Life From Dirt?

[SkepticThinker]

It is the only reasonable answer imo.

Cool. Can you walk us through this reasoning?

 

[Valjean]

Are you saying that people give testimony about aliens, bigfoot etc and actually know what aliens and bigfoot etc look like etc or assuming they have the experience, it may not have anything to do with aliens etc.

The point is, there are first-person, eyewitness accounts of Bigfoot, UFOs, aliens, &c, by living witnesses.
Biblical narratives are apocryphal: questionable attributution, hearsay, few first hand or first person accounts, just stories by unknown sources; narratives told and retold thousands of times, and scripture edited, and rewritten, by authors with an agenda. This doesn't sound very reliable to me.

Q: How is the Bible more believable than the Quran, Guru Granth Sahib, Chronicles of Narnia, or Rig-Veda?

It's theology for dummies like me. I see things sometimes and can see that it points to the existence of a designer God.

It points that way to you because it conforms to your existing narrative. It's both a confirmation bias and an argument from incredulity.

Then intelligent people come along and say, "That's ridiculous, that is a logical fallacy or two and you need to be able to explain it or it is irrational and you should stop believing."

For good reasons, which they/I explain. You've yet to counter any of this.

I was referring to irreducible complexity. Sometimes things in biology will not work unless fully functional in a human body.

Irreducible complexity is an ancient trope that comes up over and over and always produces eye rolls by skeptics. It's been debunked so thoroughly and often it's a wonder theists don't just drop it, but, apparently, they've either not seen the alternative explanations and examples, or are just ignoring them.

Name one thing that was not functional at every step, throughout its development.

And you have your personal opinion based on your belief in science and answers that it may have come up with,

We're not influenced by belief in science, that would be an argument from authority. We're influenced by the evidence the science has uncovered.

even if those answers are not testable and nobody knows if those answers were what happened.

If those answers are not testable it's not even within the purview of science.

IOW it is educated guesses based on what might be able to happen through natural processes. But hey it's called science so who cares about little details like that when it is more fun to attack people who believe in a creator?

Clearly you don't understand what science is or how it works. You seem to see it as some sort of alternative religion. Educated guesses might suggest a line of inquiry, but hypotheses rely on solid evidence, and theories have eliminated any guesswork.

We're attacking your ideas and reasoning. We assume you want to find truth, so we're trying to help you by pointing out errors. Scientists expect nothing less, and are insulted when no critical commentary follows their proposals.
If you don't want your errors corrected, don't post them; or discuss them with your dog.

We don't want to look silly to our peers. Science, science all the way, even if it might be wrong.

We want our peers to criticize us. We want them to tear into out hypotheses like a terrier on a rat. It's part of the process.
Science is not like religion. Faith may be celebrated by religion, is anathema to science.

Science can be profoundly wrong when wanting to look into the past however, and because of the nature of science (looking at the physical universe) and the nature of God (a Spirit being) all science can do is find physical answers, and skeptics who have something against faith in God, will gladly have faith in that science that is just educated guesses.

Science includes formal processes for correcting profound wrongs.
Science does not look into the nature of God. There is, as yet, neither a need for such a force, or evidence of it. There's nothing detectable to investigate.

No! The very word "faith" moves scientists to gnash their teeth and rend their garments. Science is not guesswork. It's a investigative process. It is nothing like religion.

 

[Valjean]

It's a matter of personal perception. You have your world view also and what you see is evidence for what you believe
But in your opinion it seems that if others look at the same evidence and don't see what you see then that means that the evidence that you use is evidence for nothing.

No. Our evidence is demonstrable. If others see something different, they should explain why.
Usually these alternative "explanations" are idiotic; full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.

Yes it's a set of common beliefs that skeptics/atheists have (about the Bible and evolution and other things) that may even be themselves called evidence that there is no God instead of corrolaries that come from being skeptic/atheist, but which when looked at, do not show that the Bible is wrong or that God does not exist. But they do go hand in hand with skepticism/atheism.
I picked up the idea of corrolaries from a skeptic/atheist I was talking to one day.

