Moved Another step towards answering the question of life's origins - religion

[Elixir]

"this result happens spontaneously in this environment"

Adding “Because goddidit” makes that whole idea SOooo much more palatable to the superstitious.
Follow me for more helpful tips!

 

[pood]

Evidence for a Creator- Exhibit "A"

We didn't cause ourselves to exist.

This is not evidence for God. The evidence — the fact — is that evolution caused us to exist.

My position is that a Creator caused what you call evolution.

OK.

If you want to call evolution the Capital "C" Cause that's fine by me.

...except your Cause can't really take credit for being The Cause because it was either unavoidably inevitable and/or spontaneous.

The cause of humans? The cause of all living things? No living thing was unavoidably inevitable, and nothing arose spontaneously. So your false dichotomy is nonsense. As Gould pointed out, if you replayed evolution from the start, you’d like get a whole bunch of wildly different outcomes from what we have, and nothing like a human. So nothing “unavoidably inevitable” there. As to spontaneous, no living thing arose spontaneously but over many generations of changes in the gene pools. We don’t how life started, but it’s unlikely it was spontaneous. Likely the transition from non-life to life was subtle and full of gray areas, and perhaps fitful false and starts.

If it was the inevitable result of time plus chance, then how can you separate the cause from the event itself.

As noted, no particular result was inevitable. Once life got going, assuming some external factor did not wipe it out, then time and chance made it inevitable that some things, many different things, would evolve, yes.

You're saying the equivalent of....the cause (evolution) caused evolution.

No I’m not. Evolution is a change in gene frequencies over time. That’s caused by natural selection and drift acting on, and modifying, living things descended from ancestors.

And it you want to say it's just a completely unpredictable, spontaneous event you're appealing to something as scientifically meaningless as 'magic'.

Of course I just refuted your “spontaneous” claim above. The results of evolution, especially long term, are indeed unpredictable, but that has nothing to do with magic.

And even if we did not know about evolution, “we didn’t cause ourselves to exist” is not evidence for God. It’s a silly God of the Gaps argument.

We haven't always existed.

So? No evidence for God there, either. Baseball hasn’t always existed, either. Does that mean God created baseball?

Someone created baseball.
But I'm liking the direction you're headed with that whole...baseball didn't exist, now it does, and so we can infer....

Your so-called evidence for God here is that we haven’t always existed. So Goddidit! Standard God of the gaps crap, in addition to being a fallacy of circularity — assuming your conclusion that Goddidit. The point about baseball is that just because something didn’t always exist, it does not follow that God created that thing when it did come to exist.

Past-eternal time plus chance can't explain our existence because because that would entail inevitability and the enigma of our prior absence until now.

The above not only fails to be evidence for God, it’s barely coherent. How would past eternal time plus chance “entail inevitability” — inevitability of what?

I can see why you struggle to understand.
Let me explain.

If there has been a past-eternity of time, then that is not only long enough for one spontaneous chance event to occur (such as abiogenesis), it's long enough for an infinite number of spontaneous events to occur.

We don’t know if there was a past eternity of time. Even if there wasn’t, time as always existed (not the same thing as a past eternity of time) because time began in the big bang. But yes, one could logically take the tack that if there was a past eternity of time, then many things happen again and again. Nietzsche called it the eternal recurrence. Likewise, assuming the universe is spatially infinite, we should expect an infinite number of inhabited worlds, no matter how rare life is, because any subset of infinity, no matter how minuscule, is itself infinite. The physicist Max Tegmark says that in a spatially infinite universe, we should not only expect an infinite number of inhabited planets, but also an infinite number or more or less exact duplicates of earth and all its inhabitants. He even estimated the distance one would have to travel to meet such a world — it’s really immense, the diameter of the entire observable universe multiplied by four. Granting all this — so what? How is any of this evidence for God?

Everything that could possibly happen must have already happened - an infinite number of times. Over and over again. Groundhog Day on steroids.

So?

 

What does that even mean? And why would our prior absence be an enigma? What are you even trying to say?

In a scenario of past-eternity, life on Earth has already arisen spontaneously. But the extant evidence shows prior absence of life on Earth. And Earth. And the universe.

LOL, this is ridiculous. The earth itself is not infinitely old. Therefore on the earth, the entire argument for recurrence goes out the window.

 

[pood]

So, nope, no scientific evidence in the above. Still waiting for what you promised to deliver.

 

[Lion IRC]

Wouldn't that be "absence of evidence"

No, the absence of evidence doesn't say anything.

