The Reasons why "Just Following Jesus" Doesn't work

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I took a look at your artical and I will admit that the panda's thumb article was confusing since I don't have a Bachelors or a PHD in any kind of science. Yet, the New Yorker article and some other articles helped me to understand some of what he was talking about. What I found from looking around is that what we have is data about the cambrian period. Before there were not so many animals and then there were a lot in the cambrian period. It would seem that scientist have done some inferring with chemistry and have used computers to play out the scenario which they have drawn conclusions from. I haven't looked into that so I don't know what criterion they are using. Those who believe in a creator have filled in the gaps with science as well but they believe that it points to a creator. So my conclusion is we have data about the cambrian period, and this data has been interpreted in different ways. This got me asking some more questions which lead me to seek some popular scientific views on our "origins". 

That's why I tend to cite both the "hard science" articles and popularized versions, whenever possible. I don't expect everyone to have a 100% grasp of biology, unless they are a biologist. On the other hand, when I see people making false statements about science (building strawmen in order to tear them down, usually), or stating things as fact when they are either unproven or absolutely disproved, I will expect the person making such claims to learn enough science to realize why those statements are as poorly worded/conceptualized as they are. (Edit to Add: Oh, and thanks for actually reading what I linked!)

As to the Cambrian Explosion, it's a common misconception that life was less common before the divide. It's fossils that are hard to find from that era, simply because life had not yet evolved a mechanism for producing hard materials which are more easily preserved as fossils. We do have some examples (Google for instance the "Burgess Shale"), and have discovered quite a lot more about that era than we knew until recently. As for the "chemistry" part, it's that we know the way DNA reproduces, and can determine if the amount of diversity we see occurring in that time period (which still encompasses several million years) is faster than the known rates of evolutionary change. Turns out, it was well within the limit.

So where did life come from? I read that we could have all come from a comet, panspermia, bringing with it proteins that were needed to create life.  This plus many other theories, and found what they are saying is we are star stuff, and some therefore conclude we are not created beings rather things grown up out of happy happenstance.  So I concluded, if that is the case doing right or wrong really doesn't matter, as whatever happens... happens. Or as I would say "so what". So what to slavery, so what to religion etc. As in the great words of King Solomon “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”(ecc 1:1) Now if there is a God then things are made for a reason and therefore they have a purpose and meaning.  Giving men the reference point to understand morality and life and making sense of all the "gray areas".  

I think that, technically, the comets are alleged to have brought the component materials of the amino acids/sugars and other basic building blocks that would make up RNA (perhaps preempted by TNA - Threose Nucleic Acid), and eventually DNA. We can observe the existence of these chemicals (via radio telescopes) in interstellar clouds because every molecule "vibrates" at a particular set of frequencies, and these can be seen from earth. Experiments have been performed here on earth by irradiating other, more basic chemicals found in the clouds, and they saw the development of those same molecules as we see in the clouds. Those materials may well have crashed in comet form into the warm, early oceans on earth and seeded the locations where it was favorable for abiogenesis to occur. NASA/JPL conducted experiments which showed the formation of "protocells" in similar warm-water conditions, due to naturally occurring fatty acids (lipids) in the water (the stuff that makes up sea foam), where the materials were shot into warm water and were immediately enveloped by the lipid layer, forming a type of cell.

The reason we say "we are star stuff" is simple: nuclear fusion. Originally, all that existed was hydrogen and perhaps a little helium left over from the "Big Bang". The gas pockets drew together by gravity and ignited fusion. When hydrogen atoms fuse into helium atoms under the influence of the great heat and pressure at the center of a star, it produces an ever-higher chain of products, up as high as iron. During the intense reaction we call a Supernova, even higher elements like uranium can be formed, and flung into deep space. None of this is controversial; we know that's how it works. Our star is a second- or third-generation star, based on its makeup and the fact that it has planets made of heavier materials. Therefore, everything on earth that is not helium or hydrogen, including us, was made in the fusion heart of a star. Neat, huh?

As for the "meaningless" part, I hope you're just parroting some preacher, and you don't really think that we think life is meaningless without a religious figure to create the world via magic. First, there are many, many, MANY scientists who are Believers, and they see Creation not as a magical, one-time event, but as an ongoing process which an infinitely-patient Creator could easily use to bring about The Plan™. Most of them see Creationism as diminishing God, not defending God. Secondly, we secularlists don't say that without God things are meaningless (that's a bad line from a bad character in a Dostoevsky novel who actually says that), we say that man must make his own meaning, and must do it with as much reason and compassion as possible, since there is no paradise awaiting us and this is the only life we get.

My favorite verse of the Bible is Ecclesiastes, chapter 1:

18 For in much wisdom is much grief,
And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

I want to thank you for taking the time to watch the debate, and for your insights into the credentials of Dr. Meyer; though I would think that holding a Masters and Ph.D in the History and Philosophy of Science would give someone a good perspective as to how science got where it is now, and where it may be heading too. Also he was a former geophysicist and college professor and holds a B.S in Physics/Earth Science. 

We all have filters the question is are we willing to put them to the test? Can these filters we use give us clarity or do they blind us?

