Thread: So, I think Christians are stupid.

Ah, thank you for taking the time to respond. Allow me to offer the following rebuttle.

• You're a deluded fool
• Convinced of your superiority, you'll never change your mind
• Nothing I ever say or do can make you change your mind
• Yet, your constant nagging misuse or lack of critical thinking will compel me to repeatedly reply
• The Reverse Principle of Non-Linear Time Flow means I've actually been posting longer than you, so I'm therefore clearly correct.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Fuck you're right. I thought you had already been responded to but I guess not. I'm really not trying to be rude here or anything. I'll respond to you right now.

• I'm better than you.
• You're an idiot for not knowing that I'm better than you. (of course I'd never explicitly say that. Rather I'd suggest that you should look up obscure strawmen that I bring up on google instead of asking me to explain myself or by jumping on typos to try to make you look ignorant.)
• You should be grateful that I'm condescending to take the time to even talk to you.
• I've been posting in this forum longer than you have so obviously I'm right.

Hope that helps!

This had me cracking up hard..LMAO! You're a funny guy PS, seriously.

Mario92 I thought I replied to your post already. It's so many atheist here I'm losing track of you guys. PhilosopherStoned seems to have covered everything, well so ummm... yea. Peace Nighty Night (Insert banana dance here)

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

As meant in the sense that God is the Father as we are all children of God. If you want to get technical, then Adam was "created" from dust and Eve was "formed."

a) Exactly how long ago was this?

b) But Zhaylin said that an earlier form of humans may have walked with the dinosaurs, presumably before Adam and Eve.

a) 1972

b) Well Zhaylin is wrong.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

a) Exactly how long ago was this?

There is no way to really interpret an actual time frame. In the Genesis account the Hebrew word "yom" is utilized for creation "days." The Hebrew word "yom" is sequential and distinct and not to be taken as a literal 24 hour calender day period. Christians have different opinions regarding how long ago this event has taken place. I'm an Old Earth Creationist. I believe the Earth has been here for 4.5 Billion years. The first man Adam was created on Earth some 13.75 Billion years after the Universe was brought into existence.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

b) But Zhaylin said that an earlier form of humans may have walked with the dinosaurs, presumably before Adam and Eve.

I agree with this. However, I don't consider primates an earlier form of humans. I believe they were a different species and yes they roamed the Earth. I put them in the category along with animals who also roamed the Earth with dinosaurs prior to the creation of Adam and Eve.

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

Right, but with the odds stacked so high against it, what's the point of even study such an hypothetical scenario that mathematicians deem as an impossible event. Now, don't get me wrong, as a result of studying we have gained knowledge regarding life on a molecular level but surely, I don't think we need such an hypothesis to understand this field more in depth. The basis of the study is more bias in my opinion than anything else.

So because something may be mathematically unlikely we must simply give up our attempts to understand the origins of life? We should simply stop at the molecular level? Where would that get us? Gosh it's no wonder you're a creationist.

The reason why I say "the foundation is exactly the same" because, although the models are slightly different they both ad hear to the exact same idea that living organisms are created from nonliving matter. Life's existence as a result of natural chemical processes over time doesn't change this.

Well is there anything wrong with that? I'm not getting the point.

I don't actually agree with that. My belief is that life was initiated by a "will" in which that "will" consists of intelligent conscious direction.

I could've sworn I saw you say something like "obviously life had to come from non-life." If not, my mistake. And yes, we all know what your belief is. It was established like four or five pages ago.

Abiogenesis is not a natural phenomenon as far as what we are able to observe regarding natural events in our world. We only see life coming from life.

Right, as far as what we are able to observe. This is why I keep saying "give it time." Either evidence will flow in, or it won't. Either abiogenesis will be proven factual, it won't. Why do I keep having to repeat myself?

I understand, however the reason why I keep harping on that is simply because you haven't really explained to me as to what are you basing support of such a scenario from? Is it because scientist deemed it's a possibility? I know you stated previously, that regarding how great science track record happens to be plays a large roll as to why you support this. But, as I've pointed out previously before, this isn't science.

Again, I have to repeat myself. Given our options of the origins of life, we have three options, which we stack in terms of likelihood. One is abiogenesis (the modern version). Two is intelligent creation. Three is panspermia. I've already explained why #2 and #3 aren't good explanations. What are we left with? Abiogenesis. And even if we don't eliminate #2 and #3, it's still more likely since we know life had to come from non-life. This brings us back to my point about finding the mechanism, which requires time. Is this "support" (a term I refrain from using) necessarily science? No, and we've all said that over and over in this thread. That's why none of us are accepting abiogenesis as factual yet. You say you understand, but I don't think you actually do.