Agreed.
Absence of evidence says nothing.

The evidence that says it happened spontaneously...

By definition, spontaneous events wouldnt have evidence of any cause.

Or do you think there is empirical, repeatable, testable evidence for stuff happening unpredictably?

..."the environment of the early earth is conducive to spontaneous biogenesis."

By definition, any and every state is 'conducive' to, unforeseeable, unpredictable, uncaused potential events. If an event is truly spontaneous, it's trivially true to acknowledge that that event took place somewhere that event was possible.

Saying that life arose in a place that was 'conducive' is nothing more that a restatement of the anthropic principle. The observation selection effect.

As I said repeatedly perhaps in both threads at this point, that was the point of the experiment: to reproduce the environment we know existed from evidence,

That's right.
To deliberately reproduce something.

...an environment first produced by large scale chaos, and then without delivering any intent for the outcome, see what outcome happens there.

There IS intent.
There's also copying someone else's recipe.

That serves as further evidence that "this result happens spontaneously in this environment".

No. There's cause and effect.
Here, look. A science experiment to produce a spontaneous event.

 

[Jarhyn]

By definition, spontaneous events wouldnt have evidence of any cause

This is where you fall off. The caused evidenced is "spontaneousness", as in "this is just what happens when this stuff is in this state".

 

[Jarhyn]

There's cause and effect

The cause is the existence of the environment, an environment that did happen through random events.

 

[Lion IRC]

There's cause and effect

The cause is the existence of the environment, an environment that did happen through random events.

You're just re-stating the claim.
The cause of the thing is the existence of the thing??? That's circuitous.

 

[Jarhyn]

There's cause and effect

The cause is the existence of the environment, an environment that did happen through random events.

You're just re-stating the claim.
The cause of the thing is the existence of the thing??? That's circuitous.

No, the cause of the thing is the precursor environment.

The existence of the environment causes the thing.

This is fundamentally different from saying the thing caused itself, as the thing is not it's precursor environment.

 

[Lion IRC]

If you want to call evolution the Capital "C" Cause that's fine by me.

...except your Cause can't really take credit for being The Cause because it was either unavoidably inevitable and/or spontaneous.

The cause of humans? The cause of all living things? No living thing was unavoidably inevitable, and nothing arose spontaneously.

I completely agree with you that no living thing was unavoidably inevitable, and nothing arose spontaneously.

So your false dichotomy is nonsense.

If you dont hold the view that abiogenesis was inevitable given a sufficient time plus spontaneous chance, that's great. That eliminates one half of the dichotomy. Now we're getting somewhere.

As Gould pointed out, if you replayed evolution from the start, you’d like get a whole bunch of wildly different outcomes from what we have, and nothing like a human.

If you replay evolution over and over again an infinite number of times you will eventually exhaust every possible outcome making every possible outcome necessarily inevitable. But since you don't believe in that half of the so-called 'false' dichotomy you're off the hook.

If I understand you correctly you DONT think abiogenesis was the inevitable result of brute repetition of random processes until eventually you hit the jackpot.

As you say...

So nothing “unavoidably inevitable” there.

As to spontaneous, no living thing arose spontaneously but over many generations of changes in the gene pools.

Wait. What?
If not spontaneous abiogenesis isn't the alternative a scientifically predictable, reproducible process showing that you can cause/create life?

We don’t how life started, but it’s unlikely it was spontaneous.

Speak for yourself. Maybe you don't know.
And if you dont know, you dont know.
So you cant have it both ways and say what is/isnt likely if (by your own admission) you DONT know.

Likely the transition from non-life to life was subtle and full of gray areas, and perhaps fitful false and starts.

Subtle?
"Full of gray areas"?
Gee. Imagine if I said Genesis is "subtle" and is full of "gray areas".

If it was the inevitable result of time plus chance, then how can you separate the cause from the event itself.

As noted, no particular result was inevitable.

No 'particular' result?
Come on pal.
The particular result is being sought to be reproduced scientifically in a test tube.
Dont try and squibb it now.

Once life got going, assuming some external factor did not wipe it out,

External factor?
I'm proposing an external factor called God and you reject that. Now you're conceding that external factors are pivotal in the matter of causing or wiping out life.
Where exactly are you at?

...then time and chance made it inevitable that some things, many different things, would evolve, yes.

Time and chance made it inevitable?
WTF?
Didn't you just deny the idea of time plus chance (infinite monkey theorem)?
You're all over the shop.

You're saying the equivalent of....the cause (evolution) caused evolution.

