You didn't come from a rock?

Question

Someone recently posted a 'review' of evolution that was pretty much entirely wrong. However, it included the statement that we are not made out of rocks.

When the Earth formed, it included minerals (rocks), metals, and gases. What exactly do you think you're made out of that wasn't in that list? I've got news for you - you're made out of hydrogen (gas), carbon (mineral), potassium (metal), oxygen (gas), and so on.

Please tell me what you're made out of that doesn't make that list.

Tribble, flesh and blood are made out of elements - like rocks and metals. Blood has a lot of iron in it, and it carries oxygen. And you have not provided any evidence for a spirit, so there's not reason to speculate what something that doesn't exist is made out of.

Answer 1

Preferably, I could answer this privately via email or some other means. This is not even really a question as much as it is a display of vehement (in the sense of anger) disdain for vehemence (in the sense of emotion and zeal, such as the emotional "reasoning" behind much of faith).

That being said, I will still answer the "question" to the best of my humble abilities:

Let us begin as one would when formally looking into a solution--with definitions.

Rock--Let us understand that to the author of the question and its answerers thus far, the word "rock" appears to have two meanings. The first is analogous in that rock means "stuff" or essence of that which makes us tangible. The second is more symbolic in that it means atoms.

Gas--a substance possessing perfect molecular mobility and the property of indefinite expansion, as opposed to a solid or liquid.

Mineral--any of a class of substances occurring in nature, usually comprising inorganic substances, as quartz or feldspar, of definite chemical composition and usually of definite crystal structure, but sometimes also including rocks formed by these substances as well as certain natural products of organic origin, as asphalt or coal.

Metal--1. any of a class of elementary substances, as gold, silver, or copper, all of which are crystalline when solid and many of which are characterized by opacity, ductility, conductivity, and a unique luster when freshly fractured.
2. Chemistry.
a. such a substance in its pure state, as distinguished from alloys.
b. an element yielding positively charged ions in aqueous solutions of its salts.
3. an alloy or mixture composed wholly or partly of such substances, as brass. (more definitions found at)

And for some of the answerers out there I'll also loosely define spirit/soul.

Spirit--1. the principle of conscious life; the vital principle in humans, animating the body or mediating between body and soul.
2. the incorporeal part of humans: present in spirit though absent in body.
3. the soul regarded as separating from the body at death.
4. conscious, incorporeal being, as opposed to matter: the world of spirit.(more on page)
Soul--1. the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.
2. the spiritual part of humans regarded in its moral aspect, or as believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come: arguing the immortality of the soul.
3. the disembodied spirit of a deceased person: He feared the soul of the deceased would haunt him.
4. the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments.
5. a human being; person. (more on page)

Very quickly, I'll define one last term from principles of logic.

affirming the consequent--A fallacy having the form:

p É q

q
_______

p

Example: "If Dole had been elected President in 1996, then he would no longer be a Senator. Dole is no longer a Senator. Therefore, Dole was elected President in 1996."



SO, after much defining, and borderline plagiarism, I will respond to the statements and question posed by the asker:

First of all, most religions (including that of atheistic or scientific points of view) agree from a superficial or symbolic point of view that people are made up of something which at its most basic form is rock that used to be gases or swirling chaotic "something".

However, one must remember that this must be seen as one of the following possibilities:

People believe we're made from rocks, dust, elements from bi-products of forming stars etc because we're taught in church or school to believe this to be true. Therefore, this could be seen as the traditional view of things, whether it be cultural, religious, or scientifically based.
OR
Research--Samples of organisms, dead or alive, and their body fluids have been analyzed and chemically compared to certain elements/compounds we already know about.
OR
Intuitive/common sense--We feel/seem like we're made of chemicals or materials..."you are what you eat".
OR
I'm sure there exist possibilities I don't have time to list here.

This must all be "boiled" down to three things:
Faith in what we're told, faith in observations and/or the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, and finally "going with your gutt".
But there can all be simplified further down to--opinion.

Ultimately, what we're made out of, or the level of confidence one should have in views of faith or scientific observation or self observation is a matter of opinion.

Of course it is possible that absolute truth (moral and otherwise) or laws of nature exist (as I believe to some extent) but then it is also possible that everything is relative, and it is also possible that everything is illusion.

To support the possibility of life being an illusion (as dramatized in the movie "The Matrix") let us look at the concept of observation.

If we try to observe the position and/or momentum of something smaller than microscopic, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that this cannot be measured/observed more accurately than a Planck's constant, h, divided by 4pi.

Indeterminacy extends this to the macroscopic world philosophically and in some real world situations.

There are many reasons for this type of uncertainty, but one is that of the observer causing (or at least changing) the observed situation.

Some particles are created by their observation. Some particles, like tachyons (which are hypothetical and could or could not exist) cannot even be observed by normal means because they are superluminal in velocity, therefore appear to "travel through time".

Macroscopically speaking, if we observe "primitive" tribes with video cameras and the like, we're affecting the interactions of that tribe if our presence is even somewhat known or even just sensed, just for example. Or, another example is how people will "ham-it-up" when trying to impress others or gain attention.

Behavior of everything subatomic to social is affected by observation.

