Not this again...

You're referring to abiogenesis. Evolution does not explain how the first life forms came about.

Read Fallacy #15 on this thread. 

Evolution is accepted as fact because there is a mass of evidence for it. We don't have that good evidence for abiogenesis.

Evolution does NOT rely on life coming from nonlife, you're making that up.

{mod edit: Post deleted.  Plagiarism is not tolerated.}

Not another God of the Gaps...

Ignornance is not a very strong foundation for discussion.

Evolutionists can not answer one very important question. And that is where did TIME, SPACE and MATTER come from.

Wait a minute. Let me get this straight.

Why must it be accepted? Is there something forbidding us from questioning your conclusion further?

How did the alleged 'creative act' happen?  I don't want glittering generalities either. I want theory supported by facts. If your answer is 'god did it' then I want to know HOW.

If you are expecting hard answers then should I not require the same of your hypothesis? You offer nothing more than 'conclusions' with barely tenable precepts while abiogenesis carries with it viable chemical theories.

Our bodies are the combination of chemicals that are readily found in nature - fact.  Let's start there shall we? How many different answers are there? Which answers are supported by science? Which answers have no explanation? Which ones should we analyze first?

Thanks for the answers and responses from so many of you. I'll just use this ONE post to respond to all of you to keep this thread from loading up with too many posts from one member.

To those who evaded the main issue and attacked out-of-context sidebar issues, I have no real comment since you didn't either.

To those who actually addressed the issue, thank you. We can discuss a few points:

Nope. You're talking about a genesis theory, not a progression of already living creatures.

Same thing.

That doesn't prove anything. You're looking at things too big.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Let's get a few things straight.

Theories

Evolution: "Give me a single cell and I'll give you all the complexity and biodiversity of modern life."

Modern Cosmology: "Give me 1 Planck time after the big bang and I'll give you planets, stars, galaxies, black holes and everything else we see in the universe."

Astrobiology: "Simple organic molecules are very common in interstellar space."

Hypotheses

Quantum physics: "The idea of quantum foam can give us 1 Planck time after the big bang from nothing at all. Maybe."

Non-Euclidean Geometry: "Finite, unbounded 4-dimensional manifolds give us an idea of how we don't even need a beginning to time for it to be finite; you might simply have 1 Planck time after the big bang."

Overgeneralizations

Pateur: "If it can't happen in a short period of time in modern Earth conditions, it'll never happen anywhere in the universe no matter what the conditions."

Remaining Questions

Origins of DNA: "How did we get from abundant simple organic molecules in interstellar space to basic self-replicating molecules here on earth?"

Origins of Life: "What was necessary for basic self-replicating molecules to form a cell wall around themselves?"

Origins of the Universe: "Which of the variety of available explanations best explains how we got to 1 Planck time after the big bang?"

 

Any questions?

Gen 2:7

And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

 

What could be more abiogenisis than this. Life coming from dust.

Kent Hovind many times made fun of evolution as being the belief that life came from a rock. What is dust? It's a rock, finely eroded. 

*bangs head against wall*

It doesnt need to. That is the job of primordial chemists and cosmologists. 

It's true that evolution does not, and in fact doesn't try to provide the answer from the very beginning. It only explains how complexity arises spontaneously. However, having a mechanism for increasing complexity makes the whole question of origin much easier, don't you think? It covers the time from the first simple replicators all the way through plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and even the mighty homo sapiens.

There must be molecules capable of replicating themselves. What, exactly, the first of these would be is not yet known, and can only be hypothesized at this time.

It's trivial to assume that they would only come about in an environment that could support them. That's why it happened on Earth, but not on, for instance, Venus.

Yes, but they don't need to do anything as complex as even bacteria would. It would probably be a single molecule, RNA or something like it. But this is just a guess. We don't really know what it was.

This is a given in almost any environment.

Likely by random chance under the appropriate environmental conditions, i.e. the Early Earth. But science doesn't have a definitive answer to this yet.

Life occurs where it is possible for life to occur. So even if planets capable of supporting life are only 1 in a hundred trillion, it should be no great surprise to the life on that rare planet that it finds itself someplace suitable. This is called a selection effect.

Evolutionary theory would not attempt to provide a complete solution. You're being unreasonable. It does, however, tell us a great deal. Does it undermine god? I think so, at least the notion of a caring personal god who created humans specifically and intentionally, because it is hard to imagine that such a being could be in any way personal when he, at most, created a tiny molecule billions of years ago and then turned it over to natural selection. And it isn't nearly as hard to believe that a simple self-replicator could come about spontaneously as it is to believe that an elephant just popped out of nowhere.

nice copy and paste job.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rossuk/c-athism.htm

 

You should give credit when you do that.

