Artificial Life Created

monosharp · 25-05-2010 04:15AM

Festus wrote: »

Your making stuff up now and you got a plank in your eye.
The Bible describes our origin from the Big Bang to the evolution of life using symbolism.

Wow, thats a new one. Care to expand on that ?

philologos · 25-05-2010 07:53AM

Nick Dolan wrote: »

Its a straight forward statement. Had there been no church position on creation, there would have been no controversy. There is no Christian position on lasers or fibre optics for example. Scientists beaver away and if there ever needs to be such a position established Ive no doubt they will turn to scientists and ask whats the story. But this has/is not always the case

Nick would you mind addressing my last post which is relevant to this.

ISAW · 25-05-2010 09:09AM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

By "any lifeform we know of", you mean the one case where a scientist has done something like this.

No i mean any lifeforms anywhere at any stage in the history of the earth or any other planet in the universe.

What this shows is that a direct miracle from a supernatural being is not required for life to come from non-life.

It still requires intelligence from a superiour being - and where did that superiour being come from?

But let us accept that someone can spark chemicals in the lab and from that self replicating biological lifeforms can come into existance. that was ionot done in this case but let us accept it was done. So what? It does not mean God ws not involved in the creation of souls or in the creation of the laws of the universe. It does mean that God didnt create all lifeforms at the same time about 6000 years ago. But almost all christians would not accept that God did.

Many christians do not suggest this to be the case but many do and this breakthrough shows them to be wrong.

Literal biblical Creationism is contradicted by science. Whizz wow. Tell mainstream Christians something they don't know already!

It downgrades the assertion from "only a god can create life from non-life" to "it's very unlikely that this happened without a god", an assertion that it isn't really possible to make because without knowing what the condidtion were we have no idea how unlikely it might have beem.

Even before this the church didnt say that "only God created bacteria". Therir position would have been on human life being different in the sense of having a spirit or soul and that God was involved in this.

Again we're talking about disproving god. It is not possible to disprove a being that is defined in such a way as to be unfalsifiable. The point is that an inability to disprove something is not a reason to believe in it. There are an infinite number of things that cannot be disproved but which we nonetheless do not believe in because there is no good reason to.

including atheism?

ISAW · 25-05-2010 09:21AM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Ethics is not derivable from equations but it certainly is derivable without a god.

So let us be quite clear sam. You are saying that some things can be always wrong e.g. child abuse?

So you believe in "natural and constitutional justice"? There are "laws of nature" whether or not there is a God? But like God these secular natural laws aren't provable but are believed?

In fact it's not derivable with god since the world derivable suggests reason being applied to determine the best course of action and religious based morality is not based on reason,

WRONG! Christianity is grounded in reason or Greek "logos".

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

Derivable suggests there is something there to begin with and all flows from that - a first mover

it's based on obeying the orders of an unquestionable authority figure who declares things to be immoral even though there may be no discernable reason why this should be the case.

No you seem to be confusing yourself with "Ex cathedra" announcements of Papal infallibility something introduced only about 150 years ago and used only ONCE since!

ISAW · 25-05-2010 09:26AM

Jakkass wrote: »

Nick would you mind addressing my last post which is relevant to this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/03/world/europe/03iht-vat.html?_r=1

You can't win this one. If the Church says they agree with science he will still criticise you for agreeing with the Authority of the church when it is right. If the church didn't agree with science then he would say the church was wrong and you blindly followed it. If science subsequently changed their position it is part of their "system of discovery" but if the church changes position for example on slavery it "shows they were wrong all along and science was right"

But in fact as you pointed out the church has had principles about child abuse since the Earliest of days and has discussed creationism over a millennium before Darwin was born.

ISAW · 25-05-2010 09:29AM

monosharp wrote: »

Wow, thats a new one. Care to expand on that ?

It isnt new it is centuries old. go and read the Early church fathers if you dont believe it and illuminate your ignorance.

PDN · 25-05-2010 10:00AM

ISAW wrote: »

It isnt new it is centuries old. go and read the Early church fathers if you dont believe it and illuminate your ignorance.

That is correct. Since the very earliest days of the Church there have been prominent theologians and teachers who have seen Genesis a symbolic description of the distant past (couched in terms that would not just bamboozle people who lived centuries ago and had no concept of many of the principles involved).

So, for example, the Bible asserts that the universe had a beginning. This is pretty unique among ancient religions and worldviews, most of which posited a pre-existing universe populated by a multitude of deities. Indeed, it is only in the last 50 years that the majority of cosmologists have accepted that the universe had a beginning.

