Someone has this "Is there a god business" terribly wrong

[Morgan_s]

On one hand you have the many millions or maybe billions of those that follow religions who's roots have questionable beginnings, motives and practices.

On the other hand you have millions or maybe billions that are oblivvious to the fact that we just didn't appear out of a cloud of gas and there is indeed a higher power, race or god if you will.

Where is the middle ground if there is a middle ground?

[LazyGun]

@e30316i

You claim the following -" Take a rock(earth), place it near a heat source(sun) and in a vacuum(space) and come back to it in 10 billion years. You will still have a rock near a heat source. There will be no life on board, no mini humans on it. Better scientists than me have proven that."

1. Are you a scientist?
2. What scientists better than you have proven that, and please provide a link.... See, no scientist that I am aware of has had 10 billion years to leave the experiment and then come back and observe.

It has been shown, by, amongst others, Miller and Urey, that the conditions on an early earth actually favoured synthesis of organic compounds from inorganic precursors - this being hypothesised by Haldane, amongst others. So I think your assertion, above, seems comprehensively contradicted by their work

You also had this to say - "I believe in the theory of evolution and i belive that earth evolved over billions of years. I do not believe that we are here because of just circumstances". - Now this is great, I agree with you on 2 out 3 of your statements. Why, do you think, should we attach any weight to your 3rd statement? Just because you do not believe that we are here because of "just circumstances" does not mean that it is not true. What you have with that statement is a logical fallacy, an argument from personal incredulity.

You are also very probably correct to hypothesise that, given the staggeringly huge number of galaxies, each containing a massive number of stars, a significant proportion of which will have planets, there is almost certainly life out there in the universe - but although we can speculate that there is intelligent life more advanced than ourselves, it isnt necessarily so. As to advertising ourselves, well, yes we have been, but only for a relatively short time, since the use of radio waves, TV signals and the like, and they will not have got very far, especially in comparison to the size of the universe.

Finally - the theory of origin, the Big Bang. It is a hypothesis, and one that is the best fit to describe the beginnings, based upon what we know. There are bound to be refinements to it, but your analogy is like many, that the big bang was an explosion akin to something we can see on Earth, when of course it is absolutely nothing like that. The theory posits a singularity, which are just plain weird. The alternative, religiously inspired theory, that there was some sort of supernatural cosmic entity that created everything seems much less plausible, and would appear to me to be there as a means of satisfying humanities deep seated need for a narrative.

[jomifl]

e303, you seem not to quite understand that the Earth was devoid of free oxgygen until long after the development of life and free oxygen only appeared after the development of photosynthesis. Although the atmosphere is now rich in free oxygen you only have to scratch a few centimetres below the surface of the earth (literally) to find anoxic zones. The Earth has so many varied micro-environments that there are plenty of places where life could re-appear where it not for all the other life forms waiting to eat it.

[LazyGun]

@e30316i

1. Please show how abiogenesis has been discredited. Your assertion that oxygen is a prerequisite shows a quite staggering ignorance of the science.

2. The Big Bang Theory resembles an earthlike explosion only in name only. The expansion of a singularity to encompass everything - Universe, Time, Energy, Matter, AntiMatter. This has nothing in common with an explosion except, unfortunately, in name, which gives people an inaccurate picture.

[naomi24]

e30316i //I do know that all this is not possible without some form of help.//

No - you don't.

[jomifl]

10clarion..well you obviously don't, I'm surprised you can be bothered to contribute a post since you have nothing of consequence to say.

[naomi24]

10ClarionSt, //Who gives a fk either way? //

The people who want to talk about it perhaps?

[jomifl]

10Clarion if you want an interesting thread then start one, then tell us where it is and we will see if we can be ars&d to contribute to it.

