Have you leaned what Jesus and your bible teaches?

It’s definitional. You’re defining amino acids to be nonlife and then presenting the problem of how life comes from nonlife. I circumvent that problem by claiming that amino acids must be a very simple form of life. My axiom is life cannot come from nonlife. I suppose it’s an argument from ignorance because I cannot see how life could come from nonlife, but by occam’s razor it’s the simplest solution.

A similar issue is how a cause influences an effect. I circumvent that problem by surmising that cause and effect are the same process.

My point of departure is the maximum number of things in any universe can only be 1. The universe is the only atom (atomos - the uncuttable).

I think religion will fizzle out when prosperity enables the proper development of brains both through nutrition and reduction of environmental stress as well as education where people are put into positions of having to use cognitive processes rather than suppress thinking in favor of simply having faith.

Christopher Hitchens pointed out that humanity once saw gods in everything until it boiled down to monotheism and he notes we’re getting closer to the real number of zero. It’s humorous, but the progression seems to be a function of prosperity and knowledge of how the world works instead of using gods to explain everything.

That’s cool! I’ll have to remember that.

Alan Watts said that if you see the universe as a mechanism, you really have to concede that you are a mechanism as well. How you choose to regard it really depends whether you want to put the universe down or exalt it.

Jakob said something to the effect of “how miserable it must be to imagine the universe as empty and sterile as your heart.” Something like that. Hopefully he’ll notice my unpoetic recollection and clean it up, but you get the point.

That’s fine by me. So, what defines nonlife?

But dna consumes from its environment and reproduces on its own (and at the speed of a jet engine according to that video - amazing!). How do those molecules know where to go and what to do?

Well let’s see. Let’s start with hydrogen (1 proton + 1 electron). If we have enough H, then stars form, completely unassisted. Then stars squish H together to make He, completely unassisted, then squish He together to make C, N, O (and all the way up to Fe. Beyond Fe requires a supernova). These are things that will happen every time, all by itself.

After stars live and die, then elements arrange themselves according to mass and acrete into planets, moons, asteroids, rocks, whatever. This will happen every time, all by itself.

Then the rocks provide structure for organic molecules to form (molecules made from CNHO). This will happen every time and all by itself.

Cytosine, adenine, guanine, and thymine are just different ways of arranging CNHO. Nothing magical, but just a result of random ways of making molecules. If there are enough of them, then chance allows for the formation of some type of rna or dna. Dna that manages to survive will replicate while others swim in circles and go extinct. The shear numbers of molecules and the rate at which they form allows plenty of quantity to guarantee just about anything… every time and all by itself.

Eventually, some of the critters utilize a source of radiation (star light or radioactive elements) to break an H+ off and use it to “digest” a piece of rock (splitting molecules requires energy). H+ is an acid that will displace any other cation (NH4+, Ca++, Mg++, K+, etc). From here they make shells, skeletons, teeth, etc from Ca and all our limestone on earth came from those guys and are evidence of life. The gravel or concrete in your driveway is evidence of life; the byproducts of life.

You can fill in the rest of the blanks to get to humanity, but the point is there are no miracles required; it’s stuff that will always happen and happens automatically from simply having enough hydrogen as a starting condition. I don’t see stars forming He from H as any different than the formation of dna or a woman giving birth or anything else going on. If the Big Bang is how it began, then you are still the Big Bang coming on. A tree growing in the yard is the Big Bang coming on. Me pruning the tree is the Big Bang still happening. Me writing this is the Big Bang still happening. All that’s really up for debate is whether I am a machine or if the stars are alive, and that boils down to whether one wants to exalt the universe or denigrate it.

That was me, not Greatest. Good works done for salvation are arrogant.

We shouldn’t strive to do good because it’s good, but because it’s sensible. Would you rather play with the kid who is nice to you only because his father threatened to spank him or the kid that was nice to you because he’s hoping for reciprocation? I want you to be smarter, not because I’m trying to do a good work, but because smarter people create a world that is better for me to inhabit. The source of my morality is complete and utter selfishness: I treat you good because I want you to treat me good and not because I fear a god is going to spank me. I’d actually be offended if I thought you were only nice to me because you feared some retaliation. With that in mind, if I were god and you came to me proclaiming lots of good works performed in hopes of saving your own ass, then I’d be pissed. You see? The only reason you helped people was because you feared hell.

So if you seek to save your ass, you’ll burn, because the only reason you’re doing anything is to save your ass. So salvation cannot be about works and the only way to screw it up is to try to fix it.

You are saved by grace, through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast.

Panetheism seems to be god existing as the universe + some other substrate of god that for some reason is not part of the universe. Makes no sense to me because all things are connected, and if they are not connected, then they don’t exist relative to each other and cannot interact.

One can’t exist without the other. Waves exist as waves only because particles exist as particles.

You’re assuming some things are inherently good or bad. That is arrogance because there is no way for anyone to take an objective view of the universe in order to draw conclusions about absolute truth. From the humanist point of view, family values may be considered a good thing, but that view assumes the propagation of the species is a good thing and that they know best how to achieve it. It could be the case that the State being “husband and father of last resort” is actually better for the species than relying on traditions. It could be that the breakdown of the family is best for humanity, but who can say for sure? Only the arrogant can be sure.

