when did life start and continue on the planet?

[Michali]

I don't know, but given the extreme rarity of there being even a speck of life on any planet, I don't see why anyone would not believe in God. They say the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. If you look at a complex organism, and think about all of the chances its ancestors got lucky with, you begin to wonder how there are so many different working species. It doesn't seem like 4.5 billion is a likely enough time for the earth to have made such a complex product. It seems it would have been so much longer (unless we're really lucky). I know that 4.5 billion years is an already incomprehensible amount of time, but how do we know that the first sign of life didn't begin when the earth was 3 billion years old? Or even older. Not to mention how many times it took until there was a spark of life that would exist long enough to reproduce. How many sparks failed at creating the meaningless drive of growing and reproducing? How many colonies died before one survived? As the life forms became more complex, it gets even worse. There is definitely some ground to theistic thinking. But when did life first begin and become succesful in an atheistic opinion?

 

[DrLao]

I'm not sure what the "atheistic opinion" is, but prevailing scientific opinion puts the appearence of the first living things at about 3.8 billion years ago. I don't know how you would get God (or gods for that matter) out of that.

 

[Michali]

I'm not sure what the "atheistic opinion" is, but prevailing scientific opinion puts the appearence of the first living things at about 3.8 billion years ago. I don't know how you would get God (or gods for that matter) out of that.

Thanks

 

[JohnR7]

It doesn't seem like 4.5 billion is a likely enough time for the earth to have made such a complex product.

That is funny, you see God as speeding things up, I see God as slowing things down. I think that perhaps you do not understand that things tend to double in half the time. If you have two cells double, then you have four cells, then if four cells double you have eight, if eight cells double in the same amount of time, you have sixteen cells.

My son has doubled in size (height) in his first five years. If he doubled in size again, in the next 5 years, then he would be around 8 foot tall by his 10th birthday. I do not think he will be that big, so his rate of growth will be slowing down in the next five years.

 

[Michali]

That is funny, you see God as speeding things up, I see God as slowing things down. I think that perhaps you do not understand that things tend to double in half the time. If you have two cells double, then you have four cells, then if four cells double you have eight, if eight cells double in the same amount of time, you have sixteen cells.

My son has doubled in size (height) in his first five years. If he doubled in size again, in the next 5 years, then he would be around 8 foot tall by his 10th birthday. I do not think he will be that big, so his rate of growth will be slowing down in the next five years.

That's intersting. Perhaps the dinosaurs found out your theory the hard way. They got too big for their own good, and the slower growers survived. Still, it shows that life would be so much larger if life existed that long.

If you look at your finger, you cannot even pick out a single cell with the eye. We have grown so much more than that. It's just neat to think about. We all started from a single cell (well, two zygotes combined). (I'm talking about birth here)

 

[LorentzHA]

From what I have read the first signs of life on this planet appeard 3.5-4.0 Billion Years ago, that is my 2 cents..

 

[Jet Black]

what Lorentz said

I have no problem. 3.5 billion years is a long long time.

 

[JohnR7]

That's intersting. Perhaps the dinosaurs found out your theory the hard way. They got too big for their own good, and the slower growers survived. Still, it shows that life would be so much larger if life existed that long.

Actually, that is what got me started to think about it. I was in a zoo in Flordia and they had these great big turtles. They said that all turtles start off small, but if they live long enough they keep getting bigger. In this case the turtles were suppose to be 300 years old and they were pretty big. Maybe four feet across or something like that.

They said that all reptiles continue to grow as long as they live. So alligator if they live long enough will be 25 feet long. So the dinosaurs being reptiles could have started off small in size, but they just lived long enough that they continued to grow and some of them got big.

 

[Arikay]

I believe the general consensus is around 3.8 billion years ago.

 

[webboffin]

I don't know I wasn't there.

 

[lucaspa]

I don't know, but given the extreme rarity of there being even a speck of life on any planet, I don't see why anyone would not believe in God.

God-of-the-gaps. Michali, how do you know that "the extreme rarity" is true?

They say the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. If you look at a complex organism, and think about all of the chances its ancestors got lucky with, you begin to wonder how there are so many different working species.

Because natural selection is not chance.

It doesn't seem like 4.5 billion is a likely enough time for the earth to have made such a complex product.

It turns out from recent experiments that natural selection can work at rates up to 10,000 TIMES faster than seen in the fossil record. The earth could be 45 million years old and we could still get the diversity of life we see.

