And a perfect being couldn’t create anything, since perfection is the state when there’s nothing left to add or take away.
4 Likes
I actually watched the video and had a point by point debunking and then lost it. Basically the only argument the guy makes is, “We can’t make a cell, we can’t make a cell, we can’t make a cell. Therefore; God!”
No scientist worth his salt has ever asserted that we can make a cell or that we understand the origins of life. Abiogenesis is the most accepted model. I think Transpermia is right behind it.
1 Like
Lol!!! Oh fuck - this has me laughing - coffee out my nose!
”I can’t see my 
, I can’t see my , I can’t feel my … therefore; I DON’T have one!”
1 Like
Yeah.
I haven’t seen my dick in the shower since about 2000. Does that mean I’ve managed to misplace it?
3 Likes
Oh look, it’s this pile of canards once again. This is going to be fun …
Try the fact that planet Earth was once devoid of life, and then, lo and behold, life appeared and left evidence of its appearance in ancient geological formations. Among the oldest evidence being stromatolies formed by cyanobacteria 3.7 billion years before present.
No, what we have is the scientific theory of abiogenesis, presented in numerous scientific papers. Have you read any of the papers in question?
Bullshit.
Since it’s obvious that you need the requisite education, there exist over 100,000 peer reviewed papers in the organic chemistry literature, documenting the experiments establishing that the chemical reactions implicated in the origin of life all work.
Do you have a similar body of evidence for a cartoon magic man from a goat herder mythology?
No it doesn’t. See those 100,000+ papers I mentioned above.
No it didn’t. It was called ignorance. Which those 100,000+ papers are addressing.
Scientific research, that’s what happened.
Now, on the old version of the forums, I posted this extended post covering a tiny fraction of the scientific papers I’ve mentioned above. Enjoy what will be a long read on the subject, complete with references to relevant papers. More recent additions to those papers can be found here and here.
Looks like your assertions are already looking shaky, even before we delve into the actual content of those papers.
6 Likes
There is yet another problem with denying abiogenesis and affirming Intelligent Design.
Even if one could prove that life can only come from other life, and even if you could prove that a God exists, what is the proof that God is a living thing that created all other life?
Holy shit! Do you have any idea at all as to how many topics you have included in this short blurb?
- You assert “A problem.” In my book that means ‘one.’ Then we take off flying.
A. Denying abiogenesis. 'Transpermia for example?" First issue is the denial of abiogenisis. Any other possibility can be asserted, factual or not, upon the rejection of abiogenisis. Aboigenisis is not a proven theory, it is one of the best models we currently have. There are competing models. The creationist hypothesis is not among them.
B. Affirming intelligent design. A completely different proposition. Problem number 2 and 3. One can affirm intelligent design in at least two different ways. God ‘done it’ by the Biblical Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and the whole creation myth story. (OR) God ‘done it’ and 'abiogenisis was simply the method by which he accomplished the task.
C. Life can only come from other life? Here is another idea tossed into the mix, Where did this pop up from? Life can only come from life? Another discussion entirely and requiring its’ own set of proofs and debunking.
D. Now we jump to God exists, (What in the fuck number are we on now??? I have lost count???) And then on to God exists as a living thing? (We will allow the “created life” bit to slide as IMO all gods I know of are asserted to have ‘created life.’ What if there was a god who merely set things in motion and life was an unintended by product of something else he was attempting to do. Do we still say “He created life?” Perhaps he did it and does not even know that he did it or how he did it? Or maybe he was a she, (Sorry for the masculine pronoun. I am aware I am using it,)
E. Living things are comprised of components. Am I sensing a black swan fallacy here? If we begin removing components, let’s say a heart or a brain, is the living thing still living? Can the living thing exist independent of its components? If not. why do we call them “components.” Surely there is an argument for the minimum qualities of a living thing and that thing would have no components at all. It would be a unit. The unit of a living thing. We break things into components so that we can better understand them. This is called “reductionism.” The whole is different than the sum of the parts. The living “thing” may turn out to be an emergent property of the minimum unit of biological mass. Regardless, you have made yet another assertion in a wild string of assertions.