Beat me to it, Mindspead. lol.

I'll play along with this copy-paste idiot

 If the definition of an atheist is: someone who believes that there is NO God. Then we can ask 'how does he or she know?'

Typical. Confusing

I do not believe X is true

Versus I believe X is not true

We do not KNOW there is no God, we merely point out that there is no evidence for such a being therefore it is reasonable to assume it does not exist until proven to exist. There is no such thing as 100% certianty.

 A much more reasonable position is that of the agnostic who claims that he or she does not know whether there is a God and is open to the evidence.

That is what atheists believe. They believe that until evidence comes along, it can be assumed God does not exist.

 

 The atheist has no reasonable explanation for the 'first cause' of the universe. Because there is no ultimate first cause one must assume that it just popped into existence -

It is the theist who believes in ex nihlo creation, that God literally created the universe out of nothing. That is impossible. Not even God can break the laws of thermodynamics. We appeal to the laws of physics. You appeal to magic.

 The atheist view also results in a universe where there is no ultimate justice, the bad guys get away with it. The atheist seems to be quite happy that life is extinguished at death; of what ultimate consequence is the life of an atheist?

How exactly does this break scientific laws?

 The atheist is happy to critique the theist view but is blind to the philosophical implications of his own view. He likes to object to the problem of evil but is blind to the fact of the ultimate lack of justice resulting from atheism.

Are you telling me we need omnipotent justice? Are you telling me we are so weak and pathetic we need it made for us. JUSTICE IS A MAN MADE CONCEPT, we create justice. Furthermore, this breaks no scientific law.

 but as old or middle age approaches and the pleasures of youth become just dreams and you consider your own mortality then you begin to realise the futility and meaningless of atheism. When you are in the grave who will remember you and for how long?

 This seems to be an argumentum ad consequintium. Ignorance is bliss indeed. Theists under the delusion that they will have an afterlife when they die. This typical argument from despair is so typical of theists. I do not care for what makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, I care for TRUTH!

Is it just me or does that look like one of AnonymousMaster's posts?

I got a really good joke for you.

Please get off the computer, dump any medicine you have, and live in the forest, naked. 

Oh come on, if you are going to fill in letters, fill in more then half. 

 

 Hey, Kent!  I didn't realize that you could use the internet during a prison sentence.  My, how times have changed.

The title to this should be changed to 'The unreasonableness of my strawman version of atheism, based on my ignorance of what atheism means, and how deductive proofs work"

Let's count the basic errors in this post.

Error number 1. Atheism is defined as a-theism... not holding to the claims of theism.

Error number 2. Confusing an inductive claim for a deductive claim.

Strong atheists hold that 'god' does not exist, but they make the claim based on a deduction.  We can rule out the existence of claims that lead to internal contradictions.

Error number 3. In order to know that there are no square circles, we need not know everything. Square circles are contradictory, ergo they cannot exist.

We can therefore rule out 'god' if we can form a deductive proof.

 

Error number 4

Errors 5 and 6. Again, one can rule out a contradictory claim, we can do so deductively. This is pretty basic... It does not require god knowledge to rule out that 2+2 equals five. 

The amount of basic ignorance in this post is astonishing.

Error 7 

And now the theist turns to their favorite attack on atheism: that it is an emotional position.

This is not an an error so much as it is a projection: theists hold to their religion on emotions, ergo they assume everyone else responds the same way.

 

Error 8 - the problem of evil is not an 'emotional position' it is a logical position. 

Error 9, and another projection... why would a person NOT believe in a god out of fear? Theism inculcates people THROUGH fear.

 Error 10, another projection: it is religion that offers the consolation for death....

Error number 11 and 12

First, most atheists are agnostics, so most atheists do in fact hold to their atheism this way.

Second, even a strong atheist is open to conceding error, the strong atheist simply believes he has a deductive proof against theism.  

 

Error 13 and 14. Argument from ignorance and false dichotomy error.  The fact that an atheist does not have a full account of cosmology is of no matter, and it is simply false to assume that without a full cosmology one must hold to theism!

Errors 15 and 16

The atheist does not need one to reject theism

There is no reason to believe that there MUST have been a first cause in the first place, so this is a false dilemma.

Error 17. Quantum tunneling from a zero dimensional state has been shown to be possible by Tryone and Vilekin.

