Since no one has ever seen life form from nonliving matter, scientists must accept that it happened by faith.?

Question

Science believing by faith that life formed from non-living matter? I thought science wasn't faith based?

Evolutionists please explain how cells, once they emerged from lifeless matter diversified into the many life forms we see today.

Mostly ALL scientist say that when considering the probability of the assembly of a DNA molecule the calculations are one in 10 to the power of 100 billion.

OR answer this one:

Since all the components of the first cell came from the environment, how did it get the ability (information) to make or assemble these components?

Many here claim I am narrow-minded and Uneducated for believing in God, so please.. please just one person answer these questions. Its easy to call someone just plain dumb and that God doesn't exist (but aliens could). It's easy to try and back Christians in a corner, but can you back up your own beliefs?

Why is it dozens (on here) can critisize my beliefs, but less than 10 can (attempt) to answer my questions like my last one?

A sperm and an egg is not considered living... and some on here call me unintelligent in Science?

So the best answers most can come up with is go read a book/textbook... are you people living in faith of science?

who said anything about atheism.. science is not atheism lol.. and im the one that gets called uneducated right?

Technically Sperm and egg are not living, sorry to inform you =) That is according to my Biology teacher (who proudly proclaims atheism). I have taken biology for a long time trust me I know it is not classified as living.

This is what i was told about sperm for you smart people:

"I am a scientist of 25 years, having spent much of my career working
with spermatozoa. If one accepts that, to be considered "a live
animal in and of itself", the entity must 1) be able to sustain itself
and 2) reproduce itself, then a spermatozoon is not such."

Answer 1

I'm with you on this - human logic cant explain everything - there is a level of understanding beyond ours.

Answer 2

First, The fact that you asked a science question in R&S would suggest that you do not really want an answer, but you are just reinforcing your preconceptions.

Second, why do you ask 'Evolutionists'?
This is not a question of evolution. that happens once lif exists.
What is an 'evolutionist' you seem to imply it is a religion. Why not ask the biologists or the scientists? See the first point.


To quickly answer your question:

For the diversification question - By the process of evolution. Go read a good text book.


For your abiogenesis question:

We do not know.

Now, why is it that you have to have an answer right now? Why is it that it must be "God Did It" if science says 'We don't know'?

Gods used to make the sun rise, the rain fall and the lightning strike. Now science has answered those questions. What makes you so confident that it will not answer this one in the future.


For what I am aware of us actually knowing:
The first 'life' was not DNA, but probably something like a simple version of RNA.

All the DNA and RNA on this planet has been evolving for the last 3.5 billion years and is going to be nothing like what was there originally.

We do not need to exactly reproduce the simplest DNA (or RNA) around now, which is where your probability strawman comes from. We just need a molecule that is capable of self reproduction. Given the availability of amino acids there are billions of combinations that can do this. Also we have vast areas of oceans to do this in, with millions of years for it to happen. The odds are suddenly much closer to 1:1

So if we have an availability of amino acids then life will almost certainly happen.

Several experiments have simulated the early Earth's environment. Most have produced amino acids in significant quantities.


So, have scientist seen a self replicating molecule formed in one of these experiments?

No. But then they are run in a small flask for a week or a month rather than on an entire planet for millions of years.

I have confidence that scientist will see such a molecule in the next 20 years or so.

What will you do then? Handwave it away as being too simple for life? Or just say "God Did It Again!"?

Answer 3

Allow me to make a few points for your consideration:

1) Nobody claims that life began in its current state ~ Nobody claims that DNA just formed in its current complex configuration, it would be extremely simple at first, probably a simple self replicating protein string.

2) Life has not been generated in a lab but the raw materials have. All it takes is the right base elements and the catalyst. Not only that, these tests have only been going on over the last century, the Earth was developing for millions of years before life arose.

3) It's not narrow minded or uneducated to take an educated guess based on the known facts. There is a lot more reality there than in basing your beliefs around the goings on of a mystical being whose very existence is debatable.

4) You're an idiot. Sperm and egg cells are living cells. You are "unintelligent in science".

Answer 4

Hello J,

As you said science hasn't yet fully proved that life originated from nonliving matter, although as HourglassJoPeCa said, some progress has been made.

