If You Are Certain God Exists Why Prove It?

[hyzer]

..... God created Life at one particular point in time, and no more after - hence only getting life from life (and multiplying).

Explain the "only getting life from life" thing again. At one time there was no life on Earth. Do we agree? Then there was life on Earth. I'm sure that we agree on that part. So, life came from non-life no? Unless you are going to say that God is alive in the conventional way (and subject to dying), then life came from non-life. Right? This sound bite "life can only come from life" is frankly silly. Discounting life arriving on Earth from elsewhere in the galaxy (which just pushes the issue to another location), life began on Earth. Period. We are discussing the process. Christians: God through some special god-magic (that we can never test and certainly never question). Rationalists: it arose through natural processes, chemistry (which we can question and study and perhaps one day demonstrate).

 

[hyzer]

That life may have emerged in some nook or cranny more than once can't be ruled out.

Indeed so. In fact, it almost certainly did. There could have been countless versions of early life that were out competed by the version that led to what we have today. There is no way to rerun to know for certain. True it only had to happen once, but there are no limits on the number of times it did.

 

[skepticalbip]

I think Learner is using the hypothetical example of a 'god' who spontaneously pops into existence by pure chance/luck, to highlight the seeming absurdity of such an idea - just as it its hard to believe uncaused multiverses pop into existence unpredictably.

Why is it so "hard" to believe? You have infinitely complex gods just "popping" into existence as it is in your world view. Universes are simple in their rules even compared to the simplest of life.

We have examples of fundamental bits of the universe popping into existence unpredictably, and so I find it easy to believe that can happen: we can WATCH it happen.

But interestingly enough, LIFE seems to have popped in only ONCE at some particular point in time.

It is interesting that the only people I know of who would make such a claim are religious creationists. What I understand from those modeling abiogenesis is that life could have formed many many times but the plethora of life we now see stemmed from only one of them. The reason only one common ancestor? That ancestor was the most robust and fit so consumed the less fit forms... that's sorta how evolution works.

 

[Wiploc]

But interestingly enough, LIFE seems to have popped in only ONCE at some particular point in time.

It is interesting that the only people I know of who would make such a claim are religious creationists. What I understand from those modeling abiogenesis is that life could have formed many many times but the plethora of life we now see stemmed from only one of them. The reason only one common ancestor? That ancestor was the most robust and fit so consumed the less fit forms... that's sorta how evolution works.

Right. If life began more than once, the later forms served as food for the established forms.

 

[Jarhyn]

But interestingly enough, LIFE seems to have popped in only ONCE at some particular point in time.

It is interesting that the only people I know of who would make such a claim are religious creationists. What I understand from those modeling abiogenesis is that life could have formed many many times but the plethora of life we now see stemmed from only one of them. The reason only one common ancestor? That ancestor was the most robust and fit so consumed the less fit forms... that's sorta how evolution works.

Right. If life began more than once, the later forms served as food for the established forms.

Yeah, it may be some time before a second contender arrives, and by then the first contender has closed the door behind them by learning to eat the disorganized feedstock that would become a competitor.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

..... God created Life at one particular point in time, and no more after - hence only getting life from life (and multiplying).

Explain the "only getting life from life" thing again. At one time there was no life on Earth. Do we agree? Then there was life on Earth. I'm sure that we agree on that part. So, life came from non-life no? Unless you are going to say that God is alive in the conventional way (and subject to dying), then life came from non-life. Right? This sound bite "life can only come from life" is frankly silly. Discounting life arriving on Earth from elsewhere in the galaxy (which just pushes the issue to another location), life began on Earth. Period. We are discussing the process. Christians: God through some special god-magic (that we can never test and certainly never question). Rationalists: it arose through natural processes, chemistry (which we can question and study and perhaps one day demonstrate).

He is saying "life from life" so he must mean that a god is alive and that it makes life. Using Learner's religious mythology I can understand his claim. He explains death similarly, simply using more religious mythology. Nothing ever died until the magic snake, magic garden story. Very deep stuff.

 

[funinspace]

What do you think luck is?

I'd say its a leprechaun

 

[Lion IRC]

...Explain the "only getting life from life" thing again. At one time there was no life on Earth. Do we agree?

At one time there was no Earth.

So, yeah. I'm sceptical about atheistic concepts of life from non-life.

 

[Jarhyn]

...Explain the "only getting life from life" thing again. At one time there was no life on Earth. Do we agree?

At one time there was no Earth.

So, yeah. I'm sceptical about atheistic concepts of life from non-life.

I can only say that your only hope of getting past that unreasonable skepticism is to take a course in molecular biology and evolutionary mechanics.

