choice between magic or accident

[danielost]

it seems that the athiests want us to choose between magic(god) or accident(bio-genesis)

I choose magic because bio-genesis and mega-evolution rely on to many accidents. the sun being the right size and right temp. the earth being in the right orbit. earth, mars and venus all orbit with in the goldielock zone. the earth right down the middle mars on the outer edge and venus on the inner edge. but venus is too hot for water, and n\mars is too cold for water. there is ice on mars.

the other choice is magic. this requires that there is some form of being existing before the earth was formed. we call this being god. I believe the only way that the earth, sun, and life was designed and built right at the start. I also believe in micro-evolution, which is just life adjusting to new conditions on earth. humans don't evolve to their environment they change or take their environment with them. the innuits and eximos have lived long enough on the ice for them to grow thick fur. but, they still require the skins of other animals to stay alive.

science says that light skinned people evolved so they could absorb more of the sun due to them living to far north and not getting enoygh sun. so I ask you why are the darkest skinned people from southern Africa, the same latatudes south as Europe is north.

[psyche101]

I guess it comes down to how intelligent you are. Lets face it, we do not have Professors pandering about giving university lectures on Leprechauns and Unicorns and esoteric knowledge does not build rocket ships or cars. If you trade intelligence for imagination, then there you go. Magic. Science explains the magic away eventually, and that's why some people absolutely hate it, they prefer to live in blissful ignorance. Evolution is a given, we have too much proof to deny it, and it shows us an organic process supports and harbours life, this is obviously how it starts too, there is absolutely no real reason to consider some omnipotent being just did it all for us as some sort of benevolent act - giving "us" life. That's man's personal interpretation. To think that some small saviour lies in Abiogenesis is merely illustrating how hard it is for some people to let those religious stories go. Like not wanting to know there is no Santa or the Easter Bunny. Sure it sucks, but part of the circle of life. Not using myself as an example in any way, we are supposed to grow up. That's life.

Personally, I look forward to the day when the term A-Thiest is redundant, like A-Leprechaunists or A-Fairisists. When religion is finally realised for what it is and categorised correctly, we shall finally have that day.

We should be embracing the 21st century, not wallowing in the 11th.

[Odin11]

the innuits and eximos have lived long enough on the ice for them to grow thick fur. but, they still require the skins of other animals to stay alive.

Ok, Inuits do not grow fur because there is no need for them too. For them to evolve fur there would have to be an evolutionary advantage, but because they use clothes there is no natural selection of hairier individuals.

science says that light skinned people evolved so they could absorb more of the sun due to them living to far north and not getting enoygh sun. so I ask you why are the darkest skinned people from southern Africa, the same latatudes south as Europe is north.

1) Where do you get the idea that the people of southern Africa are the darkest skinned?

2) Southern Africa is not on the same latitudes south as Europe is north. Southern Africa ranges from ~4°N (top of Democratic Republic of the Congo) to ~35°S (the tip of South Africa). Europe ranges from ~35°N (the tip of Greece) to ~71°N (top of Norway). So that would explain why south Africans are darker then Europeans.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Odin11

[+DieChecker]

There are several things involved with random ammino acids joining together to create life that would be more quickly and easily be explained if there was Someone who made it happen. The same is true of Creation... The Big Bang. Where it came from and what initiated it are both more easily explained if there is Someone who made it happen. Not that these things couldn't happen on their own, but if someone helped, then everything that follows was a lot easier.

What if we get out there into the universe (Eventually) and we find that the galaxy is swimming with Life? Does that prove God? Or does it only mean that our experiments here on Earth to see if we could determine how rare life probably is out there, was wrong?

Does the miraculous prove God, or are all such simply coincidence?

I suppose even if we find a webwork of galaxies that spells "I am God", people will want to try to explain it away.

[psyche101]

There are several things involved with random ammino acids joining together to create life that would be more quickly and easily be explained if there was Someone who made it happen. The same is true of Creation... The Big Bang. Where it came from and what initiated it are both more easily explained if there is Someone who made it happen. Not that these things couldn't happen on their own, but if someone helped, then everything that follows was a lot easier.

Indeed, much how we once saw Thunder - Thor and his mighty hammer, our brains need to develop further for these deeper understandings, we are wired to gather food, or climb a tree to escape predators, we are not wired to instantly comprehend quantum mechanics.

