Atheists: Facing the unfaceable

[Thumpalumpacus]

Is a car alive? I mean, you could put all the parts in a pile and they won't get you home, but if they're in the right place, then you're good to go. That doesn't mean that the car has a spirit. It just means that the rights things are in the right place to do a job.

You might wish to familiarize yourself with the concept of emergent properties.

For the car, the ingredient that makes the car function is gasoline. That product is not part of the car, and when it runs out, the car stops functioning.

Not so. You could have gas in the tank in your pile of parts, yet they still won't be a functioning automobile.

We don't have to wait for the car to break down, but just until it runs out of gas. What we know about emergent properties only applies to the evolution of living organisms.

This is special pleading and demonstrably false. The structure of galaxies is an emergent property brought about by the intersection of two properties of matter ("masses attract" and "momentum is conserved").

What emergent properties can be used to explain how inanimate materials become a living organism?

You clearly don't understand emergent properties. There's not a list of them that you can apply to this or that situation. Emergent properties emerge from the complex interactions of matter.

Explaining how life came from non-life -- abiogenesis is the term you're looking for, by the way -- is a matter of chemistry, which is not an emergent property. The metabolic process of life is the emergent result of the interaction of the chemicals which constitute a body, when structured in a manner to permit their interaction.

Perhaps, like the car, that property comes from something that is not material make -up of the organism. Not that it would disprove the existence of an afterlife, but if scientists create a totally living organism they will definitely get my attention.

No, if you care to extend the vehicular analogy, the external input which makes the human vehicle run would be food -- not any hypothetical soul or spirit.

And, as noted above, the motive power for a vehicle doesn't derive solely from gasoline. If I drove to the filling station today and pumped that gas into the bed of my pickup truck, it would not be able to use it.

My point in drawing the analogy is that the component parts of an object, be it a vehicle or an animal, are very rarely sufficient for normal functioning. You cannot disregard the role of process in any system -- but claiming that because process is not material, it must be irrational is not borne out by fact. The process which makes the human body tick is no more spiritual than the process which makes a vehicle take you down the highway.

Regardless of what you may think, I not at all closed to science.

I don't think you're closed to science, but I do think your perspective on it, and understanding of it, is skewed by your faith.

[robvalue]

If you do have any further questions about the church of the FSM, please speak to a pasta.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Would you bet your life on that statement?

When you fall ill, do you bet your life on your deity being real, or do you visit your doctor?

You have no proof for your statement. That means that your opinion is no more supportable than mine.

You're simply being obtuse here, pecking away at his point about salt. You can look up the properties of sodium and chlorine if you don't believe Chas.

This is where your faith is impeding your comprehension. Do something about it.

[Lek]

You're simply being obtuse here, pecking away at his point about salt. You can look up the properties of sodium and chloride if you don't believe Chas.

This is where your faith is impeding your comprehension. Do something about it.

The science is solid in this case, but it doesn't show that a living organism can develop from non-living matter. You're referencing scientific evidence and using it to try to prove an unproven concept. If you want to believe that assumption, go ahead, but you can't prove it scientifically or otherwise.

[Esquilax]

Would you bet your life on that statement?

Do you often resort to threatening people when you can't come up with a rebuttal?

[Thumpalumpacus]

The science is solid in this case, but it doesn't show that a living organism can develop from non-living matter. You're referencing scientific evidence and using it to try to prove an unproven concept. If you want to believe that assumption, go ahead, but you can't prove it scientifically or otherwise.

Gosh, where is this overweening concern for evidence when it comes to your god? And it's not that we "can't prove it scientifically" -- it's that we haven't yet done so. Believe me, it will happen, and perhaps in our lifetimes.

At any rate -- we know for a fact that life relies on the principle of emergent properties, because, for instance, if you take salt out of someone's diet entirely, they will die. We also know that chemicals will spontaneously interact with each other based on proximity and valence. We also know that some chemical reactions are autocatalytic. We know that precursor chemicals existed in copious amounts on earth. And we know that they will form spontaneously in conditions similar to those pertaining shortly after Earth's formation.

This means that chemistry is much likelier an explanation than deity. Attempting to equate belief that abiogenesis can explain life's origin to belief that a supernatural deity did it is simply more evidence of your scientific illiteracy. One belief has a rational basis. The other, none at all.

[Lek]

Would you bet your life on that statement?

Do you often resort to threatening people when you can't come up with a rebuttal?

I don't if it's true in Australia, but where I'm from that's a common way of asking how sure somebody is about their point. I'm not saying anything like he should die if he is incorrect or something like that.

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Gosh, where is this overweening concern for evidence when it comes to your god? And it's not that we "can't prove it scientifically" -- it's that we haven't yet done so. Believe me, it will happen, and perhaps in our lifetimes.

At any rate -- we know for a fact that life relies on the principle of emergent properties, because, for instance, if you take salt out of someone's diet entirely, they will die. We also know that chemicals will spontaneously interact with each other based on proximity and valence. We also know that some chemical reactions are autocatalytic. We know that precursor chemicals existed in copious amounts on earth. And we know that they will form spontaneously in conditions similar to those pertaining shortly after Earth's formation.

This means that chemistry is much likelier an explanation than deity. Attempting to equate belief that abiogenesis can explain life's origin to belief that a supernatural deity did it is simply more evidence of your scientific illiteracy. One belief has a rational basis. The other, none at all.

Actually, I never have been much into the "hard sciences". There are also many other "scientific illiterates" who view this forum and I just wanted to bring out the point that scientists don't know if life developed naturally from inanimate materials.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Actually, I never have been much into the "hard sciences". There are also many other "scientific illiterates" who view this forum and I just wanted to bring out the point that scientists don't know if life developed naturally from inanimate materials.

The problem is that you're falsely equivocating it with blind faith, when it has a reasonable basis in chemistry.

Call me back when the building blocks of your god have been synthesized in the laboratory.

[Chas]

Why would I have to? I will stand by it as accurate.

You have no proof for your statement. That means that your opinion is no more supportable than mine.

What is missing from it? We are composed of atoms arranged in a particular way. There is no evidence of any élan vital.

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Actually, I never have been much into the "hard sciences". There are also many other "scientific illiterates" who view this forum and I just wanted to bring out the point that scientists don't know if life developed naturally from inanimate materials.

Except that all living things are composed of non-living atoms.

[Esquilax]

Do you often resort to threatening people when you can't come up with a rebuttal?

I don't if it's true in Australia, but where I'm from that's a common way of asking how sure somebody is about their point. I'm not saying anything like he should die if he is incorrect or something like that.

Yeah, that's not a turn of phrase where I'm from, and mostly when I hear it in religious discussions it's to intimidate: "Oh, you don't think there's a god? Would you bet your life on that? 'Cause you're going to hell if you're wrong!"

Of course, if that's not how you meant it, then it's a moot point.