The impression I get is that most - if not all - of SetiAlpha's knowledge of biology and evolution comes from preachers and/or Creationist publications.
You have faith that natural processes can create life from non-life, without sufficient evidence to prove it. I will ask you again, please show me the evidence that proves it can be done. Or, if not, please stop pushing your own personal belief system on others. All you have is a personal faith position.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Click because the chances are you'll probably feel better if you stayed and played with yourself. James, if you go back in site history to SA6's conversion, you might find he is very much akin to Poe's Law insofar as his religious utterances have generally read more like atheistic parodies of faith; its kind of hard to tell the difference 'twixt the before and after. Obscurely funny: While I had a chuckle, earlier this year, when you needlessly overstated your time at Sciforums, this is one of those that precedes you; our neighbor, SA6, is back to a position that has been around Sciforums longer than you. Furthermore, the line is reiterated at a time when it is more tenuous than ever before; the evidence he wants will be in a paper to be written in the next several years. As I said those years ago, science isn't finished; religions that presume their revelations complete, to the other, are. God will forever remain a mystery, but if you stay tuned long enough, science tends to answer. † Meanwhile, I confess, I can't believe this thread has drawn thirty-five pages. Okay, I can; I'd just rather not. Again, it's one of those things where I get the how and why some people muck around in the gutter, but that doesn't say a damn thing about anybody else. It's like an old routine where I might say someone is gullible, the protest comes back that they're not actually gullible but instead it's the other way around, and all I can think is, no, if you weren't falling for it, this all would look different. Which brings us back to a point I've been making for a while, now, about letting people you know are wrong set the agenda. It's one thing to be hooked at the gill, but getting jerked around by a guy who doesn't even know how to fish is just a brutal exercise in masochism. I might have asked, when we discussed the Religion subforum back in January, what you expect; I know I've considered it a couple times in posts I never finished, but there remains a question of who anyone thinks will show up to post around here in the role of religious advocate, given the general atmosphere at Sciforums. So if I twitch the barb of asking the same about atheists, well, okay, it's a messy formulation, however it works. But, honestly, walk out to the street and bang your head, repeatedly, against the macadam. No, I'm not telling you to do that, literally, so don't hackle your pride; what I mean is that lying concussed and bleeding in the street as such is a mildly less unproductive masochism than trying to take certain religious evangelization and advocacy seriously. Honestly, our neighbor could be genuine, as such, and thus a living example of why some people need religion. But, remember, his former atheism was overcome by this sort of balbutive, and over these several years he's never really gotten any better at it. I sincerely do not understand why people let themselves be led around like this. Okay, maybe I can, but those folks never like the explanation.
Again, no evidence provided. I ask you again, please provide sufficient evidence for your faith position.
And again with the semantics. I have "faith" that ice cream is yummy, therefore, God, and or, intelligent design.
She does know just like you know there isn't a spiritual God. EDIT: You don't need God to enjoy science do you? No loss, seriously, no loss.
SetiAlpha6: No. That's not a matter of faith. We have been talking about two possibilities here: 1. Life came from non-life through purely natural processes, without the intervention of a deity, and 2. Life was created in a special act of intentional Creation by the God of Abraham (or similar supernatural being). These are not the only possibilities, of course. Perhaps life was sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkleseizure who lives on Squornshellous Zeta. Perhaps the Greek God Prometheus created life. Perhaps we all live in a simulation and life was just coded into existence by the equivalent of a teenaged hacker. Considering all the possibilities, what are we to do when it comes to expressing a belief about the origin of life? If, like me, you follow the evidence, then we find that there is a lot of evidence for the natural evolution of complex life from simpler forms, as well as a lot of evidence for purely chemical processes being able to create the precursors to life. It seems like a small step would be necessary to plug the gap in exactly how life got going from the chemicals. Does that mean I believe in natural abiogenesis? Here's what I believe: I believe it is very likely to be the correct explanation, and that's all I can say. I do not claim to know that life arose entirely naturally, but nor am I aware of any substantive evidence that would suggest that it did not do that. But I should also say you don't get to have your God explanation by default. Even if it were to turn out that purely natural processes can't do the job of creating life, that doesn't mean your God did it. Maybe it was the teenaged hacker. Maybe it was a friendly ghost. Maybe it was a supernatural accident caused by Hell breaking open for a moment. Or whatever. Point is: we'd need evidence of whatever it is you decide did it. You don't get it by default. If you wanted to summarise my position, it would be fair to say that I would be surprised if it turns out that life doesn't have a natural origin, but I keep an open mind about that and I'm always open to hearing new evidence that might show that my position is untenable. Faith doesn't come into this for me. Faith is what a person believes in spite of the lack of evidence. Faith is