Why reinvent the wheel? Listen to everything Bart Erhman has to say first.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOPd80FN2ew[/youtube]

Greatest U R wrote:

Where did this come from? Life came to earth from space…

For evolution to occur a massive amount of new genetic information has to come from somewhere. Space?

According to the theory of evolution it takes longer - hundreds of millions of years, but an extension of time does not change the science.

There is no known law of physics able to create information from nothing.

So where does this leave evolution?

It is a wish theory for those scientists who wish to maintain a purely mechanical model for our existence.

When evolution makes bacteria resistant to antibiotics, where does the information to make them resistant come from?

Serendipper wrote:

We should all be concerned about the impact of antibiotic use in producing a new breed of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are causing food poisoning epidemics around the world.

The theory of evolution does not provide a plausible explanation of our origins, and that the geological and paleontological data do not support evolution over long periods of time, but rather imply catastrophism, which is consistent with the Genesis account.

Serendipper wrote:

Joyce Meyer is a Word of Faith Charismatic / New Age teacher who preaches along the lines of Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Fred Price, Charles Capp, Benny Hinn.

Some of her most serious heresies:

Jesus tortured in hell, Jesus first born again man, Jesus became sin on the cross and stopped being the son of God, our sins atoned in hell and not on the cross, etc., and

Joyce Meyer teaches that she is sinless. :mrgreen:

But you didn’t answer the question. Where did the info come from to make bacteria resistant to antibiotics?

I suppose making people arrogant is the purpose of religion.

Serendipper wrote:

Serendipper I am not a scientist, are you? Nevertheless, I think you may have an opinion on this ‘bacteria resistant’ topic and I am interested to read what you have to say, in the meantime I will do some reading up on it.

Let’s us get down to the nitty gritty.

She mis-quotes scripture and she knows no one will actually check to see if what she is quoting really lines up to the truth.

Why do false teachers always come up with such clever means of deceiving people? Because she is actually very clever and knows exactly how to stop you from thinking for yourself.

The perfect example of this is the vid you provided. “Quit asking and you won’t be confused”

You’re not a mathematician but you know 2+2=4 right?

Antibiotic resistance happens when at least one bacteria is a little different from the rest and that difference, which ordinarily wouldn’t confer any advantage in survival and may even be a disadvantage, suddenly becomes a huge advantage when the antibiotics kill all the bacteria except for that one. So the lone survivor reproduces and now all the bacteria are resistant to the antibiotics.

It works the same with weeds and herbicide. We spray farm fields with herbicide and one weed isn’t bothered by it, so it survives and reproduces and now none of the weeds are bothered by herbicides.

It can work in your garden too. If you pull weeds then weeds that have a long taproot have an advantage, so all you accomplish is teaching the weeds how to resist you pulling them by growing longer taproots that you can’t pull.

That is how evolution works. Random changes result in new advantages when the environment changes. The information doesn’t come from anywhere, but is a random happening.

Deer have long legs because predators chase them. Long legs are not an advantage because they break easy, but if predators chase them, then long legs are an advantage. If predators go away, then long-legged deer have a disadvantage. If predators return, then short-legged deer have a disadvantage.

If deer run fast, then predators have to get smarter. If deer are easy to catch, then having smarts is no advantage.

I don’t know of any 2 people who interpret the bible the same way. What is the truth? Everyone thinks they have the truth.

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Proverbs 14:12

She has no interest in truth, but only in constructing a fantasy world to inhabit and insisting everyone else play along.

Serendipper wrote:

Simple? Far from it. A single cell is extremely complicated, look up (I did) the components of a simple cell and you then only begin to understand it’s very complexity.

A living organism cannot arise by chance from nonliving matter.

Your examples show the loss of genetic information did not lead to a new type of organism just a new variant of the same type of organism. Different types of environmental effects can trigger the natural selection process, using existing genetic information.

With your plant example, this technique of destroying genetic information to produce traits has been used by plants breeders for years. However once again, in these cases we are dealing with the loss of preexisting genetic information.

No new genetic information has been created.

With the bacteria it is simply the transfer of preexisting genetic information from one organism to another. It can produce a new strain of an organism but not a new type of organism.

That is, new types of organisms cannot evolve by random mutations.

Complexity is evidence of an iterating process such as evolution.

There is no such thing as nonliving matter.

I didn’t intend it to.

Natural selection doesn’t use genetic information; it uses random mutations in genetic information to select advantageous changes.

So I have less genetic information than grandpa?

Hopefully you don’t really believe that.

Antibiotic resistant bacteria are not a new type of organism, but a new type of the same organism.

Observed Instances of Speciation talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

More scienceforums.net/topic/135 … peciation/

Some of this discussion reminds me of Jesus’ parable of Tares and Wheat.

Greatest called me a liar.

Teach me about morality in evolutionary biology.

The supernatural has imprisoned your ability to think differently. Teach me about empirical ideologies.