What if we get out there into the universe (Eventually) and we find that the galaxy is swimming with Life? Does that prove God? Or does it only mean that our experiments here on Earth to see if we could determine how rare life probably is out there, was wrong?

Lets face it, that is not going to happen, at two and a half million light years just to get to Andromeda means we are not going to be exploring Galaxies, Ever. Even with the best Sci Fi concepts out there, Galaxies are big time.

Does the miraculous prove God, or are all such simply coincidence?

This is why I answered your post, this and the next question I find intriguing, how would this possibly be seen as connected to an omnipotent being? Evolution will happen where it can.

I suppose even if we find a webwork of galaxies that spells "I am God", people will want to try to explain it away.

Again, how can a webwork of Galaxies spell God in any way? They are a product of dust, rocky bodies, gases and gravity.

[Rlyeh]

it seems that the athiests want us to choose between magic(god) or accident(bio-genesis)

It seems you're uneducated. Biogenesis is reproduction.

This thread should've been titled, "The idiocy of Creationism".

Edited September 24, 2014 by Rlyeh

[Rlyeh]

There are several things involved with random ammino acids joining together to create life that would be more quickly and easily be explained if there was Someone who made it happen.

Mountains would form quickly if there was someone creating them.

I suppose even if we find a webwork of galaxies that spells "I am God", people will want to try to explain it away.

And if we don't at least you've still got your ignorance.

Anyone who doesn't accept your "god of gaps" because you can't work something out, must logically be in denial.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Rlyeh

[psyche101]

It seems you're uneducated. Biogenesis is reproduction.

This thread should've been titled, "The idiocy of Creationism".

My thanks to you good sir, I did not have my glasses on and thought it was spelt as he described, I did not see it was missing the "a" till you mentioned it. And it is.

[Guest]

What creationists fail to understand is the simply staggering length of time available for life to develop. The nearly infinite number of failed "natural" experiments that took place before a single success was achieved. When you want to make your head spin with an impossibly wild concept imagine that trillions upon trillions of chemical processes can take place each second and that there were trillions upon trillions of seconds available in the earths history. The numbers quickly approach the incomprehensible - the failure rate is almost beyond belief. It only takes one success for life to begin.#

Life is an inevitable consequence of existence.

Br Cornelius

Edited September 24, 2014 by Guest

[lolaivanna]

does god not juz stand for our own need to have an understanding of how creation began...is it not a natural process that keeps evolving and creating ? to me that is magical but sometimes i feel we put things in to catorgories to help us identify to them as we have a burning need to have an answer .. not sure we ever will as theres always something new to learn and thus makes people seek even more answers if that makes sense .

[Lilly]

Life is an inevitable consequence of existence.

I agree, the evidence leads us to this conclusion.

The real brain busting question is why does anything exist at all? The only answer i've ever been able to come up with is 'because it does'.

[Davros of Skaro]

it seems that the athiests want us to choose between magic(god) or accident(bio-genesis)

I choose magic because bio-genesis and mega-evolution rely on to many accidents. the sun being the right size and right temp. the earth being in the right orbit. earth, mars and venus all orbit with in the goldielock zone. the earth right down the middle mars on the outer edge and venus on the inner edge. but venus is too hot for water, and n\mars is too cold for water. there is ice on mars.

the other choice is magic. this requires that there is some form of being existing before the earth was formed. we call this being god. I believe the only way that the earth, sun, and life was designed and built right at the start. I also believe in micro-evolution, which is just life adjusting to new conditions on earth. humans don't evolve to their environment they change or take their environment with them. the innuits and eximos have lived long enough on the ice for them to grow thick fur. but, they still require the skins of other animals to stay alive.

science says that light skinned people evolved so they could absorb more of the sun due to them living to far north and not getting enoygh sun. so I ask you why are the darkest skinned people from southern Africa, the same latatudes south as Europe is north.

Would it hurt you to watch the whole new Cosmos series?

[XenoFish]

I would like to think that if there is a god, it's nothing like the mythology with build up. It would be a force of creation. Something as of yet unknown. And I think that evolution/adaptation would be a process to maintain life itself. We have the potential (if we got our head out of our backsides) to spread across the cosmos. To change worlds and make them livable. If there is a god it wouldn't be spouting rules to schizophrenics in the wilderness.

[Emmisal]

Personally, I look forward to the day when the term A-Thiest is redundant, like A-Leprechaunists or A-Fairisists. When religion is finally realised for what it is and categorised correctly, we shall finally have that day.