pretending to know stuff you don't know. I don't pretend to know that life arose naturally; I acknowledge that assumption is unproven so far. Therefore, faith is not an issue for me. Contrast your own position. First, you set up a false dichotomy: either it was natural or else your God did it. Next, you decide, for no defensible reason, that the natural option is impossible, and therefore your God wins by default. Although, having said that, I don't think this is really how you reached your belief at all. I think the causation went the other way for you: first you believed in your supernatural God, then you believed that God was the Creator, and then you started looking around for reasons to dismiss things like evolution and to prop up your faith-based position. You have not, as yet, suggested any positive evidence for the creation of life by your Creator God. But nevertheless, you believe that God Did It regardless of the paucity of evidence in support of your stance. That's the very definition of faith: believing without evidence. Moreover, you go further, and believe certain things about biology that are false even in the face of evidence to the contrary. And that is a real giveaway. You're unwilling to give up on your faith even when there's contradictory evidence. I don't have any evidence that proves that abiogenesis can be done, obviously. All I have is all the suggestive evidence from science that points to that obvious conclusion. But I have never claimed to have the Answer. That's your claim, not mine. So right back at you. I ask you to please show me the evidence that proves that your God created life in a special act of Creation. If you can. Failing that, you should take your own advice and please stop pushing your personal belief system onto others.
Dr. Tour has given many lectures regarding the subject of Abiogenesis, here is just one of them, for your review.
I disagree. Your view seems to run directly counter to the evidence we do have, which makes your view, faith in-spite of the evidence, at least in my eyes. If I follow the current state of scientific research and accept it regarding the origin of life, then it is completely logical for me to conclude that Intelligent Design was needed. Life has never been shown to be possible without it. Never once! In no experiment! Every scientific experiment done so far, was done by, hopefully, an intelligent designer. It is the most logical position for me to take, based on real evidence and experimentation from decades of research. Much more logical than thinking that a rock could do any of these experiments, or could ever do them, outside of the most sophisticated lab environments we can build. That is where we actually are today. That is what the evidence actually points to right now. That natural processes can’t do the job of creating life. Every attempt has failed to create life from natural processes. Fair! Great! Are you able to consider the thoughts and lectures of James Tour, without letting your Christophobia stop you from thinking? I think you only have a faith position, which runs counter to basic logic, and runs counter even to the existing scientific evidence we do have. You only have a hopeful hypothesis, without the needed evidence to back it up. Wrong. We disagree on this, I see no contradictory evidence. Current scientific research already indicates Intelligent Design is needed. Every experiment ever done in the field has required it, without exception. So far, Science has shown the need for an Intelligent Designer of some kind. Please consider the statements of James Tour as my evidence. If you can disrespect and abuse people for their faith positions, I can certainly challenge your, faith in-spite of the evidence positions, as long as I do it in a loving manner. At least that is what I hope to do.
I believe that nothing is everything, which I suppose would mean that nothing had to have created everything because there wouldn't be anything else to create anything. and I think that nothing is everything because the sum of everything and its negative is 0, as pointed out to me by some clever person in another discussion. and also, because everything=everything, everything is every other thing and therefore there really is no such thing as a thing, so basically, anything at all is simultaneously: something, anything, everything, and nothing. and so if everything=nothing and nothing=everything, and everything has to have a cause of some kind, it would be, in a sense, accurate to say that nothing caused everything. idk, I could be wrong, just an idea. but if nothing causing everything is the same as anything else doing so, that's all kinda irrelevant.
perhaps some other entity created biological stuff, and perhaps no one did. I remain open to the possibility and its inverse, but I do not believe that another entity created my awareness of things, or anyone else's because the absence of all experience is not an experience, so can't be experienced. you can't ever experience the absence of all experience because there isn't anything to it to be experienced, and so you must perpetually NOT experience the absence of all experience instead, and therefore perpetually experience some degree of experience, which is the absence of the absence of all experience. what I mean to say is, it is impossible for you to be aware of nothing, ever, because there isn't anything to it to be aware of, and so you must experience something, which is the absence of nothing, instead, forever. if you are not aware of nothing, you must be aware of something. and it is impossible for you to be aware of nothing, ever, so you must be aware of something all the time, and as a result you always have and you always will be aware of something. it is a logical impossibility for you not to be aware. and so, whether there is a creator present or not, you must still be aware.
Imagine if the whole point of this is to cure mental illness. It's a crazy place. It was a mood diary which no one really took to, now you can get them as apps on your iphone/android. EDIT: They're useless.
