Religion Creation vs. Darwin's MacroEvolution Myth

[The Speaker]

If you know something bad will happen to those you love and have the power to stop it but don't then you don't love.

Innocent is children dying of starvation etc

If a parent warns his child of the harm that would come to them if they do something, and then they do it despite his ability to stop them from doing so, is that unloving?

At what point do you believe a human ceases to be entirely innocent?

This is very important, because the crux of your argument is about the definition of love and human responsibility. The other two parts (God mustn't be all-powerful/all-knowing) revolve around the idea that bad things happen and if God is loving he would've stopped those things from happening, therefore he mustn't have the power to stop them or the knowledge that they would happen.

 

[Taylor]

If a parent warns his child of the harm that would come to them if they do something, and then they do it despite his ability to stop them from doing so, is that unloving?

At what point do you believe a human ceases to be entirely innocent?

This is very important, because the crux of your argument is about the definition of love and human responsibility. The other two parts (God mustn't be all-powerful/all-knowing) revolve around the idea that bad things happen and if God is loving he would've stopped those things from happening, therefore he mustn't have the power to stop them or the knowledge that they would happen.

Warning of harm and then allowing it to happen is a big difference to letting them die.

When does someone cease to be innocent? When they are able to make their own choices, which is why children dying of starvation and malaria is brutal and unloving. Those who couldn't know better can't be taught lessons that cost their life, especially when the lesson is "should have been born white and rich where they worship the right god - those two aren't related at all though!"

 

[The Speaker]

Warning of harm and then allowing it to happen is a big difference to letting them die.

When does someone cease to be innocent? When they are able to make their own choices, which is why children dying of starvation and malaria is brutal and unloving. Those who couldn't know better can't be taught lessons that cost their life, especially when the lesson is "should have been born white and rich where they worship the right god - those two aren't related at all though!"

And here we see the crucial difference.

Your argument is that a human will be conceived and born entirely innocent and without fault, and only cease to be innocent once they reach a certain age, at which point they are also responsible for their actions.

God, through the Bible, says something different: that humans are sinful from conception, and will therefore bear the burden of their sinful nature from the moment of their creation. Suffering and death entered the world through human sinfulness, when Adam and Eve ate the one fruit they were commanded not to, and so all humanity feels the result of that, for we too wish, as they did, to be God, rather than worship the one who is God.

However, humans are not held responsible for their sinfulness until they reach a certain age and, furthermore, God himself has experienced one of the most painful, humilating deaths any person can possibly have, when Jesus - God become flesh - was crucified in order to deal with the problem of sin. That is, God is so loving that despite his creation turning away from him time after time, since the creation of the world, he already had a plan to save that same creation, and it involved his own death, in order that we might have eternal life. Only a God who is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving would have the capacity and desire to do that.

 

[Bennett.]

And here we see the crucial difference.

Your argument is that a human will be conceived and born entirely innocent and without fault, and only cease to be innocent once they reach a certain age, at which point they are also responsible for their actions.

God, through the Bible, says something different: that humans are sinful from conception, and will therefore bear the burden of their sinful nature from the moment of their creation. Suffering and death entered the world through human sinfulness, when Adam and Eve ate the one fruit they were commanded not to, and so all humanity feels the result of that, for we too wish, as they did, to be God, rather than worship the one who is God.

However, humans are not held responsible for their sinfulness until they reach a certain age and, furthermore, God himself has experienced one of the most painful, humilating deaths any person can possibly have, when Jesus - God become flesh - was crucified in order to deal with the problem of sin. That is, God is so loving that despite his creation turning away from him time after time, since the creation of the world, he already had a plan to save that same creation, and it involved his own death, in order that we might have eternal life. Only a God who is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving would have the capacity and desire to do that.

Curious as to where you get the thinking that humans aren't held responsible until a certain age?

 

[Taylor]

And here we see the crucial difference.

Your argument is that a human will be conceived and born entirely innocent and without fault, and only cease to be innocent once they reach a certain age, at which point they are also responsible for their actions.

God, through the Bible, says something different: that humans are sinful from conception, and will therefore bear the burden of their sinful nature from the moment of their creation. Suffering and death entered the world through human sinfulness, when Adam and Eve ate the one fruit they were commanded not to, and so all humanity feels the result of that, for we too wish, as they did, to be God, rather than worship the one who is God.

