How the Smallest Cells Give Big Evidence for a Creator

Subduction Zone said:

Yes.

Click to expand...

Examples?

Christodoulos said:

The Bible very clearly tell us exactly how it all began. And there is NO other explanation to rebut this claim. You won't say because you cannot say, or are afraid to do so, which is normally the case for those who deny Creation.

Click to expand...

Show me that the Bible is an authority on this topic, since you claim that it is.

Christodoulos said:

would you ever be humble enough to say you don't know, and that the Bible could well be right?

Click to expand...

I for one, already have. Can you be humble enough to say you don't know and the Bible could well be wrong?

Christodoulos said:

you don't know, could the Bible's Account then be right?

Click to expand...

Depends on the interpretation. There are many interpretations which cannot be right.

Christodoulos said:

not for those who believe in annihilation!

Click to expand...

For me, annihilation is terrifying. More terrifying than the hell you believe in.

Christodoulos said:

we are here talking about Mr Flew and not anyone else. You made the statement that this self-confessed atheist, who was supposed to have been the "biggest" in the world, changed his mind because he was afraid to die. Do you know this for a fact? Why would it seem incredible to you that he saw that he was wrong all his life, and then changed his mind because of what he read in the Holy Bible?

Click to expand...

No, we were not. You made it general, but if you want to discuss just Flew that is fine with me.

First off you need to quit believing the hype in book ads. Yes he was an atheist. He was hardly the Most Notorious". But as I said, he was old, getting near to death, and death is scary. He did not believe in hell. You can read about him here:

"
Conversion to deism[edit]
On several occasions, starting in 2001, rumors circulated claiming that Flew had converted from atheism to deism. Flew denied these rumours on the Secular Web website.[37]

In January 2004 Flew and Gary Habermas, his friend and philosophical adversary, took part in and conducted a dialogue on the resurrection at California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo. During a couple of telephone discussions shortly after that dialogue, Flew explained to Habermas that he was considering becoming a theist. While Flew did not change his position at that time, he concluded that certain philosophical and scientific considerations were causing him to do some serious rethinking. He characterized his position as that of atheism standing in tension with several huge question marks.[38]

In a 2004 interview (published 9 December), Flew, then 81 years old, said that he had become a deist.[39] In the article Flew states that he has renounced his long-standing espousal of atheism by endorsing a deism of the sort that Thomas Jefferson advocated ("While reason, mainly in the form of arguments to design, assures us that there is a God, there is no room either for any supernatural revelation of that God or for any transactions between that God and individual human beings"). Flew stated that "the most impressive arguments for God’s existence are those that are supported by recent scientific discoveries" and that "the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it". He also answered in the affirmative to Habermas's question, "So of the major theistic arguments, such as the cosmological, teleological, moral, and ontological, the only really impressive ones that you take to be decisive are the scientific forms of teleology?". He supported the idea of an Aristotelian God with "the characteristics of power and also intelligence", stating that the evidence for it was stronger than ever before. He rejected the idea of an afterlife, of God as the source of good (he explicitly states that God has created "a lot of" evil), and of the resurrection of Jesus as a historical fact, although he has allowed a short chapter arguing for Christ's resurrection to be added into his latest book.[39]

Flew was particularly hostile to Islam, and said it is "best described in a Marxian way as the uniting and justifying ideology of Arab imperialism."[39] In a December 2004 interview he said: "I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins"."

Antony Flew - Wikipedia

He did not think that your God existed.

Christodoulos said:

Examples?

Click to expand...

The Adam and Eve story, the flood, the cure for leprosy.

Christodoulos said:

your arguments are are therefore moot, as your own words testify that you really don't know what you believe, or don't believe, and yet you deny the God of the Bible!

Click to expand...

You presume much. I know exactly what I believe, I am simply stating that my opinion does not change what is. Nothing more.

Subduction Zone said:

Yes, but you failed to understand what is and what is not evidence even before that. I have made this offer to you in the past and I am making it again.

Click to expand...

Then stop offering and prove I don't understand evidence. What its it? 5 times I've asked now?

Subduction Zone said:

Now now, no false claims. That is technically flaming.

