Do you believe the theory of Evolution to be true?

[Stu]

Quote (t8 @ Aug. 17 2007,23:42)

No time to make a full post, but I leave you with a question. Did the elements or stuff that the universe is made of, exist forever in the past? or Did God exist forever in the past? or Is it that out of nothing came everything? If none of the above options are viable, then please explain what is.

Well, t8 you've asked THE question, where did stuff come from?

The Big Bang started as a separation of matter from antimatter. A particle of matter and it's antiparticle counterpart will, if they collide, annihalate one another with a release of energy (which is equivalent to matter by E=mc2)

Exactly why we can find matter but no antimatter (except when it is made by physicists) and the asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the universe is still a mystery:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_problems_in_physics

We are dealing here with the quantum world, where sub-atomic particles which are also waves disappear and reappear again, and an electron from an atom in your shirt has a tiny possibility of being some distance from you for a split second. The smallest particles that make up your body pop in and out of existence.

Have we as human evolved the kind of brains that can easily comprehend this stuff? We are good at digging up vegetables and hunting for food and sitting round a campfire passing on an oral tradition and staring up at the sky and wondering. Quantum mechanics is still new and “unnatural” and I don't pretend to understand it. All I feel I can do is to trust that the physicists who have brains good enough to work the answers out and review their peers' work are competitive and will eliminate errors from it.

Did the chemical elements exist forever? Almost certainly not, we know how they are generated.

Did the matter / antimatter that separated in the Big Bang exist forever before then? I don't think we know. I gather the word “before” is meaningless here, anyhow as time came into existence with the universe.

Did god exist forever in the past? This is the AiG answer.
I suppose they can make up what myths they want. There will be no proving or disproving what they say about this.

Is it that out of nothing came everything? Such things can be observed now, but I don't think you could say there was any real understanding of it yet.

Others will have better answers than mine.

Stuart

[Proclaimer]

There you go again, giving me the recipe with no understanding that recipes do not come out of nothing. I know all this, but often people like yourself cannot see the forest for the trees.
In other words you go on about the detail and completely ignore the big picture.

You know if your understanding is only a snapshot in time, then you have no framework for context and the appearance of a snapshot can be quite deceiving. E.g., if I showed you a still from a video, what is the chance that you could deduce the whole video from one frame. Your explanation of matter and antimatter I know all about, but it is but a snapshot in a bigger sequence.

Sure you can explain how, but when you step back and say that all this came from nothing, it is just outrageously rediculous.

I put this to you for consideration:

As far fetched as it may seem to someone who has no relationship with God that God actually exists, from a logical point of view it is far more likely that there is a God who is the cause of everything, than something inanimate that somehow managed by whatever chance or processes to come about in some kind of orderly or changing fashion and that has existed for all eternity.

i.e., The universe is made of stuff and it can all be broken down to components, matter, antimatter, whatever. But if there is no God, then something has had to exist in order for all this rearrangement of things we see today.

I think it folly to believe that nothing produced everything we see today. It is logical to assume that something made everything we see today.

So that something is either?

[Proclaimer]

Before you explain away what I have said by saying that there was nothing and then a Big Bang and then there was everything, I just want you to think about how ludicrous it is to say that the Big Bang came from nothing.

To say this is to imagine something foolish and it is a belief that defies any kind of logic. For me it seems more likely that everything is the Matrix, than just a Big Bang from nothing.

Again, nothing produces nothing. Nothing cannot even produce. Nothing makes nothing happen. If something happens, then something made it happen. The Big Bang is not nothing, it is something. Something made the Big Bang happen.

It is ridiculous to believe that there was nothing and no one, and then at some point within nothing an explosion occurred and the expansion and ripples created all that there is, including life.

Such a belief is a religion and a religion for fools, the deceived, and people who do not think deeply enough.

[Not3in1]

t8, I just read this on the net – thought you and Stu might find it interesting. Thoughts?
*************************

Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
3 hours ago

WASHINGTON – Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.

Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of “wet artificial life.”

“It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it,” said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. “We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways _ in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict.”

That first cell of synthetic life _ made from the basic chemicals in DNA _ may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it.

“Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe,” Bedau said. “This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role.”

And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.

Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life:

_ A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.

_ A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.

_ A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.

One of the leaders in the field, Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School, predicts that within the next six months, scientists will report evidence that the first step _ creating a cell membrane _ is “not a big problem.” Scientists are using fatty acids in that effort.

Szostak is also optimistic about the next step _ getting nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, to form a working genetic system.