However, humans are not held responsible for their sinfulness until they reach a certain age and, furthermore, God himself has experienced one of the most painful, humilating deaths any person can possibly have, when Jesus - God become flesh - was crucified in order to deal with the problem of sin. That is, God is so loving that despite his creation turning away from him time after time, since the creation of the world, he already had a plan to save that same creation, and it involved his own death, in order that we might have eternal life. Only a God who is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving would have the capacity and desire to do that.

So God created, was unhappy with creation, sent himself to die but still children are born tarnished in his eyes.

Being blamed for being created as you are by a perfect creator who takes no responsibility for an imperfect creation is just the next absolution of responsibility the faithful allow God. The good? Praise God! The bad? All part of the plan.

Babies dying of starvation and malaria because they never heard of God is not the acts of an all loving God.

I have no problem with an apathetic God who doesn't care about life unless it cares about him but pretending God loves is a fantasy.

Everyone would choose to be born white and rich if there was a choice, those are God's chosen people.

 

[The Speaker]

Curious as to where you get the thinking that humans aren't held responsible until a certain age?

Ah, yes, I don't want to misspeak about that. As I said, all are sinful from the moment they are conceived (as David states in Psalm 51), and if this were not true, no-one would die as an infant.

I'm also not saying there is one over-arching age that applies to all, like the Jewish custom of it being at 13. Some with disabilities would never reach a point where they are capable of understanding their own actions, while some five-year olds are perfectly capable of doing so.

There is, however, numerous passages which affirm that infants - by God's grace - are not held to account for their innate sinful nature. In Deuteronomy 1, they are said to have no knowledge of good and evil (compare this with those who are held accountable in Romans 1). In Jeremiah 19 the children sacrificed to idols are called 'innocent'. In Job 3, Job says says that those who die as infants are at rest, while Solomon in Ecclesiastes 6 says a stillborn is better off than a man who lives a hundred years and has many children. In 2 Samuel 12, David says that he will one day be reunited with his infant son who has just died, and does not weep about that child's fate after his death (contrast with Absalom, his adult son who rebels against him, whom he does weep for after he dies). And, above all, Jesus himself commands us to come to God like infants, fully reliant on his grace for our salvation, unable to do anything on our own. That seems to me to be a powerful image, for why should we be like those that are not saved?

So God created, was unhappy with creation, sent himself to die but still children are born tarnished in his eyes.

Being blamed for being created as you are by a perfect creator who takes no responsibility for an imperfect creation is just the next absolution of responsibility the faithful allow God. The good? Praise God! The bad? All part of the plan.

Babies dying of starvation and malaria because they never heard of God is not the acts of an all loving God.

I have no problem with an apathetic God who doesn't care about life unless it cares about him but pretending God loves is a fantasy.

Everyone would choose to be born white and rich if there was a choice, those are God's chosen people.

Actually, God was quite happy with his creation. During the days of creation, he looks at his creation and sees that it is good, and on the final day, when man is created, he looks at all he has made and sees that it is very good.

Furthermore, God has a close relationship with Adam and Eve, so much so that he is described as "walking in the garden in the cool of the day", as would you and I. The rot was not there from the start - it only came when humans chose to disobey the one who had given them life, relationship, and all they possibly could ask for.

Moreover, God has taken responsibility for our actions in the death and resurrection of Jesus, the one human who has ever lived who did no wrong, who deserved no punishment, and yet bled and died for our sin. That is not an apathetic God. That is a God who loves so much that he would be willing to die for his creation. The wage of sin is death, and a just God - which a loving God must also be - must require this. So, in Jesus, that price is paid.

These infants dying young? Weep with their parents for having gone through such a thing - we all know people who have had a miscarriage, a stillborn, SIDS - but not for the child, because that child is with the Lord, a loving God who has saved them from the misery of this life and given them eternity with him.

That is a God who is all three 'alls'.

Rich and white people are God's chosen, are they? Interesting that they are the least willing to accept the truth of the gospel. God's chosen are those who acknowledge Jesus as Lord, for in Jesus "there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." The colour of one's skin and the possessions one has in this life mean nothing, because Jesus has given eternal life.

