Laws of nature aren't made up; in particular the law I was mentioning that abiogenesis breaks is the Law of Biogenesis. Look it up instead of accusing me of making things up.
Accepting Creation lies on the premise that God does not need to follow natural laws.
Abiogenesis, however, assumes no god, and therefore must follow the laws of nature.
Given that, abiogenesis is a stretch because in order for it to work, you must break the laws of nature, specifically, the observable law of nature that life only comes from other life.
In other words, it's either extra-natural (creation) or non-natural (abiogenesis) for explaining the existence of life.
Note that evolution is not being mentioned here; evolution assumes life has to exist before it can evolve, so evolution could probably work on top of either theory, though I haven't seen evidence of macroevolution ever occurring.
I'm with you there, hopefully I didn't give the impression that evolution and abiogenesis are one and the same. Evolution only relies on life being there, whether from God or some natural process.
When I say natural, I mean naturally occurring, without the interference of men or God. Natural laws, natural processes; we both are adults and both understand what's being conversed here, I assume.
Abiogenesis isn't naturally occurring. In fact, evolutionists are largely divided over whether this is the source of life due to it going against what we've leared to be a law of nature.
What I said in the original posting is that abiogenesis is unnatural, at least as we currently know nature to be. Not only is it unnatural, even with human intervention we haven't been able to reproduce this phenomena. If all life comes from other life, then we have a problem: either abiogenesis is wrong or our current knowledge of nature is wrong.
Gehenna was, get this, a garbage burning dump in Israel, just outside Jerusalem. Not necessarily some eternal torment. Heaven isn't necessarily "in the sky" as everyone seems to think. Heaven obviously isn't a physical place if spiritual beings ("souls", "angels", etc.) are living there. Both Old and New Testaments agree there there is a heaven of some kind.
That said, I do think that if God is a just God, then he will repay both good and bad.
If abiogenesis proves right, then I will recant what I've said, and instead say that life can be created naturally.:-)
Now, if you and I meet in the spiritual world, (hopefully God has mercy on the both of us and we're in 'heaven'), you'll have to recant what you've said. How does that sound?:-)
Are you so intent to prove your point that you don't check your facts?:-) There is a law of Biogenesis, and it was created in response to 19th century scientists that argued life (such as maggots) spawned from non-living matter (such as rotting meat).
All this is without regard to evolution, to be clear. I'm not arguing for ID, I don't believe in it. I believe in Creation, but I'm not pushing that here either, instead, I'm presenting to you that the de facto theory of how life began, abiogenesis, like ID & Creationism, is unproved and does not follow natural laws.
Evolution is another matter entirely. Some IDists will believe, like you, that once life was created, it evolved into different species. I really don't know; personally I haven't seen a single species show macroevolution, so until then I'm largely against it.
This law is a natural law. Thus, using only natural means, all life comes from other life.
If an intelligent being, assumingly God, designed life, then that is extra-natural; God is not a naturally occuring being we assume.
If life came from non-living matter, as abiogenesis would have us believe, we know this to be non-naturally occuring and also breaking of the law of Biogenesis, then this is un-natural.
Your thought that this is a flawed philosophy relies partly on the idea that, "well, if God did it, then he broke Biogenesis". That argument is flawed because you're assuming that God, if he exists, must follow the laws of nature.
Solely following the laws of nature, both abiogenesis and Creationism doesn't work.
I do know that the current theory being taught, abiogenesis, can't occur naturally and hasn't been proven; the best we've been able to do is produce some amino acids, which is a far stretch from saying life can be formed via primordial ooze zapped by a bolt of lightning.
That's why I mentioned it being non-natural; it doesn't occur naturally, nor has anyone been able to produce it in a lab.
As far as a ban on teaching religion in schools, I see no such ban. Religion is studied in theology classes, for example. Now, saying "this is how life formed: it was created by God" would be forcing religion and also limiting the exposure students get to other theories. The same goes for abiogenesis though; yet we're limiting students exposure to any theory but abiogenesis. I don't think there should be such a limitation.
If you look at Bush's quote yesterday, this was precisely what he was getting at: student exposure to more than the theory of abiogenesis.
Creationism and Intelligent Design: life was created by some extra-natural force, assumingly the author of the universe.
Abiogenesis (what is taught in schools): life was created from non-life. Because this goes against the law of Biogenesis -- the observable fact that all life comes from other life -- abiogenesis is an un-natural force (at least, until the law of Biogenesis is proven wrong).