The issue is that you have this idea in your head, "life". It doesn't really mean anything, it's just an expedient with a fuzzy edge. It's an imaginary line, a piece of categorical trivia that we all put too much stock in and need to step back from.

It's all still "just" chemistry.

It just happens that when someone thinks something is "dead" generally the chemistry is less interesting.

Are viruses alive? I guess they are, if you say they are... Are prions alive?

The fact is, all it is is fueled cyclic reaction.

Now, there's a caveat to the next thing I'm going to ask: accept that you are wrong. Not necessarily accept that I am right but first that you are wrong. I will do the same.

What part of the chemistry do you not understand? Do you not clearly, really, understand what the early earth could have been like?

Think of all bthe wierd stuff that you see. Most of it is made from hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, sodium, chlorine... Pretty much "every chemical that spews out of a volcanic vent that isn't silicon or metal. But some do that too.

The earth spews everything we are made of. And everything the plants are made of. And when the earth was young-ish, it had already spewed quite a lot of what you see. But it wasn't shaped like it is now, today. It couldn't be. It was like that water of your book, formless and void, full of energy with nowhere for the energy to go.

That energy manifests physically, via volatile chemistry and motion, and most of the oxygen was bound to carbon. Eventually cyclic chemistries are bound to arise in that where various reagents start to get consumed. When that process burns out, eventually a new equilibrium is reached in the chaos and a new chemistry starts until that burns out, and so on. This is a demand of entropy! Eventually, one of those explosions of organic process, not necessarily something you would call life, is going to create a byproduct that interacts with other littered byproducts of various chemical eddies in a way that you WOULD call it life.

 

[Lion IRC]

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Argument-by-Gibberish

All you did was just make an argument that there is no such thing as "life".

...your only hope of getting past that unreasonable skepticism is to take a course in molecular biology and evolutionary mechanics.

Both of those involve God.
I said atheistic concepts of life from non-life.

 

[Jarhyn]

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Argument-by-Gibberish

All you did was just make an argument that there is no such thing as "life".

...your only hope of getting past that unreasonable skepticism is to take a course in molecular biology and evolutionary mechanics.

Both of those involve God.
I said atheistic concepts of life from non-life.

Then you are just defining god into existence. And you would use this declaration of god-involved-ness to claim a declaration that your interpretation of your book should what? Be used to make laws? And which parts? See the bible/slavery or bible/homosexuality threads, please.

You are, it seems, unable to regard a universe where there may not be a god; where those bronze age people were just people.

Because the fact is, I entertain vast ideas of gods that could be, and all the myriad cosmologies that can hang outside. And then I can set aside that sort of mental masturbation and think not about what dreams may come, and instead think about the best way to live life here, what is wrong for us in the world we live in, and what is right for me, under the accepted notion that I shall love my neighbor as myself, each neighbour, as accorded to a simple truth--my justification is derived from the same place as yours: for the sake that we may.

And the symmetry of that justification is itself reason to treat you better than I believe you would treat me. I don't need the bible to support it though. I forced myself to find my own path there, and cut it through hard reason. It doesn't require a god. I sometimes wonder after whether the randomness itself, the chaos of the virtual field, is a proof there is more; because randomness like that can't really come from an equation. And it's so very infinite. But it doesn't talk. You can put your god of the gaps in there I guess? But it doesn't say much for the bible, or any of it's laws that aren't supported by actual reason.

 

[Learner]

But interestingly enough, LIFE seems to have popped in only ONCE at some particular point in time. One could think the Bible "plagiarised this knowledge" where it is written ahead of it's time, God created Life at one particular point in time, and no more after - hence only getting life from life (and multiplying).

Was that back when snakes talked? Or was it later, when hybrids were created with carved sticks? Or was it when jackasses talked? Or was it when 2000 pigs could get possessed by demons?

Snakes plural is not quite right - as the story reads, God made things happen for particlar specific reasons ('obviously' there there were no other talking snakes mentioned).

 

[Jarhyn]

But interestingly enough, LIFE seems to have popped in only ONCE at some particular point in time. One could think the Bible "plagiarised this knowledge" where it is written ahead of it's time, God created Life at one particular point in time, and no more after - hence only getting life from life (and multiplying).

Was that back when snakes talked? Or was it later, when hybrids were created with carved sticks? Or was it when jackasses talked? Or was it when 2000 pigs could get possessed by demons?

Snakes plural is not quite right - as the story reads, God made things happen for particlar specific reasons ('obviously' there there were no other talking snakes mentioned).

Broken clock syndrome comes to mind...

 

[Learner]

..... God created Life at one particular point in time, and no more after - hence only getting life from life (and multiplying).

