Just this simple fact of life is proof of God....

by EndofMysteries 95 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  rawe

  Hi Jgnat,

  "Without resorting to "God did it", is there a scientific explanation how the first life might have come to be?"

  I have read The Spark of Life by Christopher Wills and Jeffery Bada plus several shorter articles on the subject. From all that I can tell the answer for now is we don't know. But that doesn't mean we don't anything at all. For example, I know this might seem obvious, but... we know life did not always exist on Earth. There was a time that Earth was completely sterile. We also know that in general "Origin of..." questions are very difficult when we lack examples of similar events. For example, we know the Earth is here and must have had some origin, but there are still some pretty big and unanswered questions about planetary formation. Such events just don't happen often enough closeby for us to figure them out. Likewise the origin of the universe itself is, to us, a single event in the very remote past that will probably always prevent us from knowing the exact how and why.

  Some articles I have read suggest an RNA-only world likely existed before DNA. Indeed DNA is incredibly useful for stable storage and transmission of information across generations. But without translation via RNA it is rather useless to actual life function. Please, anyone more educated in this, don't hesitate to jump in and correct any mistake notions I might have. It is entirely possible I've misunderstood some that I've read on the subject.

  We also know that all objects that are the result of intelligent design are not life-like, in that they don't self-replicate. A gopher hole is the result of ID, but the hole by itself doesn't reproduce. Likewise a TV is the result of ID, but again doesn't self-reproduce. It is of course possible that a sufficiently advanced intelligence could use ID to create a self-replicating system. In fact people are working on that (Lord help us if ever such things go amok). I think this difference between ID-systems and self-replicating systems is important to this argument, because... ID is invoked to overcome some barrier nature by itself could not overcome. But... one would assume the barrier would remain even after the initial creative act. Thus if one says, free oxygen would destroy initial life, it means the designer cannot just create life, but he must coddle it along to prevent a natural demise.

  Alas, history shows natural demise of life forms is the general rule on earth. Even species that have managed to survive for millions of years, up and go extinct.

  Finally, there is no reason to believe humans are special in this regard. Earth cannot last forever and this is the only viable place for us to live. Even if our ancestors were to find a way to leave Earth and live in a spaceship or on some distant planet, inevitably evolution would take over and such creatures would become a new species.

  Cheers,

  -Randy
• 

  BackseatDevil

  @rawe I don't know. The concept of "god" was (we will say for argument's sake) intelligently designed and it has not only self-replicated, but has also subdivided and mutated with each tenticle taking on a complete life of its own.

  L. Ron Hubbard certainly created something (again "intelligent" is loosely used) that has also self-replicated, mutated, and grown into a very complex web of scheme and money.

  NYU scientists with Caltech have created self-replicating synthetic materials and scientists with J. Craig Venter Institute synthetic life... both using man-made DNA.

  Just to name three examples.
• 

  rawe

  Hi BackseatDevil,

  Ideas ('memes') certainly can be created, mutate and self-replicate. However, such depend on an already biological living thing -- the human brain. The NYU reference is interesting. How synthetic and man-made was the DNA? To me this will be the key to unravelling how life must have started. If we can in a lab start with basic chemical compounds and build towards RNA and/or DNA base pairs that can self-replicate then we should be able to layout a plausible scenerio for how it worked in nature. Of course some of what is called synthetic life often is a matter of simply re-writing aspects of existing DNA sequences.

  Cheers,

  -Randy
• 

  prologos

  randy rawe: thank you for the clear thoughts, detailed beyond my thinking ability.

  Our ancestors must have had the build-in ability to do the right thing, create and survive the conditions that developed and that were required to have us here.

  Only if they are in some way alive in us today and will be in the future, will they/we become new species after having left this failing planet in spaceships.

  we know you meant descendants, not ancestors that would be pushing the envelope to have us survive in new (not wt) worlds.

  If someone developed a paternity test showing that life must have had an origin beyond known chemical/environmental conditions & possibilities, would that

  end of the God/Creator vs self-generating debate?
• 

  rawe

  Hi Prologos,

  "We know you meant descendants, not ancestors that would be pushing the envelope to have us survive in new (not wt) worlds. If someone developed a paternity test showing that life must have had an origin beyond known chemical/environmental conditions & possibilities, would that."

  Thanks! -- Yes, our "descendants", not ancestors ;-)

  As I understand it evolution tends to create new species when members of species somehow get separated and subject to different environmental/selective pressures. Each child born is of course of the same species as it's parents. However, it is not an exact copy. In fact a child's DNA is 50% from the father and 50% from the mother. And because two parent forms of DNA within the father recombined when sperm was formed and likewise in the eggs inside the mother, even the 50% is not an exact match sequence-wise from each parent. Although a smaller sequence of mtDNA from inherited from the mother only is in most cases identical or near identical. If DNA transcription were perfect we would all have Eve's mtDNA so-to-speak.

  Thus my four daughters are one evolutionary generation distant from me and are of course of the same species (humans). But there is no biological reason or barrier that we can detect that would suggest the parent-to-child rule about same species would need apply across more distant relatives.

  One form of separation that is the most obvious is geographical. Indeed this seems to have been a big driver in terms of new species and is the reason why isolated places like Madagascar sport unique life. It is also why it would be reasonable to believe that if humans ever were to terraform Mars, eventually Martians would evolve into a new species unable to reproduce with humans from Earth.

  A second form of separation is time. At first I had not considered this, but now it seems so obvious! Successful life forms tend to put a lot of energy into reproduction. If it is sexual production all sorts of mate selection schemes seems to have developed. Even to point of being ridiculous, such as how much energy and time goes into the tail feathers of a peacock. But selecting the very best mate really is that important. But... one cannot mate across time barriers. One just cannot select a mate 100 years in the past or future. Thus while the survival of a species depends on evolution not being too rapid, you wouldn't want just a couple generations of New Yorkers to be unable to mate with those from LA, it is not of ultimate importance.

  Cheers,

  -Randy
• 

  70wksfyrs

  Can life come from something non-living? Is the theory of abiogenesis a proven fact? If not will it be proven in time?

  To a theist the answer to these questions will simply be, now we have discovered how God created life.

  To atheist the answer will be, now we have proof and evidence God did not create life.

  My view is that whatever science discovers there will always be a majority of atheists and minority of theists. What a person believes about the existance of God after learning the science rarely changes. Many Christians become atheists for other reasons than scientific proof, there is usually more to their convertion than soley scientific knowledge. Einstien believed in God probably because of when he lived not what he discovered. I still cannot comprehend the complexities of E=mc2, I have studied it at length and concede Einstien had a higher IQ than me and he stated "God did not roll the dice with the universe"

  My view also is that science, evolution and God will always be mutually exclusive to athiests and NOT mutually exclusive to theists. Only JWs think they are mutually exclusive and how many JW's are closet atheists?