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Purpose: Finding a common ground detail or two between creationists and atheists then finding where they start to diverge. Starting with “barren Earth” having no life on it.
First Premise -- on a combined complexity, power, wisdom and creative capability scale of 0 to infinity.
A rock: is at zero.
God: is at infinity
rocks ---------------------------------------atheist---------------------------God
Where "God" is the term defined in Websters as: "1 God : the supreme or ultimate reality: such as. a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshiped". The concept of a being infinite in wisdom, power, capability etc.
Given: the "lifeless rock" reference - as in the case of this interview with Stanley Miller:
We notice terms in that interview with Miller - such as:
"Lifeless rock"
"all sorts of theories and speculation"
"another part of the story"
"prebiotic" experiment as in the case with the Urey-Miller experiment
.. terms that might also get used again in this thread.
=============================== now we begin
A. Everyone agrees (both Creationist and atheist at least) that there was a time on Earth where it is a barren planet - no LIFE of any kind on it. So gas, rocks, water, dust etc... no life.
B. Everyone agrees (both Creationist and atheist at least) that we exist on earth today with lots of diverse life forms.
There exists Creationists (as we all know) that claim that the Bible Creation account shows that an infinite Being (infinite in wisdom and power) created all life on earth - with all land animals appearing in a single evening-morning "day" like the days in the Legal Code found here Ex 20:9, 11 - at Sinai.
C. Everyone agrees - there is "such a thing" as stories easy enough to tell. Creationists do not agree with atheists on which stories those are - but they do agree that such stories exist.
Example: A story easy enough to tell - where creationists and atheists can agree
D. Everyone agrees (both Creationist and atheist at least) that a man can turn a rabbit into dust in a single day. That is a given. (at something far below blast-furnace temp 3400 degree F)
So then clearly - an infinite being with infinite capability ( power and wisdom ) such as the Bible Creation account speaks of - can turn dust into a rabbit in a single day. As noted here #2
But rocks, dust, gas, and sunlight will never turn into a horse ... nor even be able to turn a bacteria into a horse ... in all of time. They don't "have that as a property of matter" and they don't have the ability to "acquire the skill over time" (Notice the details here #11 )
So much for
Is that a claim that instead of starting with a barren lifeless Earth (as proposed in this OP) what we really had was a planet covered by prokaryotes anxious to become endosymbiotic-capable, and then advance from that to acquiring the talent of being able to produce eukaryotes??
In any case that would be an appeal to a mythical "kind" of eukaryote-capable prokaryote never seen.. that does not actually exist, having unknown properties to do what repeatable science knows is not even observable in the lab. So then what both sides can "agree to" in that respect is that there is no such thing as that sort of prokaryote else someone would be observing it right now.
The fact that "that" mythical "kind" of prokaryote in the quote above does not actually exist and that such a saltation cannot be observed ... is apparently another agreed upon detail between atheists and creationists.
The contrast noted in more detail here -- #12 where we contrast what we DO see every day with what even atheists will admit we do NOT see
=====================
1. It is reasonable to suppose that -Atheists will argue that no such being "exists".
2. It is reasonable to supposed that Creationists will argue that "no such talented rock exists" (nor even an aggregation of rocks able to do it)
Next we see some of the many times where that point gets illustrated on this thread -
here we see the point that rocks don't have the property to do that --#211
here we see the claim talented rocks should be able to do all of that 203
(or at the very least - prokaryotes can do it -- #190 )
=====================
Hint: those who get stuck arguing that an infinitely wise and powerful being would most certainly not be capable of assembling biomolecules from dust - are not paying attention to these details or grasping the points being made here -- but of course we agree they can choose to ignore all the details that they wish.
I am trying to address those who understand the concepts above.
to simplify even more
the point is to take a starting point that evolutionists and creationists will both agree on... and then point to an end point that both evolutionists and creationists agree on (which I do here in this post).
And to keep in mind that significant level of the term "evolution" that Dawkins references as quoted in post #2 as we contrast the essential argument in the two contrasting solutions for getting from point A - to - B.
Another web site that makes some interesting points similar to this thread - just pointed out to me - today--
Seventy-five Theses
First Premise -- on a combined complexity, power, wisdom and creative capability scale of 0 to infinity.
A rock: is at zero.
God: is at infinity
rocks ---------------------------------------atheist---------------------------God
Where "God" is the term defined in Websters as: "1 God : the supreme or ultimate reality: such as. a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshiped". The concept of a being infinite in wisdom, power, capability etc.
Given: the "lifeless rock" reference - as in the case of this interview with Stanley Miller:
terms/phrases from the interview with Stanley Miller
Q: Some 4.6 billion years ago the planet was a lifeless rock, a billion years later it was teeming with early forms of life. Where is the dividing line between pre-biotic and biotic Earth and how is this determined?