His idea is that once the container is made, if scientists add nucleotides in the right proportions, then Darwinian evolution could simply take over.

“We aren't smart enough to design things, we just let evolution do the hard work and then we figure out what happened,” Szostak said.

In Gainesville, Fla., Steve Benner, a biological chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution is attacking that problem by going outside of natural genetics. Normal DNA consists of four bases _ adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine (known as A,C,G,T) _ molecules that spell out the genetic code in pairs. Benner is trying to add eight new bases to the genetic alphabet.

Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could “run amok,” but there are ways of addressing it, and it will be a very long time before that is a problem.

“When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab,” he said. “But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen.”

(This version CORRECTS Bedau quote to “shed new light”)

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Proclaimer]

Thanks Not3in1.

I read it and it is interesting. I read something yesterday that is also very interesting.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070814150630.htm

Of course all these things are not possible if there was nothing. Scientists rearranging things only proves that there is something to be rearranged. It is then just a matter of letting laws work and mimicking the designs that we see in nature.

E.g., I could create a robot to act like a person, but then the elements and even the intelligence have all come from something. i.e., matter and my mind.

It also stands to reason that if we are made in the image of God, that we would probably be able to make life in our image. In fact I have often thought that it would be the ultimate in scientific achievement, to create an image that could think.

Then again that sounds a bit like the AI referred to in the Matrix movie.

[Not3in1]

Good article!

I confess, I've wondered if the lint in my dryer could be a type of life form?  Ha!  Hey, you never know…..you should see some of the stuff that comes out of there.  

[david]

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A particle of matter and it's antiparticle counterpart will, if they collide, annihalate one another with a release of energy

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We are dealing here with the quantum world, where sub-atomic particles which are also waves disappear and reappear again, and an electron from an atom in your shirt has a tiny possibility of being some distance from you for a split second. The smallest particles that make up your body pop in and out of existence. Have we as human evolved the kind of brains that can easily comprehend this stuff? We are good at digging up vegetables and hunting for food and sitting round a campfire passing on an oral tradition and staring up at the sky and wondering. Quantum mechanics is still new and “unnatural” and I don't pretend to understand it. All I feel I can do is to trust that the physicists who have brains good enough to work the answers out and review their peers' work are competitive and will eliminate errors from it.

Matter and anti-matter colliding and ceasing to exist! Particles popping in and out of existence, as if by magic! At the moment it seems quite “unnatural” as you say. We are extraordinarily limited in our scientific knowledge.

Less and less is being viewed by science as “impossible.” It is becoming harder and harder to say with any certainty that anything is “impossible.” They now can only say that certain things are implausible.

A “miracle” is a “violation of the laws of nature.”

Unfortunately, we don't really know the laws of nature too well. So it's really hard to say what is and isn't possible.

Yet, God is dismissed, as though his existence were impossible.

Stephen W. Hawking:
“In the classical theory of general relativity . . . the beginning of the universe has to be a singularity of infinite density and space-time curvature. Under such conditions, all the known laws of physics would break down.”

Modern scientists do not agree that because something is contrary to the normal laws of nature it can never happen. In unusual conditions, unusual things may happen.

The amount of scientific knowledge we have today, tomorrow will look childish. We really don't know what is or isn't possible.

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Is it that out of nothing came everything? Such things can be observed now, but I don't think you could say there was any real understanding of it yet.

Perhaps one day science will have some understanding of it. Of course, the Bible says Jehovah, who is from time indefinite, is abundant in energy. And we know how matter and energy are related.

[david]

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Sure you can explain how, but when you step back and say that all this came from nothing, it is just outrageously rediculous. I put this to you for consideration: As far fetched as it may seem to someone who has no relationship with God that God actually exists, from a logical point of view it is far more likely that there is a God who is the cause of everything, than something inanimate that somehow managed by whatever chance or processes to come about in some kind of orderly or changing fashion and that has existed for all eternity.

For someone who throws around the words “fairy tale” and “myth” a lot in reference to God and the Bible, Stu's idea seem to be a magic trick: Everything from nothing. The box was empty. Now the box has a girl in it. Is this science, or deception? The everything from nothing theory is bad science.
As you stated, T8, I too always try to look at the larger picture, and take it to the beginning. People get so caught up in the imaginative picture sequences of different apes that they forget to question how anything got here at all.
The universe had a beginning. (Genesis 1:1 and science.)
Was it caused or not? (Science says everything has a cause. Actually, so does the Bible: Heb 3:4)
If something or someone that existed before the universe caused the universe to be, what or who was that?
The Bible has an answer. So far, science does not. Science is always playing catch up to the unchangeable truths of the Bible.

