Where do you think life came from?

[Rooster_DAR]

Just because there are many religions doesn't mean that there are many Gods. Like the earlier analogy I made, there could be one accident at a particular intersection but with many different witnesses who can report it differently. It doesn't mean there were as many accidents as there were the number of witnesses with differing accounts of what happened.

 

Sounds like you are either really trying to understand this subject, or doing what I thought you would, and that's defend your beliefs (it's natural).

After some time, come back and read this thread. You may realize how this really sounds with arguments like that above.

 

Good luck on your expedition.

 

Cheers!

[Fun2BMe]

Sounds like you are either really trying to understand this subject, or doing what I thought you would, and that's defend your beliefs (it's natural).

After some time, come back and read this thread. You may realize how this really sounds with arguments like that above.

 

Good luck on your expedition.

 

Cheers!

 

First of all, as I have written a million times throughout this thread, I have not made up my mind about anything. In fact you're the one who is stubborn with your beliefs and you put me down instead of sharing, then you sign off with your phony upbeat annoying "Cheers!"

 

Secondly, you can quote what OTHERS have written about Darwin with their own agenda, or how about just take into consideration a quote I will make that is taken directly from his "The Origin of Species" after his last edit, one of the last things he's written. And at the end of the day, what one person thinks about theology won't necessarily have such a pwerful impact as to sway me in either direction. Every day we come across new information to take into consideration for ourselves, combined with our personal thoughts and experiences. And because this is in his book I will take the time to type it all out for you, just for reference but I am not trying to influence you in one way or another as I am in a state of confusion at this point in my life and could just as easily make a strong or stronger argument against the existence of a God.

 

Darwin: "I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, "as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion." A celebrated author and divine has written to me that "he has gradually learned to see that it is just a noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws." from chapter 14 On the Origin of Species.

 

He is basically saying that people will think evolution has no place in religion and will be shocked by it but that he thinks that a Deity has set it into motion, something I am contemplating. Even if he never did believe that, I would still be contemplating this because things aren't so black and white to me unfortunately.

[lovelorcet]

Why does it matter if Darwin was religious or not?? It does not play a role in what he started to discover. Gregor Mendel was a monk and was the first modern geneticist, so what...

 

This is all just subjective information and points of view and options are again not science. Science is making a probable hypothesis base on what you know and then trying to either prove or disprove that hypothesis.

 

If you want to see evolution then go to NCBI and down load the human, chimp, fly, worm, fish, yeast, and e. coli genomes and compare them yourself... (which of course you need a PhD in Bioinformatics to do, but the point is you CAN do this) and it is like watching a flip book through evolution.

 

There is no "debate" in the world of science about if there is evolution...

[magichands]

Why does it matter if Darwin was religious or not??

Because this is an origin of life question. We want to know what Darwin thought. "Evolution" is a very small piece of this puzzle.

 

I think that you need to evolve.

[lovelorcet]

His "thoughts" would of course not include all new things discovered over the last 150 years or so...

[magichands]

His "thoughts" would of course not include all new things discovered over the last 150 years or so...

That's a point.

 

One could argue that molecular biology is so "reductionist" that we're not really that much closer to the question of origin, though. (But I'm sure he would be a little surprised to discover that most mutations are selectively neutral.)

[lovelorcet]

You have to understand all the little pieces before you try to put them back together...

[burning 4 revenge]

A fire broke out in Gatorland. It sounds like a surreal nightmare. I wish I could have been there to see it, and live in that moment forever.

[burning 4 revenge]

Nowhere to run but the water....

[Craig]

A fire broke out in Gatorland. It sounds like a surreal nightmare. I wish I could have been there to see it, and live in that moment forever.

You are according to some people. Google "hugh everett" 1957 many worlds

[Guest]

There are many contradictions in the bible, and we can choose to interpret that how we wish to. The fact is, the bible is full of holes that cannot be explained by physics and the laws of the universe, and this to me is a big red flag. The bible was written by man, so I would take that with a grain of salt.

 

Most people realize that the Bible is metaphor. It was written when people were much less sophisticated so attempting to explain physics and biology would have been pointless.

 

Simple question, why are there so many gods and religions? (This alone should be enough for anybody with a good sense of intelligence to figure out something is wrong here)

 

Not really. There is one idea of the Divine. Various faiths have named it different names and some conceive of it as different entities, but it doesn't mean there are multiple Divines.