The order of development of life as given in the Bible matches that which most scientists now subscribe to, even though the biblical authors had no way (other than revelation) of knowing this to be true. So we have the creation of plant life, followed by aquatic life, followed by various forms of animal life, followed by humankind.

The Bible even gives a time scale of when these events occurred. Of course the first readers of Genesis had no idea of the relativity of time, or of logarithms, so the timescale is described in ways that they would understand - 6 days. But, with our understanding today of an expanding universe and of the relativity of time (something that the Bible first referred to in 2 Peter 3:8 and Einstein finally caught up with 1900 years later) the Biblical time scale matches closely our current understanding concerning the date of the Big Bang, the explosion of life in the Cambrian period, and the development of human civilisation in the Fertile Crescent.

Ultimately, of course, the Bible is not a scientific textbook - and it would be wrong to treat it as such. But the little it does tell us, in highly symbolic language, about creation becomes more understandable the more we learn about our universe.

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 12:22PM

The presence of atheists reinforces my faith and leads me to new and wonderful places where the truth can be found - usually the Bible or the sermon at a service. Occasionally gems fall out of the interweb.

for your appreciation...

a challenge
to an atheist professor

P.Z. Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, was a little upset by my PullThePlugOnAtheism.com website. He called it “pathetic, fallacious, foolish, counterfactual, weird, and sexist.” This is because I simply said, “An atheist is someone who believes that nothing created everything.”

The statement is a huge dilemma for the professor, because he knows that only a fool could believe the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything. He can’t say that the universe is eternal, because he knows that it's not. So he is left with the predicament of having to admit that something created everything. Professor Myers believes in a Creator of some sort; he just doesn’t know its identity. He may be a professor of atheism, but he is in truth just an agnostic.

So he defaults to the predictable “Well, who made God then?” This is what he said:

“And of course, he doesn't bother with this problem: who made God? I can guess how he'd respond: there was no ‘who,’ and God wasn't ‘made.’ At which time we do a little judo move and point out that the universe wasn't ‘made,’ by a ‘who,’ either.”

Here now is a big mystery. He doesn’t know how the universe got here, but he somehow knows that the Creator wasn’t a “who.” How does he know that? Does he have some inside information? I would like to hear it. Bring it on Professor Myers. How do you know that a “who” wasn’t involved in creation? Explain yourself. I'm calling your bluff. Even Richard Dawkins knows better. He’s a little more careful with his wording, with his: “Why There Almost Certainly is no God.”

source

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 12:30PM

apologies if this is off topic but since we are talking about the creation of artificial life it occurred to me that atheism is a totally illogical fallacy with no scientific support.

Science says - the universe was created
atheists say - there is no creator

logic says if science says the universe was created there must be a creator.

atheists say - there is no answer to that and puff into non-existence.*

*this happens to all atheists when they die.

Zombrex · 25-05-2010 12:36PM

There is no scientific impossibly that nothing created everything.

"Nothing" creates things all the time, you can see this in a laboratory, it is called zero point field. While this space contains nothing it isn't empty. Particles spring into existence and then out of existence constantly. Nothing is creating something

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_field

Weird, no?

It is a good example of how human intuition as to what the universe should be like has little bearing on what the universe is actually like.

And a good reason not to appeal to human "common sense" when trying to figure out questions about the universe then, don't you agree?

studiorat · 25-05-2010 12:39PM

StealthRolex wrote: »

Science says - the universe was createdHappened
atheists say - there is most likely no creator

logic The theist says if science says the universe was created there must be a creator.

atheists say - there is no answer to that and puff into non-existence.*

*this happens to all atheists when they die.

How's that?

Zombrex · 25-05-2010 12:41PM

StealthRolex wrote: »

apologies if this is off topic but since we are talking about the creation of artificial life it occurred to me that atheism is a totally illogical fallacy with no scientific support.

Science says - the universe was created
atheists say - there is no creator

Firstly science does not say the universe was created.

People who have trouble understanding the mathematical concepts of the Big Bang (which is understandable) say the universe was created.

Science says time started at the Big Bang and thus a creation event (a point in time where the Big Bang was created or made) is the wrong concept to think about when thinking about the Big Bang.

Secondly atheists do not say there was no creator, atheists reject theists claims that there was and what this creator is like as having no bearing on reality because they are, in all probability, human inventions.

StealthRolex wrote: »

logic says if science says the universe was created there must be a creator.

Human logic has spend the last 100 years being shown to be rather silly by the discoveries in quantum physics.

One would do well not to put much faith in human logic when it comes to this issues.

For example it is mathematically possible that the universe "created" itself backwards in time. Weird? Very. Impossible? Nope

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 12:46PM

Why does a quantum vacuum turn into a universe?

