Why ... (2)

[Smidlee]

So where is "meaning" in there? Also how does that preclude a snowflake from being encoded information about the process of nucleation and freezing?

I accept the laws of physics could be code and makes sense. These laws easily explains the snowflake but not the code written on DVD. This requires intelligence.

 

[Vaccine]

Like the fact that there are no tigers around me is evidence that my laptop keeps tigers away. A non-universal genetic code is just as consistent with design by an omnipotent inscrutable supernatural being.

Grammar and syntax aren't produced by chance.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Grammar and syntax aren't produced by chance.

There's no grammar in genetics and "syntax" is simply a metaphor. Just because we call the Internet the World Wide Web doesn't mean there's a world wide spider, similarly just because we call things "code" or "syntax" doesn't mean that there's a writer.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

I accept the laws of physics could be code and makes sense. These laws easily explains the snowflake but not the code written on DVD. This requires intelligence.

DVDs are encoded using matter and energy, it's not done by telepathy.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Your mockery has been duly noted.

It was not really mockery as much as sarcasm.

This is what I suspected. But I'm now left not knowing what you believe at all. What, exactly, did God create? Exactly how much have those original creations diversified since the creation event? How long ago was the creation event?

God created everything. The diversification is what we see today. I don't know literally how long ago the creation event occurred. I believe that the evidence today is providing for a universe that is 13.8 billion years. However, it is not known by the Creation Narrative how to determine this. The Creation Narrative says it took God six days. I believe this to be true, however, we know that a day in our time is not the same as God's and we know from the narrative itself that there were three days prior to the sun and moon so it can not be in the same frame that we have today.

 

[Clairvoyance]

If you think DNA is a language then where in our bodies is the "decoder" that translates the DNA into it's various functions?

Tip: there isn't one! organic molecules form RNA and DNA by themselves... We've even observed some stages of this process like the twisting of the double helix... no intelligence is required.

It then builds and builds and gets more complex as nature selects the more complex molecules that have better survival.

The molecules replicate themselves by regular physical laws... No supernatural magic required.

These molecules form into cells and start a metabolism... and from there you get tissues and organs and organisms!

We still don't know the exact sequence that these molecules took in their unbelievably complex journey to becoming life as we know it, but we know enough about the individual stages that a natural explanation is very plausible.

There's no need to assume supernatural influence since the biochemistry and physics involved in making life (so far as we know) don't violate any laws of nature.

What use is the claim "God did it"? What innovations does that help us create? What mysteries does that help us understand? What predictions does that make?

None, none, and none.

Discovering the process of abiogenesis, however, would have AMAZING applications! Perhaps if we figured out how DNA formed, we could synthesize our own tissues, organs, better medications, genetic therapies... the possibilities are endless!

But if you just shut it all down and say "God did it!" we achieve NOTHING!

 

[EternalDragon]

But if you just shut it all down and say "God did it!" we achieve NOTHING!

We could achieve more, much more.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

We could achieve more, much more.

When have we ever achieved more by concluding Goddidit and ending our investigation there?

 

[EternalDragon]

When have we ever achieved more by concluding Goddidit and ending our investigation there?

Who said investigation will end? Science doesn't need evolution to discover things.

Achieving more what by the way?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Who said investigation will end? Science doesn't need evolution to discover things.

Achieving more what by the way?

How will the investigation continue if you've already concluded that you have the answer (Goddidit)?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

God created everything.

What is 'everything'? Unless it was in the last few decades, I wasn't made during the creation event.

I don't know literally how long ago the creation event occurred. I believe that the evidence today is providing for a universe that is 13.8 billion years.

As a minimum, yes.

However, it is not known by the Creation Narrative how to determine this. The Creation Narrative says it took God six days. I believe this to be true, however, we know that a day in our time is not the same as God's and we know from the narrative itself that there were three days prior to the sun and moon so it can not be in the same frame that we have today.