Why do you think God would have to be created also if time is not linear to God as it is with us? You only ask this question because of the fact that we look at our Universe in such a way that by cause and effect that anything could exist. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth as indicated in Genesis 1:1. This shows us that God is acting outside of time as the divine author and creator of time.

I seriously hope you're not giving me the Bible as evidence...

But there are no past experiences to correlate to this hypothesis. The only past experiences that we witness as natural events, is life bringing fourth life. Yes we have evidence that scientific understanding improves over the course of time. However, understanding certain natural phenomenon that's scientific is not the same as presuming an unnatural phenomenon event has taken place that clearly violates the scientific laws of physics, chemistry and biology. It no longer would be considered science. The study is more geared toward supernatural phenomena IMO.

When I said past experiences I obviously meant the past experience of scientific methodology + time = improved scientific understanding. Futhermore, if the study is geared toward supernatural phenomena, we would have theologians working on abiogenesis, not scientists.

And simply skimming the wikipedia article on abiogenesis shows all the natural ways life may have risen from non-life. We know types of prokaryotes were on Earth about a billion years after its formation (so 3.5b years ago). How did they form? Obviously from the materials available on Earth 3.5b years ago (chemicals in water, air, and rocks). How do we know? Because experiments were done whereby organic molecules were created (amino acids, for example, which are the building blocks of life) from compounds such as CO2, ammonia, and water. Obviously more work beyond that is being done, such as trying to figure out which combinations formed first, and which combinations are more likely than others. I mean the likelihood of a sperm and egg coming together is incredibly low, yet they do, and here we are.

Virus, would've had no ill effect on Adam and Eve in a perfect state. See when Adam and Eve were created, their genome was perfect. Not a line of code out of place, a true work of art. Their bodies were most likely cabable of things that would seem like magic today. To us, the first man and woman would appear to be superheroes. For one thing, they were origially immortal. Every cell divided into 2 perfect copies of the original, and this DNA would have traveled undamaged for eternity to their offspring, had they not rebelled. But the second they rebelled, they began to die, and their bodies/DNA began to fall apart. Now in the 21st century, here we are running on fumes. Our genes are a mess garbage compared to what we once had. Thus, we fall victims to sickness caused by virus and disease and eventually death.

Sorry, I was reading this wondering what your evidence is to support such amazingly fantastical and wholly retarded claims. Then I realized you just synthesized Genesis and genetics.

Tons, we do not need to be there physically to determine if complex life has the capability of living on one or more of the 500 plus exo-planets we discovered thus far. Also it takes more than just planets. We need to be in just the right location from our parent star. Our parent star needs to be just the right age. We need to have just the right amount of neighboring planets and size matters for location. We need to be in just the right location in our Galaxy. We need just the right amount of matter, The four fundamental forces of physics need to be exact in such a way allowing for complex life chemistry. The list goes on and on, but this gets into how extremely fine-tuned our Universe is, allowing for complex life to exist.

Mkay, but I asked what planets do we have information about concerning their surfaces and whether life (advanced or microbial) is on them. For HUMAN life to exist, we need to be in the Goldilocks zone, etc. etc. etc. I'm talking about life in general. I don't think the life floating around the hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean give a rats ass about the Goldilocks zone and all that, however.

lol @ finely tuned universe:

Well, abiogenesis does but evolution doesn't take God out of the equation at all.

Ugh, having to repeat myself again. Evolution takes God out of the equation insofar as it eliminates God from popping fully-formed life into existence. And example would be God popping the first humans into existence. Obviously this didn't happen since humans (homo sapiens sapiens) evolved from earlier hominids and apes. That's what I mean.

Actually it is baseless, if we are referring to Darwinians evolutionary scenario which dictates that all life on Earth share a common ancestry, not a fact. Evolution is a fact in a way that if you add time + natural selection + deliberate mutation you'll get business and technology. Or, random mutation + deliberate selection + time = Anagrams. Or, random mutation + artificial selection + time= Doberman pincher. There are various scenarios of evolution as you know but just because one scenario is correct doesn't mean random mutation + natural selection + time = fish to man. Never scientifically proven.

...What?