Corollaries? Explain, please. We believe the evidence. We don't bother with evidence of no god. We simply see no evidence, so withhold belief, just as we do with leprechauns. Until there's some evidence a thing exists, why would anyone believe in it?

As far as the Bible being wrong, this is so gobsmackingly clear that there is no dispute among anyone familiar with it, especially biblical scholars, historians, linguists, &c.

 

[Valjean]

What I am not saying is that since evolution has not been shown to be factual, that therefore God did it. I am saying that since evolution has not been shown to be factual all the way through therefore if you believe that it is factual all the way through, then it is a form of faith that is not justified except in your own imagination and world view.

Evolution HAS been shown to be factual. It's easily observable, and there is voluminous, consilient evidence.
Goddidit! is not an explanation of anything. It's an attribution of agency.
Please do some research on evolution. You clearly don't understand it and are ignorant of the evidence supporting it. You're opinions on the subject are beyond ignorant, they often don't even make sense.

Please explain how "faith" fits into any of this.

So my faith in a creator gives me reason to say that there is a "why".
The enlightenment and the "how" question also seems to have been the result of faith in a God who gave laws that could be understood.

"Faith" is unjustified belief; belief with little or no evidence. How do you justify it?

The Bible does not look like a baseless superstition to me, it has history and fulfilled prophecy on it's side.
You work it out.

Most books have history, but the Bible's demonstrably wrong, as for fulfilled prophecy, most claims are vague and ambiguous attempts to fit a passage into an existing narrative.
Many religions claim different fulfilled prophecies. A true believer could probably find fulfilled prophecy in Mother Goose.

Skeptics don't seem to care about the Biblical evidence and ignore it.

Because it's not real evidence. I could find equally good evidence in C.S. Lewis' Space trilogy.

Design and existence of the universe and life are both evidence, as is the Bible story in it's multiple books.

The "design" is explicable as the natural result of the laws and constants of chemistry and physics. There is neither need for, nor evidence of, magic as an alternative.
The Bible, if anything, is evidence of absurdities and contradictions raised to unquestionable doctrine.

 

[YoursTrue]

For me it is at least plain that God designed the system that enabled adaptation to the various environments. Just what happened after that, I don't know exactly, but it happened as the Bible tells us imo but also imo that does not have to me special creation of each life form or type of plant or animal all the way through.

I thought about it. Ty for your thoughtful response. I can't say how exactly the organisms came about. I usually refer to a video camera as illustration. In other words the answer is by scientists that it took a looonnngg time. We weren't there, those organisms like fish, snakes, monkeys, etc who were there before humans I am told did not need to explain things according to the comments I see here. No video capture of morphing cells turning to the various related species. Only speculation as far as I discern. Fossils are not proof of evolution although they are evidence that something existed. So again, I cast my vote in favor of the Genesis account. "God did it." How He did it has not been revealed to me. Thanks again. One more thing...if there were videos of the changes from let's say the Unknown Common Ancestor of humans, monkeys, etc. that would be evidence. But there is none. Now watch.

 

[YoursTrue]

To me life forms look designed and even simple life forms, cells have things in them that are molecular machines with jobs to do and which would have had to exist fully functional from the beginning.

That seems evident to me also. I believe deformities come about from bad environment. I also believe God will straighten it all out in life.

 

[Valjean]

It is not really about thinking and the so called rules of logic that some like to place onto others.
If you want me to obey your rules of logic I won't,,,,,,,,,,,,, or maybe I can't,,,,,,,,,,, or maybe believing in God and Jesus is just not logical.
We should agree to disagree.

So you reject thinking as a useful assessment tool? Why, then, argue with those who do think? Just accept whatever feels right and familiar.

It is good to combine faith with reason and look at the evidence for each belief.
People justify their own beliefs, as do you. Neither you nor I have verifiable beliefs about God however.

