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08/02/2006 10:55:14 PM · #501 |
I really enjoyed reading through this thread, and appreciate all of your (whoever is still following this) respecful replies. I think it's good to discuss/debate this in an orderly manner for both sides. I don't think I'll be posting anything more, as anything said can always have a response from the other side.
I'll just leave you with what I wrote in my first post.
Experiences I have gone through lead me to know that there is a God, no questions asked. Not just that there is a higher power in this world, but that there power in the name of His son, Jesus. I cannot deny that fact, and me believing so is not based on faith alone, and not even 'stories' I've heard about. God has supernaturally healed me in a way that is explainable by any science. If you'd like to hear this story, I'd be glad to share.
Again, thank you for this great discussion.
Kevin
Message edited by author 2006-08-02 22:55:26. |
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08/02/2006 10:58:54 PM · #502 |
| Just a thought, that when confronted with the unexplainable, the scientist says "we don't know enough yet to explain this" while the religious just make up an explanation. |
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08/02/2006 11:04:40 PM · #503 |
edited
Message edited by author 2006-08-02 23:49:05. |
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08/03/2006 09:56:21 AM · #504 |
Originally posted by Mulder:
Experiences I have gone through lead me to know that there is a God, no questions asked. Not just that there is a higher power in this world, but that there power in the name of His son, Jesus. I cannot deny that fact, and me believing so is not based on faith alone, and not even 'stories' I've heard about. God has supernaturally healed me in a way that is explainable by any science. If you'd like to hear this story, I'd be glad to share. |
I would be interested to know.
You will have to forgive me if I sometimes appear confrontational - I agree that a civilised debate is very healthy. Please be assured that even if I don't agree with you, I hopefully come away with a better appreciation of your point of view.
As for the likelihood of the box thing happening, on our planet there is a lot of evidence suggesting that it has happened in exactly that manner (and anyone who cares to look can find and review the evidence with their own eyes, rather than relying on someone else to recount it).
What I find truly humbling are the time scales. It is almost inconceivable that human society has been settled for as little as 12,000 years, and even that life on land has only been in existence for 450 million years, compared to 3,000 million years of there being nothing more than single celled lifeforms on Earth.
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08/04/2006 10:43:15 AM · #505 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Yes. They could. So flightless cormorants walked/swam to the Galapagos Islands, dodos walked/swam to Mauritius and kiwis walked/swam to New Zealand? All monotremes and all but one species of marsupials walked or were taken to Australia? |
Wow. You learn something new all the time if you just keep your eyes open. Apparently, kiwis did walk to New Zealand when it was still connected to Australia while it was still part of Gondwanaland. Kiwis are ratites and, according to molecular evidence, share the same flightless common ancestry with ostriches, rheas and emus.
I was reading The Ancestorâs Tale by Richard Dawkins on the train this morning and came across this sentence (which he then expounds upon at length for several pages):
The ratites are a truly natural group. Ostriches, emus, cassowaries, rheas, kiwis, moas and elephant birds really are more closely related to each other than they are to any other birds. And their shared ancestor was flightless too.
So ⦠at least according to the latest evidence, I was wrong. Kiwis walked to New Zealand and didnât fly. I retract anything I said about kiwis flying to New Zealand as, according to Dawkins (though anyone is welcome to point out if he got his facts wrong in his book on that regard), I was apparently wrong on that account.
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08/04/2006 12:11:48 PM · #506 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
The Miller/Urey experiments were the first â done in the 1950s. There have been other confirming experiments since then using âatmospheresâ more in line with what is believed to have been around at that time. Here is a listing of several peer-reviewed papers which the authors of Talkorigins, representing mainstream science, believe address that issue:
Chang, S., D. DesMarais, R. Mack, S. L. Miller, and G. E. Strathearn. 1983. Prebiotic organic syntheses and the origin of life. In: Schopf, J. W., ed., Earth's Earliest Biosphere: Its Origin and Evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 53-92.
Miller, S. L. 1987. Which organic compounds could have occurred on the prebiotic earth? Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 52: 17-27.
Schlesinger, G. and S. L. Miller. 1983. Prebiotic synthesis in atmospheres containing CH4, CO, and CO2. I. Amino acids. Journal of Molecular Evolution 19: 376-382.
