I have a good buddy who is ExMo, but super Xtian. I am a Zen Universalist. I worship the God Particle, minus the Particle, since its more if a field. I am scientifically inclined, although i am the first to admit that the vast majority of the cosmos is a vast mystery to all of us.
We pretend to know, but we don't.
When we argue, we argue creationism vs evolution.
I do not accept that Evolution and Christianity are mutually exclusive. I never did, even as a Mormon.
I was well educated in Evolutionary theory before I went on a mission.
But I think you can be a Christian, like Francis Collins, head of the National Institute of Health who helped crack the human genome, who is a devout Christian. He doesn't deny evolution, because he's a geneticist. He just believes God took a lot longer to create humans then it says in the Bible. The origins of life and the Universe, obviously wasn't as simple or quick as what it says in the Bible. What really happened is obvious from looking at the DNA.
My ExMo Christian, buddy's argument is that there's no way that life could have started from non-life, from rocks and water and sunshine and air. Nobody has ever proven life can come can be created without divine intervention. He always asks me how would I have gotten here without a God?
I used to just shrug and say, "Nobody knows."
He says, "I do. God created us."
I thought and researched Abiogenesis, life coming from nothing, for quite awhile. There's something called transpermia, life or genetic material, information, coming from outer space, to Earth.

There are Extremophiles, like Tardigrades, Waterbears, that can survive in outer space.
They could easily travel between another planet and Earth aboard a huge chunk of ice that got knocked off of another planet and landed in our oceans.
Also, viruses are not considered life by most scientists.
They can't live outside of a bacteria, but they do have all the genetic code for life inside them. They work by inserting their half strand of DNA into a bacteria, and replacing half of the bacgteria's double helix DNA strand with their half of a DNA strand. There's no reason why two viruses couldn't combine their two half strands of DNA to create a full strand of DNA.

Meaning we all probably came from viruses that came from other planets
Water bears or viruses could be the scouts that go out and outer space and colonize planets that have water on them.
Some of the oldest forms of life are viruses, even though we cannot agree they are a life form.
It's entirely possible that we all came from viruses.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2016 01:55AM by koriwhore.

you sound confused

If theists demand an answer to the first question, then it is only reasonable for atheists to demand an answer to the second question.

Are water bears like gummie bears? It seems you do need water to make life go. The more interesting question is why did life evolve? Maybe life wants to live, and that's the driving force. It's much more elegant than idols of the mind or cosmic monarchs that nobody ever sees. You can see life.

Look up the Miller-Urey Experiment and Soviet scientist Alexander Oparin. Oparin outlined various panspermia and chemoevolutionary theories, and later on, Miller built on those ideas.

Basically if you take various elements in solution and zap them with electricity, you will get amino acid molecules in relatively short order. This is likely what happened on earth, with the chemical raw materials and lightning. Let that experiment run for sufficient time and it is hypothesized that cells may arise out of the aminos. The issue is "sufficient time" may be the billions of years Earth's giant electrochemical vat had to wait before it spewed forth such lively complex organic machinery, so the experiment may be quite hard to observe to fruition.

Even so I think those names are a good doorway for you to hone your knowledge so you can waste your breath debating a Christian. :-)

Kind of an all-natural Frankenstein scene!

We're ALIVE! We're . . . ALIIIIIIIIIVVVVE!!!

You know as I wrote this I kept thinking that same line, it's alive!!!! Aaaliiiiivvee!

But I totally couldn't incorporate it in my post because it was late and when it's late I cannot snark.

Miller Ulrey have largely been discredited. There's a reason why their tests from over a half century ago have not had massive follow up and replication. Their data and input was flawed. Subsequent tests find they must go shopping for missing materials that would hopefully arrive via meteorites or comets.

It's also a comical approach to abiogenesis. Take a group of scientists in a carefully controlled lab with optimum conditions, precisely measured substances, and continuous experiments to demonstrate that life occurred completely at random with no external controls or intelligent intervention. Seems like a great SNL skit.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/primordial-soup-urey-miller-evolution-experiment-repeated/

Miller Uhrey did not say they found the answer to life. They just said some of the building blocks of life (amino acids) were present on the early earth. Their work has been incorrectly interpreted and has been repeated. No one knows exactly how it started.

Stuart Kauffman and others are working on creating life from the lifeless (elements). Their work is referenced here.

https://www.edge.org/memberbio/stuart_a_kauffman

His ideas about emergence are also interesting and calms me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVL2Y5z2jLU



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2016 12:12PM by perky.