But faith is, by definition, belief without evidence. It's epistemically useless. It will tell you nothing about anything.
If belief in God is unverifiable, whence the belief? How is it rational? How is it more believable than graviton pixies?

To me life forms look designed and even simple life forms, cells have things in them that are molecular machines with jobs to do and which would have had to exist fully functional from the beginning.

Yes, they do look designed -- but they're not, and the mechanisms that created them are known, familiar and observable.

No! You don't understand evolution. It does not proceed in steps, from completed 'design' to completed 'design'. It's a series of small changes, each filly functional. This irreducible complexity nonsense indicates both ignorance of the mechanics of evolution and of the "transitional" species in question.

Latin evolved into French. At no point was it not a fully functional language.

 

[Valjean]

That seems evident to me also. I believe deformities come about from bad environment. I also believe God will straighten it all out in life.

So you accept initial impressions as accurate? Why not look into the actual evidence?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It is the only reasonable answer imo.

What is reasonable about it?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

To me life forms look designed and even simple life forms, cells have things in them that are molecular machines with jobs to do and which would have had to exist fully functional from the beginning.

This is, at best, a variation of "irreducible complexity", a notion that's been disproven a long time ago. Not that it was actually needed to disprove it, mind you... it could in fact also just be dismissed at face value as at the heart of it sits the logical fallacy of the argument from ignorance.

For example:

The idea that "things have to be fully functional from the start" in the sense of having to have to function it has "today", is a myth that you'll only find in creationist propaganda. Asserted without evidence or proper argumentation also, off course.

Such is a statement that exposed profound ignorance of how evolution and evolutionary development actually works.
Consider the evolution of the eye... from the first light sensitive cells, giving the organism only a sense of light / dark / shade all the way to a modern eye (with blind spot, lol) giving the organism high definition color vision.

At NO POINT was the eye at any stage of that development not "fully functional" to the "way of being" of the organism that had it.
It was "fully functional" when used by the organism to tell the difference between light and dark.
It was "fully functional" at a later stage when used by the organism to tell the difference between light and dark AND the direction of where the light came from.
Etc.

 

[Valjean]

This is, at best, a variation of "irreducible complexity", a notion that's been disproven a long time ago. Not that it was actually needed to disprove it, mind you... it could in fact also just be dismissed at face value as at the heart of it sits the logical fallacy of the argument from ignorance.

For example:

The idea that "things have to be fully functional from the start" in the sense of having to have to function it has "today", is a myth that you'll only find in creationist propaganda. Asserted without evidence or proper argumentation also, off course.

Such is a statement that exposed profound ignorance of how evolution and evolutionary development actually works.
Consider the evolution of the eye... from the first light sensitive cells, giving the organism only a sense of light / dark / shade all the way to a modern eye (with blind spot, lol) giving the organism high definition color vision.

Not all eyes have a blind spot. Some, like those of cephalopods, are more sophisticated than ours.

Our color vision relies on three, possibly four, photorecreptor types. Many creatures have a much broader visible spectrum. A Mantis shrimp has 12 photoreceptor types.

Human eyes have both limitations and "design errors." God must have been drinking the day He designed them.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Not all eyes have a blind spot. Some, like those of cephalopods, are more sophisticated than ours.

Our color vision relies on three, possibly four, photorecreptor types. Many creatures have a much broader visible spectrum. A Mantis shrimp has 12 photoreceptor types.

Human eyes have both limitations and "design errors." God must have been drinking the day He designed them.

I know.

I just always find it funny when people ramble on about "incredible design" to point out that our eyes are actually backwards with all the wiring in front of the light-sensitive cells, creating a blind spot due to all the nerves having to cross the retina.

Imagine a sony engineer designing a handheld camera that way and then writing bloated battery consuming software to "fill in the blanks" while filming to cover up the blind spot instead of simply going back to the drawing board to fix his design flaw (preferably without his supervisor finding out because he would get fired for incompetence lol)

 

[gnostic]

Empiricism gets you nowhere in relation to God unless you think God is a part of the universe and can be tested.