I'm not saying one or the other is right or wrong, I think that's a personal decision, but I am making an observation that both require non-natural forces for the creation of life.
Abiogenesis goes against the biological law of Biogenesis, the observable fact that life only comes from other life.
To believe in abiogenesis is to break the law of Biogenesis; abiogenesis hasn't been proven (and I believe it cannot be), thus you're either believing in an unproven theory that breaks natural law (unnatural), or a theory that says something outside Earth's natural laws caused life to exist in the first place (extra-natural).
If we can't explain life through natural law, then why are we trying to force a single theory down everyone's throat: that life somehow formed from non-life.
That's the problem with abiogenesis. Now, if you prove to me that life can come from non-life, that you can create self-replicating cells of life from non-organic material, then we have something revolutionary. Until then, you're believing in an non-natural theory yourself if you believe in abiogenesis as the genesis of life.
As far as evolution goes -- forgive me if it came across as 'muddying the waters', wasn't my intention -- IDists and creationists (myself being a creationist) generally believe in microevolution: the merging of genes to form a new species that can still mate with other species of the same progenitor species. Macroevolution -- the evolution of species to the point where genes diverge and form new species with different sexual apparatus that cannot mate with other members of the progenitor species, thus forming a new species altogether -- hasn't been proven and is generally rejected by IDists and creationists.
As far as extra-natural forces forming life, the problem that secularists have is that abiogenesis goes again the biological law of Biogenesis: that all life must come from other life. That is an observable fact of nature. So it's either you believe in a non-natural theory that goes against biological law, or you believe that something outside Earth's natural laws started life. I believe the latter. It isn't based on superstition, but on the fact that natural laws alone prohibit the forming of life out of non-life.
The New Testament doesn't really talk about a hell "below" or heaven above. Hell is largely an invention of Protestant ministers in the early 19th and 20th centuries. The problem is that the Hebrew sheol means "grave" or "death", but is translated as "hades" in Greek. Hades is then translated into English as "hell". The word "Hades" comes from the ancient Greek god of the underworld, but the idea of an underworld has made its way into western religion nonetheless through mistranslations of the Christian New Testament.
Sure, abiogenesis "could be" the answer, I never denied that. It seems to me it isn't the answer because it uses only natural forces to explain the beginning of life, and yet, from observable laws of nature, such as life must always come from other life, it seems natural laws rule out abiogenesis. Could I be wrong? Yes. Am I proven wrong? No.
Likewise, it "could be" that a non-natural force created natural life in the first place. I think a lot of secularists would like to believe this, as long as it didn't involve 'god'. But since the main proponents of the non-natural life beginning are believers in God, we have secularists running around like hell, slandering any non-natural life beginnings.
AFAIK, not all IDists accept evolution; I'm not an IDist (creationist myself), but I do know some IDists that accept evolution.
All that's beside the original point here: I said the "lightning zapped ooze, thus forming life" is not proven and is not natural. Abiogenesis isn't proven, and I personally believe don't believe it can be.
In any case, I appreciate your keeping things civil. More than I can say for several others that replied to my post.
The article, which you and several other/.ers point to, creates some amino acids. Not even all the amino acids necessary to form a protein.
Yet you still point to it as the source for all life, when not only has NO life actually been created, but no proteins have yet been created!
This isn't about me vs. you, instead we're arguing whether this experiment you point to proves the "lightning zapped a glob of primordial ooze, thus forming the first proteins" idea. The article says it does not! Are you refuting this point? I certainly hope not, or this thread could become real fun.
In my first post I said we can't reproduce the "lightning zapped primordial ooze, thus forming life". You pointed me to an experiment that created some amino acids.
If someone can create proteins from non-living matter, that would be something. But even then, we'd still have to prove that these proteins can start forming self-replicating DNA, which is quite another step.
In other words, the experiment you point to is a long way from proving that life can be formed from non-living matter, which was the point you initially refuted.
Exactly what I expected from the evolutionist and secular camps: hatred, mocking, cursing, intolerance. No point in going any further when all you do is mock. Fortunately several others in this thread actually carried out a civil conversation, which is more than can be said of you.
Believing in God to make me feel better? Hah! The easy route of this world is to not believe in God. I get mocked and scorned on secular peanut galleries like Slashdot everyday for standing up for my beliefs. You, on the other hand, have taken the easy road: fit in with the world, and believe whatever happens to be popular at the moment.
So what is the theory of abiogenesis? What predictions does it make which we can test? Which phenomena does it explain with more detail or more elegance than "competing" theories.
