Besides God, what other logical explanation is there for the beginning of life?

[CharlieRGV]

For a while i have doubted God's existence until it dawned to me such a common yet important question regarding the beginning of life. Life creates life. Nothing non-living can create something living. I tried to rationalize the big bang, other 'gods' etc but none of them logically has really convinced me. Are there other answers besides God, of how life began, from the very beginning? Because i find none and am coming to the belief and acknowledgment God does exist.

 

[St_Worm2]

Hello @CharlieRGV, I believe that Parmenides rightly taught, "Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit" (Nothing comes from nothing).

It seems to me that matter and energy must have been created (called into existence by God, IMHO and the Bible's), but I believe the principle arguments for their existence today (by those who do not believe God exists are):

1. We don't know where they came from/how they came into existence.
2. We believe that they are eternal, that they ALWAYS existed.
​

If I am wrong about one or both of those reasons, please let me know (or if there are additional reasons that are considered as possibilities today, please post those for us as well .. Thanks ).

--David
p.s. - I see that you are a brand new member, so I should also say, WELCOME TO CF

Hebrews 11
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
.​

 

[coffee4u]

Welcome to CF.
You might want to change your label from Christian to 'seeking' or some other label, since Christian indicates both a belief in God and of Jesus as God.
I suggest you read Genesis with an open mind and then the 4 Gospels, Mathew, Mark, Luke and John.

 

[Athanasius377]

David, you are spot on about bible highlighter. It’s just not worth the effort to respond to him. But yes his exegesis is terrible. I wonder if he belongs to a church. My guess is no. That’s why his theology isn’t tempered by say correct exegesis. What a mess.

 

[Athanasius377]

Also, I saw CF teamed up with Brace Browser. It’s the same engine as Chrome but without sending everything to Google. I’ve been using it for awhile and recommend. Give it a shot.

https://brave.com/

it was started by Brandon Eichman who got run out of Mozilla for donating to CA prop 8.

 

[Gottservant]

I think the thing is, that before God created anything, God found 'the nothing' "unbearable".

In terms of why did God create what He did, the answer was "only He found the unbearable unbearable".

If God had been God and done nothing about the unbearable, the unbearable would have destroyed Him (unbearably).

This does not mean that God was forced to create what He did, but that at some point God alone was able to envisage an end to the unbearable though the creation of Man, who would reject it.

 

[johneb]

Life creates life. Nothing non-living can create something living

Great thought.
I have listened to the evolutionist with great pain, I have asked them about their soup and they have no answers only we are still waiting for the big discovery to be found.
The question I ask them is this, how can a cell be made with out RNA or DNA and how can RNA and DNA exist without the cell?
James Tour can be found on Youtube, good stuff from him.

 

[The Barbarian]

Since God's word and the scientific evidence both indicate that life was brought forth by the earth, I don't see any reason to doubt it.

God does most everything by natural means in this world, and the origin of life was one of those things.

 

[CharlieRGV]

Thank you all for your answers. Actually, the pandemic brought me closer to faith and God. I do believe in God, im sorry if i made it seem as if i do not. I just was always born into a religion of Christianity without being told the basics (Evidence of existence, etc...) moreso just that i should go to church, etc. I think when someone is new to Christianity they appreciate starting from the beginning (creation)..and then when things begin to add up, the adventure to learn more becomes a great path.

 

[The Barbarian]

I have listened to the evolutionist with great pain, I have asked them about their soup and they have no answers only we are still waiting for the big discovery to be found.

The most important thing to realize is that evolution is not about the origin of life. If God had magically poofed the first organisms into existence, evolution would work exactly as it does now. However, the evidence supports God's claim that the Earth brought forth living things.

As time goes on, we have found that nature is indeed capable of doing what God said it did. Why wouldn't it? That's what He made it to do. But as you see, evolution is not about the origin of life. Darwin thought that God just created the first living things from the Earth.

The question I ask them is this, how can a cell be made with out RNA or DNA and how can RNA and DNA exist without the cell?

Excellent question. And (remember, this is not about evolution) we do know some things today about that issue. First thing to ask is what is the absolutely essential organelle for a cell to exist? It's not RNA or DNA, which seems to have come about much later.

It is the cell membrane. Without a separation of inside and outside, cellular life is impossible. So what do we know about the cell membrane?

It's the simplest of cell structures, being a simple phospholipid bilayer that spontaneously forms vesicles:
https://external-content.duckduckgo...id=OIP.9JPa0u2lm6sOuMOaZPbiSgHaEr&pid=Api&f=1

They can form abiotically, and they can grow by adding new molecules. One handy feature of these membranes is that other molecules can be incorporated into the membrane. Modern cells have a lot of those:

Some of them greatly facilitate the movement of substances into and out of the vesicle. We now know that amino acids are produced abiotically, and that they can, on hot volcanic rocks form short protein sequences. And it was some time ago discovered that RNA can be self-catalyzing.