Explain the "only getting life from life" thing again. At one time there was no life on Earth. Do we agree? Then there was life on Earth. I'm sure that we agree on that part. So, life came from non-life no? Unless you are going to say that God is alive in the conventional way (and subject to dying), then life came from non-life. Right?

"Unless you say God s alive in the conventional way ... subject to dying...."


Hmmm subject to dying, the conventional way he says... context defined according to you.

Well it's known and said that God is a living God. Perhaps you are unaware of the biblical concept, or other similar concept of Living for Ever. An ODD concept to the theist - your "Subject to dying". A physical death , through the limited contstraints of a physical body is a POOR conceptual example for a Creator God!!!

This sound bite "life can only come from life" is frankly silly. Discounting life arriving on Earth from elsewhere in the galaxy (which just pushes the issue to another location), life began on Earth. Period. We are discussing the process. Christians: God through some special god-magic (that we can never test and certainly never question). Rationalists: it arose through natural processes, chemistry (which we can question and study and perhaps one day demonstrate).

Well yes there are processes. I don't think we are disputing the observable. So life from life is sillly? Well it seems to BE the case at the moment ... why is there such doubt with what one ones sees with ones own eyes?

and perhaps one day demonstrate...

Hmm thats sort of what we say. But have faith.

 

[ruby sparks]

Learner, you are such a twit.

 

[Learner]

ruby old chum, twit acknowledged. Hasn't it always been the same ol' usual twit foir twat?

 

[ruby sparks]

How do you even manage it with a straight face, that's what I'm curious about. I mean, you seem so...intelligent.

 

[Jarhyn]

How do you even manage it with a straight face, that's what I'm curious about. I mean, you seem so...intelligent.

It comes from the fact of how these things are generally framed to the believer. They are packaged as very reasonable sounding questions, posed in settings where there are no atheists to contend with the gish-gallop. And drilled in the most recent sass-backs which when I was exposed was the "were.you there?" Line, followed with "well, god was there and this is how his book described it!"

They are trained to think that leaving someone momentarily stumped was you being right! And it appears that way in the materials, they train you that this is the moment you get to feel smug, about attacking their "atheist faith".

The problem is that they teach a lie. They are all generally fallacious arguments packaged to hide the fallacy behind some or another rhetorical distraction so that when it comes time to respond, it's not that you can't, but that it takes so long to come back to something so stunningly idiotic (when you actually spot the fallacy), that you just look kinda dumb when you are stuck parsing it out.

I've seen it a hundred times. And of course mixed in with this are true elements of leadership and such, much like there are some tiny nuggets of truth buried in the Incel screed that are used to sell all the polished balls of shit.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

How do you even manage it with a straight face, that's what I'm curious about. I mean, you seem so...intelligent.

It comes from the fact of how these things are generally framed to the believer. They are packaged as very reasonable sounding questions, posed in settings where there are no atheists to contend with the gish-gallop.

Precisely.

For example, if I heard someone claim that an invisible magic creature started "life" on our planet I'd have a ton of questions for that person. The first question would be to ask why it would do such a thing. Obviously angels and souls are alive but not physical, so what's the need for physicality? Understand? What's its purpose in making this physical stuff when it already has all this invisible magic stuff? And then why have this afterlife baloney tied to the life and death of physicality? I mean, this is really dopey stuff that falls to pieces in an open discussion between intelligent, rational adults.

 

[Jarhyn]

How do you even manage it with a straight face, that's what I'm curious about. I mean, you seem so...intelligent.

It comes from the fact of how these things are generally framed to the believer. They are packaged as very reasonable sounding questions, posed in settings where there are no atheists to contend with the gish-gallop.

Precisely.

For example, if I heard someone claim that an invisible magic creature started "life" on our planet I'd have a ton of questions for that person. The first question would be to ask why it would do such a thing. Obviously angels and souls are alive but not physical, so what's the need for physicality? Understand? What's its purpose in making this physical stuff when it already has all this invisible magic stuff? And then why have this afterlife baloney tied to the life and death of physicality? I mean, this is really dopey stuff that falls to pieces in an open discussion between intelligent, rational adults.

See, none of that confuses me.

Humans have already recursively demonstrated most answers to your questions through our own behavior.

I would suggest looking to why humans create universes for that answer. Obviously humans are alive but not 'virtual', so what's the need for virtuality? What's the purpose in making virtual stuff when we have all this nonvirtual physical stuff? And why have this post-process serialization and logging tied to the lifecycle of objects?

None of those questions are "dopey". We accept that there are real answers to all these questions.

What we accept though is that the answers to those questions do not inform the best ethics of the entities in a virtuality, physicality, or any other proposed subordinate simulation: only the rules of the setting itself determine what is "right action" within it.