The "Goldilocks zone" is nothing special. Life could potentially exist on millions of other planets in our galaxy alone.

"So far Kepler has found 1,235 candidate planets, with 54 in the Goldilocks zone, where life could possibly exist."

"Scientists have estimated the first cosmic census of planets in our galaxy and the numbers are astronomical: at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way.

At least 500 million of those planets are in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold zone where life could exist. The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope."

Source: Yahoo News "Cosmic census finds crowd of planets in our galaxy"
Cosmic census finds crowd of planets in our galaxy - Yahoo! News

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

The first man Adam was created on Earth some 13.75 Billion years after the Universe was brought into existence.

And how long ago exactly was that from today?

Here's the intro to the video the Blueline posted. Very much worth watching.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

And how long ago exactly was that from today?

I don't have an approximate time because one is not given in the Scriptures but I believe it's somewhere between 10,000 and 60,000 years ago give or take some thousands.

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

I don't have an approximate time because one is not given in the Scriptures but I believe it's somewhere between 10,000 and 60,000 years ago give or take some thousands.

And what about all the human bones we have found that are older? All the tools and art and archeological sites?

RE: "Fish to Man"

This is a red herring. Nobody in their right mind would suggest that humans evolved from fish. This may be what "The General Theory of Evolution" says but that is a strawman cooked up by creationists and not the real theory. "The Actual Theory of Evolution" claims that humans evolved from another ape. See the difference there? One type of ape to another type of ape. No big deal. The first species of ape evolved from another type of monkey. Again, one type of monkey to another type of monkey, no big deal. The first species of monkey evolved from another type of primate. And so on and so forth.

No species of mammal, let alone ape, ever evolved from a species of fish. That's pure nonsense.

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

I don't have an approximate time because one is not given in the Scriptures but I believe it's somewhere between 10,000 and 60,000 years ago give or take some thousands.

What the holy fuck??

And you aren't the only person here who can set up straw man arguments.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

So because something may be mathematically unlikely we must simply give up our attempts to understand the origins of life? We should simply stop at the molecular level? Where would that get us? Gosh it's no wonder you're a creationist.

Where would it get us you ask. Pretty much the same place we are today. Nowhere. The most important thing that we've discovered with regards to abiogenesis is the fact that it's pretty obvious that the origin of life is not a product of non-life.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

Well is there anything wrong with that? I'm not getting the point.

No nothings wrong with that, but you've seem to have a problem with putting the two in the same category(for whatever reasons). As long as you're realize that the initial concept is identical then no, there's no problem with that.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

I could've sworn I saw you say something like "obviously life had to come from non-life." If not, my mistake. And yes, we all know what your belief is. It was established like four or five pages ago.

Yea, I definitely wouldn't make an ignorant statement like that. You must've gotten that from one of your atheist colleagues here.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

Right, as far as what we are able to observe. This is why I keep saying "give it time." Either evidence will flow in, or it won't. Either abiogenesis will be proven factual, it won't. Why do I keep having to repeat myself?

Because thats what people do when they beat around the bush regarding something. Here's the scenario

• You- Give it time we'll figure it out.
• Me- How are you so sure what are you basing this confidence on?
• You- Scientist track records and previous scientific discoveries we've made.
• Me- Abiogenesis isn't science. It's not testable, repeatable, nor has it ever been observed. So what are you basing this on?
• You- Give it time we'll figure it out.
• Me- :p
• You- why do I have to keep repeating myself?

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

Again, I have to repeat myself. Given our options of the origins of life, we have three options, which we stack in terms of likelihood. One is abiogenesis (the modern version). Two is intelligent creation. Three is panspermia. I've already explained why #2 and #3 aren't good explanations. What are we left with? Abiogenesis. And even if we don't eliminate #2 and #3, it's still more likely since we know life had to come from non-life. This brings us back to my point about finding the mechanism, which requires time. Is this "support" (a term I refrain from using) necessarily science? No, and we've all said that over and over in this thread. That's why none of us are accepting abiogenesis as factual yet. You say you understand, but I don't think you actually do.

Do you see where your logic falls short here? Based off your statements regarding which is more likely, you say #2(Intelligent creation) is not a good explanation because we have no evidence. However, we have no evidence for Abiogenesis either. Futhermore you agree with me that's it's not even Science. So why are you so confident that Abiogenensis is more feasible? It stacks up in the same category, giving evidence that we have for it as Intelligent creation.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

I seriously hope you're not giving me the Bible as evidence...

