On the origins of life??????????

Question

What’s more likely….way back when, in a sea of cytoplasmic goo, a bunch of atoms got together and said….we are now a cell….that cell said….I’m gonna take some amino acids and string 100 to a 1000 or so together and make some enzymes (I think I’ll need around 1000 of these enzymes or so) and I’ll use these enzymes to carry out chemical reactions vital to my survival….I’ll need a membrane and within that membrane wall, I’ll create tiny little pumps, such as a sodium and potassium and calcium pumps that transfer materials in and out of me……..then that cell decided it needed some friends to hang out with, so when a few more of these cells got together, they said we’ll come together and create an organism….but we’ll need to all do different jobs to succeed, so, this group needs to come together and, lets say this group said, we’ll be the blood of the organism….but we need to be several different kinds of cells just to be the blood….and another group got together and said, we’ll be the heart to pump the blood…..but we’ll need to be develop a complex series of valves on our membrane to let certain ions like potassium flow out and others to let different ions like sodium in, we’ll also need lots of tiny, specialized organelles within us to help us carry out our function.…..and all the other cells in the goo found friends and said….”let’s become one of the 10’s of 1000’s of different forms of life on earth…”

I think you got the picture…..so, is it more likely that all of these things occurred, or is it likely that an intelligent and all-knowing being knew these things and created life to work so perfectly….


The fossil record suggests that exceptional evolutionary activity took place over 10 million years at the base of the Cambrian and generated the ancestors of nearly all the animal groups living on Earth today, as well as others that failed to see modern times.
But many scientists believe that such rapid evolution is not possible. They postulate that there was an extended period of evolutionary progression that left behind a scant fossil record.” From: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...

funny how the scant fossil record always happens when there is a gap in the argument

Oh, and yes, I actually do realize atoms/cells/tissues can’t talk – it’s just for effect, friends….

LOL @ orion

I do just have to say....should have come here first.....you folks in Philosophy are much more fun and open than the R&S folks - who basically tore my apart and more or less just said I was an idiot for thinking of asking this question....

Eaving OLarkin : I do realize I sped the process up quite a bit, but I don't think I over simplified the workings of an organism, if anything, I cut it short severely......but i appreciate your answer...

by the way, the 10's of millions comment is not mine, bur rather a direct quote from the listed source

Answer 1

I know what you were saying here and you got it right. Evolution theory has gaps in it that the fossil record verifies. There are gigantic leaps forward from a lower level of life to a higher complex one or one completely different from a so called "common ancestor". It is a perfect leap forward in design, and complexity, in organism, etc. The co-founder of evolution Henry Wallace realized there had to be a designer though he did not call it God. If you want to know the truth about who caused those perfect leap forward designs in each stage of development it is in Genesis 1. God did. And that is how science and religion are so compatible.

Answer 2

Simply put, the things that work together will eventually start to work. Other things build on this matrix of life and the matrix its self becomes more complex.

Once I wanted a pond so I dug a hole, a very big hole. After a while rain started to fill it up, but for a while it just looked like a big mud-puddle. The ducks flew in with aquatic plants on their feet. These plants took root and soon there was no more mud. Apparently these same ducks must have had fish eggs clinging to them because after a while fish appeared. Frogs and turtles walked and hopped in as did muskrats, dragon flies and a myriad of other creatures.

Trees grew up and some died along the banks. Someone coming upon it today might think that it had always been there. Or seeing the perfection and complexity of it they might think that some highly intelligent force had planed every aspect of it to absolute perfection.

Personally I believe in God too, I just don't think the She planed every minute detail of everything. I think that She was just smart enough to create a set of conditions that allowed life to create its self.

love and blessings Don

Answer 3

The whole "God created the universe" bid never really convinced, not even when i was a kid. It's probably why i turned to science to seek this very same answer out. One of the most reliable answers I've come across is string theory(which hasn't been proven) and M-Theory (Membrane) added with some Super gravity theory. Although the whole science bid is a little complicated for me to explain accurately, from what I've read and heard, it sounds very convincing.
Anyways it just the way i see things, but i do get what your saying i too something end up thinking how perfect this place really is to have enriched the earth with so much life. But then i get to think that this place is not so perfect nor the chaos that it took for us to evolve.
I agree with one of the post that we all did come from the cosmos, that we were once part of star. i say lets stop looking up into the heaven to try to find god, and instead look retreat into ourselves to discover the origin of life.