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 12:57PM

Wicknight wrote: »

Firstly science does not say the universe was created.

People who have trouble understanding the mathematical concepts of the Big Bang (which is understandable) say the universe was created.

Science says time started at the Big Bang and thus a creation event (a point in time where the Big Bang was created or made) is the wrong concept to think about when thinking about the Big Bang.

Secondly atheists do not say there was no creator, atheists reject theists claims that there was and what this creator is like as having no bearing on reality because they are, in all probability, human inventions.

Human logic has spend the last 100 years being shown to be rather silly by the discoveries in quantum physics.

One would do well not to put much faith in human logic when it comes to this issues.

For example it is mathematically possible that the universe "created" itself backwards in time. Weird? Very. Impossible? Nope

from wiki
"Georges Lemaître, a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, although he called it his "hypothesis of the primeval atom".

"The Big Bang is a scientific theory, and as such is dependent on its agreement with observations. But as a theory which addresses the origins of reality, it has always carried theological and philosophical implications. In the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady state Universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady state theory. This perception was enhanced by the fact that the originator of the Big Bang theory, Monsignor Georges Lemaître, was a Roman Catholic priest. Pope Pius XII, declared at the November 22, 1951 opening meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that the Big Bang theory accorded with the Catholic concept of creation."

Lemaître termed the event the "big noise". Astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, who disliked the idea, designated the creation event "Big Bang", which he considered to be an ugly name. See Op. cit. Ferris 1988, p. 211, 436, citing The Los Angeles Times. January 12, 193

Where did the big bang primeval atom come from?

Why did the big bang happen?

Zombrex · 25-05-2010 12:58PM

PDN wrote: »

The order of development of life as given in the Bible matches that which most scientists now subscribe to, even though the biblical authors had no way (other than revelation) of knowing this to be true. So we have the creation of plant life, followed by aquatic life, followed by various forms of animal life, followed by humankind.

I imagine you are getting that from The Genesis Enigma, or from one of the many Christian sites that have ran with this idea, but it is actually quite inaccurate.

The first life were bacteria. The Bible is "correct" that plants came before animals but they weren't land vegetation as the Bible describes, they lived in the seas.

The Bible describes this vegetation as including seed bearing plants and trees. These came long after animal life. The Bible also describes plant life being produced before the Sun, which is nonsensical since all life requires the Sun.

God then produces sea creatures and birds at the same time. This doesn't match biological life on Earth, birds were a late addition coming after land animals.

Zombrex · 25-05-2010 12:58PM

StealthRolex wrote: »

Why does a quantum vacuum turn into a universe?

Why does God exist?

Zombrex · 25-05-2010 01:00PM

StealthRolex wrote: »

Where did the big bang primeval atom come from?

Why did the big bang happen?

That was my point, we don't know.

Saying things like "it must have had a cause" is currently unfounded assumptions. We know practically nothing about the "cause" of the Big Bang, or even if "cause" is the right concept to use.

Saying "God did it" does not increase our understanding. I'm sure Christians if they thought about it would realize this too, since you guys don't actually know if this was actually what God did or if he did something previous or higher up to this, which is probably what you will claim if we ever do discover a natural cause for the Big Bang and you are forced, like so many before you, to re-evaluate what you think God did and when.

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 01:10PM

Wicknight wrote: »

Firstly science does not say the universe was created.

The universe had a beginning. Science says so. Creation is a convenient English word that can also mean beginning.

If the universe had a beginning then at some point prior to that beginning the universe did not exist.
Then it existed and it began.

if you don't like the word creation what other word is there.

Venters "artificial life" did not exist at one point. Then it did. It had a beginning. Venters team "created" it. (although Venter says he did not create "life")

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 01:12PM

Wicknight wrote: »

Why does God exist?

Because He is, was and always will be.

Zombrex · 25-05-2010 01:18PM

StealthRolex wrote: »

The universe had a beginning. Science says so. Creation is a convenient English word that can also mean beginning.

No, creation is a convenient English word that means something was created.

Science does not say the universe was created, it says it began. In every day usage due to common sense we assume that something that began had a cause and possibly a creation. That doesn't hold for the universe (see below)

StealthRolex wrote: »

If the universe had a beginning then at some point prior to that beginning the universe did not exist.

That is the point. As far as the theory of the Big Bang is concerned time also began at the Big Bang.

So there is no point "prior" to that beginning because time itself didn't exist, at least not to our current understanding. Thinking of "before" the Big Bang is therefore nonsensical in terms of the theory. A point when the universe didn't exist is nonsensical, even though it has a beginning.