This is the problem with theories like abiogenesis - there's no "there" there. It makes no predictions. It proposes no tests. It explains nothing. It is not a theory at all.
Obviously the same could be said of many theories. Did you know that ID accepts evolution? Generally, the idea is that life had to come from somewhere, and since life always comes from other life (observable, provable fact of nature), then life must've come from some non-natural force. From there, IDist propose life evolved. Others believe this non-natural force (assumingly the author of the universe) created all species, others believe the species evolve. It's a theory that, like abiogenesis or the "lightning zapped primordial ooze, thus forming life", isn't provable and requires unnatural processes.
Ah, but abiogenesis isn't part of evolution. Evolution is the evolving of species to form new species (macroevolution).
You say ID and Creation do not offer an explanation; ID accepts evolution, but figures that some non-natural force created life in the first place. You correctly say this is falsifiable. Yet the next thing you say is point out abiogenesis, which, is not only unfalsifiable (we can't repro this in a lab!) but also unnatural (life coming from non-life). I can falsify abiogenesis easily: it is observable in nature that 100% of all life living today comes from other life.
See what you're saying? "God did it" is not natural and is not falsifiable. Here's abiogenesis, which is not natural, and is not falsifiable.
Ah, I see your point of view now. Silly me. Exposure to other theories and ideas are fine, so long as it's not the ones you disagree with. Well, that settles it.
I should've been more clear: think microevolution versus macroevolution.
In microevolution, genes combine to form subspecies. Subspecies can still breed with other members in the same level of specie: a German Shepherd dog can breed with a Golden Retriever, for instance.
In macroevolution, genes diverge and the the specie becomes a completely different animal, with different sexual apparatus, after which, it cannot breed with members of its former specie.
Creationists and IDists generally accept microevolution, but reject macroevolution.
Basically what I'm meaning to say is this: we shouldn't reject theories just because they disagree with our current ones, regardless of whether some extra-natural force is involved. Don't you agree?
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Laws of nature aren't made up; in particular the law I was mentioning that abiogenesis breaks is the Law of Biogenesis. Look it up instead of accusing me of making things up.
Accepting Creation lies on the premise that God does not need to follow natural laws.
Abiogenesis, however, assumes no god, and therefore must follow the laws of nature.
Given that, abiogenesis is a stretch because in order for it to work, you must break the laws of nature, specifically, the observable law of nature that life only comes from other life.
In other words, it's either extra-natural (creation) or non-natural (abiogenesis) for explaining the existence of life.
Note that evolution is not being mentioned here; evolution assumes life has to exist before it can evolve, so evolution could probably work on top of either theory, though I haven't seen evidence of macroevolution ever occurring.
I'm with you there, hopefully I didn't give the impression that evolution and abiogenesis are one and the same. Evolution only relies on life being there, whether from God or some natural process.
When I say natural, I mean naturally occurring, without the interference of men or God. Natural laws, natural processes; we both are adults and both understand what's being conversed here, I assume.
Abiogenesis isn't naturally occurring. In fact, evolutionists are largely divided over whether this is the source of life due to it going against what we've leared to be a law of nature.
What I said in the original posting is that abiogenesis is unnatural, at least as we currently know nature to be. Not only is it unnatural, even with human intervention we haven't been able to reproduce this phenomena. If all life comes from other life, then we have a problem: either abiogenesis is wrong or our current knowledge of nature is wrong.
In either case, more research needs to be done.
Gehenna was, get this, a garbage burning dump in Israel, just outside Jerusalem. Not necessarily some eternal torment. Heaven isn't necessarily "in the sky" as everyone seems to think. Heaven obviously isn't a physical place if spiritual beings ("souls", "angels", etc.) are living there. Both Old and New Testaments agree there there is a heaven of some kind.
:-)
:-)
That said, I do think that if God is a just God, then he will repay both good and bad.
If abiogenesis proves right, then I will recant what I've said, and instead say that life can be created naturally.
Now, if you and I meet in the spiritual world, (hopefully God has mercy on the both of us and we're in 'heaven'), you'll have to recant what you've said. How does that sound?
Excellent, well said.
Are you so intent to prove your point that you don't check your facts? :-) There is a law of Biogenesis, and it was created in response to 19th century scientists that argued life (such as maggots) spawned from non-living matter (such as rotting meat).
See the Law of Biogenesis on Wikipedia.
