Origins of life

I think that starting up a conversation slash argument about religious opinions and other controversial topics is a good way for people who have a common fellowship (in our case boating etc) to find things to dislike about one another.
In that regard, what a massive fail this entire post has been.
I don't believe the Off Topic section was designed for this type of conversation.
I know I am not around much, but that's my 2 cents for what they are worth.
I encourage all to quit this one while you are ahead, and perhaps even delete it from the forum.

If you think I am out of line, then I apologize. But if that is the case then I suggest the next topic be on abortion rights.

Corey.

Good Morning Dave,

No stress. Maybe God did do all that, I have no idea. I think that your scenario is similar to that proposed by Joe above. What you are saying is that if God acted like exactly what we see could we detect him/her scientifically? No we could not.

This is the whole point. If God is supernatural, as I think we can all agree, then there is by definition no way that God can be measured or recorded in any scientific sense.

My problem with this thread is not that some folks believe in God (that doesn't disturb me in the least by itself) it is the fact that the same folks who believe in a supernatural and mysterious force who requires faith to believe in, also insist that they can prove the existence of this hidden being using evidence. This makes no sense. I have not been trying to disprove God here, only shoot down any notion that the evidence can prove that there is a God.

You can see the hand of God in the evidence if you want, perhaps that has been supernaturally revealed to you, I cannot say. You can see no hand of God in the evidence, that is certainly the most simple explanation for things.

What you cannot say is that evidence in the natural world as we currently understand it needs a God; in other words nothing that we currently know of in the natural world requires any outside supernatural force to exist/occur. The only God you have is a God of the (ever shrinking) gaps, and I don't think that is the kind of God anybody wants (except Ken Ham and his ilk apparently).

As I said before, it is not important to me how Life began. I have some ideas from things I have read and heard that seem plausible to me, but I'm pretty sure that they would not seem plausible to most folks on this forum (basically biochemistry, energy, self-organization, and lots of time).

I was once invited to lunch by a young man who I knew as I kid growing up (our parents worked together at the church I grew up in). He is now the lead pastor of his own church, and he asked me what science had to say about the natural world. I told him that really there is no evidence for a creationist god scientifically speaking. He then shared with me an experience he had while being interviewed for a pastoral position at another church. He had been asked point blank by someone if he believed in a literal six day creation of the world. His reply was telling,

"Well... Since the Sun was not created until the fourth day [Genesis 14-19 for those who want to look it up... JD] how do we know how long the first three days really were?"

This apparently stumped the questioner and the interview moved on.

This story is not to undermine anyone's faith. This young man has as much faith as anyone I know. It is not easy to reconcile our experiences and observations on this planet with the existence of any god-like being. This is the lifelong struggle of the faithful (just look at Mother Teresa's private diaries for one example).

If God has revealed herself/himself to you more power to you. If not, good for you as well. Let faith be faith. Don't let your faith rest on the evidence. Faith does not require evidence, indeed it requires a lack of evidence. If you want or need an evidence-based "faith" (as some here seem to) you might want to look into your local agnostic/atheist meetings.

Waterdog wrote: Scientist vs Creationist . The Bible IS full of truth/facts. Its also full of parables, life lessons that are intended to make ME a better man.     Knowone know's how old the world is. It was around way before the sun dial or Timex. For shure.

Swatkinz, I do agree that the accounts of the Bible are pretty spectacular.

Okie Boarder wrote: So, for those that don't think creation is plausible, what do you think is the plausible explanation for the origins of life?

I have no idea how the earth and we came to be nor do I think any of us will ever know.

With the regards to creation and what the Bible says, remove yourself from your faith for a second. Forget what the Bible says and what is taught in church on Sunday and think about this.

The story of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God creating the earth and all of its inhabitants in the way the Bible says it was created is such a sensational one that it just seems too unbelievable to believe. Would you agree? If the Bible didn't say that, it would be an insane thing to think, no?

I look at the Bible as being a moral guide with many life lessons taught by using a liberal dose of metaphor and rhetoric and that includes the part about creation.

Example. Jesus walked on water. What does that mean?   My mother will tell you that Jesus physically walked on water as if it were solid ground. Could the writer of that particular scripture not have used that phrase to imply something else? That Jesus didn't actually walk on water, but that his actions were akin to an act such as that?

Trying not to veer off too much from the original topic, but it's a difficult subject to discuss w/o bringing in the rest of the Biblical stuff.