[Proclaimer]

Good one david.

I totally agree with you.

[Stu]

Chaps,

Let's recap:

1. Evolution has happened. The fossil record is a medium-resolution history of life, good enough at least to tell us that birds arose from dinosaurs etc, and comparative DNA studies show that the morphological “tree of life” corresponds with what you could call the “genetic record”.

2. Abiogenesis is a very speculative model of how life began with replicating molecules.

3. There is evidence that the universe as we know it now started in some kind of explosive separation of antimatter and matter. This model has made predictions which have later been demonstrated true. There are still many questions to be answered.

4. Humans seek design and conspiracy in everything they do: if it looks designed, there is a designer. People who believe in Tarot cards, astrology, spiritualism / seance, telepathy or dowsing for water are looking for links which are not really there when proper double-blind studies are done. The same could be said for those who (genuinely) report religious experiences.

t8 keeps up his mantra of “nothing from nothing”. For a scientist a big question is:

“what is the cause of matter as we know it – how does stuff come into being?”

For a religious fundamentalist, the questions start with the same one, but multiply to absurd numbers:

“what is the cause of matter as we know it – how does stuff come into being?”
“how did my god(s) produce the matter?”
“what is a god made of?”
“if a god is not made of matter or energy (or antimatter), how does it interact with matter and energy?”
“if complexity is explained by design by god, how did the complexity that is god come into being?”
“If god has always been, what is its relationship to time as we know it?”
“why has there never been any evidence produced for god(s) that cannot be more straightforwardly explained by natural phenomena?”

Rather than attemting ridicule and mutual congratulation, why not actually try and answer some real questions? For example, how about a real theory of exactly how matter, or replicating molecules were made by your creator? Or are you just like all the other creationists and snipe from the sidelines because you don't actually have anything tangible to offer?

Stuart

[david]

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3. There is evidence that the universe as we know it now started in some kind of explosive separation of antimatter and matter. This model has made predictions which have later been demonstrated true. There are still many questions to be answered.

–stu.

Please at least attempt to answer the “why”:

Quote

# Inanimate law, energy, stuff, or something else that changes but has existed forever # A God who created all things who has existed forever It boils down to this for me. I will assume in this that I have no idea that God exists, that he has never contacted me or spoken to me in any way. I was once an avid atheist anyway, so it is not hard for me to imagine this. Back then and even now I saw 2 possibilities and from this frame of mind, both seem far fetched. Inanimate or animate. But now, for me animate is more likely because: # Inanimate stuff, energy, law, process, movement, whatever that has existed and changes from time to time to give order and then disorder seems impossible because the beginning or source cannot have just exist forever with nothing to put it there. # As far fetched as there being a God sounds to an atheist, it's still more probable because existence of a God can easily explain how inanimate stuff came to be in the first place. It is easy to see that effect has a cause. Of course you would at this stage most likely say that whether it is inanimate or a God, it makes no difference, both are far fetched because you can ask the same question of either. If you think this, then your belief is at least equally a myth as you say God is. But I think it is a greater myth. You could say that we have 2 choices and you can ask the same question of both: # Who created the stuff, movement, thing, whatever # Who created God I think from a logical perspective that God is more likely because explaining how an eternal God can be, is more feasible than trying to explain how inanimate something existed forever with nothing or no one to put it there. Yes it is impossible for me to comprehend that no one created God that he has always been. But I think it folly to say that something has existed for all time and it changes and no one put it there or that out of nothing came something. I see 3 choices: # To believe that God existed forever who is incomprehensible. # To believe that something inanimate existed forever, which is just plain stupid. # That everything came from nothing, which I also think is stupid The first one is totally bazaar and the last 2 are just silly. But as they say, the truth is stranger than fiction.

To me it just seems infinitely more likely that if there is nothing, no laws, time, matter, or even space itself, then things would tend to stay that way unless something or someone (that existed outside of the universe) “caused” this big bang of everything, perhaps transforming “abundant” amounts of [their] “energy” into this matter, for example.

Quote

Rather than attemting ridicule and mutual congratulation,

Yes, the mutual congratulation has always bothered me, because I'm usually on the other side of it. It's sort of related to the “majority is right” fallacy that so many are fond of. But, what I was doing wasn't ridicule. You do in fact use the words “myth” and “fairy tale” a lot.
Yet, you are suggesting that everything came from nothing, and apparently for no reason. Do you hear what you're saying?

