Life From Dirt?

[Valjean]

I have evidence for my beliefs and use reason to justify them. They are rational beliefs.

Your evidence is subjective, so useful only to yourself, and I don't see how your beliefs are reasonable if they're unevidenced or logically invalid. Please explain.

We (and that includes you ) get to the end of where evidence can take us and we decide whether the evidence is enough for us or not. It's called belief, or in your case, lack of belief, I hear.

Yes, I understand. Where evidence ends, so does reason, and "evidence for us," ie: feelings, intuition, &c, is epistemically and discursively useless. Your belief is unsupported by reason or evidence. Our lack of belief is the logical default.

So my belief in God is as reasonable or rational as your lack of belief in God,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and I would call it more rational.

It is not. How is it rational? Please show your work.

Matter of opinion about the evidence I guess.

No, it follows algebraically. Boolean Algebra Calculator - Boolean expression calculator

It is good that this happens, but,,,,,,,,,,,,,, so?
Sounds like subjective evidence for something.

So no God is necessary, it can happen automatically, by ordinary chemistry.

 

[Valjean]

Well true, but people have been in that place and become theists

Yes, people are not naturally logical, or even rational. They like quick, simple answers.
Heuristics was the go-to decision-making process selected for during our evolution.

Chemistry is a path that has to be taken but seems to fall short of explaining it all imo. But if chemistry is the only possibility for you then chemistry is what it has to be and science will find the way. But the actual way it seems is not important, as long as it is a possibility, that is enough to hold on to and even use in debates.

All of science is a work in process. What's not known today may be understood tomorrow. What's known today was unknown yesterday. When I was born DNA was not understood, and plate techtonics was fantasy.

The controversy is mechanism, the details are not the issue.
So yes, chemistry doesnot explain it all -- yet, but it is the only known, reasonable or proposed mechanism that would account for life. God/Magic is a special pleading and extraordinary claim, and explains nothing.

 

[YoursTrue]

For me, BS. Buddha's check extends to all scriptures, even the Hindu ones.

We have different viewpoints. So long for now.

 

[YoursTrue]

Well true, but people have been in that place and become theists.



Chemistry is a path that has to be taken but seems to fall short of explaining it all imo. But if chemistry is the only possibility for you then chemistry is what it has to be and science will find the way. But the actual way it seems is not important, as long as it is a possibility, that is enough to hold on to and even use in debates.

That is what I'm learning from my research into what terms mean, including scientific conjecture from what they think is from the beginning of life onward. Such as dna and genomes. While there are obviously structures called chromosomes and ribosomes, figuring how these things came about seems to be in the realm of fantastic possibilities.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't know what conditions are needed.

Then your

Well true, but people have been in that place and become theists.



Chemistry is a path that has to be taken but seems to fall short of explaining it all imo. But if chemistry is the only possibility for you then chemistry is what it has to be and science will find the way. But the actual way it seems is not important, as long as it is a possibility, that is enough to hold on to and even use in debates.

And far more that were born and raised into that faith left it when they analyzed their beliefs using critical reasoning. By your own argument the atheist position is stronger. And he did not say that chemistry is the only possibility for him. Chemistry is the only answer that is supported by reliable evidence. That is a strong indication that it is the correct answer. By the way, the lack of evidence for your beliefs is the fault of believers. Why don't they properly support their beliefs?

 

[Brian2]

It's more than just chemicals. It's basic structures that form spontaneously and can be observed combining.


Science speculates on which environments are most likely to generate a given component, and how they assemble, but there's nothing special or extraordinary proposed.

Why do you suppose it doesn't happen today? It's not like we have microscopes planted all over the globe to look for it.

Lifelike structures, or even proto-life, would be unadapted prototypes, without the robust metabolic, reproductive, protective or competitive abilities of existing organisms. They'd never gain a foothold.
Proto-life may happen all the time. We don't have enough information to speculate at this point.

Yes I guess we can't speculate on how common it is for some components to throw themselves together.
I see there is a theory that primitive pumps in the primordial life forms helped more them leave deep sea hydrothermal vents to colonise other sites (where other parts might be able to form) and somehow power chemical reactions. Testing it is proving problematic.