 

If, however, you do a study of the major religions of the world, you will find they all have two tenets as the basis of their faith; honour a Divine and treat your fellow humans well. The fact that those two truths spread throughout all civilizations independent of each other speaks to the absolute truth of those principles.

[Rooster_DAR]

All of this is in the lines of ancient beliefs, and yes this was all before we gathered the intelligence to deduce what is real and what isn't. Take Astrology (and please tell me you don't believe this stuff), it was formed from beliefs that the stars and planets contolled or othewise influenced life on earth. Anybody with common sense should be able to understand that this thelogical proclamation is proposterous and is purposely designed to be so vague that it could apply to anybody.

 

These are the kinds of things man has conjured up, possibly so he does not feel so empty in the universe, and possibly to keep some sort of governing of the masses. It's very easy to look at the world, life, and all of the universe and immediately assume there was a divine creator. Life is complex, amazing, beautiful, and not easily understood even with all the technology we have. I still am very open to the possibility that there is a great creator of all things, but am very very convinced that the religions that we were brought up with are merely just a theological conjuring of something that keeps us whole.

 

Regards,

[magichands]

A fire broke out in Gatorland. It sounds like a surreal nightmare. I wish I could have been there to see it, and live in that moment forever.

If that's not the meaning of life, then I don't know what is. Just remember that we didn't start the fire - it was always burning since the world's been turning.

[tinktronik]

I don't think that just because evolution exists that one should rule out that God exists. How is it archaic? Nobody seems to know how evolution came about, who designed it. Scientists find out how it works but not how it came to be

 

 

You argue the point that no one knows .You are absolutly right , no one knows. We can not unoquivically prove that a creator does not exist, but we also have no proof what-so-ever that one does. Many people (including myself) choose to believe that it is more logical to not assume their is a creator with no proof ,instead of going on "HA ...well you can't prove it does not exist."A proof of existence and a proof of non-existence are two completely different things.

 

 

You and I both know that we can't prove this. Sometimes prayers aren't answered because in the bigger scheme of things which we don't comprehend yet, everything falls into place for some reason. If your prayer wasn't answered for one thing, somebody else could've been praying for the opposite to happen. The bible doesn't tell us to pray for things but to be grateful for what we have and to praise God.

 

 

 

Many times inlife pleasant or unpleasant things occur . Religion can be comforting to many that the good things are a gift and the unpleasant things are meant to be in some plan,many are comforted by this and able to better cope as a result.

 

Excuse me but even Darwin who discovered evolution, of all people, even he was extremely religious and throughout his writings and diaries gives credit to God for creating the things he discovers. It made his faith stronger. Not everyone is so brilliant so if it takes the rest of common folks longer to learn about these things and decide for themselves that they fit into religion, so be it. There's no deadline that if you don't believe xyz by a certain time that it's now meaningless to.

 

 

I think whether or not someone writes a book saying that a man walked on water will not prove or disprove whether or not there is a God. My faith isn't based on a man walking on water, even if I do believe he did.

 

Again, whether or not someone wrote that an ark carried all those animals will not determine whether or not I believe in God. One could argue he only took the animals in the vicinity he lived in on the raft or any other explanation that can make sense. Then to go further and try to scientifically prove or disprove a flood that God made does not seem rational. It could be a metaphore for one of the great extinctions the earth has experienced, verified by science. But again, that will not determine my personal faith in God. I wish it did so I could firmly have a belief one way or the other, but I am always contemplating too many things and my feelings on the whole are too strong to be based on one story in one particular religion.

When you quote a book for referance and cannot quite seem to agree with it , so you twist it to fit into what you believe "could" be true , dosent common sense suggest to you that perhaps you should use a more reliable referance to base your beliefs on?

 

 

\

 

Again, I don't point to one book and give credit to that book as instilling faith in me. What about all the people in the world who will never learn to read or be exposed to written religion, yet they can feel in their hearts that there is a God. Regardless of my religious beliefs which I haven't written about yet, I am talking about God not being based on written documentation but based on intuition and an explanation for all that exists.