Call me a homophobe, phobia is based on irrational fears. Use your reason brother.

You all reach for a first cause without accepting the absence of this finite knowledge forever.

1 Corinthians 11:31

The thing about the Tares and Wheat is that it makes a strong case to take any part of the Bible as potential Tare. The Bible is very much like a field that has been sown by many people, and we have no reason to assume they were all guided by God, or interpreted God correctly. Unless we trust our intuition, and not just the Bible, to an EXTREMELY high degree.

So we have this mixed field, this mish mash of texts, some of it wheat, some of it Tares. We must decide, based on our own intuition, how much to accept and what to reject. Because reading the Bible and even more importantly acting from the Bible, are acts of Harvesting.

So what do you burn from the Bible, Venture?

Certainly the implicit acceptance of slavery, right?

It’s not my responsibility to discern what to burn.

I hate the slavery of humans, the building of inflated empires on the backs of dehumanized sojourners and captives. Unfortunately, technology and worldly lusts have enslaved most humans today. Taking out any implicit mentioning of slavery in the Bible will not fix the problem of slavery. The evil one corrupted us all, and most of our wheat is poisoned.

Omissions of entire books and sets of books have been made in ancient history. Even in the recent translation transition between the Vulgate, the Septuagint manuscripts, and the Masoretic texts, to the KJV and ESV, I believe we’ve lost a lot of important teachings as well as rightfully discarded false prophecies and perverse accounts of God from those who misunderstood God. I don’t know how they discerned what to burn and what to keep so I’m sure someone can enlighten us.

We talk about discernment in the Christian Bible, but haven’t faced the issue of the Quran. I’m not entirely sure, but haven’t the Sikhs also made their holy text into an idol?

Slavery between humans was abolished in the West a couple centuries ago. That doesn’t mean it still doesn’t exist elsewhere, also appearing in the West in different forms. You are a slave to your worldview and spiritual being so be careful to choose the best one.

Jesus, if accurately portrayed in the parable you referred to - presumably because you think it is wise - seems to differ with you. It is the farmer’s duty to separate the Tares and Wheat. And he was not talking about farmers.

It is not an implicit mentioning, it is an acceptance of slavery. How one should treat a slave. The Bible could have said, free your slave. But it instead said to treat one’s slave in certain ways. You have decided, it seems, to not accept that acceptance of slavery and this is you burning some chaff.

But you do use The Bible as authority for some things. So you do separate wheat and tares.

This isn’t really responding to my post. I am raising the issue of how one determines what to accept and what to burn in the Bible. You have clearly accepted some parts of Biblical judgment and not others. Since you claim not to be sure how one does this, how can you judge others with such certainty, who accept different parts and do not accept others`?

I want to use the Bible as an authority for all things. I’m not of age nor learned enough to discern what to burn. It is the elders and teachers and parents responsibility to teach me as well as decide what to use and not to use, they muse sow what they reap. At least you rightfully discounted the literal interpretation of those discerning the burning as literal farmers, but who to you are the ones responsible? I’ve judge others wrongly because of my ignorance, I confess, I repent, I can’t read the Bible very quickly and grasp every doctrine overnight.

Can we accept that the mentioning of slavery is not implicit, but from your post, the acceptance of slavery is implicit? How would you go about burning those parts? Pose the question to me and I give you an uneducated answer and attack me personally for my arrogance and word choice, I question others and risk attacking them personally just by posing the question. How can you say the acceptance of slavery is implicit and then say the mentioning of slavery is plain and obvious? I’m scared to misquote and misinterpret the Bible, scared to offend people of other creeds and religions, and not in a phobic way, some sort of existential threat with regards to ideology.

That’s fine. It seemed from some of your posts you had accepted certain values from the Bible, ideas that might have been culturally obvous to the people of the time, but may not be real or loving to have now. I could be wrong. But it seemed like you were taking some portoins of the Bible as Wheat and then as a modern human, probably not taking the whole thing. There are also contradictions in both spirit and rules between the NT and the OT. If one uses the Bible as authority, then one still, even then must separate tares from wheat, even if one is not ready. One may not be sure, but one still has to chose. At the very least on the level of judging this or that as sinful.

The mentioning is right out in the open. The acceptance of slavery is implicit. The Bible tells us all sorts of things are evil. When it comes to slavery it merely says how one should treat one’s slaves. Even in those times, one had the option to free one’s slaves, but there is no suggestoin to do this. The omission is bizzarre if this was God talking. That God was OK with slavery is implicit.

That God is actually - rather than the writers of the Bible - OK with slavery is another matter.

What if the portions of the Bible against homosexuality are also just mistaken values held culturally. By people who perhaps even were in contact with God, doing their best to interpret what they heard and felt, but making errors through the filters of their culture.

Slavery is necessary from a certain point of view. We enslave animals and machines, but don’t consider it slavery unless other humans are put to the task of concentrating resources for the few who can then be free to concentrate on greater things. In ancient times this was probably more obvious than today in light of all our technology taking the place of slavery.

Slavery has always been a shortcut.

That’s a good way of putting it.