toldailytopic: How did life come into existence?

[Nathon Detroit]

"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.

That's because we have all seen these types of games before. Nobody wants to go around the Mulberry Bush with you because we would rather have fun discussing the actual topic. Define life however you want to define it.... then feel free to answer the question.

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).

That being the case then there are two possible answers... (these would be mine)

1. God is SUPERnatural and eternal. Therefore He is the uncreated cause the force from everlasting. God did not have a creator as He is outside the realm of our physical universe.

2. Life in this universe, as we know it, was created by God at His discretion and to His specification.

Here's the deal... this thread isn't a test, it's not a trick, and it's not meant to be proof for anything (we wont be presenting it to a judge in a courtroom). This thread is what we like to call... a "discussion". It's for fun and to satisfy our curiosity about one another. At this website we fellowship. We debate, we discuss, we ponder.... but in doing so we learn from one another and we have fun in the process. If you would like to join in on this discussion we welcome you. If you would rather play word games and dance around the issue you will most likely be ignored.

 

[Oreoracle]

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]

Excellent. People will at least have a solid definition to work with now.

For now, it might be more productive to limit the discussion to biological life.

Fair enough.

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.

At least you understand that that is a faith-based position. My issue, of course, is that faith ignores the need for explanation. When we ask what caused life, and people say God did it, and then we ask what God is, how he did it, and how we know he did it, taking these details for granted due to faith kind of ruins the explanation.

 

[CabinetMaker]

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.

You made an assumption without even stopping to consider it. Or you may have considered it. At any rate, you assume that there is no possibility of a Designer and conclude that chemical process must account for all that we see.

 

[GuySmiley]

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

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.

Sounds like you've done your own probability calculations though.

 

[Oreoracle]

That's because we have all seen these types of games before. Nobody wants to go around the Mulberry Bush with you because we would rather have fun discussing the actual topic.

What you would realize, if you would kindly think about it for a moment, is that defining the terms in the question is an act which itself determines the topic. You can't truly know what your initial question even means without definitions, and by extension, that means you can't know "the actual topic".

Define life however you want to define it.... then feel free to answer the question.

That wouldn't be answering the question. That would be answering my version of the question, which, as I said, is determined by the definition of "life" chosen. I would like to help answer the same question everyone else is answering, though, which is why it's important for everyone to know which definition(s) we're using.

1. God is SUPERnatural and eternal. Therefore He is the uncreated cause the force from everlasting. God did not have a creator as He is outside the realm of our physical universe.

Debating this issue of God being "supernatural" would take this thread off-topic, so I invite you to discuss the matter with me in my thread "'Supernatural' is Not Explanative".

If you would rather play word games and dance around the issue you will most likely be ignored.

Maybe your experience differs, but people often can't discuss matters meaningfully if the terms involved are not well-defined. They argue for ages without realizing that they're talking about totally different things. I'm just saving people some trouble.

 

[Silent Hunter]

You made an assumption without even stopping to consider it. Or you may have considered it. At any rate, you assume that there is no possibility of a Designer and conclude that chemical process must account for all that we see.

You made an assumption without even stopping to consider it. Or you may have considered it. At any rate, you assume that there is no possibility of a chemical process producing life and conclude that a Designer must account for all that we see.

There . . . fixed it for you.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Excellent. People will at least have a solid definition to work with now.

Fair enough.

At least you understand that that is a faith-based position. My issue, of course, is that faith ignores the need for explanation. When we ask what caused life, and people say God did it, and then we ask what God is, how he did it, and how we know he did it, taking these details for granted due to faith kind of ruins the explanation.

My answer is that God did it using the tools we study as the natural sciences. God created the universe and all that is in it including the laws pf physics and chemistry and motion and magnetism and the like. As the author of those laws, God designed them such that RNA and DNA would be possible and would function as we have observed them to function. In essence, the study of science is, in my mind, the study of how God did things. I do not see science and faith as an either/or proposition, I see them has working hand in hand to explain the creation that surrounds us.

 

[The Barbarian]

God says that the Earth brought forth living things. Some call that "silly." I call it "truth."

Scientists call it "abiogensis."

 

[Oreoracle]

God created the universe and all that is in it including the laws pf physics and chemistry and motion and magnetism and the like.

