Floods, Fossils, Science and Faith (Split from Global Warming)

[Thump]

Any life requires water,

I've always had a problem with this assumption.

Says who? Humans based on their limited knowledge of the cosmos?

 

[Brewtus]

Exactly, Habanero. The chance of life emerging from nonliving protiens is so astronomical that for me it is that much harder to believe than that God created life in His account directly in Genesis. Combine that with the fact that instead of genetically evolving humans are actually devolving - losing genetic information. That's why we have more cancer, alzheimer's, hemophilia, sickle cell, cystic fibrosis, and other genetic diseases than ever before because our cell's no longer have all the correct information.

But even further than the astronomical odds of random DNA formation would be the random formation of DNA and other vital cell structures such as mitochondria and the RNA needed for that in an organised manner to form a cell. DNA on its own is not life.

This is essentially the "Argument from Incredulity" or "god of the gaps," which in essence means that it is inconceivable to you that life could have originated naturally, therefore it must have been created by God.

The problem with this argument is that as human knowledge and abilities increase, the power of God decreases. At one time Gods were responsible for lightning until we determined natural causes for lightning, for infectious diseases until we found bacteria and viruses, for mental illness until we found biochemical causes for them. God is confined only to those parts of the universe we do not know about, and that keeps shrinking. If one day humans are able to create life from non-life in a laboratory, what would this mean about the existence of God? It is predicted that sometime in the next 10 years humans will have the ability to create a unique artificial life form that has never existed before. Basically new and unique DNA will be created by splicing together strands of DNA from other life forms or from pieces created in a lab. The first new life form will most likely be very simple but it will have the ability to take in energy and reproduce. While this is not exactly "creating life from non-life", it is a huge leap in that direction.

And humans are not "devolving". In fact there is more genetic variety between any two random humans now than in thousands of years as a result of people migrating all over the world and reproducing with others of completely difference races and societies. But the basic genetic code for humans has not significantly changed in over 100,000 years. If we do have more genetic diseases it's a result of longer life spans or other factor, not a degradation of our DNA.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

Do we have the numbers to verify this?

I have heard some people, even evolutionists who believe Earth is unique in the generation of human life, say that the odds of life generating from non-life is actually larger than the billions and billions of worlds that exist in the universe. I would like to see what the guestimated numbers for these two would be in order to make a comparison.

Well, lets see.. let me try it based on extrapalting out what is in our current ability to see with our own "eyes" (telescopes) (Admittedly, this is not my actual reasoning, but I thought it would be fun to do it this way)

Our particular solar system has 8 worlds, not including moons possibly capable of sustaining life and not counting Pluto as a planet. I think we can agree that one of these worlds has life (Earth), so the other 7 are completley useless where life is concerned, and still they exist circling around the sun, which is a star.. So, considering knowledge of what I observe to be around stars, I can safely assume each star in the universe has at least 7 completely useless worlds surrounding it - and making the assumption, of course, that there is only one world in the universe with life, we won't say such a world is circling any other star.

Well, lets see... how many stars are in our galaxy?

We can only see a few thousand stars at most with our unaided eyes. These are a mixture of stars which are nearby, and bright stars which are further away; but they are only a tiny fraction of the 100,000,000,000 stars in our own galaxy. We can't see stars in other galaxies without powerful telescopes. In fact the entire brightest neighboring galaxy (M31, the Andromeda galaxy), which contains more stars than our own, is only as bright as an average star visible to the unaided eye.

A few thousand.... lets call that 3,000... and lets ignore the fact that we can actually observe that a close galaxy like Andromeda has 100,000,000,000 or so stars, and is "typical" of like sized galaxys.....

3,000 stars per galaxy. How many galaxies are we aware of?

We do not know exactly. Within the part of the universe we can observe there seem to be at least 100 billion, but this could be an under estimate if you include dwarf galaxies that are too far away to be easily seen by even the Hubble Space Telescope. Our universe seems to be infinite, or at the very least much larger than the current scale of the visible universe, so there are an unknown billions more galaxies beyond the limits to our visible universe.

3,000 x 100,000,000,000 = 300,000,000,000,000 stars
300,000,000,000 x 7 "useless planets" = 2,100,000,000,000,000

So, 1 in 2,100,000,000,000,000 using very very conservative estimates. I'd say thats an "astonishingly low" probability of life arising... but.. what do I know.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

There is one count them one planet in our solar system, even galaxy that has the random possibility of even being hospitable to life. Any life requires water, right climate, right atmosphere, right gravity, right alot of other things. So we've narrowed our possible planets to well very non-astronomical numbers well below the billions you are talking about. Plus what b-Grad said.