 

Do you think the bible was going to write about evolution at a time when man had not found any fossils? Was it going to write about computers, cars and modern technology too which people would not have been able to relate to? Its focus at the time was to teach people how to treat each other, something necessary as a prerequisite to later find out more things in life which we are in the process of doing. He did after all create birds and fish on one day and aniamals and man, grouped together the next. Again, we can read into the bible in many ways and I'm not getting into that but I don't feel as comfortable as you do to think the universe and everything in it came into being on its own out of the blue when so much design and thought has gone into it from what we can see.

It is religions (and yours in this quote) claim that their is design and thought put into creation. We do know that there is a set of principals that the universe is based on , but that is certainly not proof of creation.

[magichands]

You have to understand all the little pieces before you try to put them back together...

And all pieces were not created equal. What's your goddamn point?

[Rooster_DAR]

And all pieces were not created equal. What's your goddamn point?

 

LOL!!!!:lmao:

 

That's exactly what I was thinking.

[Fun2BMe]

And all pieces were not created equal. What's your goddamn point?

 

I think he means you have to understand the small picture before the big one, micro before macro. Otherwise I agree, the statement was pointless.

[magichands]

I think he means you have to understand the small picture before the big one, micro before macro.

Fair enough. Ignore the big picture at your peril, though - and that's my point.

 

When the human genome was "completely sequenced" (as an interesting aside, there are a bunch of potentially critical sites that have not yet been sequenced because of technical hurdles), people thought it would lead to a much greater understanding of humanity. It was a watershed moment - maybe - but we still know very little.

[Flyin in Clouds]

Carbon-14 dating does not lie...

 

Well only a little... (the accuracy is the issue).

 

...carbon dating while it places the age to be in the billions as well isn't as acurate of a method becuase it can be contaminated ...

You know it would be nice if people actually knew WTF they were talking about.... art... Carbon14 dating is only useful for dating living things back to about 60,000 BP (Before Present, Present being 1950). It's of no use for dating the age of this rock we live on.

 

Wow, I must be in the minority here, but I believe creation and all that stuff came from God.

Well there's at least two of us.

 

...There are billions of comets yet little evidence that more than a small handful have ever hit earth. ....

We get hit by space junk all the time. Comets - not often but often enough.

 

..., does it prove that therefore God does not exist?

The existence of God can be neither proven nor disproven, dispite a4a's pointing out that many "false" gods have been invented by man.

 

Are you also going to argue that the chances of finding a beautifully crafted golden wedding band in a gold mine is possible given enough time that one will eventually turn up? ...

That isn't an argument against evolution creating mankind because a gold ring is not alive and evolution applies to living things.

 

First of all, the word "stepwise" infers a process of "refinement" - that's somewhat misleading. Most of "evolution" is essentially random drift.

Nope, evolution is highly directed, not random. Natural selection isn't just random. Mutations may be random but the resulting evolution isn't.

 

Again and again religion has turned out to be false. There is no Apollo, there is no Thor, the list goes on and on for religions and gods that proved to be false. But at the time those people believed in those gods as much as people today believe in the new global gods.

 

Perhaps in another 6,000 years humans will look at us and wonder how we could be so ignorant to believe in such things, much like we look at those that believed in mythology before us.

Because previous gods were false doesn't mean God doesn't exist, nor that we haven't found the real God. Aristotle was wrong about the physics of falling objects. Galileo got it right approx 400 years ago (and that is when "real" science started). Takes humans a while to get things right.

 

Some of you people here do not even understand what science is and how it is carried out.

that's a sad state of affairs ain't it...

Science is not about "believing" something,

Acutally it is. It's about believing one thing. That is that the world is indeed rational and not random. That the "laws" of the Universe can be figured out. One can not prove, in scientific sense or mathematical sense, that the world is indeed rational or discoverable. One has to believe that. That is something that is the same as belief about God. Hence science and religion start from the same foundation - one of believing something that can not be proven.

 

It is possible to construct your own viruses from chemically synthesized DNA fragments and it is only a matter of time until someone feels like making their own designed microbes. Breath of life??

Modify existing life is different than creating life from whole cloth.

 

Tell you what lovelorcet, as soon as the scientists can create life from thin air, I'll start studying how they did it. I'll even study it if they claim they've figured out where life came from.

 

The truth of the matter is, they will never know.