 

[chelseacarlton]

Ah, yes, I don't want to misspeak about that. As I said, all are sinful from the moment they are conceived (as David states in Psalm 51), and if this were not true, no-one would die as an infant.

I'm also not saying there is one over-arching age that applies to all, like the Jewish custom of it being at 13. Some with disabilities would never reach a point where they are capable of understanding their own actions, while some five-year olds are perfectly capable of doing so.

There is, however, numerous passages which affirm that infants - by God's grace - are not held to account for their innate sinful nature. In Deuteronomy 1, they are said to have no knowledge of good and evil (compare this with those who are held accountable in Romans 1). In Jeremiah 19 the children sacrificed to idols are called 'innocent'. In Job 3, Job says says that those who die as infants are at rest, while Solomon in Ecclesiastes 6 says a stillborn is better off than a man who lives a hundred years and has many children. In 2 Samuel 12, David says that he will one day be reunited with his infant son who has just died, and does not weep about that child's fate after his death (contrast with Absalom, his adult son who rebels against him, whom he does weep for after he dies). And, above all, Jesus himself commands us to come to God like infants, fully reliant on his grace for our salvation, unable to do anything on our own. That seems to me to be a powerful image, for why should we be like those that are not saved?



Actually, God was quite happy with his creation. During the days of creation, he looks at his creation and sees that it is good, and on the final day, when man is created, he looks at all he has made and sees that it is very good.

Furthermore, God has a close relationship with Adam and Eve, so much so that he is described as "walking in the garden in the cool of the day", as would you and I. The rot was not there from the start - it only came when humans chose to disobey the one who had given them life, relationship, and all they possibly could ask for.

Moreover, God has taken responsibility for our actions in the death and resurrection of Jesus, the one human who has ever lived who did no wrong, who deserved no punishment, and yet bled and died for our sin. That is not an apathetic God. That is a God who loves so much that he would be willing to die for his creation. The wage of sin is death, and a just God - which a loving God must also be - must require this. So, in Jesus, that price is paid.

These infants dying young? Weep with their parents for having gone through such a thing - we all know people who have had a miscarriage, a stillborn, SIDS - but not for the child, because that child is with the Lord, a loving God who has saved them from the misery of this life and given them eternity with him.

That is a God who is all three 'alls'.

Rich and white people are God's chosen, are they? Interesting that they are the least willing to accept the truth of the gospel. God's chosen are those who acknowledge Jesus as Lord, for in Jesus "there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." The colour of one's skin and the possessions one has in this life mean nothing, because Jesus has given eternal life.

Oh my god
You act chu ally
Believe in that shit?
Please inform the forum what type of upbringing you were manifested with dude!
Your system of arcane stupidity is in my sights!
Your numbers are dwindling and once we contain you,the arabians are next!
Your books are shite
Yes
Yes they are
Unless "you" have an argument worthy of our time,kindly,don't breed or indoctrinate any children you have access to.
Or I will liberally anoint you a child abuser,slave initiator etc.
That's as polite as I can be!!
I will beat you in any debate on this subject,objectively!
Try me!

 

[Bennett.]

Oh my god
You act chu ally
Believe in that shit?
Please inform the forum what type of upbringing you were manifested with dude!
Your system of arcane stupidity is in my sights!
Your numbers are dwindling and once we contain you,the arabians are next!
Your books are shite
Yes
Yes they are
Unless "you" have an argument worthy of our time,kindly,don't breed or indoctrinate any children you have access to.
Or I will liberally anoint you a child abuser,slave initiator etc.
That's as polite as I can be!!
I will beat you in any debate on this subject,objectively!
Try me!

 

[M Malice]

Must admit that was LOL funny although I do agree with chelseacarlton s post, good one bennett. My grand daughter loves my little pony.

 

[Roylion]

A
Moreover, God has taken responsibility for our actions in the death and resurrection of Jesus, the one human who has ever lived who did no wrong, who deserved no punishment, and yet bled and died for our sin. That is not an apathetic God. That is a God who loves so much that he would be willing to die for his creation. The wage of sin is death, and a just God - which a loving God must also be - must require this. So, in Jesus, that price is paid.

The claim at the heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. But this is not what the original disciples believed during Jesus’s lifetime - and it is not what Jesus claimed about himself.