I was asking you a question that you've decided to not answer for whatever reason.

Why do you think God must've been a product of creation, if God transcends space/time?

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

When I said past experiences I obviously meant the past experience of scientific methodology + time = improved scientific understanding. Futhermore, if the study is geared toward supernatural phenomena, we would have theologians working on abiogenesis, not scientists.

So what exactly are Scientist saying?

Origin of Life Researcher - Leslie Orgel - "To postulate one fortuitously catalyzed reaction, perhaps catalyzed by a metal ion, might be reasonable, but to postulate a suite of them is to appeal to magic".

Molecular biologist, biophysicist - Francis Crick - "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get it going."

You see, when I see words like "magic" and "miracles". That sets the playing field to supernatural phenomena. And yes, these are Scientist making these claims and not theologians but yet they are working intensely searching for answers with the ideas that the Abiogenesis appeals to magic and miracles. I like to call them "Scienlogians".

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

And simply skimming the wikipedia article on abiogenesis shows all the natural ways life may have risen from non-life. We know types of prokaryotes were on Earth about a billion years after its formation (so 3.5b years ago). How did they form?

If we factor in Abiogenesis they would've apparently formed extremely fast. If anything this disproves common ancestry evolution. It definitely doesn't support it. You do not find it a bit strange that the morphology of prokaryotes, has changed little if at all and has hardly evolved at all between early in the Proterozoic time and the current day? Their size, shape, and cellular organization has remained unchanged over periods of more than two billion years. Something like that doesn't seem peculiar at all to you as a believer in abiogenesis?

Nevertheless, what we actually "observe" is that the bacteria has not evolved into higher forms of complexity or life. Which apparently the cell is extremely complex early in Earth's history based off these findings. They have been perfectly adapted to their environment since the beginning. The fossilized remains that you've cited from Wikipedia dating back to 3.5 billion year old sediments, can even be identified according to their genus, and species which are living today. The cell is just as complex then as it is today. If their evolution was a product of mutation and selection then what exactly should we expect? Is it ignorant to not expect then, that for each suitable bacterial cell, we should find hundreds or thousands of unsuitable cells, in all their different stages of evolution? Makes sense?

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

Obviously from the materials available on Earth 3.5b years ago (chemicals in water, air, and rocks). How do we know? Because experiments were done whereby organic molecules were created (amino acids, for example, which are the building blocks of life) from compounds such as CO2, ammonia, and water.

To have the presence of raw building materials is one thing, as for the requirements of the plan toward putting these raw building materials in the proper places and get them working and functioning together is another thing. In any case, the cell consist of far more than just amino acids, factor in fats, carbohydrates, DNA, RNA etc. Origin of Life Researchers know very well that experiments designed to produce amino acids will not produce sugars. And those that produce sugars doesn't produce anything else, and so on. Then you're faced with the problem of preserving the molecules. They just undergo random destruction unless they are protected, like in a cell.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

Obviously more work beyond that is being done, such as trying to figure out which combinations formed first, and which combinations are more likely than others.

Yea give it time we'll figure it out. :p

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

I mean the likelihood of a sperm and egg coming together is incredibly low, yet they do, and here we are.

The likely-hood is obviously not very low at all. There are billions of people in existence today. There have been billions of people who has previously existed. There will be billions more. (all from conception) The likely-hood seems to be fairly high.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

Mkay, but I asked what planets do we have information about concerning their surfaces and whether life (advanced or microbial) is on them. For HUMAN life to exist, we need to be in the Goldilocks zone, etc. etc. etc. I'm talking about life in general. I don't think the life floating around the hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean give a rats ass about the Goldilocks zone and all that, however.

And I've explained to you that over 500 discovered exoplanets, we know whether or not they harbor complex life chemistry and none of them do. Advance life is complex life chemistry. Even as for simple complex life floating around in vents doesn't tell us anything besides the fact that bacteria can be discovered throughout the universe. Bacteria hasn't evolved into anything on planet Earth and chances are they will not evolve anywhere else in the Universe. Our research comes up short for detecting biological signatures. But it's not entirely dependent on the planet. The type of galaxy and many, many other factors play a roll.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE

Ugh, having to repeat myself again. Evolution takes God out of the equation insofar as it eliminates God from popping fully-formed life into existence. And example would be God popping the first humans into existence. Obviously this didn't happen since humans (homo sapiens sapiens) evolved from earlier hominids and apes. That's what I mean.

