Life From Dirt?

[Polymath257]

You seem so sure of your beliefs even when they are not shown to be true by science.

On the contrary, they are the best supported by the observations and the science. If you have evidence otherwise, please let everyone know.

 

[Polymath257]

All science can explore is the material side of life. Spirit might not help us understand what actually happens in the body, but that does not mean that it does not exist.

Give evidence that a spirit exists. otherwise there is no reason to believe it exists.

Seeing what happens in the body does not eliminate spirit as a life force. Science says stuff at time (like "no elan vitale") which shows the material basis of science and it's limitations, and how easily it can say that something does not exist when in fact it does not know.

It does know that those assumptions are not required to explain the phenomena we observe. And that is enough to not believe in them.

True. But do you so easily agree when I point stuff out to you.

That God is true and was going to send His Son to die and take our sins on Himself is the claim, the promise. The gospels are the evidence that it happened.
And it happened even before humans had worked out exactly what the promises meant, so the story was not made up to match the promises.

Once again, the texts in the gospels are the *claims*. Evidence is required to show that they are good reports of what actually happened. Evidence is required to show that the events described are even possible. Otherwise, we can dismiss them just like we dismiss other claims of the supernatural in other texts.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Give evidence that a spirit exists. otherwise there is no reason to believe it exists.

...

Give evidence that the real world as real exists, otherwise there is no reason to believe it exists. And while you are at it give evidence for what existence is just as real.

 

[Brian2]

As I said, no relevance other than that Josephus' account of Jesus son of Ananus' trial was not available till 75 CE and was used by the author of Mark in his writing of the trial of Jesus.

Why do you say that? Is it because Ananus did not say anything in his defense?

The point is that assuming he existed, he exists in oral versions that at the least led to five incompatible versions in the NT alone (though Matthew's Jesus is fairly similar to Luke's).

They're not really incompatible.

No, only the Jesuses of Paul and of John did that. Mark's Jesus was an ordinary Jew till adopted by God, and there's no hint in Matthew or Luke that their Jesuses had existed in any other form than that resulting from divine insemination on that particular occasion. And certainly none of Mark's, Matthew's or Luke's Jesuses created the material universe ─ the idea of pre-existing in heaven and of being the demiurge, the creator of the material universe, is from gnosicism and not found in the synoptics.

If that is true then it means nothing except that the synoptics focused on other things.
Luke and Paul were companions and shared a common gospel.
Paul was going to the orthodox churches and agreed with the gospel of the apostles in Jerusalem.
John was known by people from the orthodox churches and was not considered a gnostic.
John is supposed to have written against gnosticism.

The mother of Matthew's Jesus and the mother of Luke's Jesus were each virgins. It's an unignorable claim, so when it's not found in Paul, Mark or John, it's because no such claim is made there. As well, you shoot yourself in the foot if you also wish to claim Jesus was descended from David ─ as I said, those claims in Matthew and Luke clearly demonstrate the absurdity. And of course the mother of Mark's Jesus was an ordinary Jewess just as Mark's Jesus was an ordinary Jew till his adoption by God on the model of David.

If John know that the virgin birth was already out there in writing why would he repeat it? He concentrated on things not said in other versions.
Mark chose to start where he did and end where he did and he missed a lot and that does not mean that he did not know (even if he may not have) or that it was false or made up later.
You have a strange way to interpret things.

As I also said, my best guess is that there was an ordinary conception by a Jewish couple and Paul's and John's Jesuses became incarnated by slipping in spirit into the resulting zygote. It's a best guess because neither Paul nor John discusses how their Jesus entered the world.

It's a guess that ignores what is said in Matthew and Luke.

Mark's Jesus becomes the son of God when he's baptized and God adopts him right at the start of Mark's story ─ Mark 1:9-11. Goodness, don't you read your own book? Do you know no more about what it says than what other people have told you it says?

And being baptised in water and receiving the Holy Spirit from heaven is meant to mean that Jesus becomes the Son of God is it?
Again if you ignore the rest of the story in the other gospels then OK.