Stribling, R. and S. L. Miller. 1987. Energy yields for hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde syntheses: the HCN and amino acid concentrations in the primitive ocean. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 17: 261-273. |
Sorry it took me so long to reply. I am under the impression that the current belief about the primitive atmosphere was that it primarily consisted of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water vapor. It did not have free hydrogen (requisite to Miller's experiment) and did not have more than very small quantities of methane (requisite to the second experiment you list).
There are many other unanswered questions about abiogenesis that make the theories and hypotheses we have represent no more than possible paths which we have not been able to travel far down.
To legalbeagel, one problem with your timescale analogy is that although it took 3 billion years to go from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, it apparently took a geological blink of an eye for life to begin. Evidence of life quickly appears in the oldest rock strata we can find. That's the tough nut to crack, not once things get going.
Message edited by author 2006-08-04 12:15:20.
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08/07/2006 12:42:55 AM · #507 |
| legalbeagle, I sent you a pm |
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08/07/2006 12:18:38 PM · #508 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
To legalbeagel, one problem with your timescale analogy is that although it took 3 billion years to go from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, it apparently took a geological blink of an eye for life to begin. Evidence of life quickly appears in the oldest rock strata we can find. That's the tough nut to crack, not once things get going. |
I'm not sure how it could be otherwise, Jason, God or no God... It's hard to conceive of an "almost alive" state distinguishing itself in the fossil record.
R.
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08/07/2006 12:23:12 PM · #509 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
To legalbeagel, one problem with your timescale analogy is that although it took 3 billion years to go from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, it apparently took a geological blink of an eye for life to begin. Evidence of life quickly appears in the oldest rock strata we can find. That's the tough nut to crack, not once things get going. |
I'm not sure how it could be otherwise, Jason, God or no God... It's hard to conceive of an "almost alive" state distinguishing itself in the fossil record.
R. |
I'd more figure we'd see a large period of time with no evidence of life period. Then we would see life arise perhaps 1 or 2 billion years after the bombardment phase of our planet's life. Instead we see life in 1/10th to 1/100th that time.
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08/07/2006 12:25:31 PM · #510 |
| He said "oldest rock strata" not "fossil record". |
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08/07/2006 12:37:20 PM · #511 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
He said "oldest rock strata" not "fossil record". |
That's true, I was just remarking on the fly. And based on Jason's rejoinder, I seem to have missed his point anyway, so I'll just hang my hat back up and mumble off where I belong, which definitely isn't in this thread :-)
R.
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08/07/2006 01:18:50 PM · #512 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'd more figure we'd see a large period of time with no evidence of life period. Then we would see life arise perhaps 1 or 2 billion years after the bombardment phase of our planet's life. Instead we see life in 1/10th to 1/100th that time. |
I guess Iâm not really getting your point. Are you saying that life on earth began âtoo earlyâ?
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08/07/2006 01:21:57 PM · #513 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'd more figure we'd see a large period of time with no evidence of life period. Then we would see life arise perhaps 1 or 2 billion years after the bombardment phase of our planet's life. Instead we see life in 1/10th to 1/100th that time. |
I guess Iâm not really getting your point. Are you saying that life on earth began âtoo earlyâ? |
That seems to be the point, yes; that the oldest rock strata we have been able to find show evidence of life. As if the planet and life can into being at the same time, I guess? Geologically speaking, of course...
R.
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08/07/2006 01:32:40 PM · #514 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'd more figure we'd see a large period of time with no evidence of life period. Then we would see life arise perhaps 1 or 2 billion years after the bombardment phase of our planet's life. Instead we see life in 1/10th to 1/100th that time. |
I guess Iâm not really getting your point. Are you saying that life on earth began âtoo earlyâ? |
Ya, that is my point, more or less. Perhaps the word "too easily" is better. We are basically at a loss to explain abiogenesis. In fact, it seems the more we look, the more we find issues which only seem to cause problems (UV radiation, issues with RNA world vs. protein world, etc). But contrary to our dearth of ideas it appears that life not only was successful (duh), it did it almost as soon as the earth was stable enough to support it.