Answer: (Stanley Miller) :" ... A new discovery reported in the journal Nature indicates evidence for life some 300 million years before that. We presume there was life earlier, but there is no evidence beyond that point.
We really don't know what the Earth was like three or four billion years ago. So there are all sorts of theories and speculations. The major uncertainty concerns what the atmosphere was like. This is major area of dispute...
“As long as you have those basic chemicals and a reducing atmosphere, you have everything you need. People often say maybe some of the special compounds came in from space, but they never say which ones.
If you can make these chemicals in the conditions of cosmic dust or a meteorite, I presume you could also make them on the Earth. I think the idea that you need some special unnamed compound from space is hard to support.
..
There is another part of the story. In 1969 a carbonaceous meteorite fell in Murchison Australia. It turned out the meteorite had high concentrations of amino acids, about 100 ppm, and they were the same kind of amino acids you get in prebiotic experiments like mine. This discovery made it plausible that similar processes could have happened on primitive Earth, on an asteroid, or for that matter, anywhere else the proper conditions exist.
http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.html
We notice terms in that interview with Miller - such as:
"Lifeless rock"
"all sorts of theories and speculation"
"another part of the story"
"prebiotic" experiment as in the case with the Urey-Miller experiment
.. terms that might also get used again in this thread.
=============================== now we begin
A. Everyone agrees (both Creationist and atheist at least) that there was a time on Earth where it is a barren planet - no LIFE of any kind on it. So gas, rocks, water, dust etc... no life.
B. Everyone agrees (both Creationist and atheist at least) that we exist on earth today with lots of diverse life forms.
There exists Creationists (as we all know) that claim that the Bible Creation account shows that an infinite Being (infinite in wisdom and power) created all life on earth - with all land animals appearing in a single evening-morning "day" like the days in the Legal Code found here Ex 20:9, 11 - at Sinai.
C. Everyone agrees - there is "such a thing" as stories easy enough to tell. Creationists do not agree with atheists on which stories those are - but they do agree that such stories exist.
Example: A story easy enough to tell - where creationists and atheists can agree
D. Everyone agrees (both Creationist and atheist at least) that a man can turn a rabbit into dust in a single day. That is a given. (at something far below blast-furnace temp 3400 degree F)
So then clearly - an infinite being with infinite capability ( power and wisdom ) such as the Bible Creation account speaks of - can turn dust into a rabbit in a single day. As noted here #2
But rocks, dust, gas, and sunlight will never turn into a horse ... nor even be able to turn a bacteria into a horse ... in all of time. They don't "have that as a property of matter" and they don't have the ability to "acquire the skill over time" (Notice the details here #11 )
So much for
err.. umm.. prokaryotes that popped out a eukaryote in true wondrous-saltation-miracle fashion???Eukaryotic cells originated from an endosymbiotic relationship between two (or more) unrelated early prokaryotic cells
Is that a claim that instead of starting with a barren lifeless Earth (as proposed in this OP) what we really had was a planet covered by prokaryotes anxious to become endosymbiotic-capable, and then advance from that to acquiring the talent of being able to produce eukaryotes??
In any case that would be an appeal to a mythical "kind" of eukaryote-capable prokaryote never seen.. that does not actually exist, having unknown properties to do what repeatable science knows is not even observable in the lab. So then what both sides can "agree to" in that respect is that there is no such thing as that sort of prokaryote else someone would be observing it right now.
The fact that "that" mythical "kind" of prokaryote in the quote above does not actually exist and that such a saltation cannot be observed ... is apparently another agreed upon detail between atheists and creationists.
The contrast noted in more detail here -- #12 where we contrast what we DO see every day with what even atheists will admit we do NOT see
=====================
1. It is reasonable to suppose that -Atheists will argue that no such being "exists".
2. It is reasonable to supposed that Creationists will argue that "no such talented rock exists" (nor even an aggregation of rocks able to do it)
Next we see some of the many times where that point gets illustrated on this thread -
here we see the point that rocks don't have the property to do that --#211
here we see the claim talented rocks should be able to do all of that 203
(or at the very least - prokaryotes can do it -- #190 )
=====================
Hint: those who get stuck arguing that an infinitely wise and powerful being would most certainly not be capable of assembling biomolecules from dust - are not paying attention to these details or grasping the points being made here -- but of course we agree they can choose to ignore all the details that they wish.
I am trying to address those who understand the concepts above.
to simplify even more
the point is to take a starting point that evolutionists and creationists will both agree on... and then point to an end point that both evolutionists and creationists agree on (which I do here in this post).
And to keep in mind that significant level of the term "evolution" that Dawkins references as quoted in post #2 as we contrast the essential argument in the two contrasting solutions for getting from point A - to - B.
Another web site that makes some interesting points similar to this thread - just pointed out to me - today--
Seventy-five Theses
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