Can any atheist explain this to me?

Question

Okay, with your whole theory of evolution thing, can you explain how life came into a nonliving world? As far as I can see, every living thing needs life to create it. Even if we are descended from bacterium, how did those bacterium come into existance? Life wasn't here on Earth from the beginning of time, so how does a non-living particle magically gain life? I honestly want to know.

Answer 1

Scientific America just published an article about the discovery of a molecule, incredibly simple, which they believe to be the precursor to the RNA enzyme that we consider the beginning of life.

Answer 2

Well, I am not an atheist, I am a Christian, but I would like to answer this anyway. You are right, you can not create life from the particles and various elements on Earth. Science itself has proven that. Studies have been conducted and scientists can use elements in nature to make everything needed to create life and sustain it, but they can't make it come alive - Something above all of this must do that.
As for evolution, the theory isn't solely about where humans came from. Many believe life started with the simple bacteria and protozoa that eventually became more complex, forming human beings at some point. The Bible says that God made us from dust - He used the very elements that evolutions claims we came from to make us- but it took Him to breath life into us to make us different.
Also, evolution can't be disproved - it is a fact of nature. All evolution is is the adaptation of nature to nature.

Answer 3

I see how a question such as yours can be construed as a trick question. Cute!!
However while not an atheist it's easy to explain and understand. Just about everything in the universe has chemicals.You always need a basic building block to start such as Bacterium which is still nothing more than a set of chemicals some more complex than others. Throw a catalyst into the mix such as heat of which at one point the Earth had plenty or a lightning strike and voila. There is nothing supernatural about heat or lightning btw. As time goes on these bacterium adapt to it's environment growing evermore complex.
If you want to see evolution in action look around. Mankind adapted and went from no tools to walking to hunting to driving to flying to space travel. If you consider the widespread use of drugs, vaccines, surgery and medical advances such as antibiotics we essentially are evolving ourselves to a higher level vastly different than our disease prone ancestors of even 100 years ago let alone thousands of years ago. The fact that as time goes by and we become more disease resistant whether artifically or naturally is evolution in itself.

Answer 4

I figure either life has always existed, in some form or another, or there is some kind "bridge" between energy and actual life, and at some point, maybe due to an enormous amount of energy, that bridge was crossed. There are many things in the natural world that a scientist does not consider alive (a virus, for one), because these things do not fit with the specified requirements for life. I believe there is an explanation, but I don't need it at this very moment in order to accept the truth in evolution.

Answer 5

Do you think anyone can explain this? Nobody can tell you how all this happened or what it really is. But this whole theory of evolution is pretty well proven. I am not saying I am atheist, but what I am saying is I would bet my life on the fact that evolution does exist and there is plenty of data to back that up. As to where it came from before that is beyond me. Let me know if you find out.

Answer 6

> can you explain how life came into a nonliving world?
Nope. There's speculation about abiogenesis. Look up "Miller-Urey experiment" on the internet. This experiment showed that biologically interesting monomers could come about from purely physical processes in the presumed reduceing atmosphere of the early Earth.

> how did those bacterium come into existance?
We don't know. Again, speculation about self-assembly of protobionts. But "we don't know" is a far cry from saying "a god or gods did it"; and saying "a god or gods did it" is a far cry from saying "the god of Abraham did it."

Answer 7

"As far as I can see, every living thing needs life to create it."

Following this to its logical next step, where did your god come from? How did it create anything? Did it just think everything up out of nothing?

"God did it" answers nothing. Science, on the other hand, has been making great strides, and we learn more every day.

If nothing else, start to pay attention to the psychology of your religion. See how it sets up problems that would not exist if not for that belief system, then tells you how to avoid the very "sins" it created. Why is it wrong to question? Scientists make their writings available for all to see, and challenge.

If anyone says to take something on "faith," ask yourself why. Why are they unwilling or unable to provide verifiable evidence. Gravity works whether you "believe" in it or not -- no "faith" is required.

Question everything.

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

Answer 8

Hey Kim Jong, I know it may seem confusing but when you ask this question it proves that you have no faith. If you believe God created the universe, believe it and stop trying to understand reality.

how do you know that life hasn't been here for all of time? you think the world is 4,000 years old.

the magic that allows non-living particles to 'gain' life is your religion.

I don't think you honestly want to know, because then everything you hold holy is sheet.

Answer 9

The stuff of life is manufactured in collapsed stars.

Gravity forces hydrogen atoms to combine into helium atoms and a star begins to shine. When a star begins to collapse, helium atoms are combined to form more complex molecules such as carbon, water, iron, etc. These are the building blocks of life. The utter collapse of a star serves to release those complex molecules back into space where they become particles in a newly condensing cloud of gas and dust which will become a new star and planets. When these elements are combined with a proper environment, life occurs rapidly and spontaneously.

Answer 10

My theory of evolution. Why thank you, unfortunately I am not that smart. The theory of evolution belongs to tens of thousands of scientist who use it every day to increase our understanding and to better the lives of people everywhere.

The theory of evolution has nothing to do with what you ask. Any more than the laws of thermodynamics. Evolution deal with how existing life changes and adapts to it's environment.

The subject you are curious about is abiogenesis. The production of life from non-life.

This probably explains it better than I can:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html

Answer 11

You are talking about "abiogenesis", a field of study covered by chemistry.

The current theories was that the earliest life was simple strands of RNA, formed in the early Earth pools of amino acids. The exact process by which a self-replicating molocule developed is unknown, but there are a number of hypotheses about it. You'll have to go to a chemist specializing in the field to learn more.