In America, atheists are still in the closet

RHill wrote:

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So a boxer metaphor is as close as you'll get to answering a simple, direct question?

Karma is a_______ wrote:

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One of life's greatest mysteries is how it began. Scientists have pinned it down to roughly this:
Some chemical reactions occurred about 4 billion years ago — perhaps in a primordial tidal soup or maybe with help of volcanoes or possibly at the bottom of the sea or between the mica sheets — to create biology.
Now scientists have created something in the lab that is tantalizingly close to what might have happened. It's not life, they stress, but it certainly gives the science community a whole new data set to chew on.
The researchers, at the Scripps Research Institute, created molecules that self-replicate and even evolve and compete to win or lose. If that sounds exactly like life, read on to learn the controversial and thin distinction.
http://www.livescience.com/3214-life-created-...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/...
Efficient enzyme-free copying of all four nucleobases templated by immobilized RNA
Christopher Deck,1 Mario Jauker1 & Clemens Richert1
The transition from inanimate materials to the earliest forms of life must have involved multiplication of a catalytically active polymer that is able to replicate. The semiconservative replication that is characteristic of genetic information transfer requires strands that contain more than one type of nucleobase. Short strands of RNA can act as catalysts, but attempts to induce efficient self-copying of mixed sequences (containing four different nucleobases) have been unsuccessful with ribonucleotides. Here we show that inhibition by spent monomers, formed by the hydrolysis of the activated nucleotides, is the cause for incomplete extension of growing daughter strands on RNA templates. Immobilization of strands and periodic displacement of the solution containing the activated monomers overcome this inhibition. Any of the four nucleobases (A/C/G/U) is successfully copied in the absence of enzymes. We conclude therefore that in a prebiotic world, oligoribonucleotides may have formed and undergone self-copying on surfaces.
http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v3/n8/ful...
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/323/5918/12...
you just have to google it

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Skombolis wrote:

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I would ask the same question:
Please list one provable fact to support the scientific belief that life formed from non-life

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Hedonist wrote:

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When you use words like "feel" "belief", etc. to talk about science, it shows people who understand science that you have no idea what you are talking about.
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Nope, sorry. You really can't "quantify" voodoo mumbo-jumbo.
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Define what you mean by "proof" in science?(Hint, it's not the same as a mathematical proof.) Again, you lack of scientific understanding is evident.
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Projection. Scientists don't, DO NOT, accept "faith" as a valid argument for anything. You cannot apply your religious way of thinking to science.
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Aha, here's the real issue. You don't like abiogenesis. Fear of things one doesn't understand is common, as is blindly lashing out at it.(And, yes - you quite obviously don't understand it.)
But you should try to at least learn basic science terminology before you continue to lash out. Your religious worldview does not translate well to science and it shows to the point of being laughable.
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You can believe that if it makes you feel good, but it's a total fallacy that show a complete lack of any understanding of science.

Persephone wrote:

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Disclaimer: I'm not a professional biologist.
1. The philosophy underlying science is *methodological* naturalism. You don't need faith that everything can be explained by science, you just assume it as a working hypothesis (there's little choice in any case, and it has always worked in the past):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_ (philosophy)#Methodological_na turalism
2. There has been some promising research in support of abiogenesis. We've known since the 1950s and 1960s that organic molecules and DNA fragments can be produced by normal chemical reactions in the type of environment provided by the early Earth (see the Miller-Urey experiment and its follow-ups). We also find that space is littered with organic molecules. We also know that self-replicators don't have to be particularly complex in comparison with modern, highly evolved life.

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Skombolis wrote:

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It doesn't contradict anything in the Bible if someone feels that Genesis is metaphorical. The Bible was never meant to be a scientific book. There is no reason IMO for someone to believe God would have cataloged the untold number of occurrences that would have to take place as part of the process of forming all of creation.
The Bible shows in several other places that how man measures time has nothing to do with how God measures time. So I see no reason to think God went by a man-made system of keeping time and dates such as a calendar week let alone would need to break things up into days and require a day of rest. The Genesis account IMO is a drastic oversimplification designed with the purpose of aiding man's understanding that God is the creator of life.
(T) Peace

Hedonist wrote:

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You just don't get it.
Okay, let's go with your version. Some invisible sky deity **poofed** life into existence magically from a lump of dirt.
Please list one provable fact to support your contention that life formed from non-life?

Skombolis wrote:

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This post shows you to be delusional and projecting your own anger onto me....

Skombolis wrote:

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... Please copy and paste anything i have ever said that would lead you to conclude I fear abiogenesis because I don't understand it ...