Click to expand...

More stalling I see, and threats on top of that. The levels they will stoop too...Oh my.

Tell you what, until you step up to the plate, stop stalling, deliver and stop just just "saying" you will, I'm just not going to be able to waste any more time on you. I've been very patient with you, asking time and time again, yet still nothing. And in return you have unfairly wasted mine and others time here.

Kenny'sID said:

Then stop offering and prove I don't understand evidence. What its it? 5 times I've asked now?



More stalling I see, and threats on top of that. The levels they will stoop too...Oh my.

Tell you what, until you step up to the plate, stop stalling, deliver and stop just just "saying" you will, I'm just not going to be able to waste any more time on you. I've been very patient with you, asking time and time again, yet still nothing. And in return you have unfairly wasted mine and others time here.

Click to expand...

I haven't stalled you have run away. Are you ready to learn yet? Any answer other than "Yes" means that you are still running away and therefore guilty of what you accuse others of.

Mark Corbett said:

I notice that in the first 29 comments those who disagree with the position of the OP have not interacted with any of the specific evidence in the OP.

Click to expand...

Alrighty, I read through your OP start to finish. I thought about doing a segment-by-segment response, but seems better to just summarize here based on what you wrote here.

1. A claim by scientists to have produced a cell which contains approximately the smallest POSSIBLE genome.

Click to expand...

The genome in question isn't necessarily the smallest possible genome ever. It happens to be the smallest one they created in this particular experiment. That doesn't preclude there being simpler possible genomes out there, it's just not something they've determined yet.

Furthermore, they are working backwards from a modern organism that is the product of over 4 billion years of evolutionary development. We don't know necessarily how representative M. mycoides nor their engineered cell would be relative to the earliest life on Earth.

2. An analysis which shows that evolution is woefully inadequate to produce such a cell.

Click to expand...

Not really. Nobody out in their right mind thinks that the first cellular life on Earth came together in one single swoop. This renders your probability calculations completely moot.

3. Explanations and analogies which show how the problems which evolution cannot solve are well solved if there is an Intelligent Designer.

Click to expand...

Well... no.

The null hypothesis for "This is how X evolved" is "X didn't evolve this way". It's NOT "therefore, DesignerDidIt".

As I stated way back at the beginning of this thread, that's merely an argument from incredulity. At no point have you demonstrated intelligent design.

Furthermore by inserting a designer as an answer you're not actually solving anything. Simply saying "DesignerDidIt" doesn't give us anything to work with. It doesn't explain who this designer was. It doesn't give us any mechanisms by which they did their design. And it doesn't give us a solution to where that designer came from.

Is essence, all you've done is plugged a gap in human knowledge by invoking a diety. Which is not unlike what humans have been doing throughout history. Don't know what the Sun is made of? It's a god. Don't know where lighting comes from? Angry god(s). Don't know where life come from? Some god made it. And so on...

It may give you an answer but it doesn't give you an explanation.

Mark Corbett said:

It only moves the problem to another planet.

Click to expand...

Sure, but invoking an arbitrary deity just moves the problem of origins to that deity.

Is there more evidence for super-intelligent aliens existing at least 4 billion years ago who were able to travel between stars than there is for God?

Click to expand...

While we don't have direct evidence of extra-terrestrial life, we do know it's possible to build space craft and send them to outer space and other planets. After all, we've done just that.

In fact, a big reason NASA sterilizes their spacecraft is precisely so we don't end up contaminating another world with life from Earth.

Namely, the fine-tuning of the laws of physics to produce a universe capable of sustaining advanced life. If these laws and physical constants were indeed fine tuned, that requires a Super-Powerful Being who existed BEFORE the big bang.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. We don't know if this is the only universe possible or one in a series of many universes. Furthermore a universe not capable of sustaining life wouldn't have life to begin with, so we wouldn't be around to talk about it.

Subduction Zone said:

Abiogenesis is not "taught" in bio textbooks. It is merely mentioned there is a huge difference.

Click to expand...