Looks like God had it right, after all. It's not evolution, but it does support His word that the earth brought forth living things.

 

[johneb]

They can form abiotically, and they can grow by adding new molecules. One handy feature of these membranes is that other molecules can be incorporated into the membrane. Modern cells have a lot of those:

You think this could have happened in a prebiotic world?

 

[Piet Strydom]

Thanks for your post Barbarian.
it was an eye opener.
I agree with your research.
God created matter from nothing, perhaps the recipy to create matter is by the use of energy.
so this is how it all went then Biblically taking your observation into consideration.
God is light and light is electro magnetic energy.
He took some of His energy and created matter that filled the universe.
We dont know , or we have theories on how different particles developed into electrons, and nutrons, and shaped into the metals that formed a nebular cloud throughout the universe.
These materials was used by God (through the Nebular theory perhaps) to shape the universe ' In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth'
The earth was then a shapeless collection of this matter containing solids, gas and liquids.
God used this matter to shape a sphere turning on its axis, and at the same time the Sun started to shine very faintly.
God took this sphere of liquid and gas and solids, and by His wisdom allowed Gravity to pull the heavier materials to the spheres' interior, and gasses escaped shaping the Atmosphere,
God then took the residue liquid and solids, and through His wisdom allowed gravity to seperate the solids from the water, and land and sea was created.
He allowed molecules to form cells on this muddy land, and used it to make plants.
God then allowed molecules to collect in water, which formed cells, which He used to create Birds and aquatic animals.
He then allowed the same to happen on the still wet land, and used it to create animals and Adam.
He then took cells from Adam and created Eve.

There was never a need for God to re create as if by magic new material, matter or anything else to create plants, and animals and Man. He already had everything to do it!

But in all of the above, God is life, and without God nothing will live.
He placed life into all the living things He created.
The essence of @Life@ is something man can not make, but gain through everlasting life.

 

[The Barbarian]

You think this could have happened in a prebiotic world?

If we can trust God's word, it did. But since we now know that all those essential molecules can and do form abiotically, we can be much more confident scientifically.

 

[The Barbarian]

Thanks for your post Barbarian.

You're welcome. I believe that God wrote into the very fabric of the universe, all the rules necessary for life to be produced by that universe.

In my view, His role is not to step in and make things happen from time to time, but rather to continue the universe as He ordained it to be. It would not even exist if He ceased to attend to every individual particle of our universe.

He does not do miracles out of necessity; they are always done to teach us something. Or so I think.

 

[Gottservant]

I think what is interesting, is that God created creatures with a personality.

He could have just created forces, with no rhyme or reason - and never created something with a personality.

When you say "What?" created life, you are skewing the question slightly to material answers: whereas God says "before you were in your mother's womb, I knew you" - He was interested in the personal relationship He would have with us.

Not trying to diminish your question, just saying you will probably never have the depth of a relationship with God, if you don't ever trust Him to relate to you? From the beginning (even)?

 

[johneb]

But since we now know that all those essential molecules can and do form abiotically, we can be much more confident scientifically.

I doubt that. Show the evidence.

 

[The Barbarian]

I doubt that. Show the evidence.

Sure.

A new family of extraterrestrial amino acids in the Murchison meteorite
A new family of extraterrestrial amino acids in the Murchison meteorite | Scientific Reports

Since 1953, we have found many of the same simple organic molecules in meteorites, comets and even interstellar gas clouds. Far from being special, then, the simplest of the molecules we find in living systems—life’s building blocks—seem to be quite common in nature. To many, the real question was how these basic building blocks got put together into living systems, and, equally important, how the molecules that led to modern life were selected out of the messy molecular milieu in which they arose.

The ubiquity of simple molecules suggested an appealing scenario that had a profound effect on the way investigators approached the origin of life throughout the last half of the 20th century.
The Origin of Life

Besides ash and lava, most volcanoes also release a toxic gas called carbonyl sulfide (COS) that has now been shown to cause amino acids in Earth's primordial soup to form chains - a very big step in the walk toward the first life.

"It's plausibly the missing link, in our thinking," said team leader Professor Reza Ghadiri.
For years, scientists have been trying to figure out how amino acids started getting together in strings of twos and threes, called peptides, on early Earth. The step is important because you need peptides to build the huge RNA and DNA molecules that are essential to life as we know it.


"There are multiple ways you can make peptides," said Ghadiri.


Not many of those ways, however, would be very efficient or likely under the conditions of early Earth.


Suspecting that COS might be an unsung hero, Ghadiri and his colleagues exposed a watery solution containing amino acids to COS at room temperature. It worked. The COS produced ample peptides. The researchers got even more peptides if they added dissolved metals like lead or iron to the mix.