Mark 1:1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah,[a] the Son of God, 2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way”—
3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”

I know that some manuscripts do not have "the Son of God" in verse 1 but if you look up Mal 3:1 and Isa 40:3 where the OT quotes come from, they show that Mark is calling Jesus God.

A stranger calls him 'Son of David' in Mark 10:47. He denies he's descended from David in Mark 12:35-37.

Mark 12:37 David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?”
That is just a conundrum that Jesus asked the Jews but does not show that He is not the Son of David. The Jews could not answer but Christians can.

No, the genealogies in Matthew and Luke don't make it plain that Joseph is not the father of Jesus ─ those gospels make it plain elsewhere. On the contrary, each is expressly a genealogy of Joseph ─ Matthew's genealogy ends, Matthew 2:16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary. Luke's genealogy (written in reverse order) says Luke 3:23 Jesus [...] being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph,

So in Luke 3:23 when it says "(as was supposed)" that makes it plain that Joseph was not the father.
Matthew's genealogy says"and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.". It does not say "and Jacob the father of Joseph the father of Jesus."
So yes we read what it says clearly in other parts of those gospels and can see that it is pointed out also in the genealogies.

If you were a Jew in those days, that may have sounded quite a reasonable idea. But Jesus was God's envoy, and no more God than the US Ambassador to Germany is Joe Biden.

But the Jews knew what He was claiming to be and that it was blasphemy. They seemed to know the Messiah was to be the Son of God but not Son in the way Jesus was telling them.

That's interesting. Where can I read more about that?

Early Christian NT References

biblequery.org

New Testament Quotations In Patristic Writings - Christian Publishing House Blog

Another primary source for recovery of the original text of the New Testament is the enormous number of quotations from the early Christian writers (apologetic works, epistles, commentaries, sermons, and the like). “Apostolic Fathers” is the descriptive term used for churchmen who wrote about...

christianpublishinghouse.co

 

[Brian2]

I haven't seen that written by any skeptic, although I imagine some have. Gods haven't been ruled out, but what is a god needed for? What would its job be that unconscious nature couldn't accomplish without a god? Do you think that a god is necessary for there to be life, consciousness, moral intuitions, or a universe "finely tuned" to support them? Probably, but if so, why? Why should a god exist?

I met a physicist on another forum who used to tell me that god was not necessary for the universe to start and end up like it is.
He did believe in the possibility of a god however, a deistic type of god who just started things running. He said that science has shown that everything can happen without a god.

You're conflating justified belief with unjustified belief. Belief based in experience properly understood is justified. Belief based in the will to believe is not. A man turns the key in his car and it starts just like the last several hundred times he tested it. He holds the belief that it will probably start this time, too, and that belief is justified. He also believes that guardian angels watch over him as he drives, and that belief is by "supported" by faith, not experience.

So is it OK to believe that life is just chemicals and abiogenesis is true and the universe came into existence without the need for a god even though these have not been shown to be true?

I have no reason to believe that when the proper elements are arranged the proper way that they will not come to life unless some unseen substance is injected into it, just as I have no reason to believe that if I set a dry leaf on fire using the sun and a magnifying glass that it will not burst into flame unless another substance enters the leaf to make the flame.

It does not seem to take much to mess up that chemical arrangement sometimes.
It must have been hard to get that arrangement initially and preserve it.

The main difference in our thinking is that the scientific narrative contains no unnecessary elements. You want to find a job for a god. No scientific law or theory benefits in terms of explanatory or predictive power by inserting a god into it, so we don't. You're like the boss trying to find a job for his son-in-law in a company that works well without him. Sure, you can put him on the floor, but to do what that isn't already being done without him?

But that is a presumption of materialism.

Agreed. And this is why I question whether Darwin's theory and Christianity are compatible. In Christianity, man was created in the image of his creator as a soul encased in flesh for a purpose. None of that is negotiable, right? None of that can be changed without it no longer being Christianity, right? Yet none of it is compatible with the theory of biological evolution.

True there needs to be God somewhere in it for it to be compatible imo.