F. I can’t even count all the assertions at this point and I am sure I have missed a few. Someone else can pick up on the one’s I missed. NEXT: “God created living things only for them to atrophy and die.” WHAT? Out of a billion possibilities, how did your mind end up with this one? Just pulled it out of your ass, is my guess. Can you even begin to see the jumble of pure garbage you have postedf?
G. And why must atrophy be painful or horrible, natural or artificial? WTF ---- We are so far out in Fantasy land now that I think returning to reality is not an option.
H. Now we are considering a god Omnibenevolent to his creation? WHY? And what in the hell does that have to do with “Abiogenisis, the achilles heel of Athiests?” We are so far out in left field that we may as well stop and have a picnic. I like bananas. Would you like a shit sandwich?
I. Now we have a Sadistic God which is like some cartoon characters… and I have no idea how 'bread mold, caged mice, leaches???, dogs, dry tinder or a match are relevant to anything concerning abiogenesis.
J. Yes, the god you mentioned is probably not worth worshiping. How do you know that the person making the post is talking about an “Omnibenevolent, sadistic, Beavis and Buthead with a lab full of bread mold…” God?
Are you just a theist, sneaking in here to write a few posts and make atheists look like blathering idiots?
1 Like
I’d go further in that there is no measurable difference between a water molecule in something that I might describe as being alive; and a water molecule in something I might describe as not being alive. Surprisingly, the very common sense idea of sorting the world into “life” and “not life” isn’t as simple when you actually try it.
I remember this guy from another atheist forum. I have never thought he was a theist in disguise, even though I disagree with most of his posts.
I’ll accept that Boomer. being my typical hyperbolic self. Still one must wonder? I have see other atheist forums where comments like the one in discussion are common. The best thing about AR is that someone will generally say something about inane assertions regardless of who makes them. Irrationality is irrational whether is ti being weilded by an atheist or a theist.
Thought I’d post this here…
“ Aguas Zarcas, as the fragments would soon collectively be called, is a carbonaceous chondrite, a pristine remnant of the early Solar System. The vast majority of meteorites are lumps of stone or metal. But true to their name, carbonaceous chondrites are rich in carbon—and not just boring, inorganic carbon, but also organic molecules as complex as amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. They illustrate how chemical reactions in space give rise to complex precursors for life; some scientists even believe rocks like Aguas Zarcas gave life a nudge when they crashed into a barren Earth 4.5 billion years ago.”
AND
“ To date, scientists have recognized nearly 100 different amino acids in it, many used by organisms on Earth and many others rare or nonexistent in known life. Hundreds more amino acids have been inferred but not yet identified.”
Where do you get the idea that I am a Theist or that I like shit sandwiches??? I’m on your side by asking these questions!
Please try to keep up.
Boomer47,
Thank you for having my back, Boomer. We may disagree politically and may never agree, but on metaphysics, epistemology, and scholarship of religious literature, you and I share many points of agreement.
Sorry it’s been so long away. Retail during the Holidays is both a time to shine and a time to dread and drudge and I’ve been doing much drudging. I’ll play catch-up now that I have some off time.
Just noticed this …
This is a manifestation of what I refer to as the “Pasteur Canard”. Louis Pasteur proposed, after examining the results of various well-documented experiments, a “Law of Biogenesis”, which, at bottom, stated that living organisms only arise from other living organisms.
However, one has to recognise Pasteur’s intent when pursuing these experiments, which was to falsify the mediaeval notion of spontaneous generation. Those experiments were aimed at falsifying the postulates thereof, not any postulates about the chemical origins of the first living organisms.
For those unfamiliar with the mediaeval notion of spontaneous generation, this consisted, at bottom, of a ridiculous notion, asserting that fully formed multicellular eukaryote organisms arose directly from dust or some similar inanimate medium. A pertinent example being the assertion that mice emerged from dirty wheat, instead of simply finding their way into grain stores from outside and proliferating on the bounty helpfully provided by mediaeval farmers.