I think we see what we want to see. I've seen events in my life unfold that others have said were a result of "divine intervention." I never connected those dots.

i think creationism is absurd and I don't see how anyone can believe in god (i don't really believe in man made global warming either).

everything I have read about the fossil record and carbon dating...and thinking about why I have wisdom teeth, a gallbladder, and an appendix show me that evolution is the correct answer.

another big problem for the creationist story is that they started with the conclusion, "the earth is 6000 years old", and then looked for evidence to "prove" it. scientists start with the question, "how old is the earth", and let the evidence decide their conclusion.

i believe all religions were created by man as a means to control people.

Scientist vs Creationist

   I really don't see the battle. The right hand vs. the left hand? When both hands work together is when there the strongest. The Bible IS full of truth/facts. Its also full of parables, life lessons that are intended to make ME a better man.
    Knowone know's how old the world is. It was around way before the sun dial or Timex. For shure.

     How we got here really dosen't matter, but our stewardship while were here is everything.

     I grew up in a Cathlic Home now I try and be a good Christian everyday.
     I'm human but I'm at my best when I'm a HUMAN BEING.

What a topic!   I love this. Where do I start.

I've struggled with the origins of life/meaning of life/why are we here and how for all of my adult life. I was raised in a Christian home attended a Christian school and felt the familial and societal pressure to "have faith," believe in God, etc.

I suppose by definition I'm agnostic. There are simply too many unanswered questions for me.   At the risk of sounding blasphemous to those who do believe, I'd like to say that (for me) much of what I read in the Bible is just too unbelievable to believe. Walking on water, dividing an ocean, virgin birth etc.

I'm not a scientist but am interested in it and particularly this topic. In all of life, it seems that we value proof to validate every decision we make and yet when it comes to this topic, I'm told that it isn't possible for us humans to understand everything. You have to put the proof aside and, "just have faith."

Try as I may, the "just have faith" comment causes a rub for me and I just can't force myself to believe in something by using "faith". The big bang theory, creationism. One seems just as unbelievable or plausible as the other.

So where does that leave me? I don't lose sleep over the topic, but I do think about it frequently. From a spirituality standpoint, I feel nothing. Church? I like for my kids to be there because I think the morals that the Bible teaches are good for all of us, but as I walk out of church, I don't really feel anything. Not glad that I went, nothing. It isn't because I don't want to believe. It isn't because I don't try to read and learn about the subject, it's just that I haven't felt the enlightenment that so many others seem to have found.

To those who are Christian and who do have a strong spiritual belief, that's great.   Somehow though, those folks' attitude toward people like me is that I'm missing the boat. I'm not enlightened. They think that I "need to believe as they do". It bothers me that people feel that way, but what are you gonna do.

Sorry about the direction my post went into and sorry too if it offends believers. Not meant to offend or belittle anyone's beliefs.   

This is a huge topic. The biggest perhaps.

ny_nautique wrote: The key difference is that one is real science done by real scientists, using scientific methods, and validated by their peers. The other is completely made up to fit their story.

Ha! You said in a few lines what took me an entire page!

Okie Boarder wrote: I have seen many scientists and historians use scientific methods and methods for verifying history that have confirmed information that matches up with the Biblical accounts.

No, you have not.

Okie Boarder wrote: The evidence that is being looked at about the past is the same, whether it is the group supporting evolution and whatever points of origin and creation and God as origin. The only key difference is the conclusion they are coming to, and how they are coming to that conclusion. Neither can be totally proven or totally disproven.

This is not accurate, and I will explain why using my favorite example from the Creation Museum in Kentucky. The Floating Forests.

Creationists have a problem. That problem is evidence, such as the fossil record. They want you to believe that their science is as good as real science by 1) placing them side by side, and 2) failing to evaluate them. Putting two things side by side, and presenting them as equal makes it seem like they are both good choices, and really you can go either way and be equally sane. Failing to actually evaluate the evidence then prevents a critical examination of which idea is actually better, which would inevitably require discarding the Creationist explanation for the scientific one.

In the Creation Museum there is vague talk from time to time about the Floating Forests. Eventually it comes out near the end of the museum what the purpose of these Floating Forests are; they are the basis of a hypothesis. Even Creationists know that there are fossils, and that these fossils are 1) in layers, and 2) contain organisms that are no longer living. Thus some of them promote the idea that large forests floating in the ocean containing species no longer living were pushed by the waters of the Great Flood over the continents and were buried, creating the strata and fossils that we see today. Similar to many creationist ideas that seem potentially plausible to the scientifically illiterate and religiously indoctrinated, this seems plausible, or at least as plausible as the alternative explanation that these organisms lived millions of years ago, are now naturally extinct, and that these layers were slowly built up over time.