I don't by any means say, "aha! that's proof of God" (although I fully believe in God), but I do propose it is a current quandry that we are at a loss to explain OR our ideas to explain it become unprovable ones (pangenesis) and thus the scientists find themselves in no more defensible a position that the philosophers.
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08/07/2006 02:45:20 PM · #515 |
This is a very interesting subject. I hope God shares the answers with me when I get to Heaven.
Message edited by author 2006-08-07 14:45:45. |
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08/07/2006 03:00:23 PM · #516 |
Seems more feasible to me that life came to Earth from elsewhere. Theories trying to explain in roundabout ways how life sprang into being from the absence of life are equivalent in my mind to theories claiming life sprang into being because some omnipotent and eternally absent superbeing willed it to be so. You don't even have to venture into 'aliens' land. An asteroid or other object that contained some form of life, or even the base organic components of life as it exists here, could have started the party on earth. It would explain the 'sudden' appearance of life here as well.
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08/07/2006 03:01:36 PM · #517 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
Seems more feasible to me that life came to Earth from elsewhere. Theories trying to explain in roundabout ways how life sprang into being from the absence of life are equivalent in my mind to theories claiming life sprang into being because some omnipotent and eternally absent superbeing willed it to be so. You don't even have to venture into 'aliens' land. An asteroid or other object that contained some form of life, or even the base organic components of life as it exists here, could have started the party on earth. It would explain the 'sudden' appearance of life here as well. |
That's all fine and well, but it does beg the question "How did this extraterrestrial life originate int he first place?"
R.
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08/07/2006 03:06:11 PM · #518 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
That's all fine and well, but it does beg the question "How did this extraterrestrial life originate int he first place?"
R. |
You can chase your tail on that one till time ends. Why bother? Either science is wrong and 'something' really can come from 'nothing' in which case science is a crock of shit or there really is a God pulling levers behind the scenes in which case and all of a sudden the entire point of existence becomes worrying about what he's going to do with you after you die. At least science, when practically applied, offers some benefits to our time here. God, if he exists, seems to do nothing beyond inspire religions. He must really, really hate us. |
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08/07/2006 03:25:05 PM · #519 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
You can chase your tail on that one till time ends. Why bother? |
For sure it's the ultimate question; "What is the Prime mover"? Is it "worth" answering? In a practical sense, probably not. But man is a philosophical animal, and it's pretty much in his nature to puzzle at conundrums like this.
Let me put it this way: even IF some scientist could produce a verifiable scientific hyopthesis/theory as to how life came into existence on planet Earth, it doesn't solve the God question. To do that, you have to go back to the dawn of creation itself, or the dawn of existence, or whatever you call it. You have to ask "Was there ever a state in which nothing existed? And if there was, where did something come from? Or if there was not, if there has always "been something", does this mean "time" has no beginning or meaning?" And so forth and so on, ad infinitum.
There's little profit in such musings, arguably, but I find them fascinating nonetheless. I once wrote a poem, many years ago, that included the following:
What is the architecture of desire?
Did Void itself have shape before space formed?
Is heart defined by blood? Flower by seed?
I've totaled up my body, cell by wandering cell,
factored lymph, summed spleen, subtracted gall,
and all my chemistry has come to this:
as brick will seek an arch, I will seek you.
Orion's call is surging in my veins,
a primal madness of the hunt, a scent
of autumn leaves aflame, the falling year,
and if flesh knows ho isolation is complete,
still blood no more heeds heart than love does mind:
the dream that shapes the void within me cries
aloud, cries out for light, and so I burn.
It's not very good poetry, but it IS informed by speculations such as this :-)
R.
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08/07/2006 03:27:47 PM · #520 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
Seems more feasible to me that life came to Earth from elsewhere. Theories trying to explain in roundabout ways how life sprang into being from the absence of life are equivalent in my mind to theories claiming life sprang into being because some omnipotent and eternally absent superbeing willed it to be so. You don't even have to venture into 'aliens' land. An asteroid or other object that contained some form of life, or even the base organic components of life as it exists here, could have started the party on earth. It would explain the 'sudden' appearance of life here as well. |
So my basic ending point in this argument is always, "so we're all in the same boat". Whether you believe in God or you believe in a scientific explanation, currently both require the same amount of faith and are both currently "unprovable". Some feel safer to have their belief couched in "science" and others feel sater to have their belief couched in "a supreme being". In the end, nobody has a claim in The Truth yet...