However, creationists have been all over this like flies around a fresh turd, as can be imagined, and not only commit the appeal to authority fallacy when pressing this into service in their duplicitous apologetics, but miss the point entirely. Namely, that first, the modern theory of abiogenesis did not exist when Pasteur erected this law; second, the modern theory of abiogenesis does not postulate the sort of nonsense that abounded in mediaeval times (and which, incidentally, was accepted by supernaturalists in that era); and third, as a methodologically rigorous empiricist, Pasteur would wholeheartedly accept the large quantity of evidence provided by modern abiogenesis researchers if he were still alive.
I’ve had 13 years of encounters with the usual suspects to dig up this material. 
CalilasseiaAtheist
Interesting stuff. I’m off to the internet… Certainly not the story I was ever told about good ole Lewy!
Or it may have been raptured.
1 Like
Atheists can believe all sorts of weird stuff (theists do so by default). But which is more plausible, life coming from non life or an all powerful god who can’t defeat chariots making a man from mud. I’m new to this - but atheists don’t claim to know how the first life forms came to exist (an honest position) whereas theists claim they do (a dishonest position). And the bible is pretty staunch about being honest.
But as I’ve stated above, postulates about the origin of life don’t emanate from “atheists”, but from scientists. Specifically, researchers in organic chemistry. Who have sound reasons for the postulates they present, one large reason being that life is chemistry writ large. Millions of chemical reactions are taking place in your body right now, and if some of those reactions stop, you die.
Indeed, scientists have been able to trace metabolic pathways in action in real time, through a variety of experimental techniques, such as the use of isotopic labelling, or the use of green fluorescent protein in combination with confocal laser microscopy.
With respect to the matter of the chemical origin of life, as I stated above, there are over 100,000 peer reviewed scientific papers extant within the organic chemistry literature, documenting thousands of experiments demonstrating that the chemical reactions postulated to be implicated in the origin of life all work. Everything from synthesis of amino acids and nucleotides, through catalysed formation of RNA strands (including RNA strands that have catalytic activity in other chemical reactions), through lipid formation and self-assembly of lipid microstructures, and more recent experiments conducted upon synthetic protocells.
Indeed, several scientists working in the field alighted, by accident, upon chemical reactions that were not previously suspected to exist, but which provide neat solutions to issues previously considered problematic. John D. Sutherland’s work on nucleotide synthesis being a classic example of this.
Even more interestingly, there’s a paper in my collection demonstrating that once RNA strands exist, they can be subject to Darwinian evolution by nothing more complicated than the presence of chemical gradients. Another paper demonstrates that Darwinian behaviour can be exhibited by a pool of raw nucleotides under prebiotically plausible conditions of chemical selection.
At bottom, if you have a sufficiently large supply of well-defined simple molecules, and an external energy source such as a nearby star, chemical reactions will take place producing key components of cells in fairly short order. Integrating those components takes somewhat longer, but plausible pathways for so doing have been demonstrated in the laboratory.
Once you start delving into the relevant literature, it’s amazing what scientists have alighted upon in the mere 70 years that prebiotic chemistry research has been active.
Now that relevant initial steps have been determined, the next phase of research consists of determining how to integrate those steps, a matter that is very much uppermost in the minds of researchers such as Jack Szostak and Gerald F. Joyce.
Meanwhile, on a tangentially related matter, while NASA is busy devising missions to search for the possibility of life in the subsurface oceans of Europa and Enceladus, one exciting possibility, for me anyway, is the existence of a fully functioning RNA world in one or both of those environments, which would actually be more exciting for me than the discovery of actual living organisms. An early RNA world in one of those subsurface oceans, with ‘naked’ RNA strands, and a late RNA world in the other, featuring lipid encapsulation of RNA strands, would pretty much seal the deal with respect to the viability of prebiotic chemistry on Earth.
There’s even a possibility for something resembling prebiotic chemistry to occur on Titan. Yes, it’s extremely cold, and thus far, it’s chemistry hasn’t yielded any tell tale signals, but we’re in the infancy of exploration thereof, and a future mission loaded with the requisite instruments to examine that chemistry could turn up some interesting surprises.
