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It's very simple. If you don't believe that the universe was created, how do you believe life began? Furthermore, how do you explain the phenomenon of life?
We could, Frankenstein-like, construct a human body. Science has advanced to that point, and even if we couldn't grow organs, we could harvest parts from other bodies. Yet, no matter how perfect our construction, we could not impart life to the body.
The physical and chemical makeup of a person one second prior to death is exactly the same as the physical and chemical makeup of that same person one second after death. Yet there is a huge difference - that being "life".
We can keep people physically alive on machines for a long time (perhaps indefinitely)... people with zero brain activity... but that doesn't qualify as life when, upon turning off the machine, the person's body would be totally incapable of self-sustainment and the person would die.
"Big Bang" theory explains how the universe was created. And even if you want to believe that, somehow, an explosion managed to create the orderly universe we know today, it doesn't explain life.
So tell me how you believe life began and what your evidence is to support your conclusion (if there is any).
One of the fundamental differences between dogmatic religions and the beliefs and values of everyone else (including Atheists, agnostics, religious humanists, and other, non-dogmatic religious folks) is with regard to the unknown and unknowable. The acknowledgement and acceptance that humanity doesn't know everything about everything, and may never know much about some things, is an element of spiritual maturity that a lot of dogmatic religious have not, or refuse to, aspire to.
It's very simple. If you don't believe that the universe was created, how do you believe life began? Furthermore, how do you explain the phenomenon of life?
Don't know and neither do you.
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We could, Frankenstein-like, construct a human body. Science has advanced to that point, and even if we couldn't grow organs, we could harvest parts from other bodies. Yet, no matter how perfect our construction, we could not impart life to the body.
True, but it is only advances in science and medicine that has a record for sustaining life. In time we may get there but the complexity of the brain leaves us with much to still learn and achieve. Cloning obviously means we are well on our way but barring ethical objections by religious folk, we may have been a tad more down the line.
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The physical and chemical makeup of a person one second prior to death is exactly the same as the physical and chemical makeup of that same person one second after death. Yet there is a huge difference - that being "life".
True, but once the parts have worn out, the brain dies there is very little man is able to do. It is the cycle of life and death is part of that cycle. You in fact start dying the day you are born. Some models just last longer than others.
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We can keep people physically alive on machines for a long time (perhaps indefinitely)... people with zero brain activity... but that doesn't qualify as life when, upon turning off the machine, the person's body would be totally incapable of self-sustainment and the person would die.
Vanity of humans who think we are immortal. We are not.
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"Big Bang" theory explains how the universe was created. And even if you want to believe that, somehow, an explosion managed to create the orderly universe we know today, it doesn't explain life.
Not an explosion and the BBT was first postulated by a priest. Look it up.
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So tell me how you believe life began and what your evidence is to support your conclusion (if there is any).
There are hypothesis of abiogenesis which for the most part seems the most logical. Personally, that and the subsequent evolution does not quite explain the diversity we see even in humans. I do not fully buy into the out of Africa model despite the evidence for it. Folk here are not black b/c of the harsh African sun and moving to Europe would not have made them white by the same inverse measure. I believe that there must have been multiple incidences of these abiogenesis events but folk say the odds are too improbable. I dunno, it seems more likely seeing that global events would have forced critters to evolve along similar lines. Tigers are not from Africa and they have managed to breed a Liger (cross between a tiger and lion)
Conversely, a post flood and 3 human breeders could not yield the diversity in a mere 4000 years. That would be evolution on steroids.
The truthful answer is that we know far less than what we actually know.
The posit of godunnit is no answer at all, it merely closes the door to rational enquiry. In our quest for truth, history shows us religion is being proved inaccurate daily. How many of us actually apply the full knowledge of scientific discovery daily? Very few I think.
Most of my "advanced" scientific knowledge was acquired on my personal journey in search of truth concerning religion. I never really bought into creation and a YEC so the religion I had was much like everyone else's - made up. This was probably due to the fact I learned real science and history at school not to mention I was a bit of a geek at school.
It's very simple. If you don't believe that the universe was created, how do you believe life began? Furthermore, how do you explain the phenomenon of life? ... So tell me how you believe life began and what your evidence is to support your conclusion (if there is any).
If you're interested in understanding the current scientific hypotheses and evidence for how life began on earth, then here are a couple of links:
"Big Bang" theory explains how the universe was created. And even if you want to believe that, somehow, an explosion managed to create the orderly universe we know today, it doesn't explain life.
So tell me how you believe life began and what your evidence is to support your conclusion (if there is any).