Your final questions are exactly right. Everyone has bias, and filters information that they'd prefer to hear (it's called "confirmation bias", as I believe I've mentioned to you before). That's why the most important part of the Scientific Method is Peer Review, in which the methodology and assumptions that were made in order to arrive at the conclusions of the paper are criticized by scientists around the world, especially your closest competitors. It's this method that also shreds the attempts by groups like the Discovery Institute to claim they have an alternative explanation for things... scientists who are Christians tend to be especially harsh, as they don't like having their faith made to look bad by the ignorant ramblings of people who have an agenda. You can claim that atheist scientists have a materialist agenda, but that claim is harder to make when you realize that a significant percent of the scientists questioned about their faith say they are Christians (even more if you count all religions), and they would have no reason to support materialism if there was another explanation that was equally viable.

Here is the Discovery Institute's response to the Wedge Document.

Yes that was an interesting read. I had already read the WD, of course. I actually know the lady from Louisiana, Dr. Forrest, as Louisiana is where I went to university (not at her school, but we worked with them on occasion). I had not heard anyone claim that it was a part of an attempt to "establish theocracy" or anything like that. The reason it's called the Wedge Document is in reference to a political tactic of throwing out enough static/noise to make it look like there's something going on, in order to distract voters from noticing the more important issues (the most common example is abortion, though lately it appears to be this whole transgender thing) they should really be aware of. In the case of the DI's Wedge Document, they make it plain (as you can see) that they have a specific agenda, and they lay out their methods for doing it... they have been hugely successful at giving the appearance of success, while in fact never producing a single idea (let alone a theory) that was not instantly shredded by the Peer Review process.

The champion they mention, Michael Behe, was utterly destroyed when under oath in the Dover trial, when the lawyers who cross-examined him showed him the papers displaying the very things he had written (and claimed on the stand) were impossible and could not be shown to happen. Of course, laypeople don't read the scholarly articles... they trust that men like Behe have done so, and would not mislead them. Behe was also forced to admit that, if the expanded definition of science that the DI (and he) were trying to push was to be employed, it would encompass fields like Astrology and other pseudoscience. At least he was smart enough not to lie under oath, as he retracted several of the claims made in his books.

However, by giving the appearance that there is a controversy (such as their repeated statement that evolution is a theory "in deep crisis", when nothing could be farther from the truth), the Creationists can keep people from questioning the fundamentalism that certain types of Christian churches/denominations teach, as I did, when they encounter facts that run contrary to the prior beliefs. They want people to do what you're doing, and saying, "Well after all neither side really knows, so I'm going to keep on believing what I did." But we do know, and we can show anyone who wants to know why we know what we know... but it won't be done on an internet forum. It takes literal years of intense study to learn a fraction of the amount of evidence, and to understand what makes it evidence in the first place. When you say "well they interpreted it their way", that's simply not true. They gave their reasons for interpreting the data, and what methods they used, and invited the world to tear it down if possible. All science works this way.

The simple fact is that the Discovery Institute was (as they admit openly) founded to counter the "materialism" in science... but what does materialism mean? It means until we can demonstrate, actually demonstrate, that magic is a real thing, we must pursue natural explanations for natural phenomena, and reject the human tendency to jump to storytelling when we don't understand something. Once upon a time, we thought that the sun, thunder, and lightning (and so on) were the acts of the gods, because we didn't know what caused it and it was in our nature to make up gods to cover what we didn't understand. Due to the Enlightenment and the tireless work of scientists, we now know what natural phenomena cause all of those things, and reject the old, magical explanations.

What does materialism not mean? Well, for starters, you (and they) can stuff that "well therefore there is no right and wrong" crap. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but I'm sick to death of hearing it. None of the assertions made, concerning moral reasoning, in that response article are true. It's a pretty deep and well-studied field, but the simple answer is that we are a tribal, social species, and moral behavior is a social conditioning as well as (for most of us) partly instinctive because it would be utterly detrimental to our survival as a species to be anarchic in that way. It's why you see ideas about what is moral vary so widely, when you study cultural anthropology, for one thing. Humans make up what is "moral", and yes, it changes over time... I know you don't think the Bible endorses slavery for non-Hebrews (you've said before that you think it's all indentured servitude, despite the Leviticus 25 verses that specifically spell out the difference between what can be done to fellow Israelites and what can be done to non-Israelites), but today we even consider indentured servitude to be morally reprehensible.

Finally (GET ON WITH IT!!! hehe), the DI's claim that materialists can't even punish criminal behavior that harms the society should be laughed out of the room... if nothing else, the Soviet Union's prison population (at roughly 2/3 the size of ours, per capita) shows that even those philosophical materialists were in no way averse to imprisoning anyone they felt broke the laws of the land. But don't confuse philosophical materialism with methodological materialism; they are not the same thing, though the DI doesn't seem to have bothered to look up the distinction, or pretends that they don't know the difference.

Sorry I ran so long with this, but I felt you deserved a full answer (at least, as full as this format provides for) to your thoughtful and quite reasonable questions. Thanks for not simply preaching at us again.