How exactly do you know that? That being since I work in Public Education. Do you? All one has to do is look at any high school biology textbook and find the chapter dealing with origin of life.
To Teach or Not to Teach? | Religion & Politics
''A second example occurred when we were when dealing with the area of social studies, and particularly American History. I made a motion that I thought would be benign and universally accepted. I dared to suggest that students fully understand the Declaration of Independence, including its substantive terms, such as unalienable rights, self-evident truths and the laws of nature and nature’s God. I received numerous complaints, even from history professors at the college level, demanding that I “stop injecting my religious ideologies into our children’s textbooks.” I responded that they should thoroughly review our Declaration, as those were not my terms, but rather those of Jefferson and our Founding Fathers. The point is not the lack of understanding of our Declaration, although that appears to be tragically lacking. The point is that if having students study the Declaration of Independence at more than just a cursory level constitutes religious instruction, as apparently so does studying the complexity of the cell, it becomes apparent that in application, no subject matter is beyond being classified as objectionable religious material.''

And no, the Miller Urey experiment first tested the concept of "prebiotic soup" and it has been tested again and again and confirmed again and again.

Click to expand...

Not really. You are behind.

Wrong. I am all for the truth. I am for seeking the answers.

Click to expand...

You trying to convince me? Your posts indicate you are hostile to truth when it comes to origin of life and would readily accept any natural nonliving explanation no matter how preposterous. Your posts consist of hand-waving dismissals. That means evidence is outright rejected in favor of your atheistic convictions.

And yes, the fact that we are descended from other apes does tell us quite a bit about ourselves.

Click to expand...

That is faith. Like what?

dmmesdale said:

How exactly do you know that? That being since I work in Public Education. Do you? All one has to do is look at any high school biology textbook and find the chapter dealing with origin of life.
To Teach or Not to Teach? | Religion & Politics
''A second example occurred when we were when dealing with the area of social studies, and particularly American History. I made a motion that I thought would be benign and universally accepted. I dared to suggest that students fully understand the Declaration of Independence, including its substantive terms, such as unalienable rights, self-evident truths and the laws of nature and nature’s God. I received numerous complaints, even from history professors at the college level, demanding that I “stop injecting my religious ideologies into our children’s textbooks.” I responded that they should thoroughly review our Declaration, as those were not my terms, but rather those of Jefferson and our Founding Fathers. The point is not the lack of understanding of our Declaration, although that appears to be tragically lacking. The point is that if having students study the Declaration of Independence at more than just a cursory level constitutes religious instruction, as apparently so does studying the complexity of the cell, it becomes apparent that in application, no subject matter is beyond being classified as objectionable religious material.''
Not really. You are behind.
You trying to convince me? Your posts indicate you are hostile to truth when it comes to origin of life and would readily accept any natural nonliving explanation no matter how preposterous. Your posts consist of hand-waving dismissals. That means evidence is outright rejected in favor of your atheistic convictions.
That is faith. Like what?

Click to expand...

Abiogenesis is far too complex of a concept to be taught in a high school biology course. As I said, it is not "taught" but it is mentioned. Do you know the difference?


And your link did not help you at all. It seems to be from a very dishonest source. There is no "academic controversy" when it comes to the theory of evolution. It is about as solid of a scientific concept as exists.

And I am all for the truth. It is clearly the creationists that are against it. Sooner or later they either have to use dishonest tactics themselves or quote dishonest people.

And please, no false accusations about evidence. I have yet to meet a creationist that even has a firm grasp on the topic. I am more than willing to discuss what scientific evidence is. The reason that I am so anxious to do so is that once a creationist understands the concept he will see that there is no evidence for his side at all.

One more point, I am not the one that is behind on the Miller Urey experiment. I am betting that you are. In the Miller Urey experiment they used the atmosphere that they thought existed at the time that life first arose. That was later found not to be the case. Since then it has been repeated many times with different atmospheres. They continually found that the "building blocks of life" were naturally produced. In case you forgot creationists used to claim that not even amino acids were naturally forming. Since then Miller/Urey showed them to be wrong and even meteorites showed those creationists to be wrong.

I can provide links if needed.

