Can science prove or disprove the existence of a Spiritual existence? God?

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Since your so-called "reproduction problem" starts with cells already in existence, this is hardly unreasonable.

Right, and on my view the cells are already in existence because an intelligent designer configured the living cells in such a way that they function as they do, so the reproduction "problem" is not really a problem if you have a entity with a intelligent mind constructing these things the way that they are and giving them the function that they do. But on your view, THERE IS NO INTELLIGENT DESIGNER OR MIND, the living cells configured themselves from nonliving material, then became living, and now all of a sudden the cells are able to function with all of this rich information, information that makes us who we are.

If you want to discuss abiogenesis and the emergence of the first cells, make that the topic of your query; as it was, you were prating about sexual reproduction.

First off, the title of the thread is "Can science prove or disprove the existence of a Spiritual existence"...and based on this title, all things of scientific nature and spiritual nature can be discussed, and that's exactly what we have been discussing, abiogenesis, biology, evolution, and cosmology.

To save time and space I just made passing reference to the emergence of anisogamy and heterogamy (some authorities regard theses as synonymous; I'm more old-fashioned). Evolution of anisogamy is outlined here; if you want a more rigorous treatment, try here.

I wasn't able to pull up the second link, but the first one is the wiki article on it and it still doesn't answer the question, and is in fact a small cover for a big problem. If you look up "Isogamy" on wikipedia, it states "....this form of reproduction independently evolved to anisogamous species with gametes of male and female types to oogamous species in which the female gamete is very much larger than the male and has no ability to move." Look at the words "independently evovled to anisogamous". The word "evolve" is kind of just thrown in there, as if we are to just read through it and pretend that we know that it actually occurred. Second, humans reproduction takes place under certain conditions, inside of the human body. In the wiki article on the right side, the illustration shows the different forms of anisogamy, which is the sperm cell and the egg cell. We only know of reproduction taking place inside of a living body, before there were any living bodies, there couldnt have been any reproduction. You cant just get a sperm cell and a egg, place one on top of the other, put it on the table and watch a baby form. This stuff happens within the body under certain conditions, conditions that were not met before any kind of bodies existed to make it happen. My point is, if you trace all of the living and breathing things on earth today, go back in time before they existed, how do you go from them not existing, to them existing?? Any you cant say the answer to this is reproduction, because that is the thing that has yet to be explained.

For brevity's sake, we'll stick to vertebrates. The most primitive land vertebrates, amphibians, lack both penis and vagina: fertilisation is usually external, both sexes releasing gametes into the water, as do most fish. Adaptation to terrestrial life drove the development of internal fertilisation, the two sexes initially pressing their common excretory / reproductive openings against each other to transfer sperms, as newts still do: later development of a penetrative organ by eversion of the cloacal wall to deliver sperms inside the female was strongly favoured by selection, and has happened independently several times in vertebrate groups. The mammalian penis is one such development. Your silly fantasy about males developing a penis while females still lacked somewhere to put it is a symptom of ignorance, no more.
Wince. The fact that you can even entertain that last question is another indication of the gulf we have to cross here. Plenty of organisms without a penis produce sperms. Mosses? Sea urchins? Jellyfish?
So, it's becoming clear, is the whole topic.

The whole "penis" thing is not an issue because regardless of whether certain living organisms have one or not, guess what, they have some kind of reproductive system that is compatible with the opposite sex, so the question remains, how is it that they are compatible based on a blind and unguided process? And is it not a coincidence that the animals that are compatible with one another just happen to be the animals that seek each other out to mate. You dont see cats trying to find dogs to mate, you dont see frogs trying to find turtles to mate, etc. Why is this?? Animals of the same kind only seek those of the same kind...where is the trial and error??

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

What is "living?" It's all the same at the level of molecules.

If you dont know the difference between living, and non-living, I cant help you.

 

[PolyHedral]

Don't ask me, ask the biologists.

 

[Heathen Hammer]

Oh, so you can explain how living things came from nonliving material?? I thought you did, judging by the fact that you are telling me how accurate it is, I would think you would be able to explain it...so go ahead...explain away.

People already have. I'll post it again.
Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beginning at 'Current Models', you'll get a few ideas, which I am sure you will immediately reject.

When we finally pass the Miller-Urey point, I wonder what some folks here will do?