I wouldn't be so sure. God gave us the means to figure out how to do it.

 

Where did life come from? I believe man has some pretty good clues, but ultimately life came from God, and yes, He probably did use science....that shouldn't surprise us.

God created evolution.

 

How old is God ??

10,000 years old ? or 4.5 billion ?

Art the Universe is considerably older than 4.5 billion years. The big bang happened 13 -14 billion years ago (though the number changes as discoveries are made. But it's in that range. 4.5 is approx the solar system age or earth's age).

 

I am pretty sure I will see custom made microbes in my life time...

Already been done, as in modified DNA creating new organisms. Frankenfood...

 

Which god? There is more than one.

Tell that to a Muslim and you'll be carrying your head in a basket.

 

Off topic.. but I have always wondered which religion is the right one.

Why Islam of course. So sayeth OBL.

 

 

As an Alcoholic almost by definition we are agnostic..

As my Christian son drives off to his AA meeting.

 

Well, science has already run several experiments where life was produced in a sealed lab glass

Uh I don't think so. The precursor chemicals maybe like aminio acids but not life itself.

 

no religion is the right one. ...

Again, tell that to our Muslim friends.

 

Why do you place those figures? If someone believes in God, they believe he created the universe which as far as we know could be trillions of years old.

No, as far as we know it's only around 12 to 14 billion years old, not trillions. Or that's the time from the big bang. What came before is indeterminate.

[magichands]

Nope, evolution is highly directed, not random. Natural selection isn't just random. Mutations may be random but the resulting evolution isn't.

Nope? Haha. You're confusing evolution and natural selection - they're not synonymous.

 

Anyway - and for the last time - this thread has very little (if anything) to do with evolution.

[Art_Critic]

As my Christian son drives off to his AA meeting.

 

Why the condescending tone ? you sound like a real jerk the way you have worded your post...

I do know what I am talking about.. I have been 12th stepping drunks for almost 20 years..

 

Have you ever read the Big Book ?? or worked the 12 steps ?? Until you do please do not mock me..

There is an entire section dedicated to the Agnostic the Alcoholic

 

You must be reacting from the fact that you feel responsible for your sons Alcoholism and that is why the sarcasm.

[lovelorcet]

Fair enough. Ignore the big picture at your peril, though - and that's my point.

 

When the human genome was "completely sequenced" (as an interesting aside, there are a bunch of potentially critical sites that have not yet been sequenced because of technical hurdles), people thought it would lead to a much greater understanding of humanity. It was a watershed moment - maybe - but we still know very little.

 

The sequencing was the easy part so now we have a code that we do not understand and it will be the analysis of the code which will offer the greater amount of information not the sequence itself.

 

But that is an example of what I was trying to say you can't understand a genome until you have broken it down into its pieces and then put it back together.

 

We thought that the majority of the human genome was just "junk" because only a small percentage was actually genes. We are just starting to understand how the regulatory elements laying around genes work. In evolution it is very common that genes can stay more or less remain the same but how those genes are used in different ways for example in developmental processes are controlled by their regulatory elements.

 

Developmental processes are one of the pieces to the puzzle of where life comes form, just as evolution is. How can you go from a zygote to a fully functioning human-being? This is a rational process that is governed by biological "laws" and can be understood.

 

Sitting around and saying, well I got this book here that says some dude in the sky made me in his image does not answer anything. You are using a fairy tale to describe the universe we live in based on zero facts.

[magichands]

Developmental processes are one of the pieces to the puzzle of where life comes form, just as evolution is.

I doubt that. They show where life is going, but offer little insight into the question of origin.

[lovelorcet]

I disagree, of course this is a piece of the puzzle...

 

How do you go from one embryo to a fetus to an adult...

 

Why do single celled slime molds like myxobacteria grow alone but deiced to form a multi-celled reproductive fruiting body when starved...

 

Why do mitochondria contain their own DNA...

 

Why do some RNA's also have functional activity...

 

And you mock me for trying to understand the pieces of biology and you yourself can not see the bigger picture or how everything is connected.

[magichands]

And you mock me for trying to understand the pieces of biology and

I'm sure that you're not going to let little old me put you off. Biology rocks! Well, most of it. Some of it? Or maybe just genetics. There is the occasional interesting bit, anyway.