Regarding the probability of those substances to combine into DNA: it is low, yes, but you need to take into account that the quantities of these substances was huge and therefore even if the probability is low, the number of times this process would take place makes up for it.

To my knowledge, the universe is estimated to be made up of billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars and a lot of stars having planets where this process might take place. This is still an estimate however as the technology for detecting planets is still in it's early days. My point is that this process takes place a lot on every planet with certain basic nonliving matter present and that there are a LOT of these planets around.

Finally, at the current state of science, believing in either a religion or what science says is still subjective. The reason why i choose not to believe in any religion is because, as we've seen in the past, science has always managed to give another (i'd call "real") explanation of things which religion attributed to divinity (such as lightning being attributed to Zeus in Greek mythology).

Just my view on the question,
Rhino

Answer 5

If sperm / eggs aren't considered living things, then are we not each an example of life coming from inert matter?

I believe that it got this "information" through (whisper it) evolution. The majority of single cells that survived that harsh early days earth did so because of certain lucky developments through mutation. All the others where strimmed out. When it became more efficient for larger organisms to exist, these became prevalent as the smaller ones died. As the organisms became larger, they became more complex, developing nervous systems and brains etc.

I don't think you're narrow minded for believing in God, personally I'm not a believer myself but what I *do* believe in is peoples right to any faith they think they should follow. I think the problem on both sides of the fence here are the vocal minority, be they the Fire, Brimstone and eternal damnation set of Christians, to the I'm right and you're sick, wrong and stupid for believing in god branch of atheism. If we could all get along (like Buddhism and Shinto co-exist in Asia) then all our lives would be improved.

Answer 6

There are many flaws here in your premises. 1) Amino acids, the building blocks of DNA, have in fact been created from non-living matter. 2) We wouldn't expect to see a fully-functioning living organism come directly out of non-organic matter in one step. We know that nature doesn't work like that. The amino acids would become DNA, out of which some would be self-replicating, out of which some would have proteins, etc. all the way up to a single-celled organism. There's a continuum of stages in between, and to ask where life begins begs the question of what you define a living organism to be. It's not a precise line to draw. For example, viruses have DNA and are self-replicating but are not considered "organisms". 3) The lack of direct observation of something does not mean that it's all taken on "faith". Sometimes knowledge can be indirect. You can INFER things based on other observations. That's not "faith". 4) You don't have to accept a premise to begin with, whether it's by observation, inference, OR faith. I haven't seen unicorns, but that doesn't mean I have to accept their existence on faith. I can reject the whole notion all together. 5) A position of faith still isn't necessarily "a religious position". You need more than mere faith to label something a "religious" position. Otherwise, your argument implies that everything that isn't directly observed is a religious position, and if you're going to call my acceptance of the planet Neptune a "religious" position, then term loses all practical meaning.

Answer 7

You have posted a pretty oddball definition of life. If you actually look up some real attempts to define life you find out that it is much more fuzzy than you think at the edges.
You will also find out that Ken Ham and AiG is not good science or good religion because both of those require a level of honesty that Answers in Genesis will never reach.

By the way, Nobody has ever witnessed an act of Creation either.

Answer 8

Would you consider the "gametes" (male sperm and female egg) to be "living?" Are they "alive?" If you saw an egg in a microscope by itself, do you consider it "alive?" If you saw a single spem in a microscope, do you consider it alive. Now, put the 2 into the same dish and watch them merge to become a living human being.

If you view them merging in a petri dish, you are viewing 2 nonliving, non beings becoming one living thing.

Some scientists believe the organelle the mitochondria, the "powerhouse" of each living human cell, was once a symbiotic parasite which became a part of the human being. Considering it is passed down on the maternal side and its DNA is identical from mother to child, it seems that might be the case....

Answer 9

You have asked a question that can't really be fully answered in a 1000 words or less. So, when you get unsatisfactory answers, you will feel pretty pleased with yourself for stumping the evolutionist.

The answers you seek can be found in any number of good biology text books. If you really wanted to know, you would read a science book written by someone who ISN'T trying to prove the creation account in Genesis. You really don't want an answer, you want to feel smug because no one on YA R&S will be able to give you a good answer.