No I’m not. Evolution is a change in gene frequencies over time. That’s caused by natural selection and drift acting on, and modifying, living things descended from ancestors.

So you agree evolution didnt cause evolution to commence?

And it you want to say it's just a completely unpredictable, spontaneous event you're appealing to something as scientifically meaningless as 'magic'.

Of course I just refuted your “spontaneous” claim above.

No. *sigh*
You didnt "refute" the idea of spontaneous abiogenesis by chance plus time.

A refutation is not the same as a rejection.

As a theist/Creationist, I reject the idea of spontaneous abiogenesis.

The results of evolution, especially long term, are indeed unpredictable, but that has nothing to do with magic.

We are both looking at the same "results".
What we're debating is the cause (or non-cause) of those results.

And even if we did not know about evolution, “we didn’t cause ourselves to exist” is not evidence for God. It’s a silly God of the Gaps argument.

We haven't always existed.

So? No evidence for God there, either. Baseball hasn’t always existed, either. Does that mean God created baseball?

Someone created baseball.
But I'm liking the direction you're headed with that whole...baseball didn't exist, now it does, and so we can infer....

Your so-called evidence for God here is that we haven’t always existed.

Don't get sidetracked.
Baseball.
...didn't always exist.
You said it.

Did someone invent baseball?

So Goddidit! Standard God of the gaps crap, in addition to being a fallacy of circularity — assuming your conclusion that Goddidit.

You say 'emergence' of-the-gaps.
Wanna call it a nil all draw?

The point about baseball is that just because something didn’t always exist, it does not follow that God created that thing when it did come to exist.

I don't assert God invented baseball.
So you'll have to find someone who does if that's the strawman you want to take a swing at.

Past-eternal time plus chance can't explain our existence because because that would entail inevitability and the enigma of our prior absence until now.

The above not only fails to be evidence for God, it’s barely coherent. How would past eternal time plus chance “entail inevitability” — inevitability of what?

I can see why you struggle to understand.
Let me explain.

If there has been a past-eternity of time, then that is not only long enough for one spontaneous chance event to occur (such as abiogenesis), it's long enough for an infinite number of spontaneous events to occur.

We don’t know if there was a past eternity of time.

We dont know of-the-gaps.

Even if there wasn’t, time as always existed (not the same thing as a past eternity of time) because time began in the big bang.

If you want to say the universe began to exist I wont argue. My high school science book agrees - the universe is only 13.8 billion years old.

But yes, one could logically take the tack that if there was a past eternity of time, then many things happen again and again.

Do you or dont you reject the possibility of (past-eternal) time plus chance infinite monkey theorem?

Nietzsche called it the eternal recurrence. Likewise, assuming the universe is spatially infinite, we should expect an infinite number of inhabited worlds, no matter how rare life is, because any subset of infinity, no matter how minuscule, is itself infinite.

Your post is so long, you seem to be drifting.
Multiverse theory as an alternate way of explaining life from non-life is simply a glorified version of infinite monkey theorem
...if you have enough universes, multiverses, megaverses and enough time you will inevitability find one where life arose spontaneously by pure chance.

The physicist Max Tegmark says that in a spatially infinite universe, we should not only expect an infinite number of inhabited planets, but also an infinite number or more or less exact duplicates of earth and all its inhabitants.

Im not sure why youre citing someone who affirms what I said about a past-eternal Groundhog Day universe.
 

He even estimated the distance one would have to travel to meet such a world — it’s really immense, the diameter of the entire observable universe multiplied by four. Granting all this — so what? How is any of this evidence for God?

Everything that could possibly happen must have already happened - an infinite number of times. Over and over again. Groundhog Day on steroids.

So?

Is it or is it not your view that life arose on Earth spontaneously and enabled by the combination of pure chance plus sufficient time?

 

What does that even mean? And why would our prior absence be an enigma? What are you even trying to say?

In a scenario of past-eternity, life on Earth has already arisen spontaneously. But the extant evidence shows prior absence of life on Earth. And Earth. And the universe.

LOL, this is ridiculous. The earth itself is not infinitely old. Therefore on the earth, the entire argument for recurrence goes out the window.

I don't argue FOR that.

I assert the exact opposite. I argue that it only happened once - that the universe, the Earth and life on Earth was the result of a single Creator God who deliberately caused same.

 

[steve_bank]

Ok Lion...

How about monkeys with an infinite amount of time writing random thoughts that end up as a myth that monkeys believe?

IOW wandering ancient nomadic camel jockeys thinking up a creator-god?