[e30316i]

Lazy Gun, you must love Google, Miller and Urey were discounted a long time ago. I am a scientist, I have a PHD in Genetic engineering. however i do not rely on google to name drop and state 'facts'. and again in telling me that i may be wrong, you do not tell me how your opinion is any more valid. you appear to be a very well read person with excellent writing skills but to quote 'MIller and Urey' ruins any arguement that you had.
Ths is fact - abiogensis does not exist. it is not possible, never has been and will never be. If you delved deeper into google you would have found this.
I have stated i do not have and will never have all the answers, but i have faith. it can't be measured, found in an area of the brain, erased etc. it just is. what i do know is that my life is no easier because i have faith, if anything it is harder. i don't believe that i am guaranteed a place in an afterlife whatever form it may take.
i do believe based on my studies, my life and conversations and experiences in all parts of the world(not religious) that there is a force, so great that we can't comprehend, i may be blaise on the big bang, but it is a fact that the universe is expanding, we are a very young solar system, and the laws of probabilty show that there will be at least 1 billion similar environments to our own, formed many billions of years before ours.
I don't know that i am right but i know that you can't prove
a - you are right, or,
b - that i am wrong

[Kassee]

There are those that believe in God and those that think they are God.

[e30316i]

joimfl, i beg to differ. i fully understand life and evolution. you again must be a google lover. back to basic, matter can only be changed, not created. there is the same amount of oxygen, nitrogen etc on this planet today as there was in the beginning. may be in different forms but it was there. amino acid cannot form anywhere oxygen is present in whatever form. if you wish to continue, please get your facts from a reliable source and not the world wide wikipedia

[jomifl]

e303, you are not a scientist, because you don't seem to understand what science is, you don't have to be a scientist to work in genetic engineering.

[e30316i]

joimfl, this shows you up. so now i'm a liar, and the 9 years spent at university a figment of my imagination. i thought this site was for reasonable debate and opinion, i have yet to tell you your wrong, but what i see are some genuine people with opinion and others who believe the first 10 pages of google.

[jomifl]

Hi, e303, you misunderstand me, I very rarely use google to back up my arguments, I use the knowledge gained through a career spent working in science, with scientists. I get the impression that of the 9 years you spent at university very little of your time was spent trying to understand what science is and what it does. For a 'genetic engineer' your grasp of chemistry is sadly lacking as you don't seem to be aware that the chemical elements exist in various oxidation states which govern their reactivity. Many of the contributors to this thread have impressed me in the past with their grasp of concepts and detailed knowledge of various scientific disciplines. From you contributions I would never have thought that you have ever read a chemistry text book, let alone used google.

[LazyGun]

@ e30316i - You talk nonsense. Show me the literature where abiogenesis has been discredited. Show me the scientific papers rebutting Miller and Urey. You cant, because they haven't.Abiogenesis remains a valid hypothesis, as does panspermia.

No scientist worthy of the name would make the assertions that you do, in the manner that you do. You fail to answer the observations about your initial claims, you profoundly misunderstand the place of oxygen in the development of life, and you dismiss rebuttals as google inspired - essentially an ad hominem attack, since you fail to engage with the arguments themselves.

You claim a PhD in Genetic Engineering - Well, I will let the readers reach their own conclusions as to the veracity of that claim, but based upon what you have written here there is very little evidence of that background - charitably, the best i can attribute is a rather spectacular case of cognitive dissonance.

It is tempting to hypothesise, based upon the writing, that e303 is in fact a fictional creation, a sockpuppet created by someone like Truthabounds ( after all, this avatar was only created this afternoon), who wishes to have an alias with which to argue from what they think would be a position or authority.

We shall all be able to make our own minds up, based upon the level of scientific rigor, objectivity and rationality that you bring to your future posts, shan,t we? :)

[naomi24]

LG, we shall indeed. You practically took the words out of my mouth.

[jomifl]

e303 if you ' fully understand life and evolution' then you are the only person that does. By the way I doubt that a genuine scientist would ever say such a thing because he/she would know that it would be something of a gross exaggeration bordering on an untruth.

[WaldoMcFroog]

I bow before e30316i's mastery of the Gish Gallop.

[naomi24]

Gish Gallop is seen in ever increasing abundance around here lately, Waldo.