That's not what's meant by support as in justified belief. Belief by faith is unsupported belief, and no demonstrably correct ideas can be derived from such beliefs. If your foundational belief is faith-based, your system cannot generate useful ideas. Look at astrology, which purports to predict life trajectories and personality traits based in a false belief about stars and their power over those lives. It's no surprise that it doesn't work.

As with the gospel, science does not justify rejecting the idea of a God unless materialism is first believed.
It is possible to turn away from God through science but only if science is misrepresented as being able to tell us all that is and all that is not, and being able to say what God is and was needed for and when God is and was not needed.

 

[Brian2]

If you're relying solely on faith, then you do not hold a reasoned position. Anything can be believed on faith. A reasoned position would rely on the use of logic and reason, rather than logical fallacies, like the one above.

I can reason that a designer and creator and life giver was most likely needed for this universe and the things in it.
Then I can believe in a God who did those things.

 

[Brian2]

I think you aren't attributing enough to science and it's abilities as a methodology.

You reject it, because the things you believe in cannot be demonstrated. That's not a shortcoming of science, rather, it's a shortcoming of your beliefs.

Do you think that abiogenesis is correct or that the universe began by itself and organised itself and that a God is not needed for those things?

 

[blü 2]

Why do you say that? Is it because Ananus did not say anything in his defense?

Here's Carrier's version of ideas which as far as I know were first put forward by theologian Ted Weeden jr.

I suggest you try to understand it and appreciate its significance for the dating of Mark.

Mind you, Jesus 'foretelling' the destruction of Jerusalem is quite enough to get Mark to 70 CE ─ the Jesus of Jerusalem parts of Josephus simply add five or so more years.

John was known by people from the orthodox churches and was not considered a gnostic.

You can argue how attached to gnosticism Paul and the author of John were, but it will remain the case that the gnostic demiurge ('craftsman'), a being who existed in the heavens with God, created the material universe (because God was far too purely spiritual to do that) and was required as intermediary between extremely remote God and the material world ─ Paul's Jesus is not so emphatically required as intermediary, but John's is eg John 17.

If John know that the virgin birth was already out there in writing why would he repeat it?

Because it's put forward as an emphatic divine endorsement of Jesus. Why on earth would you not stress it at every opportunity, if you thought it was part of the story?

Mark chose to start where he did and end where he did and he missed a lot

Mark wrote the template for the synoptics. The authors of Matthew and Luke used his storyline and selected parts of his words. The author of John is more distant, but he still starts with Mark as his template

And being baptised in water and receiving the Holy Spirit from heaven is meant to mean that Jesus becomes the Son of God is it?

Read Mark 1:9-11.

Again if you ignore the rest of the story in the other gospels then OK.

Again I point to the five different Jesuses, and emphasize that with ancient documents you treat them with respect and don't try to press them into compliance with your preconceptions.

Mark 12:37 David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?”
That is just a conundrum that Jesus asked the Jews but does not show that He is not the Son of David. The Jews could not answer but Christians can.

Sure. Christians have pretended to own the Jewish bible from the start.

Explain this to me. Why would the God of the Jews send the Jews a prophet who would split Judaism into two parts, the Christian one of which would persecute and murder the Jewish part across 2000 years right up to Adolf's gas chambers?

So in Luke 3:23 when it says "(as was supposed)" that makes it plain that Joseph was not the father.

And therefore the whole genealogy is meaningless, since it's a (fake) genealogy of the not-the-father of Jesus, and thus ─ even were it genuine ─ incapable of making Jesus a descendant of David.

Just like the genealogy in Matthew.

 

[Audie]

You seem so sure of your beliefs even when they are not shown to be true by science.

You believe yours when they are shown false

 

[gnostic]

Jesus pre existed and created the universe and became a human. But the mother was a virgin and so no zygote was killed so that Jesus could become a human.

What’s really astonishing is how very little understand human biology, and that above statement is utterly ignorant on the subject of human reproduction.

You just don’t know how ignorant you sound, because you have stuck your head so far in the sand it actually muffled not only your voice, but you have muffled any rational thought.