Origin of Life: Did a Simple Pump Drive Process?

A new theory proposes the primordial life-forms that gave rise to all life on Earth left deep-sea vents because of their "invention" of a tiny pump. These primitive cellular pumps would have powered life-giving chemical reactions.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Brian2]

But the Bible claims abiogenesis, too. The only disagreement is of mechanism: chemistry vs magic.

This is an interesting site to at least skim through.

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1279-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible Open questions in prebiotic chem

reasonandscience.catsboard.com

It certainly opens the eye to some problems in the abiogenesis field.
It makes God into what is not eliminated by occam's razor if we are to believe what it says.
But who in their right mind would believe stuff like that which is compiled by Christians.

The Bible makes claims, I wouldn't say it "showed" anything.
As for accuracy, only the True Believers believe in historical accuracy.

But showing the Bible history to be fanciful does destroy the idea of the Bible God.
When I look at the reasoning and the evidence that is used to say Bible history is not correct, it helps me see that Bible history is accurate. But I accept archaeological and other evidence that many people reject.

 

[Brian2]

No, I said it's possible.
And, nobody knows. It would be very
very difficult to find out if it happens or not.

You needn't try to instruct me on chemistry and
biology, you can tell me where is the bright line
distinction between life and non life.
Living and non living molecules.
Whether and why prions and viruses are alive.
You might supply a definition of life that has no
" buts" or exceptions.

Bonus if you could also explain whether you just made it
up that " science says" chemistry that once worked does not work today under the same conditions.

I know just a bit about organic chemistry, but I did not say that science says chemistry that once worked does not work today under the same conditions. Show me where I said that.
If you know something about organic chemistry and abiogenesis maybe you could tell me what you think about this site.

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1279-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible Open questions in prebiotic chem

reasonandscience.catsboard.com

 

[Valjean]

This is an interesting site to at least skim through.

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1279-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible Open questions in prebiotic chem

reasonandscience.catsboard.com

It certainly opens the eye to some problems in the abiogenesis field.

This Gish gallup of hogwash is creationist propaganda. It would take hours to address all the problems.
Pick a couple good anti-abiogenesis points and we can start with them.

But showing the Bible history to be fanciful does destroy the idea of the Bible God.
When I look at the reasoning and the evidence that is used to say Bible history is not correct, it helps me see that Bible history is accurate. But I accept archaeological and other evidence that many people reject.

Did you actually read and understand the objections to biblical historicity?

 

[exchemist]

This is an interesting site to at least skim through.

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1279-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible Open questions in prebiotic chem

reasonandscience.catsboard.com

It certainly opens the eye to some problems in the abiogenesis field.
It makes God into what is not eliminated by occam's razor if we are to believe what it says.
But who in their right mind would believe stuff like that which is compiled by Christians.



But showing the Bible history to be fanciful does destroy the idea of the Bible God.
When I look at the reasoning and the evidence that is used to say Bible history is not correct, it helps me see that Bible history is accurate. But I accept archaeological and other evidence that many people reject.

That site is BS, I'm afraid. To claim that it is "mathematically impossible" for life to have arisen naturally is either silly or, perhaps more likely, deceit, i.e. to manufacture a fake talking point for creationists. Do you really suppose that if it truly had been found to be mathematically impossible, science would not acknowledge this? It would be the discovery of the century and Nobel Prizes would follow.

The commentator in the post you link to is pretty dim, or dishonest. He's basically flogging the dead horse of entropy (i.e. order->disorder) as an argument against natural abiogenesis. Most creationists have long ago given up on that argument, as its stupidity has been exposed so often. Entropy increases in spontaneous processes, true enough, but that applies to the total entropy of an isolated thermodynamic system. Pre-biochemistry on Earth was not in an isolated system. It was able to receive energy inputs (solar, geothermal, or high-energy molecules of some kind) from the environment and to reject waste heat and chemical products to the environment. It's an open system, thermodynamically. Ordered, i.e. lower entropy, structures can perfectly well form naturally, so long as entropy goes up sufficiently in the environment to compensate. There are everyday examples of that all around us.