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08/07/2006 04:00:48 PM · #521 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Let me put it this way: even IF some scientist could produce a verifiable scientific hyopthesis/theory as to how life came into existence on planet Earth, it doesn't solve the God question. To do that, you have to go back to the dawn of creation itself, or the dawn of existence, or whatever you call it. You have to ask "Was there ever a state in which nothing existed? And if there was, where did something come from? Or if there was not, if there has always "been something", does this mean "time" has no beginning or meaning?" And so forth and so on, ad infinitum. |
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down." |
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08/07/2006 04:15:05 PM · #522 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Ya, that is my point, more or less. Perhaps the word "too easily" is better. We are basically at a loss to explain abiogenesis. In fact, it seems the more we look, the more we find issues which only seem to cause problems (UV radiation, issues with RNA world vs. protein world, etc). But contrary to our dearth of ideas it appears that life not only was successful (duh), it did it almost as soon as the earth was stable enough to support it.
I don't by any means say, "aha! that's proof of God" (although I fully believe in God), but I do propose it is a current quandry that we are at a loss to explain OR our ideas to explain it become unprovable ones (pangenesis) and thus the scientists find themselves in no more defensible a position that the philosophers. |
I guess my only reply would be that we have a sample size of 1 and many still unanswered questions.
How did life arise? We donât know and we may never know.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
So my basic ending point in this argument is always, "so we're all in the same boat". Whether you believe in God or you believe in a scientific explanation, currently both require the same amount of faith and are both currently "unprovable". |
I would argue that there is a subtle difference. We can agree that natural processes occur; supernatural processes are taken on faith. Iâm fine with another person believing whatever. So long as they don't try to teach those beliefs as science ⦠or try to kill me because of them.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Some feel safer to have their belief couched in "science" and others feel sater to have their belief couched in "a supreme being". In the end, nobody has a claim in The Truth yet... |
I donât think itâs about feeling âsaferâ. I think itâs about parsimony and discarding unnecessary explanations. Let me put it this another way, if your beliefs were ultimately false, would you want to know?
Edited per scalvert's note. Thanks, scalvert!
Message edited by author 2006-08-07 16:30:10. |
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08/07/2006 04:22:58 PM · #523 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Iâm fine with another person believing whatever. So long as they try to teach those beliefs as science ⦠|
You might be missing a key word in there. |
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08/08/2006 05:44:39 AM · #524 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'd more figure we'd see a large period of time with no evidence of life period. Then we would see life arise perhaps 1 or 2 billion years after the bombardment phase of our planet's life. Instead we see life in 1/10th to 1/100th that time. |
That's an interesting point. It could be taken to indicate some influence on the planet, or it could be evidence that life initiates more easily that we think given the right circumstances.
The asteroid point is only marginally helpful. It provides a potential mechanism for extra-terestrial life to move to the Earth, but does not explain the initiation of life itself. As far as I know, only basic enzymes have been found on asteroids - building blocks, not life forms. Pinning the whole answer (and routerguy I acknowledge that you are probably relying on more than just this) on asteroids is only a little more helpful than explaining the whole matter by reference to a god or creation myth.
One of the key planks of research going forwards is the spectrum analysis of other planetoid bodies in other star systems. The discovery of biological byproducts in those systems might be evidence of life being more likely than we currently think.
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08/08/2006 11:33:01 AM · #525 |
Another problem with the asteroid hypothesis is that if you have asteroids providing the building blocks of life, you probably need those blocks in quantity. That leads to the problem of the big asteroids following the little ones. The bombardment phase of the earth was not a good time for life to start. Perhaps it started many times, but then every few million years (or less) a mountain sized asteroid would pile into the earth and wipe everything out.
Milo, we can assuredly agree that natural causes occur. But there are supernatural causes which get put in quasi-scientific terms and people think "hey, this is natural". I'll back up a step in our timeline and go to the big bang. I've heard many times the multiple universe hypothesis. This sounds scientific, but is every bit as supernatural as God. If you disagree, then you may simply want to say you aren't comfortable with another intelligence and are willing to accept any other reasonable explanation that does not involve an intelligent force.
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