Evidence that RNA arose before DNA in evolution can be found in the chemical differences between them. Ribose, like glucose and other simple carbohydrates, can be formed from formaldehyde (HCHO), a simple chemical which is readily produced in laboratory experiments that attempt to simulate conditions on the primitive Earth. The sugar deoxyribose is harder to make, and in present-day cells it is produced from ribose in a reaction catalyzed by a proteinenzyme, suggesting that ribose predates deoxyribose in cells. Presumably, DNA appeared on the scene later, but then proved more suitable than RNA as a permanent repository of genetic information. In particular, the deoxyribose in its sugar-phosphate backbone makes chains of DNA chemically more stable than chains of RNA, so that much greater lengths of DNA can be maintained without breakage.
The other differences between RNA and DNA—the double-helical structure of DNA and the use of thymine rather than uracil—further enhance DNA stability by making the many unavoidable accidents that occur to the molecule much easier to repair, as discussed in detail in Chapter 5 (see pp. 269–272).
Some authors have argued that flagella cannot have evolved, assuming that they can only function properly when all proteins are in place. In other words, the flagellar apparatus is “irreducibly complex”.[37] However, many proteins can be deleted or mutated and the flagellum still works, though sometimes at reduced efficiency.[38] Moreover, with many proteins unique to some number across species, diversity of bacterial flagella composition was higher than expected.[39] Hence, the flagellar apparatus is clearly very flexible in evolutionary terms and perfectly able to lose or gain protein components. For instance, a number of mutations have been found that increase the motility of E. coli.[40] Additional evidence for the evolution of bacterial flagella includes the existence of vestigial flagella, intermediate forms of flagella and patterns of similarities among flagellar protein sequences, including the observation that almost all of the core flagellar proteins have known homologies with non-flagellar proteins.[33] Furthermore, several processes have been identified as playing important roles in flagellar evolution, including self-assembly of simple repeating subunits, gene duplication with subsequent divergence, recruitment of elements from other systems (‘molecular bricolage’) and recombination.[41]
If I saw what appeared to be an angel coming down from the sky, I would classify it as “something that looks like an angel until I had verified what it truly was.”
If people immediately jump to the conclusion it was an angel, they are gullible, the easy prey for con-men.
What a shame, so sad.
I grew up in a christian family, was very devout, but left religion just before I turned 19 because I considered it more of a social club then a place to be in touch with my creator, or higher power, whatever you wish to call it.
For the next 30+ years I searched for this divine being, because I wanted to find the proper deity to worship. I prayed on my knees in churches, had long conversations with theologians from many different religions and sects, it was a very long journey. After I learned a lot more, the only conclusion I could come to was that I was an atheist. I never set out to be an atheist, in fact my goal was the complete opposite.
Aaaaaaaand exactly as expected, you totally ignored the question of how did your god come into existence. No surprise at all. As a BONUS, however, you also completely sidestepped the fact there are several thousand different Christian sects, with each one believing THEY are right while all the others are wrong. Speaking of which…
So, according to YOU, the things I was taught about/from the bible were wrong. Implying that had I been taught the way YOU were taught, I would not have been “confused” as a child. Hmmmm… … And how, exactly, do you know YOU are right about what the bible says? Better yet, WHO makes that determination? Sooo… My Granny and Mom were very devout Baptists, and one of my Uncles (Granny’s oldest son) was a Methodist preacher. Meanwhile, my other Uncle (Granny’s youngest son) was a steadfast Christian who regularly studied his bible, but did not attend church or identify with any particular denomination. Oh, and for a few years I had a stepdad who was a devout Church of God follower. And throughout my youth I was regularly attending all those different churches and being exposed to the different teachings of each one. Then there was the input from my youngest Uncle who had his own interpretations of the bible. So, if you don’t mind, please use your gifted insight to point out to me where they all went wrong. Since you say YOUR beliefs are all correct, and others are wrong, perhaps you could tell me which of my family members are currently roasting in hell. (Well, my youngest Uncle is still living at the moment. But with your help, maybe there is still time to save him from Satan’s torture chamber.)
Kill, murder, whatever. Your god is a psychopath insecure monster. I can’t imagine a god like this “actually” existing and doing the horrible things that he did in the Bible or the horrors those other gods did in their mythologies to humans. What really staggers me is that you think all of this is okay. It’s not okay.
Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes, and observe them; I am the Lord; I sanctify you.
All who curse father or mother shall be put to death; having cursed father or mother, their blood is upon them.
If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. The man who lies with his father’s wife has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.