Skombolis wrote:

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You can't provide a single shred of proof that a natural process can form life from non-life....

Skombolis wrote:

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...The inability to do so has now caused you to engage in personal insults. I am actually surprised given your history you managed to go an entire post without resorting to it. I knew it was coming.

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Hedonist wrote:

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Well then so much for the idea of Sabbath.
In fact, without a literal Adam & Eve, there is no original sin and the entire Christian cult looses its foundation.
Cafeteria Christians really have to play a lot of mental gymnastics to maintain their dogma.

Hedonist wrote:

In fact, without a literal Adam & Eve, there is no original sin and the entire Christian cult looses its foundation.

Skombolis wrote:

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I absolutely get it. Neither of us can prove life formed from non-life either through a creator or by natural process. Yet you claim you belief based on no proof whatsoever to be superior and have resorted to insults after failing to provide any proof. That is classic insecurity and overcompensation. I have no problem admitting neither can stake claim to their belief based on proof and both sides are taking their belief based on faith in their respective ideologies. The reason I have no problem doing so is because it is a fact that neither side has one ounce of proof.
If you think a creator is less plausible than a random implosion within time and space that always existed caused a bunch of atoms to form together and by sheer luck that formed in a way that would create a perfectly working universe and all the elemental and natural forces that go with it to not only sustain life but to form life and to form millions of species you seem to have an odd take on probability and plausibility.
Even beyond life forming from non-life, even beyond life forming from non-life naturally, the odds of an entire universe in perfect working order has to be mathematically off the charts in terms of probability. If you wanted to sell me on the idea that somehow in space an implosion took place and there is an amoeba floating around somewhere that formed from non-life that would seem like a stretch from anything we know. An entire working universe? Sorry but your belief is no more rational than a belief in a creator.

Hedonist wrote:

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I'm sorry you think it's anger when I point out that your terminology indicates that you don't understand science. If you'd prefer, I'll just keep laughing at your lack of understanding.
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Everything you say about it.
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A number of people have. You religious worldview doesn't allow you to process the information.
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I have always addressed myself to your post and the way it appears, never to you the person. And I'm not sure where the "given your history" comes from at all considering this is only my 3rd or 4th post to you.

Hedonist wrote:

<
A number of people have. You religious worldview doesn't allow you to process the information.

Skombolis wrote:

There does not need to be a literal Adam and Eve for man to have a sinful nature.

wolverine wrote:

See What Happens, When You Dont Get Out Of The Entrapment Of Science.

Hedonist wrote:

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I have never made any kind of personal attack and I wish you would stop the insinuation, it makes conversation with you difficult.

barefoot2626 wrote:

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Actually, Yankee, it seems to me that your "worldview" doesn't allow you to process information with any more validity than those you criticize.
There is no proof one way or the other. You keep demanding proof and what I keep hearing from S.(as well as from me et al.): you don't have it (no, really, is it all possible to have it) and certainly: you (nor can anyone else) cannot disprove theism nor (specifically) Adam & Eve especially if it is a metaphorical explanation of intelligent (human) life on Earth.

Skombolis wrote:

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Wow, more insults. Who would have guessed?
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Skombolis wrote:

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...But you don't seem to understand what the term "cafeteria Christian" means. It means taking some parts of the Bible someone life and disregarding other parts. I have not disregarded anything. The Bible is literal, metaphorical, parabolic, and symbolic. I believe Genesis to by mostly metaphorical....

Skombolis wrote:

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...I believe Genesis to by mostly metaphorical.
There does not need to be a literal Adam and Eve for man to have a sinful nature. In fact the story of Adam and Eve illustrates what happens when man chooses to follow his own will and not God's. Not to mention once sin is forgiven it is forgotten forever. Original sin would no longer exist after Christ died on the Cross. The Bible also shows Christ considered children innocent, only capable of sinning of caused by an adult and it was the adult that was to be punished, and that children are not capable of differentiating between right and wrong and even going back to the OT it showed people were not held spiritually accountable until the age of 18.
Please don't try to explain the bible to me if you don't know it.

Skombolis wrote:

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...Please don't try to explain the bible to me if you don't know it.

barefoot2626 wrote:

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Actually, Christianity 'foundation' is the 'sacrifice' made when Jesus the Christ (praise be upon him) died for their sins.
One could throw away everything before that moment and still be a Christian.

Hedonist wrote:

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Again, define what you mean by "proof" as it relates to science.
We have evidence that leads to reasoned hypotheses which is mountains more than you've got for **poof**.
To claim that these positions are in any way equal is disingenuous at best.