Obviously this has never been scientifically proven, nor has it ever been observed.

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

Why do you think God must've been a product of creation, if God transcends space/time?

1. What makes you so sure there's a god that transcends space/time?
2. Why does it have to be a god? Or even any sort of conscious entity? If you absolutely insist on some sort of transcendent...thing, then I propose that the universe is naturally driven to give birth to life wherever and whenever it can. Call it a hidden law, a transcendent essence of life, whatever. It is exactly as possible as your god. Oh yeah, and it isn't intelligent. And it isn't conscious nor sentient. And it is an inherent part of this universe.
3. Now honestly ask yourself...is this ANY less likely than your god? It would certainly explain away all your arguments for a creator of some sort, and take care of the origin issue.

Now note I don't believe this. I'm just tossing it out.

What exactly do you mean when you say God transcends space time? Is he able to exist without space or time, and if so what is he made of and where does he exist?

Alright so Firefox crashed on me mid-way through my reply to Ne-yo. I don't particularly care to reply to his entire post, as I will only end up repeating myself for the fifth-or-so time, but there is one glaring issue that needs to be discussed. The issue is Ne-yo's use of anti-abiogenesis sources.

Of course, they aren't really anti-abiogenesis sources at all (except for one). As we shall see, Ne-yo clearly did not read the papers he linked at all. Or if he did, he misinterpreted what they were saying.

Source 1: Dr. Herbert Yockey, cited here.

There are a few problems with the use of this source. The first is that the article is on freerepublic.com, a conservative propaganda machine connected to Ann Coulter and people of that ilk. Does this really have anything to do with Ne-yo's use of the article? Not really, but it gives us reason to be skeptical about the information contained in the article. The second problem is that the article is titled "Evolution is Biologically Impossible," which again gives us reason to be skeptical. The third problem is that the article was written by one Joseph Mastropaolo, PhD, from the Institute for Creation Research of all places. Again, another reason to be skeptical. Anyway, this is just peripheral stuff.

The link to the article Ne-yo presented has been provided above. This is the relevant section Ne-yo quoted on page 15 of this thread:

To set a better example, let us take up the evolutionist's burden of evidence to see where it leads. Our first observation is that apparently all functions in a living organism are based largely upon the structures of its proteins. The trail of the first cell therefore leads us to the microbiological geometry of amino acids and a search for the probability of creating a protein by mindless chance as specified by evolution. Hubert Yockey published a monograph on the microbiology, information theory, and mathematics necessary to accomplish that feat. Accordingly, the probability of evolving one molecule of iso-1-cytochrome c, a small protein common in plants and animals, is an astounding one chance in 2.3 times ten billion vigintillion. The magnitude of this impossibility may be appreciated by realizing that ten billion vigintillion is one followed by 75 zeros. Or to put it in evolutionary terms, if a random mutation is provided every second from the alleged birth of the universe, then to date that protein molecule would be only 43% of the way to completion. Yockey concluded, "The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpetual motion machine is impossible in probability."7

Well, for one, Yockey isn't a biologist, he's a physicist, and a noted critic of the primordial soup hypothesis due to his application of information theory to biology. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but shouldn't we be looking for sources by biologists who actually work in the field(s) concerning the origins of life? That is not to say Yockey is wrong simply because he isn't a biologist, but unfortunately, I don't think we'll know. Why? I don't have the book Yockey wrote, which was cited in the article by Mastropaolo (Information Theory and Molecular Biology), and I can't find it online. Unfortunately, I can't say much more than that. Well, I can say that Ne-yo should be more careful with his source citations. His case would've been stronger had he linked us to Yockey's book and not an anti-evolution article by a creationist.

Source 2: Francis Crick, cited here.

This source is from a noted biologist and origin of life researcher famous for discovering the structure of DNA, so its odd that Ne-yo would use it in his favor. Also, I can't find the statement Ne-yo quoted in the source, pasted below:

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.

So either I suck at finding it, or it isn't in the source. But let's have a little fun with it anyway.

Well, to be blunt, the quoted section doesn't really help Ne-yo's case. Crick states that given the information available to scientists at the time he wrote those words, the origin of life may have been considered a miracle since a lot of conditions had to be just right in order for life to be started. However he does not say that abiogenesis is impossible, which is what Ne-yo said when replying to Mario:

The probability is so extremely low that mathematicians deem an event of this nature would be impossible given the inverse of the upper limit of the total number of (possible) specified events throughout cosmic history. So in short you just explained me that you put your stock into an impossibility.