Well, the narrative gives us an order of events:

• Day 1: the Earth was made. Science says this happened 4.5 billion years ago.
• Day 2: the 'firmament' was made.
• Day 3: fruit-trees were made. Science says this happened 140 million years ago.
• Day 4: the Sun, Moon, and stars were made. Science says the first two formed 4.5 billion years ago, and the latter formed anywhere from yesterday to 13.5 billion years ago (that is, each star has its own date).
• Day 5: the waters make all moving, living things (presumably aquatic and aerial). Science says this happened over a period from 3.5 billion years ago to, well, yesterday.
• Day 6: the earth makes all cattle and creeping things. Science says this happened 2 million years ago (the oldest known auroch), and 555 million years ago (the LUA of arthropods). The earth also makes man, which happened about 50,000 years ago.

So even if one plays around with variable 'days', there's still the problem that the order of events is wrong. Day four's events should have occurred with day one, or at least before day three.


So whatever happened before day four (the creation of the Sun, Moon, and stars), was the earliest moments of the universe. But if day three comes before day four, how is that possible?

 

[Vaccine]

Translation is an actual process that takes place. A strand of DNA is copied, ribosomes and tRNA translate a sequence into a protein.

Suppose we take a cell, put it in test tube with a neutral saline solution, poke a hole in it and let everything spill out. Now, everything we need to make life is there.

What exists in nature that can assemble it back into a functioning cell?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Translation is an actual process that takes place. A strand of DNA is copied, ribosomes and tRNA translate a sequence into a protein.

Suppose we take a cell, put it in test tube with a neutral saline solution, poke a hole in it and let everything spill out. Now, everything we need to make life is there.

What exists in nature that can assemble it back into a functioning cell?

Nothing.

'Life' is the organisation of its constituents; you have the constituents, but neither the organisation, as that was destroyed when you popped the cell, nor its precursor. Organisation can come from divine fiat, mortal technology, billions of years of evolution, etc.

 

[Vaccine]

Since there is nothing in nature to reorganize it back into life, simply adding time doesn't change that.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Since there is nothing in nature to reorganize it back into life, simply adding time doesn't change that.

Correct. Nothing in nature would reorganise it back into its previous structure. This is the same with snowflakes: once you melt a snowflake, nothing in nature will reorganise it back into its previous structure.

 

[Oncedeceived]

What is 'everything'? Unless it was in the last few decades, I wasn't made during the creation event.

Everything that was made then is here now, everything made now was here then.

As a minimum, yes.

Do you question the age for some reason?

Well, the narrative gives us an order of events:

• Day 1: the Earth was made. Science says this happened 4.5 billion years ago.

That is the current estimation based on the earliest rocks found from western Australia.
.
However on day one: And the nd God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, a darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
He not only creates light he creates day and night.

• Day 2: the 'firmament' was made.

No, on day one light was created. Light from darkness on day one. Then yes on day two the heavens were made.

• Day 3: fruit-trees were made. Science says this happened 140 million years ago.

And God said: 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas; and God saw that it was good.

And God said: 'Let the earth put forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth.' And it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.


So yes, we see the earth appearing. What does that mean? I don't know but it is significant. So yes, we see fruit tree bearing fruit after its kind...so we know that there was a kind that these kinds were after.


It was once thought that there would never be a way possible for any life form let alone plant life on the earliest earth but that has changed. In fact, it was presumed that life couldn't have even began on earliest earth due to the fact it had to arise in a non-oxygen or low oxygen environment.


Now new evidence supports oxygen being present much earlier, (see link in my comments to Loudmouth.)

• Day 4: the Sun, Moon, and stars were made. Science says the first two formed 4.5 billion years ago, and the latter formed anywhere from yesterday to 13.5 billion years ago (that is, each star has its own date).

And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars.



What is significant here is the way this is written. He made two great lights (and yes, the moon is not a light in the strictest sense of the word) and the stars seems to be separate and in a different way that the moon and sun. The phraseology of the whole narrative makes note of each created thing but then on this it doesn't specifically include the same wording for stars. I don't know why this is, and I have no hypothesis for that being the case.

