Panspermia and the Bible (Jesus, Darwin, Earth, Eden, creation)

[idea]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

So you don't accept the Big Bang Theory?

I am fine with the big bang theory - don't remember if I posted this already, but if entropy is increasing, go back in time, and you get to a more and more ordered state. The big bang came from a very ordered state - and life is ordered. Life can exist on any length scale, and through all time.. Scientists who support Panspermia state that there are actually multiple big bangs, that they go off like fireworks, some overlapping with others, that life did not have to participate in the event but can move from one anomaly to the next. I tend to think that an eternally existing life would be rather advanced, able to control matter, able to cause the big bang - that the ordered state we are moving away from was an Eden filled with life - eating the fruit from the garden, we are here gaining knowledge of good and evil, entropy was needed for progression.

[camanintx]

Originally Posted by idea

That is correct if it exists, it eternally exists, with no beginning and no end - you do not get something from nothing, you can only change the form of what already exists.

So if whatever the heavens and earth were formed from can exist eternally, then why couldn't it change form through a natural process?

[idea]

Originally Posted by camanintx

So if whatever the heavens and earth were formed from can exist eternally, then why couldn't it change form through a natural process?

We are more than just robots following F=ma like a rock falling under gravity… Something that only obeys the laws of nature is not really alive – no free will, no agency… Agency cannot be controlled by nature - cannot be controlled by anything, or it is not agency. Life has to include something more than just natural processes or it is not really alive.

[camanintx]

Originally Posted by idea

We are more than just robots following F=ma like a rock falling under gravity… Something that only obeys the laws of nature is not really alive – no free will, no agency… Agency cannot be controlled by nature - cannot be controlled by anything, or it is not agency. Life has to include something more than just natural processes or it is not really alive.

Are you saying that the universe is alive? Just because life exhibits agency doesn't make it a necessary condition for the universe as a whole. Experience suggests that 99.9999% of the universe gets along just fine without it.

[Halcyon]

Originally Posted by idea

We are more than just robots following F=ma like a rock falling under gravity… Something that only obeys the laws of nature is not really alive – no free will, no agency… Agency cannot be controlled by nature - cannot be controlled by anything, or it is not agency. Life has to include something more than just natural processes or it is not really alive.

I very much disagree with this. Can you give me an example in your every day life where you don't follow the laws of nature?

[idea]

Originally Posted by camanintx

Are you saying that the universe is alive? Just because life exhibits agency doesn't make it a necessary condition for the universe as a whole. Experience suggests that 99.9999% of the universe gets along just fine without it.

no - the entire universe is not alive, but we are.

Originally Posted by Halcyon

I very much disagree with this. Can you give me an example in your every day life where you don't follow the laws of nature?

Nature tells me to sleep and eat, it does not tell me what books to read, or what music to listen to, does not tell me to be happy or sad. Our character is our own.

People placed in the same environment do different things because environment does not completely controls us - we choose our attitude, we can change ourself - we have agency...
from Victor Frankl...

• "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

• "Nietzsche's words, 'He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.'"

• "When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves"

• "Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him - mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp."

[camanintx]

Originally Posted by idea

no - the entire universe is not alive, but we are.

If the universe is not alive, then on what do you base your claim that it cannot have a natural cause?

[Halcyon]

Originally Posted by idea

Nature tells me to sleep and eat, it does not tell me what books to read, or what music to listen to, does not tell me to be happy or sad. Our character is our own.

None of this is outside the boundaries placed upon you by the natural laws of the universe, of physics and biology.
Nature tells you to eat and sleep, yes, if you don't you will die. Nature also tells you to read books, or play video games, or watch TV, it does this as a response to boredom, you get bored and your brain stimulates you to look for something to do.
And it very much does tell you when to be happy or sad, the moods are created chemically in the brain, and they can be brought on by using drugs of similar properties to the chemicals and hormones that are naturally produced in the brain.

Originally Posted by idea

People placed in the same environment do different things because environment does not completely controls us - we choose our attitude, we can change ourself - we have agency...

The environment is never the same for two different people, because not only do you have the external environment which will be perceived differently by two separate people, but you also have two different internal biochemical environments that in conjunction with the external environment will produce different resulting actions on the part of the people.

Free will is the ability, when faced with multiple possibilities, to chose one over another, I can't see how you can make an argument that it is anything grander than that.

When I reach a crossroads I can chose to carry straight on, go left, go right or back the way I came - the decision I make will be based upon my mood, the environment (such as sign posts, buildings, even the weather) and my motivation. My free will allows me to pick the direction that best suits my needs, but it's still bound by the laws of nature.
When I reach said cross roads, my free allows me to go forward, backward, left or right, but not up, down or back in time.

Free will is a part of nature, and is limited by it's laws.