Because its a false dilemma that an atheist must provide a full account of cosmology to be an atheist. 

Error 18. Atheists feel that they get to choose the meaning for their lives, and find this to be a more pleasant role for themselves over being a worthless pawn only worthy of destruction, or groveling before a 'god'.

If you use this to hold to theism, then you have error 19:  

This is the fallacy of arguing from adverse consequences. 

And this annoys the fuck out of theists who fear death so much that they must delude themselves with religion to blot out the fear.

 Whatever impact one's life has on others.

What consequence is a life in theism, where people are worthless, and works do not matter at all?

If only you had the slightest clue what an atheist was.... then maybe you might have something useful to say.

The problem of evil is a refutation of christianity.

The fact that there is no 'sky judge' to ensure that everyone 'gets justice' is just a fact of life.. wishing otherwise won't change reality. It only means that we all should strive to be more fair to each other.

What a hollow complaint, coming from a theist.

 

In other words, when you begin to fear death, you cling to the delusion of religion to reduce your death fears.

How utterly revealing of the true emotions behind religion: the need to quell death fears.

 

Final tally: At least 19 basic errors, not one point about what atheism is.....   and I was kind in my scoring...

The original post can be found here here.

His third post is here

His 8th post can be found here under the heading, "Prerequisites for Evolution."

mindspread pointed out his copying in his ninth post.

All this copying and pasting, and no credit.

As noor out, the last post was similar to a troll's post on this thread. This is probably the same troll.

So, everyone, don't waste your time. Mods, you know what to do.

 

It's one thing to steal someone else's writing and post it as if it were your own... it's quite another to steal something utterly STUPID and post it as if it were your own...

If you're gonna steal, steal something worthwhile... I have no respect for theives with no class. 

I would think you would be ashamed of Plaguarism... but... eh... God will forgive... so might as well let the sin flow, right?

The definition is of an atheist is someone who lacks belief in a god or goddesses. What point is there to this paragraph. In the same IDENTICAL SENSE that an atheist must have ALL KNOWLEDGE to claim there is NO god - a theist (like yourself) must also pretend to have ALL KNOWLEDGE to say there IS a god. But this isn't the case - you simply believe in a god - and we simply do not- it is as simple as that!

Don't be such a hypocrite! Prick.



Your ignorance and overly arrogant pretense of atheistic philosophy is appalling!!! I (and most atheists) have our own personal hypothesis of what the origin of the universe is. Unlike arrogant theistic twits (like yourself) - we do not parade around claiming our thoughts are the "absolute truth" - instead we awcknowledge that they are simply our own personal philosophies and reguard them honorably as such.

For my personal theory? The laws of thermodynamics state that energy cannot be created or destroyed - only transfered. They also state that something cannot come from nothing. This would make energy eternal. If it cannot be created or destroyed - it has neither a beginning nor an end. The interesting status of energy is that it is neither something nor nothing.

Thus - energy is the fundamental of the universe - it is mindless. as to specifically HOW energy brought the universe about is another theory that i am more than willing to elaborate on if you are so interested.



My... you are quite the arrogant little shit! Why don't you get off your ego-thronged high horse and come back down to reality - get your head out of the clouds - you're not the center of the universe - prick!

"lack of justice resulting from atheism"? What are you talking about? What "lack of justice"???

"futility and meaningless of atheism"? I give my own life meaning. In my experience - it is the young atheists who are typically frustrated with the world around them - dealing with arrogant prick-ass twits like yourself at such a young age - bringing them down... versus the atheists in old age who seem to be at peace and have grown immune to your type of bullshit.

So much for theists being the moral ones. 

Who said life can come from non-life. Who said non-life to life is magical and spontanous? Put the begining elements of RNA(first forms of structor like DNA) and then, at the time the atomosphere of the planet would of been thin, different elements that make up the atmosphere. Now, radiation from space, as we know we are bombared but our atmosphere now stops most harmful radiation that can cause masive mutations, or death such as gamma rays, x-rays, etc. Even solar winds are stoped most of the time now. Now the elements are in one area, they are getting hit by radiation, and it changes the make-up and makes a form of RNA. First bacteria come. How is that spontanous? The even chance of it happening is low, I agree, I think it happened a lot, and it so happened they survived just once to create the rest of evolution.

 

Now, how is that spontanous hmm? Did that not just explain it? I know it might not of been that way it happened, but you saying we have no explainations on how non-life became life is idiotic.

 

Also, i'm pretty sure 100 years ago, no one could come up with a reason non-life became life, but now we can.