I don’t think even understand what empirical evidence is.

I am referring to “empirical evidence”, not “empiricism” which is a philosophy.

The evidence are empirical, is when you have MULTIPLE evidence in which they would verify one another.

Being able to verify a model via performing experiments. Yes, experiments as in plural. So there be more than one experiment; a hypothesis or theory can only be empirical if the experiment is repeatable. So if number of scientists perform the same experiment, they should get similar or the same test results. The observed numbers, such as quantities or measurements, should match up.

The reasons why science require evidence to be empirical or experiments to be repeatable, is a mean of verification.

In empirical science, you will need more than a single evidence that support a model. The more evidence you have, especially those that support the model, then you can say the model has been rigorously tested & verified, and then the model is scientifically probable.

Either you have discovered multiple evidence, or you have experiment that are repeatable, that can verify the model being probable.

A single evidence cannot verify itself. A single experiment cannot verify itself

Empirical model is one that have been rigorously tested and/or demonstrated.

You will have to as many evidence as possible for them to be empirical. The more evidence you have that support the model, the more probable is the model.

But what would happen if all the evidence and all the experiments, don’t support the model?

That’s good too. The model is still falsifiable, but the evidence & the experiments have refuted the model. As scientists, you want to have negative evidence or experiments, because you want to refute falsifiable models - hypotheses or theories that are weak or incorrect, should be weed out and discarded.

The Scientific Method isn’t just about accepting any hypothesis or existing scientific theory, it is about rigorously testing these models, and if need be, discarded them should the evidence and experiments don’t support the hypothesis or theory.

 

[gnostic]

I am talking about people who claim that unverifiable evidence is not evidence.
These people want verifiable evidence all the time to assess reality and test it, so reality for them is usually limited to this universe, but they also speculate about other possibilities but ignore the evidence for a designer and God who has revealed Himself to us because they don't like the idea of faith even if that faith is not blind faith.

again, you don’t understand why what evidence is.

Evidence is observation of the physical and natural phenomena.

if you have observations (yes, plural) of evidence (observations of more than one evidence), then you can compare the multiple evidence against each other, and be able to determine if a new hypothesis or existing scientific theory is scientifically verified or not.

Having multiple evidence or experiment that are repeatable, is methodology of verification.

You cannot have verifiable evidence with just a single evidence or non-repeatable experiment.

Evidence and experiments can go either way, either they support a hypothesis or they don't support a hypothesis.

If all the evidence collected or all experiments don’t support the hypothesis - that’s really great news, because then all the scientists would know that the hypothesis have been refuted because the hypothesis is either incorrect or weak.

The Scientific Method isn’t just about accepting any hypothesis, but to exposed hypothesis that are either wrong & incorrect, or too weak, via “testing the hypothesis”, and the only way to test and refute weak/incorrect hypothesis, is through multiple evidence or repeatable experiments, or with both.

As to unverifiable evidence.

(A) That could either mean, you have only one evidence. I am more engineer than a scientist, but if you cannot verify something, then I am more likely to reject such a plan or design. How would you know with have only a single evidence, that’s it is true or false, there are no mean to verify it one way or the other?​

​

(B) Or, that could mean, you have no evidence. No evidence would mean having zero evidence or absence of evidence. Which would mean you have no evidence whatsoever.​

I dont think you are talking about A, unverifiable evidence. I think you mean unverifiable claim or idea or concept.

Unverifiable would mean that whatever idea, concept or claim you have, is unfalsifiable, unscientific and untestable. Unfalsifiable claim means you cannot test the claim.

such claims are no better than unjustifiable opinions or unjustifiable beliefs. Unfalsifiable claims or ideas wouldn’t even qualify to be hypotheses.

A hypothesis can only be hypothesis, if the explanations and predictions are falsifiable. Falsifiable hypothesis means, you can eventually test the hypothesis in the future.

