toldailytopic: How did life come into existence?

[Nathon Detroit]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for March 25th, 2011 09:26 AM

toldailytopic: How did life come into existence?

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[fool]

Don't know :chuckle:

 

[Oreoracle]

Define "life" first.

 

[chrysostom]

God did it

 

[Nathon Detroit]

I used to believe that life came into existence on it's own by chance in a ancient earth. Chemicals reacting together and eventually turning into living cells that later developed into more complex living creatures.

Looking back... that just sounds silly.

The insane complexity of life in the most simple living cell baffles the mind. All of the working parts and blueprint of functionality contained in a living cell is far beyond what random chance could ever dream of producing.

The only logical and reasonable explanation is that an intelligent, supernatural God created life.

 

[chrysostom]

Define "life" first.

what do you mean by define?

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Define "life" first.

Define, "define". :doh:

 

[fool]

what do you mean by define?

What do you mean by mean?

 

[CabinetMaker]

I find it far more likely that life was designed. The chances of life developing out of the randomness of pond of chemicals just does not make mathematical sense.

 

[Oreoracle]

what do you mean by define?

I'm asking what everyone takes "life" to mean as that will directly impact how the question is answered.

In case the question sounds trivial, I assure you it isn't. The scientific community is still disputing some of the characteristics that make living things "living". Does something have to have DNA to be living? Can it lack the DNA as long as it reproduces? Does it even have to reproduce if it adapts to its environment?

 

[Oreoracle]

Define, "define". :doh:

I just don't like ambiguous questions, and "life" has multiple definitions.

 

[fool]

I find it far more likely that life was designed. The changes of life developing out of the randomness of pond of chemicals just does not make mathematical sense.

Think about that for a minute.

 

[Oreoracle]

I find it far more likely that life was designed. The changes of life developing out of the randomness of pond of chemicals just does not make mathematical sense.

Would you say that whatever designed life was alive itself? If so, that does not fully answer the question.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Think about that for a minute.

I did. I also thought about our previous discussion where we used the example of flipping coins. You started with the conclusion that if you have enough people flipping coins then at least one person will flip all heads. The more I thought about this the more I came to realize that it is a false positive, if you will.

I am not convinced that life started with enough elements to cover every possible combination. There were probably relatively few pieces and parts available. Se we are faced with the odds of one or two of those taking the next successful step. That slightly reduces the "population" of successful "pieces" and of those available successful "pieces" one of them must then make another successful step.

It is an extremely difficult probability function to define let alone analyze since it requires us to make certain unsubstantiatable assumptions about how basic elements were arranged into molecules and how those molecules then arranged themselves into amino acids and nucleic acids. And then we have to figure out how nucleic acids "figured out" how to arrange themselves in an order such that they could use amino acids to for proteins and the like.

We cannot start by saying that since life exists then random process must account for life. That is not a logical place to start. We must start at t=0 and figure out how things got started and then we may be able to answer the question of if random processes will explain it or if a Designer is actually a better explanation.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Would you say that whatever designed life was alive itself? If so, that does not fully answer the question.

Alive in the sense that it has corporeal body like we do or alive in the sense that it exists as a self-aware entity of unknowable physical properties?

 

[Oreoracle]

Alive in the sense that it has corporeal body like we do or alive in the sense that it exists as a self-aware entity of unknowable physical properties?

"Alive" in the same sense that the things it creates are alive. I've been trying to get a definition of "life" on this thread, but nobody wants to play.

Just out of curiosity though, assuming that a creator was responsible for life, how do you intend to use it for your explanation? This creator, as you imply in the above quote, would have unknowable properties. You can hardly cite an unknown as an explanation. That's just as good as shrugging your shoulders and declaring you don't know the answer (which admittedly no one does).

 

[Town Heretic]

What do you mean by mean?

What? lain:

 

[mighty_duck]

It is an extremely difficult probability function to define let alone analyze since it requires us to make certain unsubstantiatable assumptions about how basic elements were arranged into molecules and how those molecules then arranged themselves into amino acids and nucleic acids.

Precisely!

We have little or no knowledge about what conditions were like.
We have little or no knowledge about what the first forms of "life" looked like.
We have little or no knowledge about all the possible forms of life possible in our world or in others.
We have little or no knowledge about all the possible chemical interactions.
We have little or no knowledge about how many times the "coin" was "flipped", either in our world, galaxy, universe, multi-verse etc.

And yet ID proponents will happily try to make probability calculations.
They are completely meaningless.

Here's what we do know. At Earth's formation, there was no life. Some 2 billion years later, there was. The only thing we know of that was acting in that time were chemical interactions - which makes them the most likely culprit in the formation of life.

Now we need to figure out what combination of elements using what chemical interaction produced the first thing we would call "life".

Chances are that those precursors are not random amino acids, but things that under other definitions would be called life - self replicating molecules, RNA etc.

 

[Selaphiel]

There are good hypotheses for abiogenesis. The problem is that people think that abiogenesis is about chemicals turning into the "modern" cell, that is of course ridiculous. Luckily no biologist believes that happened.

You really have to define life, it is not as clear as common sense people think it is. Is virus life? Why? Why not?
One hypothesis is that one precursor were so called protobionts which are simple organic molecules capable of self-copying and some primitive form of metabolism, all trapped within a primitive membrane. Similar primitive structures have been formed in experiments.
Once you got primitive entities capable of metabolizing (use resources) and reproduce, then you have competition and then natural selection is in effect which is enough to kick start evolution so that more familiar forms of primitive life might emerge from such primitive beginnings.

Of course these are all hypotheses, not theories.

I see no reason to invoke divine intervention at this point, nor do I see abiogenesis (or any science for that matter) as a threat to faith in God.

 

[CabinetMaker]

"Alive" in the same sense that the things it creates are alive. I've been trying to get a definition of "life" on this thread, but nobody wants to play.

I think that the creator is "more alive" than the things He created. God exists outside of time and space as we know it. We were created subject to time and space. At least our bodies are, are souls are something more and exist a bit differently though I cannot say exactly what that existence might look like.

As to the definition of life on Earth, this seems as reasonable a starting point as any other. It is from Wikipedia

Life (cf. biota) is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes (i. e., living organisms) from those that do not,[1][2] either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate.[3][4]

I would point out the definition for biological life presented above does not include the concept of a soul. The concept of a soul does not change the definition of biological life but it can complicate discussions like this very quickly. For now, it might be more productive to limit the discussion to biological life.

Just out of curiosity though, assuming that a creator was responsible for life, how do you intend to use it for your explanation? This creator, as you imply in the above quote, would have unknowable properties. You can hardly cite an unknown as an explanation. That's just as good as shrugging your shoulders and declaring you don't know the answer (which admittedly no one does).

I would take exception to your statement. That the physical properties of God are unknowable does not mean that God is completely unknowable. While we cannot provide a physical description of God, we can know who God is through the Bible. Based on that, we know that God is intelligent and that He was directly involved in the act of creation. We also know that God is the un-caused first cause which is just a fancy way of saying that God has always existed. As such, the existence of an intelligent designer capable of the creation of the universe as a whole and life in particular is established as a plausible explanation. I fully understand that that is a full on statement of faith that will be rejected by many.