Oh what the heck, one more point. Did the people that wanted to teach about how "God" was involved in the constitution want to discuss the facts that many founding fathers were Deists? In case you did not know deists believe in a God, but not the God of the Bible. They included such notables as Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Madison, and others. Many were nominally Christians, but their deistic beliefs were well known. Here is a list of desits for you. This list goes beyond just the founding fathers so you may need to comb through it a bit:

List of deists - Wikipedia

Subduction Zone said:

Abiogenesis is far too complex of a concept to be taught in a high school biology course. As I said, it is not "taught" but it is mentioned. Do you know the difference?

Click to expand...

Life from nonlife is fiction and you do not work in Public Education.

And your link did not help you at all. It seems to be from a very dishonest source. There is no "academic controversy" when it comes to the theory of evolution. It is about as solid of a scientific concept as exists.

Click to expand...

Right. The laws of physics are as solid as universal common descent and blind watchmaker evolution. There may be external compliance, but that is about it. The atheists have a stranglehold on it all, but it will not last forever. That is what blind watchmaker evolution is. The atheists counter and inferior explanation for origins.

It is clearly the creationists that are against it. Sooner or later they either have to use dishonest tactics themselves or quote dishonest people.

Click to expand...

Right all dissenters are liars, and the truth-tellers are the atheists who assert we came from apes and all life here is from nonlife based on blind faith. No evidence required.

And please, no false accusations about evidence.

Click to expand...

Life is evidence.

I have yet to meet a creationist that even has a firm grasp on the topic.

Click to expand...

Right, you are the expert.

I am more than willing to discuss what scientific evidence is.

Click to expand...

Where is your scientific evidence for life from nonlife?

The reason that I am so anxious to do so is that once a creationist understands the concept, he will see that there is no evidence for his side at all.

Click to expand...

Life is the evidence. Life needs a first cause. Based on all we know which is more reasonable given the two options? A living first cause or a nonliving first cause?

dmmesdale said:

Life is the evidence. Life needs a first cause. Based on all we know which is more reasonable given the two options? A living first cause or a nonliving first cause?

Click to expand...

If we're talking about the origin of life, isn't a "living first cause" a paradox?

dmmesdale said:

Life from nonlife is fiction and you do not work in Puiblic Education.

Click to expand...

Nope, even Bible literalists believe in life from non-life. The argument is on how it happened. You may not understand at all how abiogenesis may have happened, that does not make it a fiction. And one does not need to work in public education to know what is taught there.

Right. The laws of physics are as solid as universal common descent and blind watchmaker evolution. There may be external compliance, but that is about it. The atheists have a stranglehold on it all, but it will not last forever. That is what blind watchmaker evolution is. The atheists counter and inferior explanation for origins.

Click to expand...

What do you mean by "external compliance"? All of the evidence out there supports the theory of evolution. There is no evidence for creationism as of yet.

Right all dissenters are liars, and the truth-tellers are the atheists who assert we came from apes and all life here is from nonlife based on blind faith. No evidence required.

Click to expand...

No, you merely found a biased source. That you are an ape has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Life is evidence. Right, you are the expert. Where is your scientific evidence for life from nonlife? Life is the evidence. Life needs a first cause. Based on all we know which is more reasonable given the two options? A living first cause or a nonliving first cause?

Click to expand...

No, life is life. I will clearly discuss the nature of evidence with you. Sadly every creationist here is afraid to even discuss the topic. And the "first cause" of life is more than likely the laws of chemistry. You seem to be proposing an argument from ignorance "You don't know how life started, therefore God". You do not seem to realize that according to the biological definition of life your God is not "alive". By trying to claim that you do not believe in life from non-life you are making an equivocation error.

pitabread said:

Actually is doesn't even get you that far, and certainly not to the point of invoking the supernatural.

For all we know, life on Earth could have come from an alien space probe that crashed here 4 billion years ago.

Click to expand...

And who made them? Actually the early universe was incompatable with life anywhere so ET would have had to develop and then plant life here. Not enuf time. The source of life has to be extrinsic. That being if ever nonlife then always nonlife. If life then always life. Life is infinite, the universe is finite. Infinite would rationally be the source of the finite. There are logic truths autonomous of science. An infinite living source defines God.

Gen.1:1 presupposes God extrinsic of the universe and life here.