An unverifiable model, is nothing than concept based on personal opinion or personal belief.

 

[gnostic]

There is a lot more than that, if that can even be seen as archaeology of an exodus.

Sorry, but as far as I know, there are no evidence to support that the Exodus happen.

There are no literary evidence that the book of Exodus even exist in the Late Bronze Age (LBA).

LBA start from 1595 BCE to some time around 1100 to 1050 BCE. 1595 BCE, is when the Kassite dynasty in Babylon started, which sometimes referred to as 2nd Babylonian dynasty or Middle Babylonian Period.

In Egypt, the New Kingdom period started with the 18th dynasty (c 1550 - 1292 bce), which began with the reign of Ahmose I (1551 - 1527 BCE).

Getting back to the Exodus. There are no evidence that any of the books attributed to Moses as their authors, that they exist in the Late Bronze Age. From Genesis to Leviticus, it looked most likely they were composed the time of Babylonian Exile, when some prominent hostages were living in Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 or 586 BCE.

One of the reasons why I find this to be true, is that there are no literary evidence that Jews have any creation story and flood story until they have been living in Babylon for a couple of generations, during the 6th century BCE. 7th century BCE and earlier, you have zero texts that Genesis Creation & Flood existing.

The second reason, is that the Genesis and Exodus showed no real knowledge of Egyptian history.

just because Genesis and Exodus can named a couple of cities in Egypt, there are no records from Egypt about Israelit’s, except the one reference of Israel being conquered by Egypt, in the Merneptah Stele, a 13th century BCE church stone stele that commemorated the victories of Merneptah (1213 - 1203 BCE), a king reigning during the 19th dynasty, the son and successor of Ramesses II (1279 - 1213 BCE).

Ramesses II was the one who completed the construction of Pi-Ramesses (which means the House of Ramesses) that his father had started - Seti I (1290 - 1279 BCE). Seti named the city after his own father, Ramesses I (1292 - 1290 BCE), who started this dynasty.

Do you know why I am telling you this Brian?

Because the city that the Exodus 1 called “Rameses“ is actually Pi-Ramesses. The early 19th dynasty in the 13th century BCE, is well-documented, particularly during the reigns of Seti, Ramesses II and Merneptah. Prior to Seti & Ramesses II, the city of Pi-Ramesses never existed, until the 13th century BCE.

This Pi-Ramesses, a real city, was constructed when Jericho was abandoned about 1570 BCE. But according to the exodus Rameses was built before Jericho was abandoned as claimed in Joshua (book), but archaeologically, it is the other way around. Jericho have been almost abandoned for nearly 3 centuries before Seti began the construction of Pi-Ramesses.

The 3rd reason why I don’t think the Jews knew much about Egypt’s history, is because neither the Genesis, nor the Exodus could name a single Egyptian kings at the time of the stories.

For instance, Abraham lived in Egypt for a short period, supposedly met king, and yet he is nameless in Genesis. Likewise, Joseph was supposedly 2nd in power of Egypt, during the time of plenty and time of famine, and yet not ever was this king named. The Exodus couldn’t even named the king that Moses supposedly confronted before the plagues of Egypt, couldn’t name the king who finally freed the slaves.

if Moses did write the Exodus, then shouldn’t he be able to name these 2 kings, after all, he was adopted into the royal family in exodus 2?

The reasons why the Exodus cannot name the rulers of Egypt in Moses’ story, is because Moses didn’t write the Exodus. And those who did take part in writing the Exodus, have no real knowledge of Egyptian history during the Late Bronze Age.

And then, Moses was supposed raised by royal princess, not only was she nameless, but so was her father, in exodus 1 & 2.

edit:

Not only did the Exodus failed in the history department (eg when Exodus was written have no real knowledge of Egyptian history), it has also failed in the archaeological department (eg when Rameses was constructed and Jericho was abandoned, in Exodus & Joshua, they don’t match up in timeline of the real Pi-Ramesses and the real Jericho).