Has it ever occurred to you that the universe is enormously large, enormously old, and we are tiny little creatures with limited intellect and sensory apparatus who have been around for a relatively short time?
Given that, we are ignorant about far more than we know, and we will probably always be that way.
I simply believe that the rational response to that is to be honest and say "I don't know" about some things (or, "I have hypotheses, but am not certain").
If you can give yourself permission to admit that you don't know some things, and can learn to sit with uncertainty until better data is available, then you can let go of your obsession with having to "know" in detail how life began, which leads to you accepting some wild guess like "god did it". There MUST be an explanation, you say to yourself, but I'm saying, no, there needn't be. There's one somewhere, and we may or may not be able to access it someday, but in the meantime, we just don't know and that's perfectly fine.
In addition, you can become aware of agency inference and its influence on such topics. Humans evolved the need to elude predators through "run now and ask questions later". Rustling bushes = predator, even when it's not = survival. Thunder in the sky = god = comforting to think you might be able to appease his wrath somehow.
Humans progress by imagination, but imagination must be disciplined. You can imagine Thor as the source of thunder, but you had better be willing to let go of that attractive imagination when science tells you empirically that it's just static electricity writ large. This kills off Thor but is more comforting that the forlorn hope that you can appease Thor -- all you have to do is install a lightning rod and stay off of hills during thunderstorms and your'e good. I've never worried a day in my life about thunder and lightning and it's all thanks to mankind figuring out the true mechanism.
It's very simple. If you don't believe that the universe was created, how do you believe life began? Furthermore, how do you explain the phenomenon of life?
We could, Frankenstein-like, construct a human body. Science has advanced to that point, and even if we couldn't grow organs, we could harvest parts from other bodies. Yet, no matter how perfect our construction, we could not impart life to the body.
The physical and chemical makeup of a person one second prior to death is exactly the same as the physical and chemical makeup of that same person one second after death. Yet there is a huge difference - that being "life".
We can keep people physically alive on machines for a long time (perhaps indefinitely)... people with zero brain activity... but that doesn't qualify as life when, upon turning off the machine, the person's body would be totally incapable of self-sustainment and the person would die.
"Big Bang" theory explains how the universe was created. And even if you want to believe that, somehow, an explosion managed to create the orderly universe we know today, it doesn't explain life.
So tell me how you believe life began and what your evidence is to support your conclusion (if there is any).
You seem to be asking two questions - the origin of the universe and the origin of life on earth.
I think what many people seem to miss or ignore is one extraordinarily important factor - time and lots of it.
If you accept current thinking, the universe expanded approximately 13.8 billion years ago. The earth wasn't formed until around 4.5 billion years ago. That's over 9 billion years before earth was formed and we are not even talking about any idea of life yet. What was god doing for 9 billion years?
Approximately another billion years go by before even the simplest organisms appear on earth. One billion years is almost too much for the human brain to even contemplate. Another 2 billion years go by before cells with a nucleus appear. Then 530 million years ago the first vertebrates appear. 230 million years ago saw the emergence of the dinosaurs who roamed the earth for 160 million years.
Modern humans (homo sapiens) only appeared on this earth a mere 200,000 years ago. That's nothing but the blink of an eye compared to all the time that came before us. Nothing compared to the time the dinosaurs were around.
Are we saying that all this time, this waiting almost 14 billion years for us to appear - god did all this just for our benefit? Our little planet in this galaxy of billions of suns which inhabits a universe made up of billions of galaxies? We wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for the fact that we happen to live in a habitable zone just the right distance from the sun.
'Life' evolving has not been easy. It has not been a process of cobbling together body parts like Frankenstein, or a god figure going "abracadabra - there you go" overnight. It is the result of many billions of years of evolution and life on this planet has been close to being wiped out completely many times.
It's very simple. If you don't believe that the universe was created, how do you believe life began? Furthermore, how do you explain the phenomenon of life?
>snip<
So tell me how you believe life began and what your evidence is to support your conclusion (if there is any).
I've been posting on religious and other forums for over five years and your question will get the same response from every atheist on the interwebs:
"We don't know and what ever the answer is, it sure ain't God".
Atheists seem to have all the facts (concerning the supernatural), yet cannot explain life or origins. My belief in God is not based on the question of Origins. I will say that it is not logical to think that the universe and life just came to be by chance. Chance does not produce the laws of the universe, mathematics or the Code of DNA.
This "anything but God" stance tells me that many atheists are locted into a sort of Dogma and their minds are closed to any suggestion that challenges their worldview.
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