Everything breaks down at the Big Bang. Variable go to infinity.

This is hard if not impossible for a human to imagine because we only know reality in the context of a time line. We only know this from what the mathematics of the theory tell us, and few fully understand that either (I certainly don't)

Zombrex · 25-05-2010 01:19PM

StealthRolex wrote: »

Because He is, was and always will be.

That is not an answer to the question I asked.

Why does God exist rather than not exist. Who decided that would be the way things are and for what reason?

studiorat · 25-05-2010 01:24PM

StealthRolex wrote: »

Why does a quantum vacuum turn into a universe?

Are you so sure that it actually does?

Sam Vimes · 25-05-2010 01:41PM

ISAW wrote: »

No i mean any lifeforms anywhere at any stage in the history of the earth or any other planet in the universe.

I'm not sure of your point here....

ISAW wrote: »

It still requires intelligence from a superiour being - and where did that superiour being come from?

I pointed out the difference between "intelligence was applied in this case" and "intelligence must be applied for this to happen" and you said this was a fair point. Now you're saying it requires intelligence. what is your basis for saying it requires intelligence?

ISAW wrote: »

But let us accept that someone can spark chemicals in the lab and from that self replicating biological lifeforms can come into existance. that was ionot done in this case but let us accept it was done. So what? It does not mean God ws not involved in the creation of souls or in the creation of the laws of the universe. It does mean that God didnt create all lifeforms at the same time about 6000 years ago. But almost all christians would not accept that God did.

Even before this the church didnt say that "only God created bacteria". Therir position would have been on human life being different in the sense of having a spirit or soul and that God was involved in this.

You keep on talking about proving god didn't do x, y and z and disproving the existence of god but as I already said this is logically impossible because your god is defined as being unfalsifiable. If a scientist shows that there is a natural process by which life can arise and someone comes along and says that, even though the natural explanation works just fine, the supernatural being that they believe in had an unknown, unspecified, undefined and undetectable involvement in this process then there is no way that anyone can prove them wrong.

It's no different to saying that even though Newtons laws and Quantum mechanics explain gravity quite well, that what's actually happening is god is directly intervening to pull us all down. There is absolutely no way that anyone can prove that statement to be false but the question is: is there any reason to accept this to be the case? When we have a perfectly natural explanation for something why posit the involvement of a supernatural being who doesn't appear to be performing any function?

ISAW wrote: »

including atheism?

I'm getting the impression that you're one of the great many theists who defines atheism as "the belief in no god". That is quite an irrational position to hold, any proponent of that position is saying something about the nature of the universe that they cannot possibly know, just like a theist. But you will find that the majority of people who identify themselves as atheists do not actually hold that position. Let me explain through an analogy:

Someone comes to me and says that they know what next weeks lotto numbers are going to be. Your idea of atheism here would be for me to say "you're wrong, those aren't the numbers that will come up" but by saying that I would be saying that I also have some knowledge of what the numbers are going to be. My response would actually be "You cannot possibly know what numbers will come up and so I do not believe your claim". That is not to say that his numbers won't come up, they have as much chance of coming up as any other combination, but if his numbers do come up it will be nothing more than a coincidence.

In the case of religion, I have no idea if there is a god or not. There may well be some kind of intelligent being out there somewhere and there is absolutely no way I can say otherwise. The point is that I find the arguments that are used to justify belief in one specific god to be extremely poor, riddled with fuzzy thinking, logical fallacies, special pleading, confirmation bias etc etc etc. When someone says something along the lines of "the christian god exists", my response is not "no he doesn't" as most theists seem to think, it's "you cannot possibly know that the christian god exists and so I do not believe your claim". The christian god might well exist but the argumentation and more importantly the evidence that is used to support this assertion is severely lacking and so I do not accept it. This does not mean that I take the opposite position of "christian god does not exist" as many theists seem to think; not accepting someone's position and taking the opposite position are two different things.

So ISAW, since my position is simply that you have not provided sufficient evidence to support your position, the only way to "disprove" my position is to prove yours.

ISAW wrote: »

So let us be quite clear sam. You are saying that some things can be always wrong e.g. child abuse?

So you believe in "natural and constitutional justice"? There are "laws of nature" whether or not there is a God? But like God these secular natural laws aren't provable but are believed?

What is "always wrong" is that which harms another living being for no overriding reason. tell me ISAW, can you not think of any reason whatsoever not to slit your neighbour's throat and steal his wallet other than "because the bible says not to"? Go on, give it a shot. Try to think of a reason not to rape your daughter that does not provide as its sole basis "an unquestionable authority figure says I shouldn't". I bet you can think of lots, just like every other sane human being.