[david]

Quote

For example, how about a real theory of exactly how matter, or replicating molecules were made by your creator?

As I've said several times now, the Bible isn't a science textbook. God's math is a little above me. The laws and forces he created that defined the universe were extraordinarily precise. While the Bible does connect God's abundant energy to the stars and the universe, again, the Bible's purpose isn't to explain the universe. Yet, isn't it remarkable, that whenever it touches on areas of health, medicine, cosmology, etc, it is thousands of years ahead of it's time?

[Proclaimer]

Stu, I tend to agree with many scientific theories and others I do not agree with. I think the Big Bang is the best explanation as to the description of the universes creation. The universe is not only expanding but it is speeding up and an explosion describes that adequately enough. Also like an explosion, you should be able to play the movie backwards and see a singularity or a point where the explosion begins.

But science only goes so far.

Science never asks why or who.

Therefore it is an inadequate field for some things.

This is why you cannot answer anything before the Big Bang.

You are totally lost and only see a snapshot.

There are many theories to explain Quantum that have merit. You talk about the unpredictable nature of Quantum and that is true. One theory I heard was that just as planets, solar systems, and galaxies collide, so can universes. Our universe or Big Bang is only one of many big bangs and our universe is colliding with another universe. Therefore the laws of the other universe and it's gravity or influence is what we see.

Who knows, but I haven't heard you give one good explanation as to what happened before the big bang because you are unable to go that far back and label that period as myth or nothing.

All I am doing is showing how knowledge has puffed you up and how you thought you could come here and blow away ignorant Christians who believe in a big fluffy God.

But you are wrong. Some of the smartest intellects in the world believe in God. It is not the lack of grasping scientific theory that leads one to believe in the so-called myth of God, rather it is enlightenment that makes men see that there is a God. Enlightenment and Science can easily go hand in hand and they do for me, because I love Science and I love God.

It is not truly about intellect however, rather it is revelation. Not all are privy to the truth. If you were interested in truth and searched for it with all your heart and mind, you would find the truth. The truth is the most precious jewel you can find.

[Stu]

Hi t8

++”II tend to agree with many scientific theories and others I do not agree with.

Have you ever asked yourself whether the rationale for your agreement is consistent? For example, I assume you would assent to the electronic theory of current in a wire, but you seem to reject evolution. Would you object if someone said that there was no such thing as voltage but that he believed in Divine Electical Pushing by an all-powerful and undetecable super-being, a force potentially present in every wire? Would you not suggest that there was a more straightforward explanation that did not require a motivating force that cannot be explained and is supported by no evidence?

++”But science only goes so far. Science never asks why or who. Therefore it is an inadequate field for some things. This is why you cannot answer anything before the Big Bang. You are totally lost and only see a snapshot.

Name one thing that science cannot, at least in principle, develop a model for. Give me one reason why there HAS to be a who.

++”Who knows, but I haven't heard you give one good explanation as to what happened before the big bang because you are unable to go that far back and label that period as myth or nothing.

I like to think I’m honest enough to say I don’t know about the universe pre-big bang, and I would hope you are too. Mythology gets us no close to the truth.
Come on! Theories! How did your Impetuous One split baryons and antibaryons?

++”All I am doing is showing how knowledge has puffed you up and how you thought you could come here and blow away ignorant Christians who believe in a big fluffy God.

If you are ignorant (not a crime) then perhaps you should learn. If you are not, then refute my arguments on their merits, not on the contents of a book of dubious authorship. If you have even one piece of evidence for the Imaginary One, then please show it!

++”But you are wrong. Some of the smartest intellects in the world believe in God. It is not the lack of grasping scientific theory that leads one to believe in the so-called myth of God, rather it is enlightenment that makes men see that there is a God. Enlightenment and Science can easily go hand in hand and they do for me, because I love Science and I love God.

The smartest intellect count is pointless. Even smarter intellects are atheists! See? No argument there. Even if every Oxford Don and Harvard professor was devout, that would not make a word of it true.

++”It is not truly about intellect however, rather it is revelation. Not all are privy to the truth. If you were interested in truth and searched for it with all your heart and mind, you would find the truth. The truth is the most precious jewel you can find.

What was that you said about puffed up?

Stuart

[Stu]

For example, how about a real theory of exactly how matter, or replicating molecules were made by your creator?

++”As I've said several times now, the Bible isn't a science textbook. God's math is a little above me. The laws and forces he created that defined the universe were extraordinarily precise. While the Bible does connect God's abundant energy to the stars and the universe, again, the Bible's purpose isn't to explain the universe. Yet, isn't it remarkable, that whenever it touches on areas of health, medicine, cosmology, etc, it is thousands of years ahead of it's time?