I could suggest links, but you won't read them, I could suggest books, but you won't read them. The fact of the matter is, to understand all the small details of evolutionary theory, you would have to read books by men who have spent years studying all the small detail of evolutionary theory. In order to fully grasp the answers to your questions, you would HAVE to spend time learning things that you don't want to know. So stop wasting time here and stay happy in your belief while the rest of us study and learn the challenging and hard questions. As a Christian, you have all the answers already.

Answer 10

firstly i'd like to say i'm studying biology at university, and i'm very interested in evolution and that your questions are good.

in answer to your first question:

firstly science is based around explanations without any faith or drawing conclusions without some sort of probability / data to support it. it is about finding the most probable explanation to observations in nature. and there IS a chance that that all the elements came together to form cells and larger life forms. and in the science world, based on other science laws, particularly physics laws, the chance of god existing is zero.

endosymbiosis: that's how prokaryote cells (the simpler, bacteria cells) evolved into eukaryote cells (almost all other cells)

once again, endosymbiosis: from these eukaryote cells, colonies of eukaryotes were formed which aided their survival. these colonies then became dependant on each other, eventually leading to the colonies becoming an organism. from these organisms, larger organisms formed from further endosymbiosis.

these theories are supported by current observations, such as colonies of common single cells eukaryotes, and certain organisms in nature not being able to live without the other.

this is the basis of the evolution theory, the chances of each of the many, many steps required for evolution to occur, as you said. However, science also suggests the world is billions of years old. there are also many, many billions of molecules on the earth, making small odds suddenly become very likely over such a large time scale.





in answer to your second question:

it happened by chance, there was no 'information', and yes, it is very, very unlikely, but chances are over such a large time scale it would happen. and it has been shown in the right conditions (similar to conditions the earth is believed to be like many, many years ago) that complex carbon based molecules do form with the input of energy (which in reality could be lightning or fire or something to that affect. it was the urey-miller experiment (im not fully informed about how it all happened))



Just because many science laws suggest god isn't real doesn't make it so. many good scientists believed in god. However, theories such as the evolution theory have SO much evidence that supports them, such as the adaptation through mutations of bacteria and virus' in medicine and vaccines. meaning over a large timeframe it is very safe to assume larger life forms will and have 'evolved'.

And I also have met many people who do not understand the science they believe in, however I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, they have been informed that scientific reasoning suggests it is likely evolution exists and the world is billions of years old. Real Science doesn’t contain any lies, any bending of the truth, and is always ‘peer reviewed’; and for these reasons I think we should take it as we’re told because the common person will never understand everything scientific. And do be religious based on not understanding science is a bit too ignorant in my beliefs...

and i'd like to end by saying i don't discount the possibility of god existing. i have my own beliefs, however they are not based around religion as they are also based around reason. and my reasoning suggests its inevitable that something 'god-like' exists...

if your interested in more civilized debating email me: [e-mail] (or hotmail.com, which i check more often)

Answer 11

There are a lot of assumptions in your question/statement. First, you seem to be saying that science is anti-theism. In fact, many scientists are themselves also theists and many are not. They come from both sides. Science tries to look at the data objectively without preassumptions about how things happened. This leads scientists to say we don't know how life first arose but persue all testable lines of thought and investigation to find out. I don't know scientists have said that they know how life arose, just that it could possibly be a natural process that doesn't require supernatural intervention. I hope you aren't confounding the theory of evolution which is just the explanation for what has occurred since life arose with hypothesis of abiogenesis which is the study of how life arose. Evolutionary theory is well supported by evidence and remains well supported by past and incoming data. It doesn't attempt to explain how life got here originally. Also, there are major differences between a hypothesis, which is all that exist for how life arose, and a theory which has repeatedly been validated by evidence. I and I believe most scientists would readily admit we don't know how life arose but to say because we don't know it must be a supernatural cause would be a false leap to make. There are many things we understand today to be natural phenomenon that previous peoples took to be caused by a supernatural agent. Because we were willing to explore other options our knowledge has increased greatly.

For a good discussion arguing for a naturalistic explanation for life and discussion of evolution, I recommend the book "The Blind Watchmaker."