Question to Atheists (or anyone else who knows)?

Question

How do Atheists think our complex bodies formed? I know that animals and such are getting more complex over time and started from single-celled organisms. Do the Atheists think that the cells combined and miraculously created a loving, seeing, feeling body? It's an honest question so please don't take it in offense. Blessed be.

Answer 1

Not just atheists, plenty of religious people believe it too.

Cells have a reproduction rate from minutes to days. So you can see how many generations they went through in millions of years. Plenty of time for genetic codes to be corrupt, and some accidentally be better in terms of survival, and those cellular kiddies survived more than the others and eventually became the majority, and more genetic mistakes, etc. etc. Cells group together for protection just like herds, and then colonies with mistakes accidentally have some cells do one thing and others other things - division of labor - and it's great, and it leads eventually waay down the line to organs. So a multicellular animal grows, and sees, and feels.

As for love, I don't look to biology to explain that. Most humans recognize it as something beyond deconstruction. Sure plenty of people tell you they think there is nothing more to love than the chemical reaction that characterizes it in our brain, but they don't live according to that belief, and "what you do speaks so louder I cannot hear what you say."

The one thing this does not explain is how the first cell got started, because we don't know that, but evolution never claimed to explain that in the first place. The book was "Origin of Species" not "Origin of Life".

~ Lib

Answer 2

Well, pretty much as you said. Primeval Soup --> basic cells --> more complex cells --> basic plants etc. I do not know the exact science of it, I am not a scientist. But I have been told it many times before and it rings more true than the Bible with me.

The only problem is the driving force which makes genes want to survive. Why do any of us want to survive? Somehow that places existence above non-existence. I'm not sure why that would be... There is sometimes no explanation for things. I mean, I know why a thinking human would wish to stay alive... or do I? The will to survive is an oddity, especially in simple organisms...

As Heraclitus saw in ancient Greece, things are constantly changing.

x

Answer 3

Most atheists believe in evolution. That means that just like the "animals and such" we formed from a single -cell organism getting more complex over time. Actually according to evolution we are also "animals and such".

Answer 4

It's a bit disingenuous to ask a question that demands a textbook by way of reply. Atheists/evolutionists don't think anything happened "miraculously", obviously. That would be a theistic/teleological viewpoint. The process was slow, complex, and depended on many factors. It was much more likely that we would never have developed - for most of the history of life on earth, there has not been an animal that did anything other than fight for survival. But over the course of time, natural selection resulted in humans with self-aware brains. Now for the rest I strongly suggest you go to your town library and commit some energy to reading a serious book about it. Hope you find your answers.

Answer 5

I think the theory of evolution and creationism both fail to explain the beginning and the end. But I also think that is a concept we humans were never meant to understand. How can time have a beginning and an end? If the Big Bang theory is correct, then what happened BEFORE the Big Bang? If God created the universe, then who created God? The same goes for the end of time. Is there an end of time? If so, what happens after that? Nothingness? Isn't that in itself time? An infinite period of nothingness is still a period. So I, being almost an atheist (I still celebrate Christmas, for the gifts, hehe), believe that I have no idea how "life" on this planet, or any other, started. And you can't prove beyond the shaodw of a doubt that your explanation is absolutely true either. It's one of the great mysteries of mankind.

Answer 6

our complex bodies formed from natural selection andthe theory of evolution. We never started out with the billions and billions of complex cells and tissues... we came from one-celled organisms. Supposedly, something called "natural selection" developes. A random "defect" in the DNA makes an organism different from another. Some are helpful, while others are not. If that "defect" allows that organism to be more successful on living, then that trait is passed down. Take the process over a long period of time... and that's where we come in.

Answer 7

No. Not miraculously. It happened over time. We didn't just spontaneously evolve from random cells. We came from other animals. Compare us to our cousins, the chimpanzee. Chimpanzees love, see, and feel. Now, start going down the evolutionary ladder and compare us to other animals that see and feel (feel in both a physical and emotional sense; if they didn't feel emotionally, animals would never get stressed). I purposefully left 'love' out, as, though it is found shared with our other mammalian cousins, there is an element of subjectivity to its definition.

Allow me to take a moment to dispel a commonly held myth about evolution. Evolution is not about getting more complex over time. The line that led to humans grew more complex, as there is a lot to be said for brain complexity and adaptability (the driving force of evolution). However, a slug is just as 'evolved' as we are, as are bacteria. Evolution doesn't have a purpose or an end goal. It just goes with what works. And complexity is not the only strategy for adaptability to an environment.

Answer 8

>> Do the Atheists think that the cells combined and miraculously created a loving, seeing, feeling body?

Not miraculously. Evolution is a painstakingly long, and drawn out process.

First you need reproducing organisms and literally thousands of generations. Next, you need genetic mutations (radiation, gene copying errors, you get the idea) ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift ). Next, you have a whole bunch of generations that have been "hand-picked" so to speak, by nature, to pick out the best mutations, such that they're no longer considered mutations, but adaptations ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection ). Add in ecological niches for speciation purposes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_niche ), and you get everything you see around you - birds, mammals, fish...

Isn't nature beautiful?

Answer 9

"getting more complex over time and started from single-celled organisms"

"Do the Atheists think that the cells combined and miraculously created a loving, seeing, feeling body?"

Make up your mind, moron. ****, I never thought I'd meet a wiccan fundie. No, idiot, no one thinks that, and it's obvious that you *know* they don't since you already talked about organisms getting more complex one tiny step at a time. Wiccan trolls, damn, what is this world coming to?

Answer 10

I personally think that life being created was a mistake. Feelings are part of science; how the human brain works. That is if feelings exists at all. I also personally think it's possible that feelings might be a kind of well, for lack of a better word, illusion. Either that or they're just another part of evolution. Not that I'm saying animals (other than humans) don't have feelings. I'm not quite sure if you meant physical or mental feelings, so sorry if my answer wasn't what you were looking for.