All this is without regard to evolution, to be clear. I'm not arguing for ID, I don't believe in it. I believe in Creation, but I'm not pushing that here either, instead, I'm presenting to you that the de facto theory of how life began, abiogenesis, like ID & Creationism, is unproved and does not follow natural laws.
Evolution is another matter entirely. Some IDists will believe, like you, that once life was created, it evolved into different species. I really don't know; personally I haven't seen a single species show macroevolution, so until then I'm largely against it.
This law is a natural law. Thus, using only natural means, all life comes from other life.
If an intelligent being, assumingly God, designed life, then that is extra-natural; God is not a naturally occuring being we assume.
If life came from non-living matter, as abiogenesis would have us believe, we know this to be non-naturally occuring and also breaking of the law of Biogenesis, then this is un-natural.
Your thought that this is a flawed philosophy relies partly on the idea that, "well, if God did it, then he broke Biogenesis". That argument is flawed because you're assuming that God, if he exists, must follow the laws of nature.
Solely following the laws of nature, both abiogenesis and Creationism doesn't work.
I do know that the current theory being taught, abiogenesis, can't occur naturally and hasn't been proven; the best we've been able to do is produce some amino acids, which is a far stretch from saying life can be formed via primordial ooze zapped by a bolt of lightning.
That's why I mentioned it being non-natural; it doesn't occur naturally, nor has anyone been able to produce it in a lab.
As far as a ban on teaching religion in schools, I see no such ban. Religion is studied in theology classes, for example. Now, saying "this is how life formed: it was created by God" would be forcing religion and also limiting the exposure students get to other theories. The same goes for abiogenesis though; yet we're limiting students exposure to any theory but abiogenesis. I don't think there should be such a limitation.
If you look at Bush's quote yesterday, this was precisely what he was getting at: student exposure to more than the theory of abiogenesis.
Creationism and Intelligent Design: life was created by some extra-natural force, assumingly the author of the universe.
Abiogenesis (what is taught in schools): life was created from non-life. Because this goes against the law of Biogenesis -- the observable fact that all life comes from other life -- abiogenesis is an un-natural force (at least, until the law of Biogenesis is proven wrong).
I'm not saying one or the other is right or wrong, I think that's a personal decision, but I am making an observation that both require non-natural forces for the creation of life.
Abiogenesis goes against the biological law of Biogenesis, the observable fact that life only comes from other life.
To believe in abiogenesis is to break the law of Biogenesis; abiogenesis hasn't been proven (and I believe it cannot be), thus you're either believing in an unproven theory that breaks natural law (unnatural), or a theory that says something outside Earth's natural laws caused life to exist in the first place (extra-natural).
If we can't explain life through natural law, then why are we trying to force a single theory down everyone's throat: that life somehow formed from non-life.
That's the problem with abiogenesis. Now, if you prove to me that life can come from non-life, that you can create self-replicating cells of life from non-organic material, then we have something revolutionary. Until then, you're believing in an non-natural theory yourself if you believe in abiogenesis as the genesis of life.
As far as evolution goes -- forgive me if it came across as 'muddying the waters', wasn't my intention -- IDists and creationists (myself being a creationist) generally believe in microevolution: the merging of genes to form a new species that can still mate with other species of the same progenitor species. Macroevolution -- the evolution of species to the point where genes diverge and form new species with different sexual apparatus that cannot mate with other members of the progenitor species, thus forming a new species altogether -- hasn't been proven and is generally rejected by IDists and creationists.
As far as extra-natural forces forming life, the problem that secularists have is that abiogenesis goes again the biological law of Biogenesis: that all life must come from other life. That is an observable fact of nature. So it's either you believe in a non-natural theory that goes against biological law, or you believe that something outside Earth's natural laws started life. I believe the latter. It isn't based on superstition, but on the fact that natural laws alone prohibit the forming of life out of non-life.
The New Testament doesn't really talk about a hell "below" or heaven above. Hell is largely an invention of Protestant ministers in the early 19th and 20th centuries. The problem is that the Hebrew sheol means "grave" or "death", but is translated as "hades" in Greek. Hades is then translated into English as "hell". The word "Hades" comes from the ancient Greek god of the underworld, but the idea of an underworld has made its way into western religion nonetheless through mistranslations of the Christian New Testament.
Sure, abiogenesis "could be" the answer, I never denied that. It seems to me it isn't the answer because it uses only natural forces to explain the beginning of life, and yet, from observable laws of nature, such as life must always come from other life, it seems natural laws rule out abiogenesis. Could I be wrong? Yes. Am I proven wrong? No.