That all cultures had and have myths obviously say there is no unique 'true' god or gods. Throughput history gods have served political interests, no different today in American politics or Iran and Saudi Arabia for that matter.

Modern empirical experimental science has replaced both religion and what was called Natural Philosophy up to the 19th century. Natural Philosophy became obsolete.

The preeminence of philosophy in general has declined. It became inadequate in explaining physcal reality and experience.

A Jewish rabi arud the 13th cetry Modse Maimonedes sia when scrpture and science conflict, interpretaion of scripture must change.

The Muslim translator of the Koran I read circa 1930ssaid that religion and science do not conflict. Religion deals with the spiritual nature of people, science wit physical reality.

 

[Lion IRC]

Ok Lion...

How about monkeys with an infinite amount of time writing random thoughts that end up as a myth that monkeys believe?

IOW wandering ancient nomadic camel jockeys thinking up a creator-god?

Why would they do that?

That all cultures had and have myths obviously say there is no unique 'true' god or gods.

Really? Is that true?
All cutures agreeing that atheism is false?
WOW!

Throughput history gods have served political interests, no different today in American politics or Iran and Saudi Arabia for that matter.

Atheism has similarly served certain political interests. So where does that leave us?
Are we deciding such things based on the utility of religion (or atheism) ?

If theism has had a nett positive effect on human flourishing doesn't that outweigh the incidental (and questionable) negatives?

I prefer to avoid attributing motivated reasoning to folks who disagree with me about atheism vs theism. At the very least, if you're going to say theism is an invention, you should concede that atheism might also be wishful thinking - or epistemic pragmatism.

Modern empirical experimental science has replaced both religion [...and Natural Philosophy]

No it hasnt.

The preeminence of philosophy in general has declined.

I dont think it was pre-eminent to start with and so I don't agree it has declined.

It became inadequate in explaining physcal reality and experience.

Did it ever claim to be necessary and sufficient to explain... *cough*
...physical reality

A Jewish rabi around the 13th century Moses ben Maimonedes said when scrpture and science conflict, interpretaion of scripture must change.

Wanna know what else he said?
I mean...since youre appealing to him as an authority.

The Muslim translator of the Koran I read circa 1930ssaid that religion and science do not conflict. Religion deals with the spiritual nature of people, science wit physical reality.

I don't think science conflicts with my religion. I love science.

 

[steve_bank]

Lion

All cultures having myths of one kind or another. That there are many god myths does not prove any god exists.

Do you believe physical illness is caused by bad spirits that can be let out by drilling a hole in the skull, as some people once believed?

Or do you go by modern medical science?

If I walked up to you on the street handing you a pamphlet saying 'Have you heard the good news brother? Santa Claus is real and he knows if you have been good or bad when he comes at Christmas in a flying sleigh. So be good for goodness sake or get a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking' what would you think?

I do not love science, it is a tool. I love people not things or fictional charterers and myths.

 

[Elixir]

If I walked up to you on the street handing you a pamphlet saying 'Have you heard the good news brother? Santa Claus is real and he knows if you have been good or bad when he comes at Christmas in a flying sleigh' what would you think?

“Is this thing recyclable?”

 

[Lion IRC]

Lion

All cultures having myths of one kind or another. That there are many god myths does not prove any god exists.

True.
But it's not nothing.

You're sweeping a LOT of corroborated and semi-corroborated testimony under the carpet.

And youre simultaneously making the extraordinary claim that all those reports over tens of thousands of years made by billions of your fellow humans are ALL deliberate lies or delusions.

Do you believe physical illness is caused by bad spirits that can be let out by drilling a hole in the skull, as some people once believed?

If I adopt methodological scepticism I shouldn't believe any tentative claim as to the cause/cure.

Or do you go by modern medical science?

Modern science predicted antibiotics would all but eliminate infectious disease.
Modern science gave us asbestos and thalidomide.

...I do not love science, it is a tool. I love people not things or fictional characters and myths.

A hammer is a tool. An axe is a tool. A block and tackle is a tool. The wheel is a tool. They are pretty handy to have.

You know you can love both people and tools. They aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[bilby]

Gee. Imagine if I said Genesis is "subtle" and is full of "gray areas".

Then you would be wrong. Again.

There is not enough of Genesis for it to contain "grey areas".

My introductory BSc text for Molecular Biology back in the eighties was bigger than the entire Bible, not just Genesis.

Any brief summary of Molecular Biology and/or Biochemistry on a discussion board such as this one is necessarily full of "grey areas" and lacking in subtle details - unlike Genesis, whose entire text with regards to any particular element of the story can easily be quoted in full.