Mario asked to see the mathematicians, and Ne-yo listed Crick among them. Why? I have no idea since Crick isn't a mathematician, and it doesn't really help his case anyway because like I said, Crick didn't say abiogenesis is akin to a miracle because its impossible. Rather, he said that based on information at the time, abiogenesis may seem like a miracle since various conditions had to be satisfied for it work. There is indeed a difference between the two.

In addition, in this piece, Crick and Leslie Orgel state that they did not anticipate various discoveries since the publication of their papers concerning molecular replication and the evolution of protein synthesis. They explicitly state that they would now have an open mind concerning discoveries that show RNA may not have been the first replicator system. Basically they're saying they may have been a little pessimistic.

And what a wonderful segue to our last source.

Source 3: Leslie Orgel, cited here.

Orgel is another biologist noted for his work in origin of life research. So again, it's odd Ne-yo would use him as a source against abiogenesis. Anyway, Ne-yo cites this section of Orgel's paper:

The explanation of this is simple: noncovalent interactions between small molecules in aqueous solution are generally too weak to permit large and regiospecific catalytic accelerations. To postulate one fortuitously catalyzed reaction, perhaps catalyzed by a metal ion, might be reasonable, but to postulate a suite of them is to appeal to magic.

An appeal to magic? Surely You're Joking, Mr. Orgel! A picture needs to be painted. What is Orgel talking about, exactly?

From the abstract of the cited paper:

I examine the plausibility of theories that postulate the development of complex chemical organization without requiring the replication of genetic polymers such as RNA. One conclusion is that theories that involve the organization of complex, small-molecule metabolic cycles such as the reductive citric acid cycle on mineral surfaces make unreasonable assumptions about the catalytic properties of minerals and the ability of minerals to organize sequences of disparate reactions. Another conclusion is that data in the Beilstein Handbook of Organic Chemistry that have been claimed to support the hypothesis that the reductive citric acid cycle originated as a self-organized cycle can more plausibly be interpreted in a different way.

Well that certainly doesn't look like Orgel is saying "abiogenesis is impossible," does it? That's because he isn't. In the first sentence alone, Orgel states that he will examine "the development of complex chemical organization without requiring the replication of genetic polymers such as RNA." So it seems he's discussing the mechanisms by which abiogenesis, or life from non-life, worked. This point is supported further when we look at what Ne-yo quoted, in full:

The formose reaction does not proceed at an appreciable rate under neutral conditions, and even at high pH, is inefficient in the absence of a catalyst such as a divalent metal ion, for example Ca2+ or Pb2+ (23). My first observation then is that each step of a proposed cycle must proceed at a reasonable rate, and that this will often depend on the availability of a suitable catalyst. If one of the component reactions of a proposed cycle does not proceed spontaneously or under the influence of a plausibly prebiotic catalyst, some additional hypothesis will be needed to maintain the relevance of the cycle to the origins of life. If several of the reactions need “help,” desperate measures will be called for.

One possible saving hypothesis is that the molecules that are the carriers of the cycle are also catalysts for the difficult reactions of the cycle. Unfortunately, catalytic reactions of the required kind in aqueous solution are virtually unknown; there is no reason to believe, for example, that any intermediate of the citric acid cycle would specifically catalyze any reaction of the citric acid cycle. The explanation of this is simple: noncovalent interactions between small molecules in aqueous solution are generally too weak to permit large and regiospecific catalytic accelerations. To postulate one fortuitously catalyzed reaction, perhaps catalyzed by a metal ion, might be reasonable, but to postulate a suite of them is to appeal to magic.

Hmm, nothing about abiogenesis being impossible there. Sounds like Orgel is doing exactly what he said he would in the abstract, namely critiquing hypotheses surrounding the plausibility of the development of complex chemical organization without RNA.

Of course, we can point to the retrospective article I linked to while discussing Francis Crick for information on Orgel's more recent thoughts on complex chemical organization without RNA.

But wait, what about the conclusion to the Orgel paper?