Answer 4

The Bible is a very succinct book. It pretty well lays everything out in order. Any intelligent man or woman of wisdom can see that God created evolution, as well as gravity.
Two men made us look at both those subjects. Darwin made us look at evolution, and Newton made us look at the science of gravity.
Both were created by God and if He spent four and half billion years on this planet alone to bring about the human race then that is how it was accomplished.
The fact that it took billions of years to create this world, doesn't render God invalid. It just shows that we as a race do not fully comprehend an entity that has the ability to create a kingdom without a universe then create a universe that cannot hold Him nor His kingdom.
Trying to wrap your head around that is just going to drive you to the loony bin.
Having said that I would say that the origin of life came long before the solar system we live in. Life was created before the big bang, and the origins of life on this planet have come directly from God's creation. The origins of life are from God.

Answer 5

If you do a little research into what you are talking about here you will find that you are GREATLY over simplifying here. Alot of the things you are describing as happening all at once. The nice thing is that the most basic start up only needs to work right once. Once the ball gets rolling the spreading to fill different niches is down to luck and time. Evolution and your talking cells don't 'decide' to be something different. A new one is born that is subtly different from the parent. If the change is inferior, it likely dies out. If the difference increases its odds of survival, it spreads.
Beyond that you also are putting the origins of life far more recently than current scientific theory points. Rather than 10s of millions of years ago, its thought to be billions of years ago.

Answer 6

I admit evolution is difficult to imagine, and that we'd all like to believe we're put here for a special reason, part of some plan bigger than all of us. However, one major flaw in your argument is that life doesn't "work so perfectly". Genetic differences or problems like lactose intolerance or Down's syndrome point to reproduction being pretty random, with chromosomes being incorrectly produced or left out fairly often. When it's a bad enough mutation, a natural miscarriage occurs - if God had created that growing fetus, with a soul already in place as some believe, why allow it to be stitched together so badly that it has to be thrown out before it's even born? This actually happens with fairly regular certainty. Seems more like nature taking a wrong course, rather than part of some heavenly plan. Think of all the people with bad, worn down knees, hips, or backs, or even lousy eyesight, that result not from a particular injury but just from living for a while and doing normal activities that we certainly were "made" for, like walking or looking at the world around us. Why would an all-loving, all-knowing God give so many people such fragile or short-lived body parts, knowing they would wear out quickly and cause pain or other problems? Perhaps we just haven't evolved strong enough body parts yet.
Consider this: sickle cells evolved in some people's families that lived in malaria-stricken zones. Sickle cells keep malaria from reproducing and making a person sick. Unfortunately, sickle cells clump together and can also cause a painful death. Some people, however, have both a sickle cell gene and a normal blood cell gene, which work together to give them both immunity from malaria and freedom from sickle cell disease. These people have evolved a natural answer to not only 1, but 2 deadly conditions. Further, people whose family histories do not trace back to malaria-prone areas do not have sickle cell traits. In this way, we can see, slowly but surely, evolution right before our eyes.
Finally, I have heard the "but look around us, how could such wonderful flowers and trees that we find so lovely have evolved naturally to fit our ideals of beauty?". Consider that we evolved to find beautiful and mystical that which existed; that we evolved to fit the world, not the other way around.
It's good that you're questioning these things. Good luck to you in your search for your own truth.

Answer 7

I have for over 40 years said that we came from the Stars - a few years ago I read that scientists had formulated that a few microbes did come in on meteorites and that is how this planet got colonised by life.
I prefer to think of proper beings being dropped off in passing but I think the scientists are probably more accurate than my wistfulness.

Answer 8

Obviously this will depend on who you ask. I'm a firm believer in evolution. Unfortunately, the people you really want to sway are pretty stubborn. I think the whole idea of intelligent design is pretty childish and silly, but as the thumbs down will show, not everyone agrees

Answer 9

Heres whats likely. We don't know. Coming up with an absolute is foolish. Either way, you cant back it up and you cant disprove either.. So its the age old questions, Religion or Science.. At least science is trying to find the answer. You just do what you are told.

Answer 10

study quantum mechanics and you'll understand the universe does not randomly fly apart but abides by laws and such is nature and crystals that form in nice same shapes... amazing ain't it? and look at snow flakes and atoms and electron orbits of what everything is made of copies this circular law of all things.