We've been through this. There was no germ theory of disease, no knowledge of the viruses that cause smallpox, no understanding of why the ancient Egyptian pots could produce electricity, no understanding of the chemical elements or how they came into being, no consistent model for speciation. Man was made from dirt, woman from a rib (or not, depending on your preferred creation myth), all species extant including the vulnerable ones fitted on a big boat and made it to the “corners” of the earth without going extinct, the genetic diversity seen in humans today arose from a single family (by breakneck evolutionary change?) in a few thousand years. That, to me is mythology, passed down by oral tradition and changed like an intergenerational game of Chinese whispers.

Science provides the Rolls Royce, the Bentley Continental, the Maserati of explanations. You pull up in your invisible, rusty 1981 Honda Accord of an explanation and dare to give the finger!

“God's math is a little above me” is just the kind of Celebration of Ignorance that Kenrch would applaud!

Stuart

[Stu]

++”Please at least attempt to answer the “why”

I don't know why. Neither do you. What does “why” mean? It is a word used when a human smells a conspiracy. “How” should be quite enough for us (and that would be a huge achievement).

++”To me it just seems infinitely more likely that if there is nothing, no laws, time, matter, or even space itself, then things would tend to stay that way unless something or someone (that existed outside of the universe) “caused” this big bang of everything, perhaps transforming “abundant” amounts of [their] “energy” into this matter, for example.

OK… now comes your falsifiable Theory of Special Creation, right?

Stuart

[Stu]

++”You do in fact use the words “myth” and “fairy tale” a lot.

These OT stories are, by all objective ways of looking at them, myths. Fairy stories are also myths.

++”Yet, you are suggesting that everything came from nothing, and apparently for no reason. Do you hear what you're saying?

You think that not only matter came into existence from (don't know yet, haven't read your Theory of Creation) nothing? but that there was a super invisible being that did it! No evidence, only special pleading. Do you hear what you are saying?

Stuart

[acertainchap]

Sometimes you have to search your heart for truth. Stu, can you honestly tell me 100% after fully searching your heart for this answer, that Everything came out of nothing? We have given you Scripture.

[Stu]

Hi acc,

++”Sometimes you have to search your heart for truth. Stu, can you honestly tell me 100% after fully searching your heart for this answer, that Everything came out of nothing? We have given you Scripture.

When I search my brain, I find it very difficult to believe that not only could matter have come from nothing (a possibility) but ALSO that an even more complex imaginary being (composition unknown, never detected objectively) was the causal agent, without its own cause.

The fundamentalist religious account actually explains nothing (as usual), and adds further complexity, itself needing further explanation. Could it really be mythology? Do you think that is even an outside chance?

Stuart

[Proclaimer]

Quote (Stu @ Aug. 20 2007,20:36)

I like to think I’m honest enough to say I don’t know about the universe pre-big bang, and I would hope you are too. Mythology gets us no close to the truth. Come on! Theories! How did your Impetuous One split baryons and antibaryons?

To Stu.

So you are completely ignorant of pre-big-bang.

So then you are not qualified to say that God didn't exist and made it all happen. That is a fact isn't it? You cannot say that God is a myth given that you just admitted that you have NO knowledge whatsoever of what or how the Big Bang started.

Well I do not know what pre big bang was like either, but logic demands that something caused the Big Bang and your illogical reasoning says nothing caused the Big Bang.

All I am saying is that you came here saying we believe in myths and yet all along you believed in the biggest myth of all, i.e., that nothing created the Big Bang and then the Big Bang exploded because of nothing at a speed that enable all that we see now and also created life which resulted in the universe being able to know itself. Wow, what a theory. Hey you know what, it is statistically more likely that 1 million dollars could come out of thin air than the universe with it's order and life could come from an explosion that nothing made happen.

Why don't you just sit at home and wait for 1 million dollars to appear. After all you believe that nothing made everything, and 1 miillion dollars appearing from nothing is more likely to happen that what has actually happened.

So this labeling of myths really comes from a person who is completely ignorant of pre big bang and also a person who cannot grasp that laws come from a law giver and design comes from a designer.

If you saw 20 apples in a circle you could ask WHO put them there? But if I told you that WHO was irrelevant and unscientific, and that the apples fell out of a bag that way due to air currents and the angle by which they fell out of the bag, you would have the right to call me crazy.

Well for that reason I call you crazy.

[Author]

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