On the other hand Jeremy England, who is quoted, is rather interesting. A rather rambling voiceover on a video of his has been painstakingly copied out in the post. Why they don't reference one of his actual papers, which are drafted to be read as text, I don't know. Perhaps these fools have the attention span of a goldfish and can't handle an actual science paper. Be that as it may, England has an interesting theory that the flow of energy through chemical systems tends to maximise entropy and that maximisation tendency will quite naturally lead to self-organising of chemistry into life, given enough time, since living things increase entropy more rapidly than inanimate processes. He calls it "dissipation-driven adaptation". It's an elegant idea, though I have not seen much development of it since England first published it, I think in 2014.

But Brian, this is the trouble. You are stumbling around, looking for sciency ideas that support what you want to believe, but you don't have the background to differentiate the serious ideas from the charlatanic BS. As I've often observed before on this forum, mainstream Christianity has no trouble reconciling itself to the findings of science, so long as one lets go of the notion of God needing to continually interfere in his creation, as if it were a badly maintained car. There is no evidence of that. On the contrary, the wonderful thing about creation is the way things seem to fit together and can be explainable in terms of each other. My strong advice is to consult theologians that understand science, rather than peeing into the wind trying to pretend science doesn't worlk.

 

[Brian2]

Then your

And far more that were born and raised into that faith left it when they analyzed their beliefs using critical reasoning. By your own argument the atheist position is stronger. And he did not say that chemistry is the only possibility for him. Chemistry is the only answer that is supported by reliable evidence. That is a strong indication that it is the correct answer. By the way, the lack of evidence for your beliefs is the fault of believers. Why don't they properly support their beliefs?

The evidence we have is what is given by God.
The atheist position is made to look stronger for the atheist because they deny the theist has evidence.
The atheist position is also made to look stronger for the atheist because they do not realise that their evidence is as much subjective evidence as the theist position.
The atheist and skeptic commandeer science for themselves and lie about science showing that God does not exist when sceince does not do that but the atheist makes up their evidence from things that science does not claim.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The evidence we have is what is given by God.
The atheist position is made to look stronger for the atheist because they deny the theist has evidence.
The atheist position is also made to look stronger for the atheist because they do not realise that their evidence is as much subjective evidence as the theist position.
The atheist and skeptic commandeer science for themselves and lie about science showing that God does not exist when sceince does not do that but the atheist makes up their evidence from things that science does not claim.

The problem is that there is more than one version of God, so we are not a we for the first claim.
The rest are irrelevant as for atheists, because you can find atheists, theists and other kinds of religious people, who accept science.
There is no one version of the theist position, because there is no group of we of theists, that are only like you.

 

[Brian2]

We're not asking for proof, we're just asking for a little objective evidence.

The truth is that the atheist position has no objective evidence. But who cares. Atheists don't and when theists mention it we get the "Oh we don't need to justify our position, it is the job of the theist to prove their claim not us atheists, we don't claim anything".

It is unreasonable to believe in something with little or no evidence. Faith is not reasonable. If there were sufficient evidence, it would not be faith.

If there were any evidence for atheism it would be a miracle and would show magic is real.

Limited evolution? What limits it? How does evolution know to stop just at the speciation line?
The full anything stories have not been proven. Actually, science never proves anything. It just accumulates evidence.

How does evolution know anything? It is a matter of evidence.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.5408/0022-1368-36.3.143?journalCode=ujge19#:~:text=There%20are%20three%20varieties%20of,of%20gaps%20are%20both%20artificial.

The evidence gathered is fitted into a purely evolution framework. But that is pseudo science I am told (starting with the answer and making the evidence fit)
But the evidence seems to fit a creation framework going hand in hand with evolution.

Nothing is proven, but much is well evidenced. There is more evidence of evolution than there is of a round Earth.
The mechanisms are known, but answers about details continue to accumulate weekly.

The mechanism is partly known imo

Magic is not mechanism. If there were a mechanism known or claimed, it would not be magic.
Magic is not unexplained mechanism, it's effect without mechanism. If there's a mechanism being explored, it's science.

