The Problem with Christians

[Silver]

https://www.quora.com/What-scientific-ev...biogenesis

It is more than your bible can supply as far as evidence is concerned.

[Huggy Bear]

https://www.quora.com/What-scientific-ev...biogenesis

It is more than your bible can supply as far as evidence is concerned.

Nope

from your own link.
https://www.quora.com/What-scientific-ev...biogenesis

Life exists therefore abiogenesis must have happened, how is entirely another question

*emphasis mine*
How is that any different than saying that "life exists therefore there must be a creator."?

Abiogenesis has not been observed and has not been reproduced (making it unscientific according to the scientific method), therefore any explanation as to how it happened is pure speculation, Yet you believe it.

That is a double standard.

[TubbyTubby]

That is a double standard.

If you want to insist that someone has faith in science in order to make you feel better about your personal belief in mythology then go ahead, fill your boots. Abiogenesis is the most plausible hypothesis of how life started but there is no definitive evidence if that pleases you. Supernatural alien god breathing everything into existence is the most utterly unlikely hypothesis without evidence.

You made your choice with the fucking myth, leave science to do its stuff, it will get there. You, on the other hand, will remain in the sepia tinted world of make believe forever with your gods, devils, angels and bullshit.

[pocaracas]

Then, you have no good reason for believing ANY of it.  That's just another way of saying, "made up," my friend.

Why does everything have to scientifically provable? Let's face it, abiogenesis has never been proven. It has never been observed, never reproduced and not even understood theoretically, yet you believe it. The reason you believe it is because it makes sense to you - just as a creator makes sense to me. Let's be honest, "faith" is a significant part of the abiogenesis/evolution worldview.

In terms of this "faith" that you have, your God would be science. But there is much that your God can't explain, so why is that OK to you but my God has to be proven with absolute certainty? You appear to take the position that my God must bow to yours, but it is really the other way round. Science is simply the study of how God put things together.

The way I see it, abiogenesis isn't about faith, but about looking at all information science has gathered from star formation, to planet formation, to physics, to chemistry, to biology.

At some point in the past, our sun was a just a bunch of hydrogen gas and some remnants from a 1st or 2nd gen star. It coalesced, through gravity, and eventually ignited becoming the scorching yellow ball we know. Some leftover material from that initial cloud also coalesced and formed the planets, with the heavier materials, as you'd expect, nearer to the center, where gravity is stronger.
The coalescence of these materials was probably not a peaceful one, with some banging around, which would give our planet it's internal geology - a hot core, a cool outer shell.
Water methane and who knows what other chemicals then abounded on the surface. Eventually, some bonded, because that's how chemistry works... and... biology began.
Biology is chemistry, chemistry is physics, particularly quantum mechanics. And QM has been shown to be right, time and time again... down to it's more general form: QCD, with the relatively recent discovery of the Higgs boson.

There is this whole framework on which science is based that can account for abiogenesis... even if the exact mechanism hasn't been found... it can account for it.
Then, there's the theist position, where an extra entity must be present to provide some extra spark into the natural chemistry so as to turn it into biology.

Why should we postulate such an entity?
It's not required.

It opens up a can of worms. One that not even believers are ready to delve through. Thus they wave it away with "out of space and time"... as if that means anything. But it just shows how limited and bound our language is - out of space? Not in space? Then what does it mean to exist?
Going down this path, Darth Vader comes into existence, too. And the Force, and Harry Potter and magic and Warp drive and Krypton, and Superman and Ironman and...... then you come back to reality and realize that the entity is just as created as all these fictional characters.
I'm not saying they're impossible to exist.... but our present awareness of their existence is based on our own imagination.

Being aware of this "origin story", one realizes that the most intellectually honest opinion to have on the subject of life arising on this planet is abiogenesis - no extra entity is required.

[robvalue]

I'll repeat this question as I didn't get any answers yet.

Is there a "none of the above" option?

It is indeed, but it would be great if you could explain what you do actually believe. This was an attempt to help you do that.

@All: It is my understand that there is no theory of abiogenesis at the moment. There are hypotheses, which are looking pretty good but aren't quite there yet. So asking for "proof" is asking for something science is not claiming. There is of course evidence that appears to support the hypotheses so far.

Clearly it being a theory wouldn't make any difference to some people, nor would evidence, since it doesn't stop people dismissing the theory of evolution as nothing more than speculation.

Saying that science hasn't figured out all the details yet about abiogenesis is not justification for inserting your own baseless explanation. This is again the argument from ignorance. It should be completely obvious why this is invalid, since any explanation can be used and "becomes true" this way. If it proves everything, it proves nothing. The fact that "God" features in a lot of these explanations doesn't make them the same; nor do a bunch of story books provide anything credible.

If you think there is better evidence to support magical explanations than there is the for current hypotheses of abiogenesis, you are employing a hopelessly skewed double standard.

[AJW333]

That is a double standard.