Now I'm going to ask a "Did the chicken come before the egg?" sort of question: Did God "design" the natural laws by making matter and energy comform to certain behaviors, or did he make matter and energy conform to certain behaviors by making natural laws? In other words, do the objects' behavior account for the principles, or do the principles account for the objects' behavior?

I suspect my next questions will largely be based on how you answer this.

 

[CabinetMaker]

You made an assumption without even stopping to consider it. Or you may have considered it. At any rate, you assume that there is no possibility of a chemical process producing life and conclude that a Designer must account for all that we see.

There . . . fixed it for you.

No, this is just you being obtuse. I never precluded the possibility of chemical processes, I was pointing out that MD had precluded the possibility of a Designer as his starting point.

 

[Persephone66]

Don't know. Most likely through some natural process.

I hear a sentient mass of spaghetti had something to do with it.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Now I'm going to ask a "Did the chicken come before the egg?"

There is a definitive answer to this question. The egg came first. The proto-chicken that laid the egg that contained the mutation we now call chicken was laid by the proto-chicken. Therefore the chicken egg had to come before the chicken.

sort of question: Did God "design" the natural laws by making matter and energy comform to certain behaviors, or did he make matter and energy conform to certain behaviors by making natural laws? In other words, do the objects' behavior account for the principles, or do the principles account for the objects' behavior?

I suspect my next questions will largely be based on how you answer this.

I would have to say that God had the laws in mind prior to beginning His act of creation and He created matter based on the laws He envisioned so that the universe would work the way He had planned.

 

[Silent Hunter]

No, this is just you being obtuse.

. . . rather that would be how YOU see it . . .

I never precluded the possibility of chemical processes, I was pointing out that MD had precluded the possibility of a Designer as his starting point.

. . . semantics . . . you do "preclude" chemical processes producing life without goddidit . . .

 

[Silent Hunter]

Don't know. Most likely through some natural process.

I hear a sentient mass of spaghetti had something to do with it.

YES !!!! Exactly !!! (It's at least as good an answer as . . . goddidit . . . perhaps better.)

 

[CabinetMaker]

. . . rather that would be how YOU see it . . .

. . . semantics . . . you do "preclude" chemical processes producing life without goddidit . . .

Actually, chemical processes are responsible for life. No doubt about it. I just happen to believe that that those chemical processes do not exist independent of God's control.

 

[Silent Hunter]

Actually, chemical processes are responsible for life. No doubt about it.

. . . either chemical processes are responsible for life or they are not . . . make up your mind.

I just happen to believe that that those chemical processes do not exist independent of God's control.

. . . then Oreoracle's answer sums your "argument" . . .

At least you understand that that is a faith-based position. My issue, of course, is that faith ignores the need for explanation. When we ask what caused life, and people say God did it, and then we ask what God is, how he did it, and how we know he did it, taking these details for granted due to faith kind of ruins the explanation.

How much more dental surgery must be performed . . . before you "get" that? :yawn:

 

[Silent Hunter]

2000 (you had to be there . . .)

 

[CabinetMaker]

. . . either chemical processes are responsible for life or they are not . . . make up your mind.

. . . then Oreoracle's answer sums your "argument" . . .How much more dental surgery must be performed . . . before you "get" that? :yawn:

You excel at selective reading and response.

 

[Newman]

In the same way that something cannot come from nothing, sentience cannot come from non-sentience. Therefore a force outside of the limits of our natural world must have produced life. That force is God.


These daily topics are a piece of cake. I'm so winning. :chuckle:

 

[Oreoracle]

There is a definitive answer to this question. The egg came first. The proto-chicken that laid the egg that contained the mutation we now call chicken was laid by the proto-chicken. Therefore the chicken egg had to come before the chicken.

That's nice to know.

I would have to say that God had the laws in mind prior to beginning His act of creation and He created matter based on the laws He envisioned so that the universe would work the way He had planned.

Okay, next question(s): We are assuming, for the sake of argument, that there exists a god who is intelligent, eternal, and non-physical. How did this non-physical entity influence the physical world, and how did he inject matter and energy into this world where none previously existed? To elaborate on the first part of that question, I would like to know a) how this realm God resides in co-exists with our own, b) what boundary divides that realm from our own, c) how does God manage to permeate through that boundary to enter our realm?