Science and you do not know if God had a hand in things. The evidence suggests that this could be the case imo. But science will never say that. But then again science does not say that the evidence points to there not being a God who did it. That is more of the subjective evidence that atheists/skeptics want to claim as being objective and science but which is not.
So I guess I could say that the fossil record is evidence for the Bible God.
You believe the subjective evidence you call science but probably won't believe my subjective evidence. (the fossil record)

The Biblical authors knew nothing of physics. They knew what they saw around them and accepted the world as perceived.
Even then, they made absurd presumptions. They didn't even understand goat breeding. Gen. 3:39.
"...and science has shown it to be true:" Shown what to be true?

Shown that there was a beginning to the universe.
And yes the people of the Bible did not understand science and described what they saw around them, just as we do. They said the sun rose and we do. You understand that sort of thing but skeptics want to say this phenomenological language just shows that the Bible is wrong scientifically.

But science does explain it. The full process has just not been observed, yet.

There are good reasons the full process has not been observed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, yet. The whole process is not that simple.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The truth is that the atheist position has no objective evidence. But who cares. Atheists don't and when theists mention it we get the "Oh we don't need to justify our position, it is the job of the theist to prove their claim not us atheists, we don't claim anything".
...

Stop doing that. I have a friend who is a theist, old earth believer, believer in biology and a biologist.

 

[Brian2]

And plenty of people are simplistic, irrational and ignorant. Goddidit explains nothing. It's an excuse to dismiss the question.

What questions are you asking?

You must have some personal, alternate definition of "reasonable."
What is a "quality of humanity," and what is its epistemic validity?

I don't even know what "epistemic validity" is. Is it important?

Forming proto-life has little to do with evolution.That happens later.
How readily it assembles, and what conditions are optimum, is unknown, at present.

It does not appear to assemble readily without the right materials and conditions for each phase.

No, tradition and numerous religious texts make the Goddidit claims. They attribute agency, but explain nothing.

So science and theology explain different things. Theology is not meant to give a mechanism then, just to say who did it. OK

If it can be accomplished without God, God is unnecessary.
The mechanisms are verifiable, and no other mechanism has been proposed. Understood, verifiable mechanisms are more likely than magic.

You mean like, Hydrogen and Oxygen join to make water so God is not necessary and had nothing to do with it.
That's pretty stupid for a logical and reasonable person.
For the rest of us, the theists, it only gets worse I suppose.
We and the universe are here so God did it. That's as bad as "We and the universe are here so abiogenesis and natural forming of the universe must be true".

No evidence of no god is needed. It's assumed, since there's no objective evidence for the claim. The only burden of proof is
If it's scientific evidence it's not "made up," and if it's not testable or demonstrable, it's not even within the purview of science.
Atheism has nothing to do with science. It's derived from reason and logic, and yes, "we don't know" is all we're claiming.

That is good if all you say is that you don't know. Sometimes it feels as if atheists/skeptics are trying to show that theism is wrong. Maybe I'm paranoid.

 

[Audie]

The truth is that the atheist position has no objective evidence. But who cares. Atheists don't and when theists mention it we get the "Oh we don't need to justify our position, it is the job of the theist to prove their claim not us atheists, we don't claim anything".



If there were any evidence for atheism it would be a miracle and would show magic is real.



How does evolution know anything? It is a matter of evidence.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.5408/0022-1368-36.3.143?journalCode=ujge19#:~:text=There%20are%20three%20varieties%20of,of%20gaps%20are%20both%20artificial.

The evidence gathered is fitted into a purely evolution framework. But that is pseudo science I am told (starting with the answer and making the evidence fit)
But the evidence seems to fit a creation framework going hand in hand with evolution.



The mechanism is partly known imo



Science and you do not know if God had a hand in things. The evidence suggests that this could be the case imo. But science will never say that. But then again science does not say that the evidence points to there not being a God who did it. That is more of the subjective evidence that atheists/skeptics want to claim as being objective and science but which is not.
So I guess I could say that the fossil record is evidence for the Bible God.
You believe the subjective evidence you call science but probably won't believe my subjective evidence. (the fossil record)



Shown that there was a beginning to the universe.
And yes the people of the Bible did not understand science and described what they saw around them, just as we do. They said the sun rose and we do. You understand that sort of thing but skeptics want to say this phenomenological language just shows that the Bible is wrong scientifically.