We should be embracing the 21st century, not wallowing in the 11th.

Sadly for you, it doesn't look like that time is ever going to come. That's just another optimistic imagination.

[Philangeli]

Try to imagine the universe totally devoid of life and consciousness. Would the universe still exist? If so, how would you know?

If you really meditate on this, some of you may have an insight that the universe is only there because consciousness is there.

Could it be that:

If there were no consciousness, there would be no existence.

If there there were no existence, there would be no universe?

As our consciousness expands, the universe expands.

Regardless of how many trillions of events and processes are taking place in the universe, they are just a manifestation of

consciousness and are contained within consciousness.

That kind of notion is pretty difficult for materialists to stomach - best if they just stick to counting and categorizing everything and not go there.

[Imaginarynumber1]

Oh good. This thread again.....

[Emma_Acid]

I choose magic

You're getting magic and ignorance mixed up again.

Try to imagine the universe totally devoid of life and consciousness. Would the universe still exist? If so, how would you know?

If you really meditate on this, some of you may have an insight that the universe is only there because consciousness is there.

Metaphysical waffle, that has no practical bearing on reality.

Could it be that:

If there were no consciousness, there would be no existence.

Demonstrably untrue. The earliest forms of life weren't conscious, and yet reality must have existed for them, and therefore us, to exist.

This is a hypothesis that solves approximately nothing.

As our consciousness expands, the universe expands.

Apparently our "consciousness" has been expanding since the 60s, with very little tangible difference to the world around us. The universe has been expanding for 15 billion years.

Regardless of how many trillions of events and processes are taking place in the universe, they are just a manifestation of

consciousness and are contained within consciousness.

That kind of notion is pretty difficult for materialists to stomach - best if they just stick to counting and categorizing everything and not go there.

It's not difficult to stomach, its just plain wrong - it centres everything around the outdated notion of the cosmic importance of human conciousness, and completely ignores actual, scientific evidence.

[Doug1029]

How old is the Earth/Universe, Daniel?

Doug

[danielost]

I guess it comes down to how intelligent you are. Lets face it, we do not have Professors pandering about giving university lectures on Leprechauns and Unicorns and esoteric knowledge does not build rocket ships or cars. If you trade intelligence for imagination, then there you go. Magic. Science explains the magic away eventually, and that's why some people absolutely hate it, they prefer to live in blissful ignorance. Evolution is a given, we have too much proof to deny it, and it shows us an organic process supports and harbours life, this is obviously how it starts too, there is absolutely no real reason to consider some omnipotent being just did it all for us as some sort of benevolent act - giving "us" life. That's man's personal interpretation. To think that some small saviour lies in Abiogenesis is merely illustrating how hard it is for some people to let those religious stories go. Like not wanting to know there is no Santa or the Easter Bunny. Sure it sucks, but part of the circle of life. Not using myself as an example in any way, we are supposed to grow up. That's life.

Personally, I look forward to the day when the term A-Thiest is redundant, like A-Leprechaunists or A-Fairisists. When religion is finally realised for what it is and categorised correctly, we shall finally have that day.

We should be embracing the 21st century, not wallowing in the 11th.

there is now evidence of a leprechaun type creature. true they weren't magical. the hobbit huminoid that lived on an island in asia. they did kidnap babies, well at least once.

as for santa he is based on two real people. a catholic bishop and a toy maker. there is no evidence to macro-evolution. I also have a problem with spontaneous life.

[Peter B]

You're getting magic and ignorance mixed up again...

[sNIP]

Could you please repeat this post so I can like it again. :-)

Edited September 24, 2014 by Peter B

[Peter B]

it seems that the athiests want us to choose between magic(god) or accident(bio-genesis)

If you don't like the idea of atheists not needing God to be involved in the development of life, that's fine. But that's part of what being an atheist is all about - in ALL aspects of life we accept the idea that there is no God (or gods) to get involved in the first place.

But when it comes to the subject of biology, there is no need to make a choice. There are plenty of religious biologists who see no contradiction between believing in God and accepting the reality of Darwinian evolution. One of the leading witnesses for the plaintiffs in the Dover Trial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District#Witnesses_for_the_plaintiffs), Kenneth Miller, is both a biology professor and Christian.

I choose magic because bio-genesis and mega-evolution rely on to many accidents. the sun being the right size and right temp. the earth being in the right orbit. earth, mars and venus all orbit with in the goldielock zone. the earth right down the middle mars on the outer edge and venus on the inner edge. but venus is too hot for water, and n\mars is too cold for water. there is ice on mars.