And, to take my rather absurd argument above one step further,

We know from our own galaxy that a star has 8 planets 1 of which has life. We therefore should assume based on our observations that all star systems are set up in the same manner... thus the likelihood of life around any other star in the universe is exactly 1:1

 

[Brewtus]

Well, lets see.. let me try it based on extrapalting out what is in our current ability to see with our own "eyes" (telescopes) (Admittedly, this is not my actual reasoning, but I thought it would be fun to do it this way)

Our particular solar system has 8 worlds, not including moons possibly capable of sustaining life and not counting Pluto as a planet. I think we can agree that one of these worlds has life (Earth), so the other 7 are completley useless where life is concerned, and still they exist circling around the sun, which is a star.. So, considering knowledge of what I observe to be around stars, I can safely assume each star in the universe has at least 7 completely useless worlds surrounding it - and making the assumption, of course, that there is only one world in the universe with life, we won't say such a world is circling any other star.

Well, lets see... how many stars are in our galaxy?

A few thousand.... lets call that 3,000... and lets ignore the fact that we can actually observe that a close galaxy like Andromeda has 100,000,000,000 or so stars, and is "typical" of like sized galaxys.....

3,000 stars per galaxy. How many galaxies are we aware of?

3,000 x 100,000,000,000 = 300,000,000,000,000 stars
300,000,000,000 x 7 "useless planets" = 2,100,000,000,000,000

So, 1 in 2,100,000,000,000,000 using very very conservative estimates. I'd say thats an "astonishingly low" probability of life arising... but.. what do I know.

This has been done before by Frank Drake and is called the Drake Equation:

where:
N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might expect to be able to communicate at any given time and
R* is the rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fl is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of the above that are willing and able to communicate
L is the expected lifetime of such a civilization

The current estimate for the number of stars in our galaxy alone that have intelligent life is roughly 1,000.

See more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

This is essentially the "Argument from Incredulity" or "god of the gaps," which in essence means that it is inconceivable to you that life could have originated naturally, therefore it must have been created by God.

The problem with this argument is that as human knowledge and abilities increase, the power of God decreases. At one time Gods were responsible for lightning until we determined natural causes for lightning, for infectious diseases until we found bacteria and viruses, for mental illness until we found biochemical causes for them. God is confined only to those parts of the universe we do not know about, and that keeps shrinking. If one day humans are able to create life from non-life in a laboratory, what would this mean about the existence of God? It is predicted that sometime in the next 10 years humans will have the ability to create a unique artificial life form that has never existed before. Basically new and unique DNA will be created by splicing together strands of DNA from other life forms or from pieces created in a lab. The first new life form will most likely be very simple but it will have the ability to take in energy and reproduce. While this is not exactly "creating life from non-life", it is a huge leap in that direction.

And humans are not "devolving". In fact there is more genetic variety between any two random humans now than in thousands of years as a result of people migrating all over the world and reproducing with others of completely difference races and societies. But the basic genetic code for humans has not significantly changed in over 100,000 years. If we do have more genetic diseases it's a result of longer life spans or other factor, not a degradation of our DNA.

I would agree with you that the "God in the Gaps" God isn't a very powerful God, and is actually simply an answer to a question which we don't acutally have an answer to. I would also agree with you if you made the assertion that most people believe in this type of God.

For the record, I do not believe in such a God. My idea about God isn't dependent on his "works" that is... God doesn't hide only in the gaps of the universe I observe... instead, he's .. how do I say this... not sure how I'd verbalize it... I'll say it like this... Describing the universe (any universe) is the same as describing God.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

This has been done before by Frank Drake and is called the Drake Equation:

where:
N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might expect to be able to communicate at any given time and
R* is the rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fl is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of the above that are willing and able to communicate
L is the expected lifetime of such a civilization

The current estimate for the number of stars in our galaxy alone that have intelligent life is roughly 1,000.

See more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

Yeah, I know... I was trying to use ridiclously low numbers and base them on the readily observable nature of our own solar system to drive home a point about the girth of the numbers involved here.

 

[Buckeyes85]

I guess modern-day Christianity does a horrible job of awakening the consciousness of the masses to the "objective verification" of its claims, but suffice it to say, faith is not the polar opposite of science. If all of the prophesies of the Bible had been proven to be demented ramblings, then it would have been discarded long ago. The Bible is true because its prophecy is true.

You guys are so prepared to go on the defenisive when you percieve someone is questioning the validity of your faith that you don't even stop to figure out what you are responding to.

The only point, and one that is really beyond dispute, is that faith and science are not the same thing. You apparently argue that science, or "objective verification" can support or confirm many of the things about your religion that you believe. I completely agree. But that does not make the two synonymous, which again was my only point. Faith can and does exist without objective verification. Science is dependent upon it, which is why the two are wholly different.