Therefore, in part (but I do not suggest in whole), we only exist (or are made of "rocks") because we believe and "observe" that we exist and have confidence in that belief or observation as being valid.

In truth, from the perspective of chemistry and physics, we're mostly made up of water and tissues, this is all made up of semi-crystaline or elastic structure and water which is a liquid. This is just the knitting of static and chemical bonds whether loosely or tightly knit..there exist a lot of space between each molecule in the water, and some space in everything else. In each molecule of anything that makes us up there is some space between the nucleus of each of the atoms that make up the molecules. Also, in an atom, the size and mass of the electron is much smaller than that of the nucleus or the atom as a whole. The sense that the atom is "there" is actually an illusion caused by the electron cloud that attracts or repulses charges that come near the atom's exterior. In actuality there is a LOT of space fractionally speaking between the electron cloud/shell and the nucleus's surface.

Now realize that our solar system is a bubble of gas caused by the gravity and solar winds of the sun.

Now realize that most of our solar system is made up of negative space.

Most of our galaxy (aside from its center) is made up of space between each star.

And the distance from one galaxy to the next (on average) is enormous in any sense be it measured or relatively speaking.

The point is we (as humans) and our universe (as we humans observe it to be (so far)) is statistically speaking empty with only a small amount of background radiation and large amount of space-time which is not observed as matter in the 3-d perspective.

So, in this sense, we are NOT made up rocks, we're not made of anything but a chaotic (but not random) assortment of bound forces of nature that seemingly interact with one another according (usually) to certain laws within a void or vacuum of nothingness or within an 11(or more)-dimensional set of "membranes" and strings of reality.

Really quickly though, before I forget:
The materials that the asker suggests we humans are composed of are elements, and not always gases, minerals or metals. In fact, the blood carries oxygen bonded to hemoglobin or within waters or sugar etc...carbon is rarely inorganic within the body and therefore rarely in its mineral (inorganic) form, potassium is a metal, but is really seen as an ion that helps the body to function better in ways too lengthy to describe here.

In response to the assumption that the spirit/soul doesn't exist just because it hasn't been observed...this goes contrary to science. Science takes what we previously believed to be "magic" and shows its factuality. Right now, the spirit/soul is viewed as "magical" or "religious" thinking just as String Theory is seen as theory.

But, for example, X-rays (aka R-rays) weren't discovered by Wilhelm Röntgen until 1895, does this mean that they didn't exist until then? From the sense of perpsective, no they didn't, but in actuality, and according to what we've been shown by physicists about the electro-magnetic spectrum, yes they've always existed.

God, souls, spirits, these all exist, the question is, are they more than mere folklore? That is something yet to be proven, although there is some evidence that suggests they do and some that suggests they don't. I would suggest than the fact that most mathematic solutions to problems in physics end up being the more graceful solutions hints to intelligent design, and this is part of the reason I have faith in the Lord God (although not the whole reason). But this, or my somewhat skeptical and uncertain belief in the spirit are both really just speculation.

I know in my core that there is a God, and I trust that I am more than a dream, but I have no irrefutable proof.

So, one shouldn't "spit" upon someone for proposing that we're made out of flesh, bone and the spirit.

All of reality is just the essence of forces, so why couldn't the essence of who we are as people be something that is just as real, but just not as easily observable in science?

In conclusion:

People are more than just flesh and bone, body and soul, we're a collection of perspectives of past, present and future people and how they see us and we see them and ourselves.

People are holders of knowledge passed on from generation to generation, ever added to in a sort of social evolution.

People experience the illusion of sentience unlike most organisms. This illusion is so strong, it becomes a reality to us, although a difficult one to fully grasp.

People are fathers, mothers, etc

People are made up of (like the asker and myself for example) opinions, attitudes, psyches, loves, hate, chemical attractions, lust, greed, compassion, anger, fear, etc

People are made up of good and evil, the potential to do something or do nothing..

We're made up of many biochemicals that were NOT found at the theorized formation of our solar system.

Heck, even our muscles' cells have proton pumps in them...I wouldn't call that a simple "rock" or element. (Protons are not elements by themselves)...

We're complex organisms.

Any views that state that we ARE (or are not) made up of "rocks" and assumes that this MUST be the absolute truth are simplistic, naive or ignorant.

No personal offense intended to the author.

Again, I would've emailed this answer, but this option was not open to me.

However, anyone is welcome to email me with any comments.

Be well, and good day!

~A spaghetti western actor I am not!

Answer 2

Well the Bible says I'm made of clay, so, you know... A rock is close enough.

Although perhaps the point of the "rock" thing is that we're all made from naturally occurring elements. I'm not sure why that is considered controversial outside of the "food product" industry.

Answer 3

You are confusing rock with atoms. Rock is not a synonyme for atoms.
What you are saying is that we are rocks, because they are made of the same atoms as we are. According to this reasoning, we are also monkeys. And bacteria. And water. And stars. And my computer. They are also made of atoms.

Answer 4

There is a difference between 'coming' from a rock and having organic and inorganic particles as our physical make up.
Are you geing belligerent?

Answer 5

That has been brought up here before. Have any scientists found the 'missing rock'?

Answer 6

So true we were made out of dirt.

Answer 7

I am flesh and blood and"spirit."