Yes, all of these factors needed to be just right in order for life to be possible...on Earth. But if the Sun was a little warmer then there might well be people on Mars philosophising about just how conditions are just perfect on their own planet and too hot on the third planet from the Sun. What would stop them assuming conditions were so perfect for them that a Creator must have been involved?

Likewise, I accept my own existence is based on many accidents. The obvious one is that if my parents hadn't had sex that particular night back in [censored] I wouldn't have been conceived, and thus wouldn't be sitting here now typing.

the other choice is magic. this requires that there is some form of being existing before the earth was formed. we call this being god. I believe the only way that the earth, sun, and life was designed and built right at the start. I also believe in micro-evolution, which is just life adjusting to new conditions on earth.

Fine. But give microevolution another million years, or ten million years, or 100 million years, and what happens? Is the wide variety of felids (that is, both big cats like lions, tigers and leopards and little cats like domestic cats, cougars, cheetahs and lynxes) an example of microevolution? If so, what about hominids like chimps, gorillas, orang utans...and humans?

humans don't evolve to their environment they change or take their environment with them. the innuits and eximos have lived long enough on the ice for them to grow thick fur. but, they still require the skins of other animals to stay alive.

science says that light skinned people evolved so they could absorb more of the sun due to them living to far north and not getting enoygh sun. so I ask you why are the darkest skinned people from southern Africa, the same latatudes south as Europe is north.

Yes, humans have learned to change their environments, but have also changed in adaptation, which is why, for example, the average Inuit is short-round while the average Sub-Saharan African is slim (there are adaptive benefits relating to heat loss in each case). But the fact remains that descent with modification, which was Darwin's description of the outcome of evolution, has been observed both in the fossil record and in life on Earth today.

[Rlyeh]

Try to imagine the universe totally devoid of life and consciousness. Would the universe still exist? If so, how would you know?

If I didn't exist, would you? How would I know?

If you really meditate on this, some of you may have an insight that the universe is only there because consciousness is there.

Meditation doesn't cure ignorance.

Could it be that:

If there were no consciousness, there would be no existence.

If there there were no existence, there would be no universe?

As our consciousness expands, the universe expands.

Regardless of how many trillions of events and processes are taking place in the universe, they are just a manifestation of

consciousness and are contained within consciousness.

The existence of new discoveries which shouldn't be possible in your solipsistic worldview refutes it.

That kind of notion is pretty difficult for materialists to stomach - best if they just stick to counting and categorizing everything and not go there.

Or anyone who has grown up and determined a world exists outside of their mind.

[Doug1029]

If I didn't exist, would you? How would I know?

If you did not exist, you could not ask the question, making Daniel irrelevant. Thus, to save Daniel's a--, you must exist.

Doug

Edited September 24, 2014 by Doug1029

[Rafterman]

it seems that the athiests want us to choose between magic(god) or accident(bio-genesis)

I choose magic because bio-genesis and mega-evolution rely on to many accidents. the sun being the right size and right temp. the earth being in the right orbit. earth, mars and venus all orbit with in the goldielock zone. the earth right down the middle mars on the outer edge and venus on the inner edge. but venus is too hot for water, and n\mars is too cold for water. there is ice on mars.

the other choice is magic. this requires that there is some form of being existing before the earth was formed. we call this being god. I believe the only way that the earth, sun, and life was designed and built right at the start. I also believe in micro-evolution, which is just life adjusting to new conditions on earth. humans don't evolve to their environment they change or take their environment with them. the innuits and eximos have lived long enough on the ice for them to grow thick fur. but, they still require the skins of other animals to stay alive.

science says that light skinned people evolved so they could absorb more of the sun due to them living to far north and not getting enoygh sun. so I ask you why are the darkest skinned people from southern Africa, the same latatudes south as Europe is north.

Let me guess, you get your "science" from a guy with a beard and a red baseball cap?

I love it when creationists thing they've dropped the big gotcha bomb and it turns out to be the same old discredited stuff they've been peddling for decades.

[Leonardo]

The origin of life is no accidental thing, but neither is it (imo) an act of some intentional will.

Like the genesis of the elements themselves, born inevitably from natural events occurring throughout the universe, the origin of life is the inevitable outcome of the reaction, or interaction, between chemical elements and natural forces. It is a disservice to science to call abiogenesis an "accident".