Do you believe in spontaneous organic life from non living elements?

[Etritonakin]

Do you believe in spontaneous organic life from non living elements?

If you walk back the Evolutionary theories to their beginning at some point you have to deal with this question.

Even if that first life in the form of bacteria came from some other planet hitched to an an asteroid or meteor you still have to get to the point of answering the question of how did that organism form.

If you do believe in spontaneous life then please tell us how that happened and evidence for that theory.

If not then please tell us what other mechanism could have produced that first life or theory for how it happened.

This is my discussion so any theory including religious and philisophical will be allowed.

It depends what you mean by spontaneously.

A bunch of the elements simply thrown together will not produce life spontaneously.

The elements must be ordered somehow.
They do not actually order themselves into life forms -even though it may seem so.
An externally-driven process must order them into life forms, even though their properties define how they behave when ordered/arranged in various ways.
Only after they become ordered by external processes can processes be accomplished by them according to that order.
DNA can accomplish things spontaneously once ordered, for example, but the formation of DNA must be accomplished by an ordered process.

Some believe that ordered process is the Big Bang and that which followed -and that is possible if the Big Bang was of a nature to not only cause the formation of the elements, but also cause the elements to inevitably be arranged in an extremely specific order.
The order of the universe -which is quite similar everywhere -could possibly accomplish processes which will cause life in many places -which may then interact with various environments.

However, we know that even if such an order might be accomplished by a specific chain of events, that specific order can be reproduced by will -by causing a specific chain of events.
We have already begun to alter life forms by causing or altering the course of chains of events -and creating completely new life forms is quite possible.

Those who believe that God created all things -"formed the worlds", etc. -should be open to the idea of God being able to create by a chain of events (evolution) -though also being able to alter the chain of events at any point.

We KNOW that life forms CAN be initiated by will -as we have synthesized DNA -and COULD HAVE been initiated by a chain of cosmic events in a specific order -but we DO NOT KNOW that life on Earth or elsewhere WAS caused by ONLY a chain of cosmic events in a specific order. Even if it was, we do not KNOW whether or not that chain of of cosmic events in a specific order was set in motion by will.

 

[leibowde84]

Hello Leibowde84, hope you are doing ok!

What follows is an article I also sent to Sapiens. (The comment afterward is mine.)

DNA Genetic Coding Discovered to Be Even More Complex

http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/12/12/scientists-discover-double-meaning-in-genetic-code/

No wonder mutations affecting an organism's anatomy are harmful, resulting in detrimental side effects! Thank goodness they are rare.

And we are supposed to believe that all 1.5 million species that now exist, as well as the millions of extinct species, of both flora and fauna, are progeny from a single-celled organism that began self-replicating eons ago?

And some unknown, unintelligent pressure or mechanism, or combination, started causing this micro life to rewrite its incredibly complex genetic code, even creating more of its own codons, beneficially, to the point of diverging to the current multitude of varied life forms that exist, or ever existed? Millions, with 10,000 more species being found every year?!!

The complex nature of genetic coding simply does not lend itself to any credible explanation of this magnitude of variation among living organisms.



Common descent is not a possibility, and many scientists like Einstein, Behe, Sternberg, et.al., recognize that life with the systems and forces in place that help it flourish, can only originate from a Higher Intellect!

Yet, the vast majority of scientists and experts in the field today see evolution as being absolutely plausible and accurate. If all mutations were harmful, I would agree, but that is not the case. Mutations can certainly be beneficial as well, making it more likely for certain organisms to pass on their dna.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Yet, the vast majority of scientists and experts in the field today see evolution as being absolutely plausible and accurate. If all mutations were harmful, I would agree, but that is not the case. Mutations can certainly be beneficial as well, making it more likely for certain organisms to pass on their dna.

In 'passing on' DNA, slight changes do occur, maybe even to the point of forming other species. But these mutations have never been proven to change the existing body plans, certainly not 'adding' to one. DNA cannot add information to itself.... if anything, the evidence supports that DNA can lose information, but not gain it.

As Dr. Colin Patterson, evolutionist and senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, which houses 60 million fossils, stated:
"The explanation value of the evolutionary hypothesis of common origin is nil! Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, it seems to convey anti-knowledge. How could I work on evolution ten years and learn nothing from it? Most of you in this room will have to admit that in the last ten years we have seen the basis of evolution go from fact to faith! It does seem that the level of knowledge about evolution is remarkably shallow."

 

[Ouroboros]

In 'passing on' DNA, slight changes do occur, maybe even to the point of forming other species. But these mutations have never been proven to change the existing body plans, certainly not 'adding' to one. DNA cannot add information to itself.... if anything, the evidence supports that DNA can lose information, but not gain it.

Not true.
1. There are examples of mutations causing change in body plan. Lizards, fruits and vegetables, and more.
2. Also, corn is a perfect example of added information, and changed body plan. As well as 5 row, 7 row grains and more.

 

[idav]

Do you believe in spontaneous organic life from non living elements?

What we see is organic life coming about via non living elements and mechanisms. Spontaneously, sure if millions of years is spontaneous.

My question would be what point in evolution we can call chemistry an alive system. I think with the non living elements being so active I have a hard time considering them dead.

 

[Etritonakin]

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that everything is alive -that everything is one life form. We may be called individuals, but we are all just different personalities within the same life form.

I was just watching something about rock climbing -and started thinking about the "non-living" rock. Then -being a bit strange -I thought about my toenail.
Then I imagined those climbers as climbing up something like God's toenail -and wondering if there was a God.
My toenail is part of a life form -but it is not considered alive.
Then I thought about how no one part of me is alive.
Then I thought about how nothing is really separate from anything else.
Even if there were no "God", I don't believe something not alive could produce life.

"Life: the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death."

Plenty of that going on in the universe.

I should probably get some sleep -I'm thinking profoundly about toenails.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Do you believe in spontaneous organic life from non living elements?

If you walk back the Evolutionary theories to their beginning at some point you have to deal with this question.

Even if that first life in the form of bacteria came from some other planet hitched to an an asteroid or meteor you still have to get to the point of answering the question of how did that organism form.

If you do believe in spontaneous life then please tell us how that happened and evidence for that theory.

If not then please tell us what other mechanism could have produced that first life or theory for how it happened.

This is my discussion so any theory including religious and philisophical will be allowed.

I don't know if you've seen any of my posts about this topic on other threads, but I kinda have my own theory about this so here it is...

There is no such thing as "living" matter or "dead" matter, it is all just ordinary matter. One thing that all matter has in common is that it is all interactive in some way due to the Fundamental Forces. Even a rock interacts with it's environment in some way. Given enough time and the right conditions, matter can change form and go from a less interactive state to a more interactive state. That is what life is specifically...it is a highly interactive state. Living matter did not spontaneously emerge out of non-living matter, rather highly interactive forms emerged over time out of less interactive forms. Just because we have the ability to metabolize or reproduce does not mean that the matter which makes up our material bodies is "living matter". That is a bunch of baloney...matter is not alive, nor does it ever become alive. We are not truly living, we are interacting in a complex manner via the already present Fundamental Forces of nature....no initial "spark", or "God", or "Élan vital" needed.