 

[johnhanks]

[Compassionate snip]
The whole "penis" thing is not an issue because regardless of whether certain living organisms have one or not, guess what, they have some kind of reproductive system that is compatible with the opposite sex, so the question remains, how is it that they are compatible based on a blind and unguided process? And is it not a coincidence that the animals that are compatible with one another just happen to be the animals that seek each other out to mate. You dont see cats trying to find dogs to mate, you dont see frogs trying to find turtles to mate, etc. Why is this?? Animals of the same kind only seek those of the same kind...where is the trial and error??

I feel at present like an adult who's had a six-year-old ask him to explain how a TV works, has started to explain basic electronics, then had the kid interrupt and say "Don't bother me with all that guff, just tell me how the little people get inside. See, ya can't, canya?"
CotW, the brutal reality is that your understanding of basic biology is too poor for any meaningful debate of these issues. That's not an arrogant or elitist judgement, it's a plain observation; nor is it an insult - we are all of us ignorant on an infinite number of subjects. Most of us, though, understand that if we insist on starting arguments on topics we know nothing about, we can only end up looking foolish, and that's what's happening here. Before we go any further, do yourself a favour and learn some biology. There's a good on-line textbook here - give it a try.

 

[lunakilo]

Ok, so since you maintain that the heart doesn't have a purpose....explain to me what I call the "reproduction problem". How does the male reproductive system just happen to be compatible with the female reproductive system?? Since you believe in evolution, explain how the process is best explained by evolution. If the male evolved his reproductive system first, and it would take the female millions of years (on the evolutionary view) to become compatible with the males (or vice versa), how was there any reproduction at all?? I dont see how the answer is best explained by evolution, because on this view, every thing takes so long. So if it took that long, there couldn't have been any reproducing whatsoever. That is why on the biblical theistic view it is more plausible, that the Creator created one gender first, and the other gender a short time later. It is more reasonable to think that this process occurred at the same time, or around the same time. There is no basis for postulating this millions of years gap in between as the evolutionist would have us believe. So since you believe in evolution, could you explain this. And this is not just to be explained only for humans, but all other living organisms that reproduce with the opposite sex (land animals, aquatic animals, even insects).

That is a VERY silly question Call_of_the_Wild.

If a man mutated so that his reproductive system was not compatible with any felames then obviously he would not be able to reproduce, and the mutation would die with him.
Men and women are of the same species, and their reproductive systems evolved together as a result of interaction <giggles> with each other.

You seem to be under the impression that everything related to a human being came into being just as it is.
Not steps in between.
Somehow you seem to be projecting that belief onto evolution, so that you assume that evolution claims the male penis evolved from nothing to what it is today with no steps in between.
That is NOT what the theory of evolution claims.

 

[Heathen Hammer]

That's what SHE said!




I'm sorry, it was just there.

 

[lunakilo]

Planets that are within the "Habitable Zone" is irrelevant, the fact of the matter is, like I said, planet Earth is the only planet that we know of that is life permitting, that is the only point I was making. Not only that, but the conditions had to be just right (10:10:123), for human life to be permitable at all, which is why planet Earth is the only planet that we know of capable of supporting human life. That was my only point, so whatever point you was trying to make is quite irrelevant.

Actually the number 10:10:123 is the probability that a random universe will be able to support life (and I am still not convienced that calculation makes sense).
It has nothing to do with your claim that the Earth is the only planet to support life (yes, you said known to support life, but it is quite clear that you feel Earth IS the only planet with life)

The fact is that there is nothing unique about the Sun or the Earth.
The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog - Planetary Habitability Laboratory @ UPR Arecibo

You happen to exist BECAUSE the eath is located in the habitable zone of the Sun, Your existence is NOT the cause of the habitable zone.

 

[beerisit]

If you dont know the difference between living, and non-living, I cant help you.

And you know the difference? Wow, we got god here. Thank god. I was hoping you'd turn up. Can I just say that all of your earlier attempts to communicate with the animal man have been abject failures, I really hope now that you are here you can rectify that problem. Praise you.

 

[lunakilo]

Then you say in the last quote "there never was a stage when one sex's system had evolved and the other hadn't"....so you believe that this happened at the same time....which is absurd, on a blind, unguided process.

No, it is not absurd. It just doesn't fit with the way your vorld view.

Second, the brain controls the reproductive system, so what came first, the brain, or the reproductive system??? What came first, the penis, or the sperm? The question remains unanswered and why you think you are giving this "mighty" response to the question is beyond me.

Again you assume that things must have come into being seperatly. Penis and sperm go together, why would you think one evolved without the other?

 

[Kerr]

If you dont know the difference between living, and non-living, I cant help you.

Molecules dont live, so he is correct.