There are good reasons the full process has not been observed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, yet. The whole process is not that simple.

The ' atheist posiition"? You mean like that we don't believe in God? Thats the only. " position".

Do you believe batboy has a secret lab in the moon?

Youve no objective reason for your disbelief, if you dont.

 

[Audie]

I know just a bit about organic chemistry, but I did not say that science says chemistry that once worked does not work today under the same conditions. Show me where I said that.
If you know something about organic chemistry and abiogenesis maybe you could tell me what you think about this site.

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1279-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible Open questions in prebiotic chem

reasonandscience.catsboard.com

So actually your claim is that abio
never worked and is impossible.

Which is just a made up fact.

You did not attempt to address
what life even is. As nobody really
knows, that is fair.
The claim that life can only exist
as a ( hugely complex) cell, as you
seem to imply, is a made up fact.

As for that moldy Pratt about
mathematical impossibility ( as
opposed to actual impossibility)
we refer you to proof that bumblebee cannot fly.

And note that the oh so typical creationist
Position is that no number of researchers world
wide and for 150 years could be right about
evolution. But ONE GUY, working outside his
field, he is the Auhority of Record, ifn that
is, the blighter is a creationist and says
he can prove ToE is a bunch hooey.

(Of course, abio is actually irrelevant to
ToE but the selection of " authority" is
the same.

 

[Audie]

What questions are you asking?



I don't even know what "epistemic validity" is. Is it important?



It does not appear to assemble readily without the right materials and conditions for each phase.



So science and theology explain different things. Theology is not meant to give a mechanism then, just to say who did it. OK



You mean like, Hydrogen and Oxygen join to make water so God is not necessary and had nothing to do with it.
That's pretty stupid for a logical and reasonable person.
For the rest of us, the theists, it only gets worse I suppose.
We and the universe are here so God did it. That's as bad as "We and the universe are here so abiogenesis and natural forming of the universe must be true".



That is good if all you say is that you don't know. Sometimes it feels as if atheists/skeptics are trying to show that theism is wrong. Maybe I'm paranoid.

Hydrogen and oxygen won't combine
except under the correct conditions.

Your observation about same regarding
organic molecules is trivially obvious
but supports my observation that you
might well refrain from attempting Chem
lessons.

As for " theism is wrong"that a really
absurd notion. How could it be " wrong"?

Many practices are variously harmful
if maybe that's what you mean.

In this case, though, many misguided and
benighted theists particularly in creationist form actively
promote regressive, ignorant, anti intellectual
nonsense.

That is what atheists and the more sophisticated
theists equally oppose.

I'm not sure how you got that so wrong.

 

[Valjean]

The evidence we have is what is given by God.
The atheist position is made to look stronger for the atheist because they deny the theist has evidence.
The atheist position is also made to look stronger for the atheist because they do not realise that their evidence is as much subjective evidence as the theist position.

OK. Explain it. Why is your 'evidence' anything but subjective? Why are facts, reason or logic unconvincing to you?

Are you citing defective evidence and trying unsuccessfully to undermine reason? Are you trying to shoehorn an emotional, unevidenced, enculturated belief into a preconceived world-view?

The atheist and skeptic commandeer science for themselves and lie about science showing that God does not exist when sceince does not do that but the atheist makes up their evidence from things that science does not claim.

You really aren't paying attention. You aren't reading our posts, or, if you do read them, they go right over your head.
When did we ever claim science showed God doesn't exist? When did we ever have to make up evidence?

The burden is on you, not us. We claim you have not met it, and that God remains poorly evidenced and an unnecessary and unevidenced proposition. Until you meet your burden, lack of belief stnds, as the reasonable position.

 

[Audie]

The evidence we have is what is given by God.
The atheist position is made to look stronger for the atheist because they deny the theist has evidence.
The atheist position is also made to look stronger for the atheist because they do not realise that their evidence is as much subjective evidence as the theist position.
The atheist and skeptic commandeer science for themselves and lie about science showing that God does not exist when sceince does not do that but the atheist makes up their evidence from things that science does not claim.

Your accusation of lying is disgusting
and uncpnscienable.
Is that what your god- faith does for you?