• Day 5: the waters make all moving, living things (presumably aquatic and aerial). Science says this happened over a period from 3.5 billion years ago to, well, yesterday.

And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw that it was good.



So you are correct in everything you have posted here.

• Day 6: the earth makes all cattle and creeping things. Science says this happened 2 million years ago (the oldest known auroch), and 555 million years ago (the LUA of arthropods). The earth also makes man, which happened about 50,000 years ago.

And God said: 'Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind.' And it was so.



This shows life moving to land up until cattle after their kind.

So even if one plays around with variable 'days', there's still the problem that the order of events is wrong. Day four's events should have occurred with day one, or at least before day three.

Says who? Science? Well considering that in the length of time that I have been debating the Creation Narrative, we have seen science change its view of the universe many times. It was thought that there would be no possible way for a fluid to be present in the beginning of the universe. Then science finds the "perfect liquid" during experiments at CERN. It seems that there was a liquid form just like the Bible predicted.

The perfect liquid -- now even more perfect

Then Science had a theory on how planets formed and now this is in question by new discoveries.

“This is among the hardest planets to explain in a traditional planet-formation framework,” said researcher Markus Janson in a press release, according to Forbes. “Its discovery implies that we need to seriously consider alternative formation theories, or perhaps to reassess some of the basic assumptions in the core-accretion theory.”
Pink Planet Discovery Challenges Planetary Formation Theories

Science once thought the earth's earliest history was hot and water couldn't be present but we know now that is not the case.

"This work provides direct evidence that the Earth was probably habitable within a hundred million years of its formation," said Bruce Runnegar, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., which provided some of the study's funding.

NASA Scientists Confirm Liquid Water On Early Earth

So whatever happened before day four (the creation of the Sun, Moon, and stars), was the earliest moments of the universe. But if day three comes before day four, how is that possible?

So what Science says changes with new discoveries. Time and time again Science findings move closer and closer to discovering that the Bible narrative is true.

 

[Oncedeceived]

If you think DNA is a language then where in our bodies is the "decoder" that translates the DNA into it's various functions?

Tip: there isn't one! organic molecules form RNA and DNA by themselves... We've even observed some stages of this process like the twisting of the double helix... no intelligence is required.

So tell me, which came first. How did the first replicator work?

It then builds and builds and gets more complex as nature selects the more complex molecules that have better survival.

How has DNA become more complex over time?

The molecules replicate themselves by regular physical laws... No supernatural magic required.

Who governs the physical laws?

These molecules form into cells and start a metabolism... and from there you get tissues and organs and organisms!

Poof, life!

We still don't know the exact sequence that these molecules took in their unbelievably complex journey to becoming life as we know it, but we know enough about the individual stages that a natural explanation is very plausible.

But you do KNOW God had nothing to do with it right?

There's no need to assume supernatural influence since the biochemistry and physics involved in making life (so far as we know) don't violate any laws of nature.

Who governs the laws of nature and how do you explain them in a purely materialistic worldview?

What use is the claim "God did it"? What innovations does that help us create? What mysteries does that help us understand? What predictions does that make?

We couldn't do it without Him.

Discovering the process of abiogenesis, however, would have AMAZING applications! Perhaps if we figured out how DNA formed, we could synthesize our own tissues, organs, better medications, genetic therapies... the possibilities are endless!

It might surprise you.

But if you just shut it all down and say "God did it!" we achieve NOTHING!

This is just a strawman.

 

[Loudmouth]

You don't even know what created separately means so how in the world do you conclude that design precludes evolution?

I already showed you what it means. It means having separate origins and not sharing a common ancestor.

You wanted a study to back my claim.

How does it back your claims?

And why do you continue to avoid telling me what it means to you to be created separately.

Continue to avoid? Seriously? I have defined it numerous times already.

If it works for you, it works for me. Remember that.

Then show how it works already.

Mantra. It is necessary because that is how life progressed throughout its history.

You are saying that life was created separately, not part of a progression. Progression is evolution, not separate creations.

