Evolution and creationism if you will?

Question

How was the universe born? I was born.
How was the first humans born? Evolution
How was the first organism born? It can't be from nothing, because nothing comes from nothing. If it just is, how is it that it just is?

Answer 1

150 years ago, we didn't know about bacteria. No clue. It wasn't understood until Louis Pasteur determined that germs caused disease.

You are asking the same questions that scientists ask. What causes each individual element of the universe to come forth from other elements? You have, however, asked this in the Religion & Spirituality section, where we are mostly humanities majors, not biologists or physicists. Would you come to R&S to find out what opus number was Mozart's 40th Symphony? I think not. You're asking us to play to our weakness. Quite frankly, you're being unfair.

So let me suggest two things:

1. If you are serious about wanting to know the current evidence-based understanding on the origins of the universe and on evolutionary theory, there are excellent descriptions found at http://www.talkorigins.org .

2. Consider that you are proposing (subtly) that anything that is not explained is a place for God to be discovered. This is commonly referred to in ontology as "the god of the gaps" theory. It typically assigns God to any blank space that science has not yet reached useful conclusions. Remember what I said about disease? Before bacteria were discovered, it was assumed God was punishing the ill, or that they were demon possessed, or some other supernatural phenomenon caused sickness. This is the same god of the gaps.

Science never assumes, and should never assume, anything is supernatural. The purpose of science is to discover through measured observation, testing, and repetition what natural causes lead to our natural world. If you impose a statement "God caused it," then this stops the search for knowledge, because God is ultimately unknowable. This is the reason that the "god of the gaps" theory is discounted among learned ontological academicians, and is ignored by science.

Answer 2

"How was the universe born?"

The most supported scientific observational theory suggests there was some sort of (non-chemical) explosion several billion years ago that resulted in all matter currently in existence being created. Celestial bodies developed through the coalescing of said matter and stars were ignited upon a body becoming large enough to trigger nuclear fusion at their core.

"How was the first humans born?"

Probably the same way you were, from a very-close-to-human ancestor.

"How was the first organism born?"

I'm assuming you mean the first self-replicating molecule.

It is theorised that organisms developed through the spontaneous combination of chemicals into amino acids (as demonstrated in the Miller-Urey projects) and the combination of amino acids into basic self-replicating proteins.

"It can't be from nothing, because nothing comes from nothing. If it just is, how is it that it just is?"

The is no proof that life cannot come from nothing. Experiments have shown that the basic building blocks of life can spontaneously form from a chemical base, why shouldn't life develop from those building blocks over a long period of time?

Answer 3

If you want answers, stop applying your limited world view of your own humanity to the rest of the world. Just because you were born doesnt mean the universe was born as well.

Answer 4

That's cosmology and abiogenesis. Get back to us with the evolution question. Amino acids have been spontaneously created in a laboratory and those are the building blocks of genetic material so I don't see a problem with them occuring spontaneously in nature over a period of millions of years.

Answer 5

Don't you tire of this whole thing? Make up your mind, teach that beleif to your child. Let me make up my mind and then teach my children as I want.

Answer 6

How is it that God just is?