I know that 4.5 billion years is an already incomprehensible amount of time, but how do we know that the first sign of life didn't begin when the earth was 3 billion years old? Or even older. Not to mention how many times it took until there was a spark of life that would exist long enough to reproduce. How many sparks failed at creating the meaningless drive of growing and reproducing? How many colonies died before one survived? As the life forms became more complex, it gets even worse. There is definitely some ground to theistic thinking. But when did life first begin and become succesful in an atheistic opinion?

As others have pointed out, there is no "atheistic opinion". There are fossils of bacteria-like organisms that are 3.8 billion years old. This is only about 200 million years after the planet became capable of hosting life. We have no idea how many times life started and got wiped out in that 200 million years.

There is no grounds for the god-of-the-gaps thinking, which is not Christian in any case.

 

[OneLargeToe]

I don't know, but given the extreme rarity of there being even a speck of life on any planet, I don't see why anyone would not believe in God.

Given the near infinite size of the universe, even with incredibe odds of something happening, it had to happen somewhere.

A good analogy is the lottery: What are the odds of someone winning the lottery? Like 1 in 21 million. Now, imagine someone winning the lottery and claiming God made them win. Do you actually think God intervened to have that person win? Or did they just get lucky? Given the number of people playing, someone, somewhere is going to win.

Same applies to life on Earth. We won the lotto!

 

[LorentzHA]

I don't know, but given the extreme rarity of there being even a speck of life on any planet, I don't see why anyone would not believe in God.

Actually, it is pretty easy to see how someone could not believe in God. There is A LOT of data that conflicts with what Christianity tells us God is. Apart from a scientific point of view the whole premise of God as told by quite a few (but not all) Christians has many, many gaps. Most Christians, particularly YEC's make God appear small, petty and not too bright. Sad, really.

 

[obediah001]

It is a basic assurity that in YOUr lifetime there is no chance of life beng discovered anywhere in outerspace; so therefore yo uare WILLING to die with in your FAITH of ET's somewhere. What folley, if you are wrong & you are there will be GREAT consequences my friend. Please think about this wager, yoyu have EVERYTHING to LOSE!

 

[obediah001]

Hay too, if things evolve: there are single cell life forms but NO 2 cell life forms or thre I understand.

 

[LorentzHA]

It is a basic assurity that in YOUr lifetime there is no chance of life beng discovered anywhere in outerspace

Probably so, ONLY because of OUR limited technology. We have not even been past our own moon ...not to mention our solar system or Galaxy. Just because we are so limited does not mean it is not there. It would be stranger if their wasn't.

therefore yo uare WILLING to die with in your FAITH of ET's somewhere. What folley, if you are wrong & you are there will be GREAT consequences my friend. Please think about this wager, yoyu have EVERYTHING to LOSE!

Why would his logical assumtion that there is life elsewhere be a wager with "great consequences"? Explain how he will have "everything to lose?"

 

[pudmuddle]

Given the near infinite size of the universe, even with incredibe odds of something happening, it had to happen somewhere.

A good analogy is the lottery: What are the odds of someone winning the lottery? Like 1 in 21 million. Now, imagine someone winning the lottery and claiming God made them win. Do you actually think God intervened to have that person win? Or did they just get lucky? Given the number of people playing, someone, somewhere is going to win.

Same applies to life on Earth. We won the lotto!

1 in 21 million is nothing compared to the chance ( and yes natural selection depends on chance) of life appearing out of nothing. You're not thinking nearly big enough. Even if you could prove that life on this planet was the result of a series of genetic accidents, which you can't, you still have to explain how the universe, or possible many universes came about. Nothing happens without a first cause.
I don't much believe in luck...

 

[obediah001]

Well it is clear to me; if he is right he loses nuthing & too gains nuthing cause ET's cant save him. #2 if he is wrong & he is about ET's he loses his bet & his very soul! If you read this correctly or should say inturpret it correctly he wins nuthing on the first part, which equals LOSE LOSE #2 he gains eternal life.

 

[LorentzHA]

Hay too, if things evolve: there are single cell life forms but NO 2 cell life forms or thre I understand.

This statement alone could be sent through the hive mind of the BORG colony to destroy it. After millions of calculations and computations trying to makes sense of it, the BORG'S hive mind would implode.

 

[Arikay]

There are NO 2 pencils though.