 

[FCollinsBuckeye]

Getting back to global flood discussion, I suggest you naysayers read "Earth in Upheaval' by Immanuel Velikovsky. I firmly believe that the earth if over a billion years old, that dinasaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago and that a globally catastrophic flood likely occured within the past 4,000 years or so. Velikovsky lays out some very compelling evidence.

Earth in Upheaval

Earth in Upheaval presents documentation of global catastrophes in prehistorical and historical times: the evidence of stone and bone. This evidence from the natural sciences indicates that these great disturbances which rocked our world were caused by forces outside the Earth itself.

In Earth in Upheaval, Velikovsky brings together a multitude of facts, such as palms found in northern Greenland, corals in Alaska, the unfossilized bones of hippopotamuses in England, and the remains of polar bears and arctic foxes crushed together in one mass with ostriches and crocodiles.
Further data verifies that at the very time that Dr Velikovsky claimed as the date of the recent global catastrophe only 3500 years ago, the level of the world's oceans dropped sharply, climate was violently altered, and ancient civilizations were plunged into destruction.
Dr Velikovsky's first book, Worlds in Collision, offered evidence of tremendous cataclysms during historic times, and created a furore of controversy unknown since Darwin's debate ninety years earlier.

Another resource:

The Society for Interdisciplinary Studies

http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/index.htm

 

[t_BuckeyeScott]

You're absolutely wrong if you think the god of the gaps is the God I am saying exists. The God I'm saying exists is much more like the god Mortimer J Adler describes in his book: How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan. His argument (please don't try to argue with me about it because A.) its been a while B.) I'm hardly qualified C.) his book would do a much better job.) boils down to the universe could not go on existing without the sustaining power of a Supreme Being which is slightly different than Aquinas's first cause argument. It basically discounts inertia of the universe (please don't ask me to explain). Adler goes far short of describing a Surpreme Being who is the Judeo-Christian God. Like Adler I don't believe the universe would exist without God's sustaining power.

 

[Bleed S & G]

But even further than the astronomical odds of random DNA formation would be the random formation of DNA and other vital cell structures such as mitochondria and the RNA needed for that in an organised manner to form a cell. DNA on its own is not life.

The first cells formed in clay, much like the account in Genesis

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/10/25/clay.life.reut/index.html

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/11.06/01-liveclay.html

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

The power to sustain the universe? I dont even know how to begin to address that. Sounds like more verbal slight of hand to me. (Actually, it sounds like God in the cracks.... Posit something which can't be proven: The universe needs to be sustained to exist at all. Prove it by saying God does that.)

 

[Brewtus]

You're absolutely wrong if you think the god of the gaps is the God I am saying exists. The God I'm saying exists is much more like the god Mortimer J Adler describes in his book: How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan. His argument (please don't try to argue with me about it because A.) its been a while B.) I'm hardly qualified C.) his book would do a much better job.) boils down to the universe could not go on existing without the sustaining power of a Supreme Being which is slightly different than Aquinas's first cause argument. It basically discounts inertia of the universe (please don't ask me to explain). Adler goes far short of describing a Surpreme Being who is the Judeo-Christian God. Like Adler I don't believe the universe would exist without God's sustaining power.

My intent wasn't to attack your specific belief system, but rather the shortcomings of the argument; "I don't see how X could be explained by natural processes, therefore God must have been involved."

The reason I don't believe in a personal God is that I haven't found any evidence of one, which is the same reason I don't believe in unicorns, elves or dragons. If God does exist, for whatever reason He chooses to stay unseen in the background and takes a hands-off approach to the workings of the universe and consequently is a non-factor.

 

[t_BuckeyeScott]

God in the cracks? I was saying nothing absolutely nothing happens without God. That isn't the cracks.

 

[Bleed S & G]

The problem with this argument is that as human knowledge and abilities increase, the power of God decreases. At one time Gods were responsible for lightning until we determined natural causes for lightning, for infectious diseases until we found bacteria and viruses, for mental illness until we found biochemical causes for them. God is confined only to those parts of the universe we do not know about, and that keeps shrinking. If one day humans are able to create life from non-life in a laboratory, what would this mean about the existence of God? It is predicted that sometime in the next 10 years humans will have the ability to create a unique artificial life form that has never existed before. Basically new and unique DNA will be created by splicing together strands of DNA from other life forms or from pieces created in a lab. The first new life form will most likely be very simple but it will have the ability to take in energy and reproduce. While this is not exactly "creating life from non-life", it is a huge leap in that direction.

Couldn't disagree with you more, as our knowledge increases the more we really cant explain.

The parts of the universe we know do not about keeps "shrinking"? since when? Maybe 'science' as most view it, i highly encourage you guys to check out the sub-atomic realm.. we dont know shit about shit.

Splicing DNA is nothing like RNA and DNA forming a single cell organism, having it survive millions upon millions of years and having evolved into a being that think abstarctly about the idea of a 'God'