Genesis isn't anywhere close to being big enough to be a complete account of the origins of life; Yet its authors and their fanboys claim it to be a complete account of the origins not only of life, but also of the planet on which it exists, and the cosmos of which that planet forms a part.

To suggest or even imply that Genesis (or indeed, the entire Bible) contains all the answers might have been convincing in an age when a dilligent and learned man could aspire to read every book in existence; It is beyond absurd in an era where it takes a lifetime for a dilligent and learned person to read every book and paper published about a tiny subset of a small portion of a single topic.

Not only do you not grasp how life is believed (by scientists who study the question), to have started; You don't even have a grasp of just how much science that you don't even know exists, but would need to be intimate with, in order to begin to understand the question, there actually is.

There is more natural philosophy on Earth, than is dreamed of in your "heaven".

You say you agree with the science; But it is clear that you are blissfully unaware even if the existence of most of the science, much less its content.

It's like watching a dog try to complete the Times Cryptic Crossword.

 

[steve_bank]

Love is about mutual feelings. A hammer cannot feel your love, although you may feel your hammer loves you back.

No one claims science is infallible or omniscient seeing all ends or is able to understand and explain all things. That would be the purview of the Christian god.

If you put it in those terms, all of it partly intentional deception by religious and political powers, and partly the gullibility and need for something to believe in by us humans.

The KJ bible was crafted to suport a political agenda. Old Henry 8th had a problem with the pope and a divoce, so he started his own Christian church. It exst today as a Briteich stae religion.

Witness Trump and our Evangelical Christians. They seem to believe Trump is actually a believing Christian instead of a manipulative lying politician.

So Lion, is your god the one and only or are all gods equally true?

 

[Lion IRC]

Love is about mutual feelings. A hammer cannot feel your love, although you may feel your hammer loves you back.

Agreed. There are different semantic meanings of the word love. I love pizza.
But we can't legally get married.
(Puritan bigots won't let us.)

No one claims science is infallible or omniscient seeing all ends or is able to understand and explain all things.

True.

That would be the purview of the Christian god.

Also true.

...The KJ bible was crafted to suport a political agenda. Old Henry 8th had a problem with the pope and a divoce, so he started his own Christian church. It exst today as a Briteich stae religion.

Henry the 8th died long before the KJV

He was succeded by Edward the 6th.
Then Mary
Then Elizabeth
THEN James

Witness Trump and our Evangelical Christians. They seem to believe Trump is actually a believing Christian instead of a manipulative lying politician.

Witness... [example of atheist doing bad stuff goes here.]

OK. Now we're even.

So Lion, is your god the one and only or are all gods equally true?

 

[ideologyhunter]

But it's not nothing.

You're sweeping a LOT of corroborated and semi-corroborated testimony under the carpet.

And youre simultaneously making the extraordinary claim that all those reports over tens of thousands of years made by billions of your fellow humans are ALL deliberate lies or delusions.

Erase the phrase 'deliberate lies' and it's a claim most believers and most free thinkers make. 4,000 known religions and 18,000 known deities are in the historical record of our species. That's an indication to me that we're looking at a list of cultural narratives that often do intensify into delusions. If you don't believe in Tezcatlipoca, Tyr, Poseidon, and their 18,000 compatriots, then where else did they come from but the human imagination? They tell us quite a bit about our own psychology and the power of cultural traditions.

 

[lostone]

The KJ Bible indeed was translated as part of a political agenda, although as you say not the Tudor political agenda of Henry 8th, but as part of Catholic King James' efforts to pacify Puritans.

King James: The Project | Born Out of Persecution: History of the Early English Printed Bible | Cedarville University

digitalcommons.cedarville.edu

 

[lostone]

But it's not nothing.

You're sweeping a LOT of corroborated and semi-corroborated testimony under the carpet.

And youre simultaneously making the extraordinary claim that all those reports over tens of thousands of years made by billions of your fellow humans are ALL deliberate lies or delusions.

Erase the phrase 'deliberate lies' and it's a claim most believers and most free thinkers make. 4,000 known religions and 18,000 known deities are in the historical record of our species. That's an indication to me that we're looking at a list of cultural narratives that often do intensify into delusions. If you don't believe in Tezcatlipoca, Tyr, Poseidon, and their 18,000 compatriots, then where else did they come from but the human imagination? They tell us quite a bit about our own psychology and the power of cultural traditions.

Lion even rejects God neutral pantheism.