About 30 years ago, I went to a pool party. It was a wonderful day. Played pool Volleyball and drank lots of beer.

While resting on a lounge chair by the pool I noticed a few ants were making there way doing what ants do.

Those ants had no idea that they were at a pool party.

I think we are about as close to understanding life's creation as those ants did in realizing they were at a pool party.

Just because we don't understand something, we shouldn't make up excuses or theories not based on facts. It's better to admit our ignorance and strive for more knowledge than to grab facile explanations.

Big Bang... stuff splattered everywhere... some of it stuck together and started to grow...

There are RNA molecules that can self replicate, eg http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24388759 Self replicating RNA is likely to have been the first form of self replicating molecule.

RNA is basically an old "technology" so far as evolution is concerned. DNA took over as a better form of data storage, and proteins took over as a better material to function as enzymes. Like radio in the era of television and Blue Rays, the old technology is still around, albeit in a reduced role.

I recommend reading up on "RNA world" eg:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world

All of this is theoretical of course, since direct observation is practically impossible. Maybe life on earth started from bacteria aboard an alien spaceship that landed on earth? It is difficult to prove otherwise. We can rule out "directed evolution" because of the amount of time it took for us to evolve from bacteria. Whether the first self replicating molecule randomly came together, or whether it came here on an asteroid or an alien space ship is a matter of speculation.

Panspermia is a bit like saccharine. It's momentarily sweet, but quickly alerts you that something is missing. The thing that's missing is its failure to actually answer the question regarding the origin of life. It just moves the problem a bit farther from view.

So what your buddy is saying is that god is not alive.

Couldn't agree more. ..

Remind your buddy that he doesn't "know."
He *believes.*
Belief and knowledge are not the same thing.
And zero evidence backs up his "belief."

We don't know exactly how life on our planet began (yet). That doesn't mean "god did it." It means we don't know yet. We're learning more about what DID happen, we have lots of plausible ideas about how it MIGHT have happened...but nothing points to "god did it."
Nothing.

I like reading about other possibilities like this. To ME, the concept of "God" seems like an idea people came up with because they gave up trying to understand.

I think it's great to admit that we really don't know YET and to CONTINUE to study it, to theorize, and to talk about ideas like this. There's no need to plug something (or someone) in and claim that it's fact, it's done, and that there's no need to discuss it.

even if you want to go with the god idea, don't you eventually want to know where god came from

robinsaintcloud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> even if you want to go with the god idea, don't
> you eventually want to know where god came from

"God" is such a personally-specific term (regardless of any individual's belief...or non-belief)....

...most of the time I just ignore the "God" term (unless it is important to the discussion at hand: the philosophical differences between evangelical Christian and Zoroastrian concepts of God, for example).

What I REALLY think is that our physiological human brains, regardless of how relatively "smart" they may be on THIS planet, are undoubtedly so INCREDIBLY limited by cosmological standards that we, as humans operating within our given brain limitations, are not capable of comprehending whatever-is-the-actual truth anyway.

Since we, as a species, are NEVER going to be smarter than the smartest individual brains which exist within our species, it is all moot to me...

...and, therefore, most of the time, I just mentally skip the theist/atheist debates, because all sides of these debates (no matter HOW intelligent the individual brains involved) STILL come down to human brain reasoning, and understanding, and ultimate capability.

not sure I was clear with my comment, was thinking okay lets say god created us.....who then created god, would have had to come from somewhere...

"I worship the God Particle, minus the Particle, since its more if a field. I am scientifically inclined"


I think you are scienceing wrong.

Feel free to point out where I am in error.
I agree 99.9% with Carl Sagan and about 99% of Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, Einstein and Sam Harris have to aay, All of whom are specifically NOT ATHEIST, for good reason.

There's a good reason Nobel Prize winning Physicist, Leon Festinger named the Higgs Boson, "The God Particle". Its kind of like the opposite of the tower of Babel. Discivering it clears up a lot of confusion about the nature of matter and energy.
I really worship the Tao, which includes everything between, the God Particle, Minus the Particle, and the Great Attractor. It includes black holes/white holes and tye balance in between.
We exist on the accretion disk between singularity and super symetry, where Ghost Particles intersect with the God Particle, which plucks them from the light, slows them down, just enough to make them matter.
E=mc^2

When a scientist or a koriwhore start philosophizing they aren't scienceing.

I get where you are coming from and it isn't from a place of analyzing and reanalyzing data.