We acquired more than sufficient evidence to conclude that pursuing prebiotic chemistry research is likely to yield interesting fruit decades ago. Since then, prebiotic chemistry researchers have answered questions that duplicitous mythology fanboys didn’t even know existed, while trying to dismiss the requisite research in their mendacious apologetic fabrications.
2 Likes
YOU WIN! CONGRATUALTIONS! No longer believe life to be an emergent property of the universe in which we live. Now what?
You have absolutely no place to go. There is but-shit nothing you can say about the emergence of life in this universe without referencing the universe itself or its contents and still make sense. Making a claim of knowing something outside the universe is pure bullshit and based on nothing but imagination.
I literally had this discussion with a coworker, who is Christian, just two nights ago. He mentioned that “Jesus came down.”
“Came down from where?” I asked.
“From Heaven.”
“Where in the hell do you think that is?”
“Out there.” (Pointing up.)
“We have sent probes ‘out there’ and no one has seen a trace of Heaven.”
“It’s beyond the universe.”
“So, Heaven is a place outside the universe?”
“How in the fuck would you know that? Did you go there in a dream? Are you experiencing revelation? Do you have a magic crystal ball? Did Jesus whisper it in your ear? How in the hell do you know what is beyond the universe when no one else in the world knows what is beyond the universe?”
(Topic Change) AWWWWW FUCK! I don’t recall what he tried to shift it to. So fucking common with the damn theists.
“Excuse me… We are not moving a step further in this conversation until you admit that you don’t have a fucking idea what is beyond the universe.”
(Topic Change 2 Attmepted)
“No. You need to admit that you have no way of knowing anything at all about anything at all that may or may not be beyond the universe,”
(Excuse Attempte…)
“Just admit that you don’t know”
(Mumbled in a very soft voice… “SERIOUSLY” ) “Okay, I don’t know.”
Then he talked about love of god and I countered with atrocities. He told me about hell by attempting a version of Pascal’s wager, I countered with being more moral than his asshole god and eternal punishment for finite crimes. The night ended with him placing his hand on my shoulder and saying he would pray for me. I told him to waste his time any way he liked, it was his life. We ended the night with a hug and well wishes, and both went on our way.
He is big on making a distinction between Christian Religion and Christianity. To be Christian is to be Christlike. I countered with, when the 32,000 Christian religions get together and actually define what it means to be Christ Like, get back to me.
He talked about love and I talked about making whips and beating people. He talked about sacrifice and salvation, I talked about condemning any town that will not listen to your message with complete annihilation. Jesus was an asshole. There was no miracle he did that can not be performed by a stage magician today and the big miracles, like the world into darkness or zombies walking the streets are not attested to by any reputable historian.
Anyway, I got carried away. More here about my conversation and not just… Knowing about shit beyond the universe. Anyone professing to know shit about shit beyond the universe is a piece of shit. They are lying because they are but-shit stupid or because they are manipulative assholes.
@Calilasseia Is it fair to state that based on our current understanding, it is very possible for life to be created from non-life? I am under the impression that it is very possible.
If so, then we deal with the probabilities. We know that on earth, it was done, the probability was 100%. Of course, Europa and Enceladus are possible candidates because they appear to have conditions that can make life.
Please correct me if I am incorrect in my assumptions.
That’s my understanding as well. The 1952 Experiment by Stanly Miller still holds a lot of sway and other experiments have served to support the “Life from non-life hypothesis.”
June 2015, “Charles Carter and Richard Wolfenden, both of the University of North Carolina, have uncovered new evidence of abiogenesis, the process by which life arises from non-living chemical matter. Their study, published Thursday in the Journal of Biological Chemistry,”
But no one has explained exactly how, so far. It is still the very best hypothesis we have. Another option would be a magical non-corporal sky being breathing into a pile of mud and creating mud zombies. I think I will go with the abiogenesis model.
1 Like