Likewise, it "could be" that a non-natural force created natural life in the first place. I think a lot of secularists would like to believe this, as long as it didn't involve 'god'. But since the main proponents of the non-natural life beginning are believers in God, we have secularists running around like hell, slandering any non-natural life beginnings.
AFAIK, not all IDists accept evolution; I'm not an IDist (creationist myself), but I do know some IDists that accept evolution.
All that's beside the original point here: I said the "lightning zapped ooze, thus forming life" is not proven and is not natural. Abiogenesis isn't proven, and I personally believe don't believe it can be.
In any case, I appreciate your keeping things civil. More than I can say for several others that replied to my post.
The article, which you and several other /.ers point to, creates some amino acids. Not even all the amino acids necessary to form a protein.
Yet you still point to it as the source for all life, when not only has NO life actually been created, but no proteins have yet been created!
This isn't about me vs. you, instead we're arguing whether this experiment you point to proves the "lightning zapped a glob of primordial ooze, thus forming the first proteins" idea. The article says it does not! Are you refuting this point? I certainly hope not, or this thread could become real fun.
In my first post I said we can't reproduce the "lightning zapped primordial ooze, thus forming life". You pointed me to an experiment that created some amino acids.
If someone can create proteins from non-living matter, that would be something. But even then, we'd still have to prove that these proteins can start forming self-replicating DNA, which is quite another step.
In other words, the experiment you point to is a long way from proving that life can be formed from non-living matter, which was the point you initially refuted.
Exactly what I expected from the evolutionist and secular camps: hatred, mocking, cursing, intolerance. No point in going any further when all you do is mock. Fortunately several others in this thread actually carried out a civil conversation, which is more than can be said of you.
Believing in God to make me feel better? Hah! The easy route of this world is to not believe in God. I get mocked and scorned on secular peanut galleries like Slashdot everyday for standing up for my beliefs. You, on the other hand, have taken the easy road: fit in with the world, and believe whatever happens to be popular at the moment.
So what is the theory of abiogenesis? What predictions does it make which we can test? Which phenomena does it explain with more detail or more elegance than "competing" theories.
This is the problem with theories like abiogenesis - there's no "there" there. It makes no predictions. It proposes no tests. It explains nothing. It is not a theory at all.
Obviously the same could be said of many theories. Did you know that ID accepts evolution? Generally, the idea is that life had to come from somewhere, and since life always comes from other life (observable, provable fact of nature), then life must've come from some non-natural force. From there, IDist propose life evolved. Others believe this non-natural force (assumingly the author of the universe) created all species, others believe the species evolve. It's a theory that, like abiogenesis or the "lightning zapped primordial ooze, thus forming life", isn't provable and requires unnatural processes.
Ah, but abiogenesis isn't part of evolution. Evolution is the evolving of species to form new species (macroevolution).
You say ID and Creation do not offer an explanation; ID accepts evolution, but figures that some non-natural force created life in the first place. You correctly say this is falsifiable. Yet the next thing you say is point out abiogenesis, which, is not only unfalsifiable (we can't repro this in a lab!) but also unnatural (life coming from non-life). I can falsify abiogenesis easily: it is observable in nature that 100% of all life living today comes from other life.
See what you're saying? "God did it" is not natural and is not falsifiable. Here's abiogenesis, which is not natural, and is not falsifiable.
Ah, I see your point of view now. Silly me. Exposure to other theories and ideas are fine, so long as it's not the ones you disagree with. Well, that settles it.
Note that this subject of this thread contains information you might find inappropriate or threatening of your worldview.
Please do not hijack this thread and turn into a political, idealogical, or religious debate.
Thank you.
We have VS installed on hundreds of machines here at work, and I've never heard or seen anything like that.
I agree.
I think VS 2003 was lacking in a few areas, namely refactoring tools. Fortunately VS 2005 has refactoring tools integrated into it nicely.
I should've been more clear: think microevolution versus macroevolution.
In microevolution, genes combine to form subspecies. Subspecies can still breed with other members in the same level of specie: a German Shepherd dog can breed with a Golden Retriever, for instance.
In macroevolution, genes diverge and the the specie becomes a completely different animal, with different sexual apparatus, after which, it cannot breed with members of its former specie.
Creationists and IDists generally accept microevolution, but reject macroevolution.
Basically what I'm meaning to say is this: we shouldn't reject theories just because they disagree with our current ones, regardless of whether some extra-natural force is involved. Don't you agree?