You still have not explained why it is necessary that separately created kinds fall into a nested hierarchy.

No, you have misunderstood what I was saying. I was saying that there would need to be precursors to have the life forms in the Cambrian according to ToE. Missing fossils is one thing, missing an entire stage in the evolution model is another.

How did you determine that they didn't exist? Do you have a time machine?

'I cannot doubt that all the Silurian trilobites have descended from some one crustacean, which must have lived long before the Silurian age....Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian strata was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian to the present day.....The case must at present remain inexplicable; and may be truely urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained'

Darwin.

I can do that, too.

The several difficulties here discussed, namely our not finding in the successive formations infinitely numerous transitional links between the many species which now exist or have existed; the sudden manner in which whole groups of species appear in our European formations; the almost entire absence, as at present known, of fossiliferous formations beneath the Silurian strata, are all undoubtedly of the gravest nature. . . For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the natural geological record, as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, in which the history is supposed to be written, being more or less different in the interrupted succession of chapters, may represent the apparently abruptly changed forms of life, entombed in our consecutive, but widely separated formations. On this view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even disappear.--Darwin, On the Origin of Species
The Origin of Species: Chapter 9
​

It doesn't matter. It is supportive evidence. It doesn't prove empirically that which is missing.

Run away from the evidence all you like.

Don't presume to tell me what I think. I don't think fossils are the only way to evidence evolution.

Then why is it all you talk about?

For what?

DNA is empirical proof (beyond a reasonable doubt) that all life shares a common ancestor and evolved from that common ancestor through natural processes.

[qutoe]So do I. I also have a worldview that consistently works with what we see in nature. I have evidence that supports what the Bible says about the universe. All these things support that what the Bible says is true concerning our universe and the life we see in it.[/quote]

The nested hierarchy falsifies design and separately created species. You are once again pretending as if finding a suspect's fingerprints at a crime scene is evidence that God planted the fingerprints. If the evidence is consistent with known and observed natural mechanisms then it is not evidence of God.

Who says? Who has the authority to claim that natural processes are hands off to God. Who has the authority to tell God that evidence that points to Him is not allowed.

Logic and reason does. Or are you saying that God produces evidence to fool us into thinking that natural processes are involved?

If I and millions of other Christians are correct, God created this universe and everything in it and His authority will not be left unchallenged. It might be inflating to think that you are debating the existence of God with mere humans, but if we are right, God will be the one that proves you wrong. God said that men would worship the created rather than the Creator.

Why don't you present evidence that you are right instead of making empty assertions.

I am not telling you have to accept God at all. That is between you and God. However, you claim that there is no reason to accept that there is any evidence for God and the Creation Narrative and that is false.

Such a claim is usually followed by evidence. Where is it?

I think that is just your safe little corner that you hide in. You can tell me that you just want evidence for God but I don't believe that to be the truth and I think you know it. You want to continue to believe that there is no God. You don't want to be a believer and have the whole scientific community who you hold in high esteem to brand you stupid or ignorant of the world. I could be wrong of course, but I doubt it.

And still no evidence for God.

You know you might be right. Maybe you do want some irrefutable evidence so that it would make it more acceptable in the world's eyes to see that there is evidence for His existence. Maybe then it wouldn't be so ridiculed and the believers wouldn't be considered stupid. But God doesn't want it that way. It is a personal choice and with that choice comes different outcomes. Just sayin'.

So now you try to make an excuse for not having evidence by claiming that God hides the evidence. That is about the least compelling argument you can come up with.

Exactly, you keep saying the same thing, all the while not saying anything at all. What are separately created kinds?

Separately created kinds were created separtely meaning they have separate origins and do not share a common ancestor. How much clearer can I be?

You start with the preconceived idea that only evolution could be true. So?

False. I start with the preconceived idea that following the empirical evidence will lead me to strong conclusions. That's it.

Whatever. I don't care one way or the other.