ISAW wrote: »

Christianity is grounded in reason or Greek "logos".

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

Derivable suggests there is something there to begin with and all flows from that - a first mover

No you seem to be confusing yourself with "Ex cathedra" announcements of Papal infallibility something introduced only about 150 years ago and used only ONCE since!

I'm not talking about Papal authority, I'm talking about divine authority. The basis of christian morality is that what is wrong is what god says is wrong. There is no reason applied to that statement. There may be reason applied to find out what exactly it is god is saying but the basis for christian morality is an argument from authority. God does not say "thou shalt not kill because.....", he simply says "thou shalt not kill", end of story and anyone who disagrees is automatically wrong. There is no debate

ISAW wrote: »

WRONG!

I asked you to stop that. It's rude, unnecessary and not conducive to debate and I will not continue if it does.

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 01:42PM

Wicknight wrote: »

The Bible also describes plant life being produced before the Sun, which is nonsensical since all life requires the Sun.

I think you will find that light was created first, before anything else. It helps to actually read the Bible. There are online versions of you don't have a hard copy.
And read it symbolically, as already mentioned.

The Sun and Moon are mentioned later but this ties in with the development of light sensing organs

Wicknight wrote: »

God then produces sea creatures and birds at the same time. This doesn't match biological life on Earth, birds were a late addition coming after land animals.

He created sea creatures first and then flying creatures. have you never seen a fish fly?

Which came first the flying dinosaur or the bird?
Furthermore is the fossil record complete?

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 01:42PM

studiorat wrote: »

Are you so sure that it actually does?

Wicknight is

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 01:48PM

Wicknight wrote: »

The first life were bacteria. The Bible is "correct" that plants came before animals but they weren't land vegetation as the Bible describes, they lived in the seas.

Still being literal with the Bible. A sea grass is not grass but seaweed. it's green and lives in the sea. See.
If it helps ask yourself if the shoreline is land or sea.

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 02:09PM

Wicknight wrote: »

That is not an answer to the question I asked.

Why does God exist rather than not exist. Who decided that would be the way things are and for what reason?

God exists because He exists. Any other answer is beyond human comprehension. God decides how things are and has His reasons.

Are you really questioning something you profess to have no belief in?

If so then we are making progress.

We ask where life came from. Science has no answer.
We ask what started life. Science has no answer.
We ask why the universe is here. Science has no answer.
We ask why life began. Science has no answer.

Even if we ask how did life begin, science can only hypothesize.

You suggest nothing can create something and can only manage a quantum example, which in itself is not nothing, not empty but contains something.

wiki

"According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space",[1] and again: "it is a mistake to think of any physical vacuum as some absolutely empty void."[2] According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence."

1 Astrid Lambrecht (Hartmut Figger, Dieter Meschede, Claus Zimmermann Eds.) (2002). Observing mechanical dissipation in the quantum vacuum: an experimental challenge; in Laser physics at the limits. Berlin/New York: Springer. p. 197. ISBN 3540424180.
2 Christopher Ray (1991). Time, space and philosophy. London/New York: Routledge. Chapter 10, p. 205. ISBN 0415032210.
3 AIP Physics News Update,1996
4 Physical Review Focus Dec. 1998
5 a b Walter Dittrich & Gies H (2000). Probing the quantum vacuum: perturbative effective action approach. Berlin: Springer. ISBN 3540674284.

Clearly something cannot come from nothing.

My earlier point stands - something cannot come from nothing. Not even in the quantum world.

So where did even these tiniest of somethings come from?

If the atheist position is that God is highly improbably and science suggests that the spontaneous generation of life is highly improbably (Crick (co-discoverer of DNA), in Life Itself, says that the probability of life's chance origin simply defies calculation.) are atheists not then the casinos favourite type of gambler?

Sam Vimes · 25-05-2010 02:10PM

StealthRolex wrote: »

God exists because He exists. Any other answer is beyond human comprehension. God decides how things are and has His reasons.

What's wrong with "the universe because it exists"?

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 02:13PM

Wicknight wrote: »

This is hard if not impossible for a human to imagine because we only know reality in the context of a time line. We only know this from what the mathematics of the theory tell us, and few fully understand that either (I certainly don't)

So who can understand it?

We are humans, the highest form of life that we know of (in the natural world). We understand the natural laws, the phyiscal laws, even some quantum laws. Why then is there something we do not understand. Where did all this complexity come from and why?

StealthRolex · 25-05-2010 02:14PM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

What's wrong with "the universe because it exists"?

Because that does not answer wicknights questions.

The universe had a beginning. Why?

Artificial Life Created

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