If Mary was indeed a Virgin, then there is no way she have any zygote in her womb.

The only way for zygote to exist, is that the sperm (gamete) would fuse with the egg (gamete), hence this fusion would fertilize the egg, and that’s the only way for woman to conceive.

No sperm, would mean no conception, no fertilization, and therefore no zygote.

So why would you say “no zygote was killed”?

In order, for zygote to become embryo, the zygote must divide the single zygote cell into daughter cells, and these cells will make more cells...as many cells as required for the embryos to grow and form into fetus, cells enough to grow and form all the body parts, which include all the bones, tissues, organs, head, limbs, digits, etc.

There are no zygote if there are no sperm. And the initial CELL DIVISION must occur with the zygote, otherwise there are no new cells, and no growth and no development.

 

[gnostic]

To @Brian2 and other Christian creationists.

The story of Mary being “virgin” and yet still get pregnant with her egg (gamete) without being fertilized with another gamete - the sperm - is impossibility for any female human.

The idea of where embryos can naturally form from either unfertilized gamete (eg unfertilized egg or sperm) - but only with algae, some species of plants, some species of invertebrates, and even among very few species of vertebrates, such as those of fishes, amphibians, reptiles and birds, but not with any mammals, and certainly not among humans.

Natural PARTHENOGENESIS can occur, just none of these being observed with mammals, and certainly not with humans.

Yes, there are myths of parthenogenesis occurring, but only with a deity. Is Mary a goddess?

 

[YoursTrue]

To @Brian2 and other Christian creationists.

The story of Mary being “virgin” and yet still get pregnant with her egg (gamete) without being fertilized with another gamete - the sperm - is impossibility for any female human.

The idea of where embryos can naturally form from either unfertilized gamete (eg unfertilized egg or sperm) - but only with algae, some species of plants, some species of invertebrates, and even among very few species of vertebrates, such as those of fishes, amphibians, reptiles and birds, but not with any mammals, and certainly not among humans.

Natural PARTHENOGENESIS can occur, just none of these being observed with mammals, and certainly not with humans.

Yes, there are myths of parthenogenesis occurring, but only with a deity. Is Mary a goddess?

Naturally we are not talking about natural, normal circumstances with Mary. But then one would have to look at a man being composed from the ground as an adult (Adam) and a female coming from Adam's rib. With God, all things are possible.

 

[YoursTrue]

To @Brian2 and other Christian creationists.S

The story of Mary being “virgin” and yet still get pregnant with her egg (gamete) without being fertilized with another gamete - the sperm - is impossibility for any female human.

The idea of where embryos can naturally form from either unfertilized gamete (eg unfertilized egg or sperm) - but only with algae, some species of plants, some species of invertebrates, and even among very few species of vertebrates, such as those of fishes, amphibians, reptiles and birds, but not with any mammals, and certainly not among humans.

Natural PARTHENOGENESIS can occur, just none of these being observed with mammals, and certainly not with humans.

Yes, there are myths of parthenogenesis occurring, but only with a deity. Is Mary a goddess?

Some would put her in a position as a goddess such as praying to her but she is not a deity. She knew that it was a miracle, a wonderful blessing from God.

 

[Polymath257]

Do you think that abiogenesis is correct or that the universe began by itself and organised itself and that a God is not needed for those things?

Some version of abiogenesis is correct: there was no life on Earth when the Earth formed, but there was less than a billion years later. Somehow, the materials available on the Earth got life going.

There are many assumptions in the phrase 'the universe began by itself' that I do not agree with. There was no cause for the universe as a whole, I believe, only things *in* the universe (where the physical laws apply). The universe became organized over time because3 of those natural laws.

No consciousness was required for these things to occur. And, in fact, no consciousness was possible until life got going. So, no, no conscious deity was involved.

 

[Polymath257]

To @Brian2 and other Christian creationists.

The story of Mary being “virgin” and yet still get pregnant with her egg (gamete) without being fertilized with another gamete - the sperm - is impossibility for any female human.