If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them.
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. [Leviticus, chapter 20]
(This is for the benefit of those members who prefer not to participate in discussions. A little PSA, you might say.)
Howdy, folks. In the interest of clarification, I would like to point out a couple of things about our dear Mr. Cr2187 that those of lesser experience may have missed during the course of this extended discussion. (The “veterans” here already noticed these things early on, by the way.) Being informed and aware can be beneficial to all, and it is my personal opinion that learning is primarily why we are all here. With that being said, here are a couple of things I have noticed about good ol’ Cr, based on my experience here on the AR and in other areas of my life.
On the surface, Cr appears nice and polite and friendly. And he actually is… on the surface. However, if you pay close attention to what and how he writes, you will notice an undertone of “amused contempt.” And the fact he intentionally avoids addressing certain direct questions serves to underscore that contempt. As such…
Based on the expansive size of his posts/replies, one might tend to believe Mr. Cr is genuinely and sincerely interested in a having a mutually productive discussion. Again, though, if you pay close attention, you will notice a majority of his posts are merely repetitive statements being worded in different ways. Along with that (as already mentioned), you will notice the purposeful deflections and avoidance tactics used to misdirect away from questions he does not want to address. Basically, there are a great many “circular arguments” in his replies. Moving right along…
(Final one) Anybody else notice how Mr. Cr has a subtle way of trying to goad people into some type of hostile reaction? Granted, it can be difficult to detect if you do not know what you are looking for. Lucky for me, though, I am quite skilled at doing the same thing, meaning I can easily detect the tell-tale signs of such tactics when used by others. A friendly word of advice: Never allow yourself to be suckered in to that trap.
Okay, now that we have that established, here is my personal evaluation of our dear Cr2187. He is not really here to learn anything. Nor is he here to have any truly meaningful discussion. Leading me to believe…
A. He MAYBE is a true theist who is here only to “preach” to us and put us godless heathens “in our place” to have bragging rights with his church brethren. OR…
B. A bored individual who is here for cheap personal entertainment in trying to incite hostile reactions from different members. OR…
C. (This is the WORST CASE scenario, by the way.) Cr2187 actually fully and sincerely BELIEVES every bit of the nonsense he is spewing. In which case I can only shake my head in wonderment.
I will leave it up to you, the reader, to make your own decision.
All evolution is microevolution. That is what evolution is. There is just ‘evolution.’ Just as no Latin speaking person ever gave birth to an English speaking person, no ape like creature ever gave birth to a human like creature. Ape like creatures are our ancient ancestors with whom we share 98% of our DNA. On top of that, we can find the evolutionary process occurring in DNA in Chromosome 2. There is only microevolution and time.
Now, with that said… DNA and evolution itself have nothing to do with a God or gods. If evolution is 100% wrong, it does nothing at all to advance the God claim. If evolution is correct, it demonstrates changes in species over an extended period of time, and nothing at all about a God.
I agree that certain chemicals are able to form up because of an attraction to each other, but the problem with the RNA world hypothesis is still the information. The molecules can come together like magnets stick to a white board, but there is still no explanation for how they formed up in the exact order necessary to form just the right proteins to make life possible.
The RNA world assumes that the information was already there for the RNA to function.
And my previous point remains the same: even if all the chemicals for life came together just right, life isn’t made of just chemicals.
First off, if creation is true, DNA and RNA would have both been there at the same time working together as they now do, but secondly RNA serves a specific purpose in copying DNA to take to ribosomes to make proteins; it’s not useless.
That still doesn’t make evoltion of the flagellum possible. You would need the filament, the hook for the filament to spin on, and the entire mini motor complex to power the flagellum.
Just because an outboard motor of a boat can run on different types of fuel doesn’t explain how the whole thing put itself together.
Bacteria literally have a mini outboard motor to move around with; isn’t that awesome?
To your point, I don’t think my statement necessarily applies to everyone (just the vast majority of atheists I’ve met) but also I’m gonna take a guess and say that your view of religion was you had to do the right things and worship the right God to get into heaven because that’s what your family told you. I think that alone leads a lot of people away from Christianity because it gives them a wrong idea of who God is. They end up trying to please him rather than trying to have a relationship with him. They want God to be real, but they don’t feel all their deeds are doing anything and they then doubt God exists. Now that’s just a guess based on what I’ve seen a lot; idk what your specific story is.
