been shown to be true or not and that I can't say much to convince someone if they think that science has already shown us that abiogenesis is true when even science tells us that it has not done this.

Why do you believers even care? What makes abiogenesis so threatening to your religious identity?

If the Bible can cope with abiogenesis then it can,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, what can I say. Let me know what abiogenesis is shown to be true.

I doubt this. You theists are close to panic over this factual hypothesis. Christians have been in a panic since Galileo showed that Aristotle's model (that the Catholic Church adopted) was wrong. Christianity and it's beliefs about the universe have been torn apart by science ever since. Creationists used to be adamant about a 6000 year old earth, according to the Ussher timeline. Then they realized that didn't work and they pushed oit out to 10,000 years. But what was the point? The only reason to say a young earth was to fit Ussher. Now creationists are accepting an old earth, but denying that humans evolved. It's a catastrophe. And you're going to claim believers know something that atheists don't?

Jesus pondered whether there would be faith on earth by the time He returned. He knew the deceptions that were on their way and the attacks on the truth of the Bible.

Jesus was a character in a book. I don't assume any of it is true at face value. Even you Christians don't agree on any of it, so you aren't dealing with even "spiritual" evidence, just your particular interpretation that differs from other Christians. What truth? You Christians get together and figure it out. Get back to us.

Looking at the idea of inanimate, unconscious matter becoming conscious one day sounds like magic to me. But not to you. It is only magic to you if a living, conscious creator put life and consciousness into dead matter.

Then you are ignorant of the science, I'm not. That explains your confusion and why I understand. You have a motive to remain ignorant of the science to protect your Christian beliefs and identity. Critial thinkers don't.

God is what is magic because God is spirit and science cannot see or test spirit, so God does not exist except in our fairytale child imaginings and rocks can become conscious. (oops a mischaracterization of science)

God isn't known to exist outside of human imagination. We see how your assumption of a God existing distorts your thinking. It corrupts any chance you have to understand science.

Mistaken? Me?
It would be better if you pointed out what I am saying that you think is inaccurate and why. But you don't have to. I seldom debate in a proper debating style.

Look at the deflection and denial. My posts are full of pointing out your errors of belief.

It is tricky thinking to be able to dismiss evidence for God because science cannot see or study spirits. So you say God does not exist because God has no evidence.

There is no evidence of any of the many thousands of gods. If there was you would present it. Your posts dance around claiming evidence yet offers none. THAT is evidence that you lack evidence for any god.

You have thrown away faith and trust in God because you want the wisdom the world can give and the world cannot see God.

This is an invalid accusation. You offer no evidence that your faith is reliable. You offer no evidence that a God exists that humans really invest trust into. Your posts reveal that you deny science and refuse to learn crucial facts about nature. This assertion indicates how ego acts to defend itself, and does so subconsciously as a reaction to fear. You then cite some text from the Bible as if that was authoritative. It isn't. Are you even aware of what you did here?

It's interesting how believers claim all sorts of wisdom and special knowledge but then act in ways that reveals they lack self-awareness, and feel great fear of some threat.

 

[F1fan]

Natural selection is unguided then.

unguided - not guided in a particular path or direction
chance - the occurrence of events in the absence of any obvious intention or cause


Do you see a problem with your arguement?

Rivers are not guided, but they follow the path of least resistance. Natural selection is a similar phenomenon in that it follows a path of natural biological success.

The only problem is how certain believers hold assumptions that distort and corrupt any understanding of science.

 

[nPeace]

Rivers are not guided, but they follow the path of least resistance. Natural selection is a similar phenomenon in that it follows a path of natural biological success.

The only problem is how certain believers hold assumptions that distort and corrupt any understanding of science.

Well if that is so, why are you guys so reluctant to admit that evolutionary processes are by chance, like the paths of rivers?
It's not us believers that have the problem, evidently.
We say chance. You go... "Uh UH." Then you go, "uh huh."

 

[Valjean]

We haven't got a god hypothesis just faith in a God.

Faith is unjustified belief, belief despite scanty or no objective evidence.

I find evidence for God is evident. But I allow myself faith.

I keep hearing people say that, but when they do produce evidence, it's not actual, objectiveevidence, or it's some long-debunked theological argument.

But they are not in an ancient holy book. God is in an ancient Holy Book and the Jews have had rituals and demonstrations of faith from the time the Law was given them till now and the stories that were passed down were stories of faith because they saw the miracles.

What does the age of the book have to do with it? I could argue that the more ancient, the more far removed and apocryphal the witness accounts are, the more opportunity for editing and miscopying, &c.
Would anyone believe the miracles if someone reported them today? Why are second person, endlessly retold stories by unknown authors more believable than a first-hand account today?

But it is not impossible that God exists and that the stories passed down about Him are true.

It's not impossible that Beowulf or the FSM exists, and the stories passed down about them are true.

Meet Meet those stories with faith and you find yourself believing in the God of the Bible.

Meet any tale with faith and you'll find yourself believing in whatever source you found him in. Faith without empirical evidence is not reliable or authoritative.

A God explains life and consciousness without the need for magic in science.

A God explains nothing. God isn't a mechanism. It's 'Goddidit' that relies on magic, since no actual evidence is ever adduced.
Science, on the other hand, is entirely reliant on objective evidence. Magic is anathema to science.

It is only science that we are talking about here. Life is not science, science is not life. Science is a subject at school and it examines the material world and presumes no supernatural in it's work, but it does not speak for all reality.

Science explains life. It speaks for that for which there is evidence. It cannot speak to the undetectable, as religion does.
It's religion that reports effect without mechanism, ie: magic.

But you have faith in critical thinking. Is something produced by chance, something we can trust?

At some point we have to accept, trust or have faith in some axioms -- in mathematics, for example. They work, they're productive, and they stand up to testing.
Critical thinking and logic is sound epistemic methodology. It, too, works, is productive, and stands up testing (challenges).

"Produced by chance?"
Lots of things are chance functions, potentialities, random, indeterminate, or unpredictable. It gets complicated: Chance versus Randomness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
What did you have in mind? Did you have a question about something specific?