The idea of where embryos can naturally form from either unfertilized gamete (eg unfertilized egg or sperm) - but only with algae, some species of plants, some species of invertebrates, and even among very few species of vertebrates, such as those of fishes, amphibians, reptiles and birds, but not with any mammals, and certainly not among humans.

Natural PARTHENOGENESIS can occur, just none of these being observed with mammals, and certainly not with humans.

Yes, there are myths of parthenogenesis occurring, but only with a deity. Is Mary a goddess?

I would point out that with parthenogenesis, the offspring of Mary would be female.

 

[Brian2]

True. Each excels the other in traits useful to it's lifestyle.

Us humans certainly seem to have traits that far exceed anything needed to survive.
For us, our life style developed because of those traits imo

 

[Brian2]

Concepts are real physical processes in our brains. The perception of beauty is a real, physical process in our brains. Love and consciousness are real physical processes in our brains.

Concepts are real physical processes in our brain. OK
We perceive beauty. But beauty is just a subjective judgement that we make about something. OK
We perceive love. Similarly just a subjective judgement and label we put on feelings we have or of the actions we or others might do. OK
We perceive a car, and a car is genuinely real imo but of course our perception does not match the actual car.
We perceive consciousness. This is more tricky. Who perceives consciousness?
Maybe it is this consciousness that perceives everything else and we (that is this consciousness) calls itself "I" and defines itself according to thoughts, feelings, experiences, family history etc that somehow it remembers.
But really all this consciousness is fleeting and comes and goes with the chemical reactions in our brain in what we call our life.
OK

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

So is it OK to believe that life is just chemicals and abiogenesis is true and the universe came into existence without the need for a god even though these have not been shown to be true?

What we say is that life may have arisen naturalistically. Nobody has shown that to be impossible, so, by default, it remains possible. The next step has been to show how it might have happened.

It does not seem to take much to mess up that chemical arrangement sometimes.

Yes, metabolism may become impossible with the addition of a poison, for example, or the removal of an oxygen supply.

It must have been hard to get that arrangement initially and preserve it.

Life likely arises wherever possible. Did you look at the Scientific American article on Jeremy England's work? What seems to be the limiting factor is an environment where organic molecules can mix freely in a protected environment over long periods of time. In addition to earth, that may have occurred on Mars and Enceladus, a moon of Saturn.

that is a presumption of materialism.

Which part? I wrote, "The main difference in our thinking is that the scientific narrative contains no unnecessary elements. You want to find a job for a god. No scientific law or theory benefits in terms of explanatory or predictive power by inserting a god into it, so we don't. You're like the boss trying to find a job for his son-in-law in a company that works well without him. Sure, you can put him on the floor, but to do what that isn't already being done without him?"

What you call materialism is the rejection of belief by faith (skepticism, empiricism). The presumption underlying that choice is that no idea should be believed without sufficient supporting evidence.

science does not justify rejecting the idea of a God unless materialism is first believed.

Science (empiricism) doesn't reject the idea of the possibility of the existence of a god. It also doesn't accept the claim that any exist. These are different ideas. You meet a man on the street. You are told he is trustworthy, but you don't know that and you can't vouch for the source either, and so, you don't loan him money, for example. This is not you rejecting the idea that he might be honest. Nor are you accepting that he is.

 

[Brian2]

Yes, and the good theistic scientists do exactly that.

But it does bring in the question of why one would want to add on such an unnecessary assumption to a system that works without it.

I can see that it would bring in that question with people who have assumed that science, the study of the physical, has told the whole story and there really is nothing else.
Is this assumption something you want to say is not an assumption, but is reality? Or do you want to believe in god and want to know how?

 

[Brian2]

A number of people thunk that.

Of course there is zero evidence that its true.

But they don't, like a creationist, have to deny
facts.

Yes there is that benefit, especially if one sees theories in science as facts,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, even before they have been fully shown to be true. But we all do that with science, and some more than others, especially if they do not believe in a God and there is no alternative than abiogenesis and naturalistic evolution.
But the way science is presented at times does make it look like the only show in town worth watching.