That's the problem. You don't care what the evidence shows. You don't care the the overwhelming observation when looking at separately created designs created by an intelligence is that they do not fall into a nested hierarchy, nor is there any reason why they would.

So?

We see evidence of evolution, not separately created kinds.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Everything that was made then is here now, everything made now was here then.

The atoms, maybe, but I, Wiccan_Child, did not exist 100 years ago. My atoms may have (but then, my atoms experience a seven-year turnover, so 'I' am not my atoms).

Do you question the age for some reason?

I question everything. It is important to know what we don't know, and we know the universe is at least 13.5 billion years old. We don't know if it is exactly 13.5 billion years old (or thereabouts) - it could be much older.

That is the current estimation based on the earliest rocks found from western Australia.
.
However on day one: And the nd God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, a darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
He not only creates light he creates day and night.

Which is baffling, considering the Sun doesn't get made until day three.

And God said: 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas; and God saw that it was good.

And God said: 'Let the earth put forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth.' And it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.


So yes, we see the earth appearing. What does that mean? I don't know but it is significant. So yes, we see fruit tree bearing fruit after its kind...so we know that there was a kind that these kinds were after.


It was once thought that there would never be a way possible for any life form let alone plant life on the earliest earth but that has changed. In fact, it was presumed that life couldn't have even began on earliest earth due to the fact it had to arise in a non-oxygen or low oxygen environment.


Now new evidence supports oxygen being present much earlier, (see link in my comments to Loudmouth.)

That doesn't change the fact that flowering (and thus fruit-bearing) plants are around 140 million years old. This places them hundreds of millions of years after the formation of the Sun, yet Genesis places them before the Sun.

And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars.

What is significant here is the way this is written. He made two great lights (and yes, the moon is not a light in the strictest sense of the word) and the stars seems to be separate and in a different way that the moon and sun. The phraseology of the whole narrative makes note of each created thing but then on this it doesn't specifically include the same wording for stars. I don't know why this is, and I have no hypothesis for that being the case.

But what we can agree, is that the Sun, Moon and stars, were all made on the fourth day, yes?

Says who? Science?

Yes, science. Science has its own chronology,

Well considering that in the length of time that I have been debating the Creation Narrative, we have seen science change its view of the universe many times. It was thought that there would be no possible way for a fluid to be present in the beginning of the universe. Then science finds the "perfect liquid" during experiments at CERN. It seems that there was a liquid form just like the Bible predicted.

The perfect liquid -- now even more perfect

Then Science had a theory on how planets formed and now this is in question by new discoveries.

“This is among the hardest planets to explain in a traditional planet-formation framework,” said researcher Markus Janson in a press release, according to Forbes. “Its discovery implies that we need to seriously consider alternative formation theories, or perhaps to reassess some of the basic assumptions in the core-accretion theory.”
Pink Planet Discovery Challenges Planetary Formation Theories

Science once thought the earth's earliest history was hot and water couldn't be present but we know now that is not the case.

"This work provides direct evidence that the Earth was probably habitable within a hundred million years of its formation," said Bruce Runnegar, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., which provided some of the study's funding.

NASA Scientists Confirm Liquid Water On Early Earth

So what Science says changes with new discoveries. Time and time again Science findings move closer and closer to discovering that the Bible narrative is true.

Science changes with new discoveries, absolutely, but we're hardly moving towards talking snakes and six-day Creationism. The universe remains staunchly 13.5 billion years old, the Sun remains stubbornly older than flowering plants, snakes and donkeys remain obstinately silent, the Exodus remains conspicuously mythical, etc. On the subject of origins, the Bible is either silent, allegorical, or historically incorrect, depending on your literary bent.

Science changes, but within well-understood limits. If a given theory is wrong, there are limits as to just how wrong it can be - we won't wake up discover to learn the Earth was actually a cube all along.

Read Isaac Asimov's The Relativity of Wrong, in particular this letter.

 

[Loudmouth]

To me, universal genetic code is evidence for design.

Yeah, just like finding a suspect's fingerprints at a crime scene is evidence that God planted them there.