A simple challenge for atheists

[bob96]

Ah - abiogenesis. A different matter entirely, and he's right. It couldn't have happened randomly. And those are older books, written before the more recent work on abiogenesis.

Chemical biologists today believe that they have a fairly accurate model of the chemical makeup of the primordial Earth. And upon studying that model, they state that, given the attractive and combinant properties of the chemicals in the mixture, life would have almost no chance of not forming. In other words, when you have a specific set of planetary circumstances - energy from the sun, atmosphere, liquid water, and the chemical soup that should be found on every earthlike planet in the "Goldilocks Zone" - those chemicals will assemble themselves into primitive self-replicating molecules.

Just as certain conditions produce crystals, or gas giants, or methane snowstorms, so certain conditions produce life. It's not chance, any more than two magnets attract each-other by "chance."

It's sounds like you think scientists have already created life in a test tube!
Show me a reference to a scientist creating a self-replicating molecule. You can't.

From Quanta Magazine:
Gerald Joyce was able to build RNA out of right-handed building blocks, as others had done before him. But when he added in left-handed molecules, mimicking the conditions on the early Earth, everything came to a halt. “Our paper said if you have [both] forms in the same place at the same time, you can’t even get started,” Joyce said.

Jack Szostak, a biochemist at Harvard University and one of Joyce’s collaborators, is excited by the findings, particularly because the ribozyme is so much more flexible than earlier versions. But, he said, “I am skeptical that life began in this way.” Szostak argues that this scenario would require both left-handed and right-handed RNA enzymes to have emerged at the same time and in the same place, which would be highly unlikely.


The necessary building blocks of life can self assemble in the laboratory, but only under the strict experimental conditions designed by the scientist. This just shows that it takes an intelligent designer to create life.

[Cyberman]

Wow, how disingenuous.

[Esquilax]

The necessary building blocks of life can self assemble in the laboratory, but only under the strict experimental conditions designed by the scientist. This just shows that it takes an intelligent designer to create life.

"If I keep making a series of arguments from ignorance, eventually all my points will become true!"

Sorry Bob, but repeating a fallacy does not suddenly make it not a fallacy. I'd go on, but so far you've been completely incapable of understanding that ignorance is not evidence for god, so I don't have high hopes of your ability to understand other basic concepts of logical thinking either.

[The Grand Nudger]

Bob, put a little more effort into following the rules. Eh? /modhat

[IATIA]

Show me a reference to a scientist creating a self-replicating molecule. You can't.

Of course we can. You just do not read or you just ignore it. Here it is again.

RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves

[bob96]

Who the hell told you you could tell us what we believe?

Sorry, I assumed that was what you believed.

If you believe something came from "something else" (that we don't know about yet), then where did the "something else" come from?

If you believe the something just always existed, then science needs to eventually explain this - which would prove the existence God in my opinion.

(Are there other options?)

These are the questions I was hoping to get an answer to.

Ok fine - "you don't know". I apologise.

[The Grand Nudger]

If you believe something came from "something else" (that we don't know about yet), then where did the "something else" come from?

There will always be a point at which this line of questioning terminates with "we don;t know" - that we, includes you.

If you believe the something just always existed, then science needs to eventually explain this - which would prove the existence God in my opinion.

Science isn't in the proving business, gods or otherwise. Your opinion is misinformed. Fairly certain that just about anything would "prove god" to a person who wants god to be proven, though.

[Mister Agenda]

It's sounds like you think scientists have already created life in a test tube!

That's not at all what it sounds like.

Show me a reference to a scientist creating a self-replicating molecule. You can't.

He or she didn't say that he or she could, so you seem to be switching the subject for some reason.

From Quanta Magazine:
Gerald Joyce was able to build RNA out of right-handed building blocks, as others had done before him. But when he added in left-handed molecules, mimicking the conditions on the early Earth, everything came to a halt. “Our paper said if you have [both] forms in the same place at the same time, you can’t even get started,” Joyce said.

That's kind of random. What do you think it proves?

Jack Szostak, a biochemist at Harvard University and one of Joyce’s collaborators, is excited by the findings, particularly because the ribozyme is so much more flexible than earlier versions. But, he said, “I am skeptical that life began in this way.” Szostak argues that this scenario would require both left-handed and right-handed RNA enzymes to have emerged at the same time and in the same place, which would be highly unlikely.

It sounds like what they are saying is that they are not on the right track. Are you claiming this means there is no right track?

The necessary building blocks of life can self assemble in the laboratory, but only under the strict experimental conditions designed by the scientist. This just shows that it takes an intelligent designer to create life.

You seem to be trying to have it both ways by complaining that known intelligent designers can't create life.

Let's face it, we can't create life yet, but that doesn't mean we won't ever; but if we do, it may still not prove how life actually started over 3.5 billion years ago. It would only be proof of concept that the supernatural isn't needed. The way (or ways) we come up with may be more or less intelligent-seeming than what a billion years of organic chemistry can do. And there's always the possibility that we'll never be able to replicate any origin of life, whether the one that actually happened or otherwise, but it's way too early to be calling it quits.

[Esquilax]

Sorry, I assumed that was what you believed.

Yes, that's the problem. That's always the problem with so many theists: you assume, when we're right here to ask. It doesn't bode well for your talking points, if what you're addressing is what you assume your opponents believe, rather than what they actually do.

If you believe something came from "something else" (that we don't know about yet), then where did the "something else" come from?

I still don't know, but you believe in eternal things, so what's the problem?

If you believe the something just always existed, then science needs to eventually explain this - which would prove the existence God in my opinion.

I trust everyone else can see the hypocrisy in Bob's statement here, that things that aren't god but are eternal require scientific explanation, but gods that are eternal require no scientific observation because he's defined god that way, and none of it matters anyway because things that aren't god but are eternal would prove god to him, and otherwise he's just going to believe in god.

(Are there other options?)

These are the questions I was hoping to get an answer to.

Ok fine - "you don't know". I apologise.

Neither of us know. It continually baffles me that christians seem to have this desperate need to present an answer anyway, rather than just admitting that.

[Mister Agenda]

Show me a reference to a scientist creating a self-replicating molecule. You can't.

Of course we can. You just do not read or you just ignore it. Here it is again.

RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves

I have a feeling that won't count because it's under laboratory conditions or somesuch, but perhaps I'm being uncharitable.