If you want to insist that someone has faith in science in order to make you feel better about your personal belief in mythology then go ahead, fill your boots.

It is not mythology to posit that the cause of life (and the universe) was via a creator.

Abiogenesis is the most plausible hypothesis of how life started

Not when it violates everything we see in nature. It is far more plausible to attribute the cause of life to something that operates outside the scope of natural process, ie a supernatural cause.

Supernatural alien god breathing everything into existence is the most utterly unlikely hypothesis without evidence.

The evidence for God is the creation of life from non-life, unless you can provide evidence that this creation happens through natural causes.

[robvalue]

That last part is the very definition of an argument from ignorance. Doesn't it bother you at all that you've been committing this logical fallacy for tens of pages?

"If you can't prove me wrong, I'm right." It's not valid. I made a video showing why. I'm afraid no one here is going to take you seriously while you repeat this mistake.

http://youtu.be/BzxMXzdaxtI

[AJW333]

Why does everything have to scientifically provable? Let's face it, abiogenesis has never been proven. It has never been observed, never reproduced and not even understood theoretically, yet you believe it. The reason you believe it is because it makes sense to you - just as a creator makes sense to me. Let's be honest, "faith" is a significant part of the abiogenesis/evolution worldview.

In terms of this "faith" that you have, your God would be science. But there is much that your God can't explain, so why is that OK to you but my God has to be proven with absolute certainty? You appear to take the position that my God must bow to yours, but it is really the other way round. Science is simply the study of how God put things together.

The way I see it, abiogenesis isn't about faith, but about looking at all information science has gathered from star formation, to planet formation, to physics, to chemistry, to biology.

At some point in the past, our sun was a just a bunch of hydrogen gas and some remnants from a 1st or 2nd gen star. It coalesced, through gravity, and eventually ignited becoming the scorching yellow ball we know. Some leftover material from that initial cloud also coalesced and formed the planets, with the heavier materials, as you'd expect, nearer to the center, where gravity is stronger.
The coalescence of these materials was probably not a peaceful one, with some banging around, which would give our planet it's internal geology - a hot core, a cool outer shell.
Water methane and who knows what other chemicals then abounded on the surface. Eventually, some bonded, because that's how chemistry works... and... biology began.
Biology is chemistry, chemistry is physics, particularly quantum mechanics. And QM has been shown to be right, time and time again... down to it's more general form: QCD, with the relatively recent discovery of the Higgs boson.

There is this whole framework on which science is based that can account for abiogenesis... even if the exact mechanism hasn't been found... it can account for it.
Then, there's the theist position, where an extra entity must be present to provide some extra spark into the natural chemistry so as to turn it into biology.

Why should we postulate such an entity?
It's not required.

It opens up a can of worms. One that not even believers are ready to delve through. Thus they wave it away with "out of space and time"... as if that means anything. But it just shows how limited and bound our language is - out of space? Not in space? Then what does it mean to exist?
Going down this path, Darth Vader comes into existence, too. And the Force, and Harry Potter and magic and Warp drive and Krypton, and Superman and Ironman and...... then you come back to reality and realize that the entity is just as created as all these fictional characters.
I'm not saying they're impossible to exist.... but our present awareness of their existence is based on our own imagination.

Being aware of this "origin story", one realizes that the most intellectually honest opinion to have on the subject of life arising on this planet is abiogenesis - no extra entity is required.

May I suggest that until a proof of abiogenesis is discovered, the entire concept is on very shaky ground. We don't even have a detailed theoretical formula for how we ended up with DNA, apart from some general suggestions of amino acids forming proteins by chance. Until abiogenesis can be physically demonstrated, a supernatural cause is very much in the picture.

[AJW333]

Is there a "none of the above" option?

It is indeed, but it would be great if you could explain what you do actually believe. This was an attempt to help you do that.

@All: It is my understand that there is no theory of abiogenesis at the moment. There are hypotheses, which are looking pretty good but aren't quite there yet. So asking for "proof" is asking for something science is not claiming. There is of course evidence that appears to support the hypotheses so far.

Clearly it being a theory wouldn't make any difference to some people, nor would evidence, since it doesn't stop people dismissing the theory of evolution as nothing more than speculation.

Saying that science hasn't figured out all the details yet about abiogenesis is not justification for inserting your own baseless explanation. This is again the argument from ignorance. It should be completely obvious why this is invalid, since any explanation can be used and "becomes true" this way. If it proves everything, it proves nothing. The fact that "God" features in a lot of these explanations doesn't make them the same; nor do a bunch of story books provide anything credible.

If you think there is better evidence to support magical explanations than there is the for current hypotheses of abiogenesis, you are employing a hopelessly skewed double standard.

If we keep things general, ie we don't insist on a particular God being responsible but we simply state that a supernatural cause is responsible for life, then I don't see this as unreasonable, unless it clashes with your preconceptions and biases.

[robvalue]

Except that it's an argument from ignorance, which I'm pointing out for the very last time. I'm done with this.