"We tried it even in ocean water and it works," said Ghadiri. "It's quite efficient."
Volcano spews clues to early life › News in Science (ABC Science)

Chemical synthesis of lipids and the origin of life
Journal of Biological Physics volume 20, pages135–147(1995)

A key step in the origin of life was the evolution of a molecule that could copy itself. Once it was discovered that RNA could both carry information and cause chemical reactions (like those that would be required to copy a molecule), RNA became the prime suspect for the earliest self-replicating molecule. In fact, biologists hypothesize that early in life's history, RNA occupied center stage and performed most jobs in the cell, storing genetic information, copying itself, and performing basic metabolic functions. This is the "RNA world" hypothesis. Today, these jobs are performed by many different sorts of molecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins, mostly), but in the RNA world, RNA did it all.
The RNA world

And the most compelling, in my opinion, is the fact that the one organelle that's absolutely essential for life as we know it (the cell membrane) is the simplest one.

It's made of things (phosphorus and lipids) known to be naturally produced. It's a simple phospholipid bilayer that self-organizes into hollow vesicles. It still is today, although most cell membranes have added a lot of other molecules, while still retaining that very simple structure.

God said that the Earth brought forth living things. Turns out, the evidence says He's right.

 

[johneb]

Sure.

A new family of extraterrestrial amino acids in the Murchison meteorite
A new family of extraterrestrial amino acids in the Murchison meteorite | Scientific Reports

Since 1953, we have found many of the same simple organic molecules in meteorites, comets and even interstellar gas clouds. Far from being special, then, the simplest of the molecules we find in living systems—life’s building blocks—seem to be quite common in nature. To many, the real question was how these basic building blocks got put together into living systems, and, equally important, how the molecules that led to modern life were selected out of the messy molecular milieu in which they arose.

The ubiquity of simple molecules suggested an appealing scenario that had a profound effect on the way investigators approached the origin of life throughout the last half of the 20th century.
The Origin of Life

Besides ash and lava, most volcanoes also release a toxic gas called carbonyl sulfide (COS) that has now been shown to cause amino acids in Earth's primordial soup to form chains - a very big step in the walk toward the first life.

"It's plausibly the missing link, in our thinking," said team leader Professor Reza Ghadiri.
For years, scientists have been trying to figure out how amino acids started getting together in strings of twos and threes, called peptides, on early Earth. The step is important because you need peptides to build the huge RNA and DNA molecules that are essential to life as we know it.


"There are multiple ways you can make peptides," said Ghadiri.


Not many of those ways, however, would be very efficient or likely under the conditions of early Earth.


Suspecting that COS might be an unsung hero, Ghadiri and his colleagues exposed a watery solution containing amino acids to COS at room temperature. It worked. The COS produced ample peptides. The researchers got even more peptides if they added dissolved metals like lead or iron to the mix.


"We tried it even in ocean water and it works," said Ghadiri. "It's quite efficient."
Volcano spews clues to early life › News in Science (ABC Science)

Chemical synthesis of lipids and the origin of life
Journal of Biological Physics volume 20, pages135–147(1995)

A key step in the origin of life was the evolution of a molecule that could copy itself. Once it was discovered that RNA could both carry information and cause chemical reactions (like those that would be required to copy a molecule), RNA became the prime suspect for the earliest self-replicating molecule. In fact, biologists hypothesize that early in life's history, RNA occupied center stage and performed most jobs in the cell, storing genetic information, copying itself, and performing basic metabolic functions. This is the "RNA world" hypothesis. Today, these jobs are performed by many different sorts of molecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins, mostly), but in the RNA world, RNA did it all.
The RNA world

And the most compelling, in my opinion, is the fact that the one organelle that's absolutely essential for life as we know it (the cell membrane) is the simplest one.

It's made of things (phosphorus and lipids) known to be naturally produced. It's a simple phospholipid bilayer that self-organizes into hollow vesicles. It still is today, although most cell membranes have added a lot of other molecules, while still retaining that very simple structure.

God said that the Earth brought forth living things. Turns out, the evidence says He's right.

You should talk to this guy,

I'm quite sure he would lend his time.

 

[The Barbarian]

Uh, yeah, that's the guy who said that we don't know exactly how life began, so Darwin is wrong, even if Darwin's theory doesn't depend on any particular origin of life.

Not a very logical conclusion. Darwin assumed God created the first living things. Which seems like a reasonable conclusion to me. But even if Darwin was wrong about that, it wouldn't matter to Darwinian evolution.

So Tour disagrees with most of his fellow chemists and disagrees with almost all biochemists who think that life really was brought forth by the Earth.

Since God thinks that life was brought forth from the Earth, too, I'd say Tour is probably the odd man out, um?

 

[johneb]

I'd say Tour is probably the odd man out, um?

Tour is looking at this from a non-political science view point, just the facts as we know it and he stands unchallenged in the science community.