Stephen Hawking "I'm an atheist."
Neil deGrasse Tyson "I'm not going there." "Faith and reason are irreconcilable."

Michio Kaku, Einstein and Sam Harris are all pantheists which in essence is calling the entirety of reality god. If you prefer you can call them asupernaturalist but I think I prefer calling this not relevant to my original point.

Which is that science and philosophy are not the same thing and I think you think they are.

No I know the difference between science and philosophy.
Science was started by philosophers, like Plato, Arisotle, Democritus and Epicurus, who imagined non determi istic atomic theory 300 years prior to Christ.
Given the fact any good scientist is perfectly willing to admit that we can only account for the 5% of our Cosmos that isn'tisn't Dark Matter/Energy, I'd say philosophy does abiut the best job of theorizing about the other 95% that science cannot figure out.

koriwhore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd say philosophy does abiut the
> best job of theorizing about the other 95% that
> science cannot figure out.

Since "philosophy" offers no evidence of any kind (or even testable hypotheses) for its "theorizing," by what measure do you determine it's the "best?"

It's largely hand-wringing and imagination. A slightly (only very slightly) more sophisticated approach to the unknown than "god did it."

Science admits what's not known, and comes up with ways to know it. Philosophy (or rather its practitioners) think they know about the unknown.

They don't. :)

So toss out any string theories, or any theiries involving Black Holes, Singularity, Super Symetry, anti Matter, Dark Matter/energy, or Abiogenesis, since there is no way to test them?
Given the Fact the vast majority of reality is an unobservable, untestable mystery, it seems to me like science is unable to tell us anything about the big picture, when they admit their math is off by 95%. All I am saying is "Dark Matter/energy" is a lame name for that mystery. I much prefer more ancient names, like Tao, Logos or Genius.
God works for shorthand, as in, "In God We Trust".
I trust in Sagans God, 'the embodiment of the immutable laws that govern the universe".
The Tao is what embodies those largely mysterious laws to me.

The term "God" is a cognitively empty concept. To use it as a noun in a sentence which implies causation is to utter complete nonsense. It like saying "pututtthh is a better alternative to spermatogiensis or abiogenesis." Empty horseshit. Want to write/utter something vacuuous and then suggest that your word salad has meaning? Give it up. Give your terms definition and context. Stop playing the verbal Rorschach game and start using terms that have validity and reliability.

HH =)

What does "Cognitively empty concept" even mean?
Just because you fail to recognize the meaning of a common word in the English language, you get to decide that commonly understood word is a "cognitively empty concept" for everybody?
When the vast majority of people believe in "God" in one form or another?
Einstein didnt find God to be a "cognitively empty concept."
In fact he said, "I want to know the mind of God. The rest is just details."
Michio Kaku doesnt find the wird God a "cognitively empty concept," In fact he has a pretty great candidate fir the mind of God, burried pretty deep in his string theory.
I believe what Tyson says, "Once you conclude the answer is God, you become worthless to me in the lab, because you have abandoned the search for the real cause."
Until science is able to tell me how half of the known Universe could be heading 14 million mph towards this great mystery we call The Great Attractor while the other half is expanding exponentially away from it, Im going with Tao, Logos, Genius.
I try and avoid the word God, since it carries far too much anthropomorphic baggage.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/god

The thing is that you are right. Lots of people believe in god. Yet you keep on bringing up these secular religions as proof that god can mean something that those same "lots of people" would find patently absurd.

And you cant even define your own term.
I like Sagans definition of 'god' which most similar to Websters 2nd definition, which is almost identicle to Einsteins concept of god, which Michio Kaku says hes got a good candidate for, if you are interested.
https://youtu.be/1Dy_Xkw2kIo
Im with Kaku.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2016 10:09PM by koriwhore.

A deadbeat father doesn't have to be present for the birth of his child.

How did God start without God?

The "God did it" answer just sweeps the problem under the rug
while creating another level of complexity to account for.

and also the question of "How did X occur without God" is a fallacious argument from ignorance. The asker is admitting that he can't conceive that X could have occurred without the intervention of his invisible almighty sorcerer of choice, and thinks that it is the sceptics that have to disprove it, rather than he that has to admit it.

"Where did the Universe come from?"
"God made it."
"Where did God come from?"
"Let us change the subject."

No need to change the subject. Do you agree with Einstein that energy can neither be created nor destroyed? If so, how is it that we deal daily with a force that science argues had no creator?

I'm God, I can do anything. Even create myself when I do not already exist.

Don't understand, take it on Faith.