OK, so we've got (at least) two competing hypotheses now. Let's evaluate them. STOP. WAIT. We can't do that... The Creationists will never actually evaluate their proposed hypotheses with any actual scientific ones. The best they do is try to shoot down the scientific evidence, like carbon dating, as if everything hinges on Carbon-14 and if that just went away so too would all of the other mountains of scientific evidence.

When you examine the actual strata and the actual fossils that occur around the globe you see that the most plausible explanation for their creation is in fact natural processes occurring over millions of years. There simply are too many layers, too many fossils, too much geologic evidence that is more consistent with this idea than that a giant flood wave washed giant floating forests and then quickly buried them all and killed off every plant and animal that lived in them for the Floating Forest idea to be anything but laughable. If you cannot see why that is then I suggest you read some books on geology and paleontology, this thread and site is far too small for that.

The Floating Forests are just one example of the pseudo-scientific hogwash they present as science to provide people who want, and often NEED, to believe in a meticulous but boring creator god with a way to diffuse the mental tension that occurs when you begin to realize "Wait a second, the science actually explains things I see better than the Bible does." This is just when the Creationists spring forward and say, "Here is an explanation, just as good, just as scientific, that you can believe in and be both a Creationist and a reasonable person." The problem is that they are lying.

You see they've tricked you into believing that Creationism is both scientific and reasonable by presenting it next to science and then avoiding any evaluation of the ability of the competing hypothesis to explain actual observations.

Yes, two people can look at the same fossil and come up with two different ideas of how it got there. BUT, those two people can then also examine further evidence and patterns and compare the predictions of their ideas to what is actually observed. This is what scientists do but Creationist categorically do not do. It is also why nearly all scientists are not Creationists.

It is a great irony that modern science only exists in the first place precisely BECAUSE creationist/deist ideas FAILED to explain the geologic, cosmic, and biologic patterns that we actually observe in nature. At some point in the past our greatest minds looked at the evidence and realized, "This doesn't make any sense based one what they told me..." They then came up with ideas, some were good, some were bad. Eventually some of these ideas were pretty good and the evidence supported them. You know some of them now such as the Germ Theory, Evolutionary Theory, and Plate Tectonic Theory.

I suggest to you that the world your God actually created is far more amazing and complicated that you give her credit for. If Creation is one of the ways that God has revealed herself to us, and I submit to you that this is unlikely to be theologically controversial, then just as you read your Bible closely you may also want to read the world around you more closely instead of getting bad crib notes from people who don't want you to think for yourself.

Dreaming wrote: This is an area where interpolation may help to explain some of the dots that are drawn further apart, but extrapolation gets us into the weird and crazy zone.

I love this. So, evolution and *gasp* modern humans evolving from old world apes, and all that goes along with it is a "weird and crazy zone".

But virgin birth, walking on water, talking snakes, flooding the entire earth, fitting 2 of every possible species into a 500 foot boat, turning people into a pillar of salt, a guy living to be 800 years old, and someone coming back to life after being dead for a few months is perfectly reasonable to believe.

Thank you Hansel. I enjoy reading your posts and would like to subscribe to your newsletter

I'm the one that always gave you the "thanks" in your other off topic posts. I just couldn't bring myself to post in those threads because I would end up freaking out on the uninformed that don't listen to reason.

When I saw Okie reply with his "proof" being links to creation sites, I had no desire to reply again here.

BTW, if you aren't there already, you would be very welcomed in the reddit "ask science" section.

On some level I get it. I have all kinds of uninformed opinions. But when I ask someone in a specialized field what they think about what is going on in their field, I listen closely and usually change my views based on this new information.

Very well put. My thought on this is... you guys trust science in so many ways in your daily life. Your phone, computer, car, etc all exist because of scientists figuring out how things work. You trust that the discoveries and designs that led to human flight keep the planes in the sky, and you trust that the processed food you eat will not kill you.

You know that they correctly calculated the distance to the moon and 45 freaking years ago put men on its surface with computers less sophisticated than a wristwatch. You trust them to tell you when and where to look in the sky for celestial objects like meteors or comets and lo and behold... they are right! They can predict the movement of celestial bodies that are unfathomable distances away.

Yet if people who dedicate their life to figuring out how the world works and explaining it to the layperson tell you that the earth is NOT 6000 years old, you put your hands over your ears and scream na na na na.

There is so much misinformation on this thread I don't even know where to start...

So I will not.

I just want to say this. If the feeble attempts to stir the pot in the “Off Topic” forum were posted in the “Engine Repair” forum, they would sound something like this...

“Hey everybody! I've never rebuilt an engine, let alone looked under the doghouse, but I'm going to start buying parts to increase my torque and horsepower. All of my friends that also know nothing about engines think this is a great idea and have been helping me.

