The Bible is not evidence of anything much in my opinion, other than humankind's propensity for magical thinking and ability to invent stories.
Abiogenesis and life on Earth - thoughts and pet theories?
- Thread starter Asbo Zaprudder
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There is nothing reasonable about, “a magic fairy did it”. Now, since this is a science forum, facts, logic and statistics are all welcome forms of currency.
I don't equate a belief in God to magic, and that's all I'll say in this regard.
There are so many gods from which to chose and a similar number of creation stories. Even the Roman Catholic church accepts evolution by natural selection, the Earth being 4.54 billion years old and the Universe being of the order of there times older. A Catholic priest (Georges Lemaître) came up with the idea of the primeval atom, now widely known as the Big Bang - a term coined by Fred Hoyle, who was a proponent of a rival theory (steady-state). Hoyle would probably have been interested in the idea of eternal inflation, which kind of marries the two theories in a different way than he, Burbidge, and Narlikar unsuccessfully attempted to do with their later quasi-steady-state (aka Steady Bang) theory.
Billj didn’t actually say a belief in God equates magic.
It seemed like an implication, at least to me.
In any case, I think the starting point for this whole thing is that quite obviously, the universe clearly exists and is not eternal. Therefore, something greater than the universe must predate it, and be eternal. You can't create yourself, and it seems to me that things like DNA are far too complex to be the result of unguided chance.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Where do we come from? I honestly don't know and neither do I think our ancestors did. Religion is a control mechanism created by our forebears. Which makes sense, since none of it has been updated in 2,000 years.
I think the universe is far more complex than we'll ever be able to put our fingers on. That we could ever explain in words, at our current level of understanding. I do tend to believe there is something more to us than we currently understand. I don't know what that is? So I live my life how I see it needs to be lived.
Circling back to religion, I don't think a loving God would create such a rigid structure where only people who profess loyalty get in. And that is what believing in Christ is, it is a loyalty oath. Shouldn't the Christian God know which of us are worthy without needing a loyalty oath? A loyalty oath is a creation of men, to try and keep other men in line.
You already mentioned you were bad at science
Maybe you aren't the best judge of what is too complex or not. There are some good readings on this subject if you are willing.
The scientific method is currently sat in the corner balling its eyes out while curled in the fetal position
An interesting concept I was introduced to at school (Catholic - Christian Brothers specifically- school) was scientific and theological truths.
Essentially the idea that the bible was their interpretation of the world around (principally looking at OT here) and it seemed to me like a very good way of reconciling the two
Not what I personally believe (very much science) but helped my accept and understand religious people’s views better
An interesting concept I was introduced to at school (Catholic - Christian Brothers specifically- school) was scientific and theological truths.
Essentially the idea that the bible was their interpretation of the world around (principally looking at OT here) and it seemed to me like a very good way of reconciling the two
Not what I personally believe (very much science) but helped my accept and understand religious people’s views better
You don't need excellent grades to have basic comprehension. I never claimed to be an expert, but when I look at pictures of stars or galaxies, all I can think is, "There's no way such awesome things came about by accident."
That was your very first sentence in this forum. People tend to say that when showing that they don't know/understand a subject. People who are good at sports, athletic activities or knowledgeable about a sport or two tend not to tell people they failed PE.
You may not have claimed to be an expert, but I don't really think you even have basic comprehension. That's fine. Lot of people don't. I would encourage you to read up about why certain scientists say that certain studies/research explains the so called complexity problem.
You may not have claimed to be an expert, but I don't really think you even have basic comprehension. That's fine. Lot of people don't. I would encourage you to read up about why certain scientists say that certain studies/research explains the so called complexity problem.
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Actually, this was my first post in here...
And now to address this...
You can think of me as unintelligent or uneducated, but in all honesty I really don't care. I read various things and come to my own conclusions, the same as you do. It seems to me that you're just upset because I don't share your view.
No one is upset at you for holding your own view points lad - people are frustrated that in a discussion about science your contribution is “I didn’t do well at school in maths or science” followed by “I think DNA is too complex to not come from God” (paraphrasing obviously)
People far more intelligent than you or I have devoted their life’s work to studying this and it is disingenuous to go “nah, can’t be - but God though, he nailed it like”
I heard it said recently, "If there is a lack of convergence between faith and reason, you're getting one or the other wrong. If God created both science and faith, there really shouldn't be a conflict between them." Such a concept seems perfectly sound to me.
Intuiting whether the Universe (or Multiverse) is not infinite or eternal is not science. There are probably many questions that the scientific method will never be able to resolve by falsifiability, but filling in the gaps with one's own or other people's random brain farts and declaring them "true" is no solution. It's perfectly acceptable to say "We just don't know."
It's not making a claim to understanding, it's just a term to refer to the origin of life from lifelessness - as the thread demonstrates, we don't know what that process was. Spontaneous generation theory specifically argued that abiogenesis was common in nature - an everyday process to which we were attaching undue mystery. That's conclusively disproven - but it doesn't remove the idea of abiogenesis itself as either a one off, an occasional, or a once-but-not-now process. Perhaps the one thing we all agree on was that there was no life, then there was life.
Almost no free oxygen around in Archaean times, which probably removed one barrier to getting life started.