The novel, potentially replicating polymers that have been described up to now, like the nucleic acids, are formed by joining together relatively complex monomeric units. It is hard to see how any could have accumulated on the early earth. A plausible scenario for the origin of life must, therefore, await the discovery of a genetic polymer simpler than RNA and an efficient, potentially prebiotic, synthetic route to the component monomers. The suggestion that relatively pure, complex organic molecules might be made available in large amounts via a self-organizing, autocatalytic cycle might, in principle, help to explain the origin of the component monomers. I have emphasized the implausibility of the suggestion that complicated cycles could self-organize, and the importance of learning more about the potential of surfaces to help organize simpler cycles.

Don't the underlined sections show that Orgel thinks abiogenesis is impossible? What ever will we do? Well, we'll look at everything else Orgel said, highlighted in bold. Looks like he's still talking about the plausibility of mechanisms for abiogenesis rather than the plausibility of abiogenesis itself. And of course this is completely in line with everything I've stated in this thread. Life had to have come from non-life, but the mechanism hasn't been identified, and work is being done in that area.

In summary, read your sources, make sure they support your case, and try not to use creationist sources. If we're going to have a proper scientific discussion, let's use scientific sources and not mythological babble.

Now we're all expecting it to be double awesome.

I edited my post. Read it and weep.

Edit - And of course, Sagan brings abiogenesis to the masses:

Why is it that people can not just respect other opinions? I love debate, but this appears to just be insults
and intolerance on both sides.

I would like to propose a question to any Christians in this thread, however.

How do you know that the earth was not created billions of years ago? The Bible does not state any
date.

Originally Posted by DreamerX97

Why is it that people can not just respect other opinions? I love debate, but this appears to just be insults
and intolerance on both sides.

And I have a question for you. Why should I be expected to respect stupid, willfully ignorant, arrogant nonsense? I respect honesty and the desire for genuine knowledge. It is not the role of religion to modulate our knowledge about the universe and every time it happens, we end up losing opportunities. People that want to "reign in" science for religious reasons can all go stick their head in a lake as far as I'm concerned. I do not have, and will not pretend to have one single, solitary shred of respect for them.

Sagan is God
debate over

I think it is important to respect people no matter what they believe in, even if their beliefs are batshit insane. As long as they respect my belief that their beliefs are batshit insane.
Anyway one thing I dont understand about the process of abiogenesis is how consciousness arose from non -conscious matter. I mean the gap between conscious and not conscious is a pretty big gap in my opinion. I apologize if this has been answered already, I dont really feel like reading the previous seventeen pages.

Originally Posted by stormcrow

I think it is important to respect people no matter what they believe in, even if their beliefs are batshit insane. As long as they respect my belief that their beliefs are batshit insane.

I don't think that it's important to respect anybody but those that have earned it. I think what you mean is "tolerate". And I agree. It is important to tolerate all sentient beings. It is not necessary, nor even desirable, to tolerate all ideas however. Not even if we arbitrarily label some of them "beliefs". So, it's perfectly acceptable (and I believe, beneficial) to actively disrespect those that are advocating ignorance. We shouldn't kill them. We shouldn't torture or imprison them. We should make it known unequivocally that they and the antiquated ideas to which they cling have no place in the modern human species and strongly encourage them to update their understanding of the world. This will probably not be effective ninety-nine percent of the time. That's okay. Trying to convince a creationist of reason is a lost cause. It will never happen except of its own accord. The goal is to encourage others to think twice about taking the ideas seriously.

Anyway one thing I dont understand about the process of abiogenesis is how consciousness arose from non -conscious matter. I mean the gap between conscious and not conscious is a pretty big gap in my opinion. I apologize if this has been answered already, I dont really feel like reading the previous seventeen pages.

The question of whether this is a question concerning abiogenesis or evolution is dependent upon how liberal you want to be with your definition of consciousness. It's only a question for abiogenesis if you want to assign it to all life. Otherwise, it belongs to evolution. Despite the attempts of creationists to conflate the two, they are completely separate phenomena.

The important thing to understand is that, as best as we are able to tell, consciousness is simply something that our bodies do. That is it is essentially a fairly remarkable chemical reaction.

Here's Daniel Dennett talking about it some. It doesn't really talk about how consciousness can originate but helps to clarify exactly what it is that we are trying to understand.





At any rate, two points:

1. There is a difference between an honest non-answer, which is essentially what this is, and a "we don't entirely understand it yet so goddunit" answer which is what the creationists are selling. The first leaves open the possibility of getting an answer. The second doesn't.
2. Neural networks are interesting phenomenon. Natural Selection acting on neural networks is pretty much guaranteed to produce whatever type of consciousness is appropriate for the organism in question.