By the way, when I said “start buying”, I really meant, “already bought” so if you could all just tell me how great my totally uninformed and completely erroneous purchases were that would be appreciated. If anyone with actual engine expertise responds and explains to me that what I am doing won't work, I'm just going to find a random internet link or image that undermines their expertise no matter how ridiculous or fringe or source I have to go to to get it. When it becomes obvious how over my head I am with this project, I'm just going to start posting funny photos of people I don't like in various states of undress, and hope that this thread dies.”

Everyone on this forum would think a person who posts such a thread is unwise at best, and a total idiot at the worst. I tend towards the former but don't blame anybody who would go with the latter.

The simple fact is that you and others like you in the “Off Topic” forum think you know what you are talking about, but you really have no idea. I am not trying to be a jerk, but I just don't understand how the same people who ask for advice on how to work on their boats because they realize they are ignorant and inexperienced can turn right around and act like they are evolutionary biologists, expert climate scientists, political scientists, economists, and sociologists all at once. This would be less infuriating if it were not the fact that many CCFans are in fact experts in some of these fields, and are both willing and able to provide their considerable expertise to the problem. Then when they do, as I have on this thread, it gets thrown in their face.

I have limited expertise and experience in many topics that come up on CCFan. I have never torn an engine apart and put it back together again. I've never swapped props to get the most out of my boat, and I've never done gel or fiberglass repair. I've never taken the deck and floor off a boat and replaced the stringers. I've never barefooted behind a boat without the aid of a kneeboard (full disclosure!). I've never been in a slalom course (for more than a few seconds). If and when I want to do these things I come here first to help me.

I do not have much to contribute to the many amazing people on this site, but I do have special skills and special training that can come in handy. I have degrees in biology and zoology, and have training in education and research science. Weekly, I read a broad range of current, high impact, peer-reviewed scientific literature. A few times a year I attend professional scientific meetings, and I have met and sometimes interact with the world's experts in various fields of environmental science. Many of my friends are postdocs and professors, and my brother will soon have a PhD in evolutionary biology. So when you ask a question, as you did in the “Origin of Life” thread, I usually get excited because I have a lot of expertise that I can share.

What happens when I do? Nobody listens. Nobody wants to listen. Everybody already has their mind made up. They've got it all figured out, they saw it on TV, or the internet, or heard it at the coffee shop. They asked the question, but they don't want the answer.

On some level I get it. I have all kinds of uninformed opinions. But when I ask someone in a specialized field what they think about what is going on in their field, I listen closely and usually change my views based on this new information.

If you are going to ask the question, then at least do me and everybody else who responds the freaking favor and listen like you do to all the other experts on this site. Otherwise just cut to the chase in these posts and say right off the bat, “I have no idea what I am talking about and I will never change my mind no matter what. But I think such and such about this controversial topic.”

That way I can safely ignore these threads instead of letting that 1 in a million chance that you or somebody reading the thread might read what I write and think about it for more than five seconds get the better of me and drive me to respond.

And though you believe otherwise, I can assure you that there is absolutely no serious science that supports Creationism. None. I grew up in the church, still go, and I have friends who are pastors. I've been the the Creation Museum in Kentucky, and I've considered their arguments. I've visited the websites that you posted links to. This may be religiously or theologically sound, but it is scientific garbage. Completely. Totally. No way around it. If we had more time, and you want to go there, I can privately describe to you why this is.

You can believe that God created the world if you want. But there is no scientifically valid evidence that this is the case. You can decide what is plausible and what is not for yourself.

Okie -    this is a great question.   Unfortunately, I think it is very difficult to separate ones opinion of evolution and creation from the religious beliefs that we choose.   NY Nautique and I have differing views on faith, as evidenced by previous posts, well, except for this statement "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".      There is no evidence to support macro evolution as a whole.   Much like the story of creation, evolution requires faith to believe. In the "Theory of Evolution", there are missing links & holes in the story. I believe that Micro evolution does take place in our world, but Macro evolution is a far cry from a credible explanation. I believe the Creation account, where an everlasting God(Jesus) took the time to form the things in and on the earth, with intelligent design. This is an area where interpolation may help to explain some of the dots that are drawn further apart, but extrapolation gets us into the weird and crazy zone.   

one parting thought... Sir Isaac Newton believed the "theory" of gravity when he died, and it is not debated today because the results of his discovery are repeatable and observable.

Charles Darwin did not give credence to his own theory after he published it, it is not repeatable, and cannot be observed.   

Many things in the Bible are non-repeatable, however, they were written about by eye witnesses, they were "predicted" before they happened, and there is historical evidence that gives credence to them.