Christian argued that everything must have a creator

[orangebox21]

Claiming that "life can be reverse engineered in a lab by intelligent beings" is not proof that these processes took place in exactly the same way without intelligent interference millions of years ago.  I would argue the contrary.  Given that we have not observed these processes taking place apart from human reproduction in a lab, if it takes intelligence now, why not conclude it took intelligence then?  This would be a more consistent conclusion.

I understand your objection, and yes, there is difference between a laboratory experiment and something occurring naturally. My point is that we know that these chemicals can give rise to organic material. I was trying to ask why he think it's more likely that a creator who isn't proven to exist is more likely than a chemical process that we know exists.

We agree that chemical processes exist.
We agree that no one has observed this specific chemical process happening naturally.
We postulate that since scientists can arrange for a specific naturalistic process to take place, it might have taken place in the past without arrangement (or naturally).
How can we prove that if something could have happened it did happen?

Given that it has not been observed, we cannot answer the question scientifically.  It is an issue of probability.  The mathematical calculations surrounding the probability of these processes occurring naturally when compared to the law of probability show that it would never happen.

---

Walter Bradley, PhD, materials science, and Charles Thaxton, PhD, chemistry,5 calculated that the probability of amino acids forming into a protein is: 4.9 x 10-191 (Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, p. 80.)  

"No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning . . . there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10^20)^2000 = 10^-40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup."  Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (London: Dent, 1981), p. 148, 24.

According to the laws of probability, if the chance of an event occurring is smaller than 1 in 10^50, then the event will never occur (this is equal to 1 divided by 10^50 and is a very small number).( (E. Borel, Probabilities and Life, [New York: Dover Publications, 1962], p. 28.)

---

That being said, there are only two (if there is a third I would like to add it to the discussion) explanations of human origins.  A designer or not a designer.  Given we have mathematically eliminated the possibility of 'no designer' we can logically infer 'a designer.'  

Addressed and answered by athrock in post #80.

Saying that God doesn't need a creator doesn't answer the question, it creates an exception to the rule. There still has to be a reason for the exception.

They are different categorically.  There are two categories of things.  One category is comprised of things that are eternal.  These are things that have always existed, therefore do not have a beginning and therefore would not have a cause.  The second category is comprised of things that have not always existed.  These things do have a beginning and therefore would have a cause.  God belongs to one category and the universe to the other one (according to premise two of the argument).  Certainly a person could argue that the universe should belong in the 'always existed' category and if successful would refute the soundness of the cosmological argument for God's existence (by showing premise 2 to be false).