There are many different Christian sects, but they don’t all think the others aren’t Christians. Many of the issues Christians disagree over are minor, such as baptism and what exactly it does. Just because someone has a different opinion than me doesn’t mean one of us is not a Christian. I’m not saying my one view is right above all others in every way; I’m not perfect, but I do think certain things churches do can affect how well they teach others and allow them to grow. In which case certain churches do better than others in growing people in their faith.
I belive someone is a Christian if they believe in Jesus and follow him. The thousands of different opinions on the specifics of the faith aren’t of ultimate importance. They might influence how likely someone is to truly follow Jesus, but the different opinions don’t affect the core belief of Christianity.
“Stumbling through the door, eyes bugged, hair wild, shaking head back and forth as if to clear the fog”
I had storms here so of course my internet went down. What the hell has been going on in here while I was gone? Has it been raining nuts? I finally managed to read through a thoroughly delusional rant and sorrowfully uninformed, self-congratulatory sermon.
I am glad to see there was someone here to attempt to help guide this poor lost fellow back on to the path of reason. (although I have seen no evidence that reason was ever a desired goal of said fellow)
I don’t think I have ever seen so many unfounded claims, ludicrous assertions, incoherent declarations, bizarre interpretations, logical fallacies, and blatant egocentric suppositions. I am always amazed at the pretzel “logic” some will employ to justify what they, through their obvious indoctrination, have decided to believe, in spite of complete absence of conclusive evidence,obviously to avoid the dreaded “I don’t know”, which seems to be a serious, ominous threat to their mental well-being.
It took me a while, but I think you guys have pretty much covered the bases, but I don’t really think that finding answers here was the primary purpose of the absurdly lengthy diatribe.
I think it might be useful if apologists would do some simple research (you know, google) concerning unfounded god claims and standard theistic arguments. Listen to some debates, look up the exhausting list of logical fallacies, etc. And please leave your sermons at the door. I promise I will try to be respectful and give folks an opportunity to state their case. But I have zero interest in patronizing self-aggrandizing preachers and “saviors”.
DNA is made of chemical building blocks called nucleotides. These building blocks are made of three parts: a phosphate group, a sugar group and one of four types of nitrogen bases. To form a strand of DNA, nucleotides are linked into chains, with the phosphate and sugar groups alternating.
We can describe the DNA as holding “information” because that is the result (to this point in time of evolution). RNA…
Those “magnets” on a “whiteboard” (think letters) can be tossed on the board many times with NO results (say a mix in order of a word). Say a 5 letter word.
Enough people throwing enough letters at a board over time and boom a “word” spontaneously appears. Now it may continue - and the folks still toss letters. The word can appear many times in many places.
Rather simple explanation (analogy) but it’s the gist.
Over 4 billion years ago the earth had “warm little ponds” and hydrothermal vents - a mix of chemicals provided by, what we would now consider a hostile environment, early earth, mixed and a natural chemical reaction occurred (all sorts of chemical reactions have been taking place now in the universe to get to an early earth). This reaction caused the RNA to duplicate. It wasn’t holding any “information” either. It was the basic chemical beginning. Like fire or lightening or rain (OR anything).
YOU were taught wrong. So is our new theist friend.
I was raised “in the truth”.
We had the truth of God’s word and spirit.
You all were blinded by Satan and deceived.
“Lord,
Lord… did we not prophesy in your name, and preform many powerful works in your name??? AND yet I will say to them - “Get away from me you workers of lawlessness (blah blah blah)…
Proof we had the truth because all others calling on the Lord were wrong quoted from memory so not copy/pasted nor do I remember the exact scripture but I could look it up
… And how, exactly, do you know YOU are right about what the bible says? Better yet, WHO makes that determination? Sooo… My Granny and Mom were very devout Baptists, and one of my Uncles (Granny’s oldest son) was a Methodist preacher. Meanwhile, my other Uncle (Granny’s youngest son) was a steadfast Christian who regularly studied his bible, but did not attend church or identify with any particular denomination. Oh, and for a few years I had a stepdad who was a devout Church of God follower. And throughout my youth I was regularly attending all those different churches and being exposed to the different teachings of each one. Then there was the input from my youngest Uncle who had his own interpretations of the bible. So, if you don’t mind, please use your gifted insight to point out to me where they all went wrong. Since you say YOUR beliefs are all correct, and others are wrong, perhaps you could tell me which of my family members are currently roasting in hell. (Well, my youngest Uncle is still living at the moment. But with your help, maybe there is still time to save him from Satan’s torture chamber.)
)
a “word” spontaneously appears. Now it may continue - and the folks still toss letters. The word can appear many times in many places.