"Also, my God..." Hmm,sounds like you made up a version of God, then believe what you made up. What evidence do you have for "intelligent energy" that "works within available laws"?

The Tao is a concept that arose in a particular context in China over a few centuries. There are several different versions of it, depending on whether you are using it in Zhuangzi's sense, Laozi's, Confucius's, or Hanfeizi's. You are probably using it in Laozi's sense, since that is the one most popular in the West.

But in any case, the word is part of a religious system of thought. It's not fair to rip it out of its context and say that it has any relation to modern scientific ideas. Those were simply alien to the Chinese philosophers of the Axial Age. Indeed, the first two sentences of the Daodejing are

Tao ke Tao, fei chang Tao
Ming ke Ming, fei chang Ming

Meaning, "the Tao that can be discussed is not the real Tao; the Name that can be Named is not the real Name." In other words, it is impossible for humans to comprehend reality or to describe it. Taoism was, if anything, a rebellion against the notion that scientific method or research or education could lead people closer to truth. The whole idea was that human nature, unschooled and untrained, would lead people to live the right way. Laozi and Zhuangzi were rejecting the Confucian idea that study and discipline would make people better or society stronger. The Taoists thought that analysis led people further from the truth.

The Tao is thus the untutored, unscientific mind; and Taoism is a system of thought positing the superiority of people who focus on internal feelings, meditation, and balance rather than seeking knowledge from books or even from external reality. Taoism is a great philosophy; it offers many insights into human existence and psychology. But unless you totally divorce it from its original meaning, Taoism represents a rejection of scientific endeavor and of scientific knowledge.

You're making my point for me.
Ultimately, the Tao is mystery, as is far more than 95% of the Cosmos we call dark matter/energy, because otherwise our math would all be off by 95%.
But it is a good mystery, because on balance tge universe tends towards organic life, love and prosperity, otherwise we would nit be here and neither would any life.
Tao, to me means the same thing as what the Greeks spoke of when they used the word, Logos, divine reason, a bit of which we have, which is,what we call logic, reason.
Tao is that divine Logic, reason, what Sagan called, God, which we are just begining to comprehend with fractal geometry, the LHC, the Hubble, the mapping the Human Genome, string theory.
100yrs ago prior to Hubble, we thought the Cosmos was our Milky Way. He did away with Einsteins Cosmological Constant.
Turns out the Universe is expanding, exponentially, incraesinf speed.
Now, thanks to further study we discover we are headed towards the great attractor at 14 million mph.
What's ironic is the 50yr hunt for the God Particle gave us the internet, but people are far mor interested in petty bullshit, like reality TV, than they are in why tye Nobel Committee is handing iut prizes. People are just completely unaware of the significance of discovering the God Particle, minus the Particle. Theyre far more interested in the Kardasians.
Honestly I dont think our smart phones are doing us any good.

That's an interesting and valid point of view. But it is not the Tao.

Perhaps it would be better to use a word like logic or reason itself to describe your orientation rather than suggesting that those have anything to do with the Tao, which they do not. The whole purpose of the Zhuangzi is to demonstrate that the Tao is not approachable through logic and reason. Laozi says almost exactly the same thing. Both insist that Using those tools leads AWAY from truth, not toward it.

Taoism says that the truth is within a person. It explicitly rejects education, science, and human intellect. The path to truth, it asserts, is through pure, innate human nature undefiled by formal education, training, or science. Laozi and Zhuangzi renounced the scholars and technologists of their day and they would do exactly the same to Einstein and the others you cite.

I am just going to throw this out as I believe in a God and creation but in an obviously different light. Also, my God is no magician but more a scientist that works with available laws.

I would refer to God as basically intelligent energy. We all came from that 'intelligent energy' as did all matter. Therefore, all matter has 'intelligence' to some extent.

As far as physical bodies of plants, animals and humans, which this 'intelligent energy/spirit' controls like a suit of clothes, it is clear it was caused by evolution.

I believe this 'evolution' was controlled by the God I believe in. Appears to me nothing like pulling a rabbit out of a hat trick here ----- it took a looong time! Other intelligent life throughout the universe ----- same concept.

Deists believe in a clockmaker god, one who creates the universe based on scientific principles, sets it in motion and lets in run. Divine intervention, prophets, angels, prayer, are all anathema to the Clockmaker. The best way to understand God and his Creation is through scientific discovery and reason, not ritual and superstition.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2016 07:56AM by axeldc.

Life began as a giant ball of congealed chicken fat. Hey, don't look at me; it's only science and physics.