 

[lunakilo]

If you dont know the difference between living, and non-living, I cant help you.

Do you?
I would like to know what is the defining characteristics of life?

 

[beerisit]

Molecules dont live, so he is correct.

And you know this how?

 

[lunakilo]

Molecules dont live, so he is correct.

I think I am made of molecules, does that mean I am not alive?

 

[johnhanks]

If you dont know the difference between living, and non-living, I cant help you.

To maintain their position creationists must pretend that there is a sharp dividing line between what is alive and what is not. In reality, no such sharp line need exist.

In a nutshell, what we recognise as living things do two things that non-living systems do not - they reproduce themselves, and they metabolise (not necessarily in that order). Viruses do the first (technically they do not so much reproduce as replicate) but not the second, illustrating nicely that half-way positions are possible: as I said, the dividing line isn't sharp. Abiogenesis researchers examine both replication-led and metabolism-led options - either might have come first, or they might have developed contemporaneously.

Either way, creationists who point to a present-day bacterial cell and pretend that abiogenesis requires it to have come into existence in one hugely improbable step are carrying their habitual dishonesty a step further than usual.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

I feel at present like an adult who's had a six-year-old ask him to explain how a TV works, has started to explain basic electronics, then had the kid interrupt and say "Don't bother me with all that guff, just tell me how the little people get inside. See, ya can't, canya?"

So you are unable to answer the question, gotcha.

CotW, the brutal reality is that your understanding of basic biology is too poor for any meaningful debate of these issues. That's not an arrogant or elitist judgement, it's a plain observation; nor is it an insult - we are all of us ignorant on an infinite number of subjects.

This is not surprising, in fact it is very, very typical. Soon as a person that doesn't believe the nonsense that has being presented to him ask some very simple and legitimate questions, the person is accused of being ignorant..."oh you just dont understand biology".....or..."you just dont understand evolution". I am not speaking of things I dont understand, but of things that I do understand. And I do understand that humans, and all living and breathing things that I am aware of, sexual reproduction takes place within the body under certain conditions. Those certain conditions could not have been met if those things did not exist, so how was there any reproduction at all. Not to mention the fact that the other answer you "tried" to give assumed compatibility before the explanation of how they became compatible in the first place was answered.

Most of us, though, understand that if we insist on starting arguments on topics we know nothing about, we can only end up looking foolish, and that's what's happening here. Before we go any further, do yourself a favour and learn some biology. There's a good on-line textbook here - give it a try.

Sure, everyone on here has a degree in biology. How about just answering the questions that has been presented to you. If you know so much, why do you insist on providing links? Anyone can post a link, and posting a link doesn't mean that you have the knowledge on the subject, it just mean that you did a google search about the subject matter and posted it on here.....big deal.....answer the questions.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

That is a VERY silly question Call_of_the_Wild.

If a man mutated so that his reproductive system was not compatible with any felames then obviously he would not be able to reproduce, and the mutation would die with him.
Men and women are of the same species, and their reproductive systems evolved together as a result of interaction <giggles> with each other.

You seem to be under the impression that everything related to a human being came into being just as it is.
Not steps in between.
Somehow you seem to be projecting that belief onto evolution, so that you assume that evolution claims the male penis evolved from nothing to what it is today with no steps in between.
That is NOT what the theory of evolution claims.

How is it that the males reproductive system just happen to be compatible with the females??? Please answer this

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Do you?
I would like to know what is the defining characteristics of life?

Wow, is this what it has come to??? :sarcastic

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

People already have. I'll post it again.
Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beginning at 'Current Models', you'll get a few ideas, which I am sure you will immediately reject.

When we finally pass the Miller-Urey point, I wonder what some folks here will do?

Abiogenesis is a speculative field of study, they dont know anything, but they speculate everything....my question is....where is the evidence....if every thing was so cut and dry, they should be able to duplicate every thing that happened in an effort to explain how every thing got to where it is today. They should be able to duplicate the exact conditions of the early earth that made it life permitting, and watch every thing happen. Thats what happened millions of years ago, right? So if they know so much, why cant they do it.

 

[McBell]

Abiogenesis is a speculative field of study, they dont know anything, but they speculate everything....my question is....where is the evidence....if every thing was so cut and dry, they should be able to duplicate every thing that happened in an effort to explain how every thing got to where it is today. They should be able to duplicate the exact conditions of the early earth that made it life permitting, and watch every thing happen. Thats what happened millions of years ago, right? So if they know so much, why cant they do it.

:biglaugh:
How many people do you know who are millions of years old?