 

[chelseacarlton]

You've used this before,surely you have more stored in ya cumputa?

 

[Bennett.]

You've used this before,surely you have more stored in ya cumputa?

Why mess with the classics??

 

[Bennett.]

The claim at the heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. But this is not what the original disciples believed during Jesus’s lifetime - and it is not what Jesus claimed about himself.

Wrong.

 

[chelseacarlton]

Why mess with the classics??

You missed the obvious subtly of my post,as usual!
You can't reason with someone whom believes two people populated the world,one crafted from the rib of the other,a boat carried two of every animal and that the world is only 6000 yrs old.
We tell you you are 100% wrong about the age of things,or the fallacies in your ridiculous books,they being the Torah,bible,quran and you collectively close your eyes ears and wail in unison!
Your shitty books are as believable as the Book of Mormon,Scientology or Harry Potter.
Your numbers are dwindling worldwide,if we can stop Muslims from spreading their vile nonsense,truth will win this war!!

 

[Roylion]

Wrong.

Feel free to elaborate and then I'm very happy to refute.

 

[Bennett.]

You can hear Jesus' understanding of who he is as he spoke. From 'I and the father are one' or 'He who has seen me has seen the father' right to the evening of the crucifixion when asked if he was the king of the Jews and answering ' I am'

 

[chelseacarlton]

You can hear Jesus' understanding of who he is as he spoke. From 'I and the father are one' or 'He who has seen me has seen the father' right to the evening of the crucifixion when asked if he was the king of the Jews and answering ' I am'

You don't say?

 

[RupieDupie]

Oh my god
You act chu ally
Believe in that shit?
Please inform the forum what type of upbringing you were manifested with dude!
Your system of arcane stupidity is in my sights!
Your numbers are dwindling and once we contain you,the arabians are next!
Your books are shite
Yes
Yes they are
Unless "you" have an argument worthy of our time,kindly,don't breed or indoctrinate any children you have access to.
Or I will liberally anoint you a child abuser,slave initiator etc.
That's as polite as I can be!!
I will beat you in any debate on this subject,objectively!
Try me!

Poe's Law?

 

[Roylion]

You can hear Jesus' understanding of who he is as he spoke. From 'I and the father are one' or 'He who has seen me has seen the father' right to the evening of the crucifixion when asked if he was the king of the Jews and answering ' I am'

John Meier, Bart Ehrman, E.P.Sanders, Geza Vermes, Dale Allison, Paula Frederickson are all eminent Biblical scholars who have all written well regarded but varied tomes on the historical Jesus. The one thing they all agree on is that Jesus did NOT spend his ministry declaring himself to be divine.

The Gospels cannot simply be taken as face value giving us historically reliable accounts of the things Jesus said and did. If the Gospels were those sorts of trustworthy biographies that recorded Jesus' life "as it really was", there would be little need for historical scholarship that stresses the need to:
1) learn the ancient biblical languages (Hebrew and Greek)
2) emphasize the importance of Jesus' historical context in his first century Palestinian world
3) maintain a full understanding of the true chatacter of the Gospels as historical records.
in order to establish what Jesus really said and did.

The first Christian author that we can establish is Paul (who wrote about twenty to thirty years after the time assigned to Jesus' death) He didn't know Jesus personally and didn't tell us much about Jesus's teachings, activities or experiences.

The next are the Gospels. They are not eyewitness accounts, even though they are named after two of the disciples of Jesus and Mark the secretary of Peter and Luke the travellig companion of Paul. In fact the books are written anonymously - the authors never identify themselves - and they circulated for decades before anyone claimed they were written by these people. Those first claims came a century after they were produced. It is almost certain tey were produced after Paul's earliest writings. Mark was written about AD 65-70 (Paul was about a decade earlier), Matthew and Luke were written about AD 80-85 while John was written last about AD 90-95 (55-60 years after the reputed time of Jesus' death in the early AD 30s). As such as the Gospels contain non-historical information and stories that have been modified, exaggerated and mebellished. They are books that are intending to tell the "good news" (which is of course what "gospel" means.)

Three of the Gospels are "Synoptic Gospels. "Synoptic meaning "seen together" which was attributed to them because Mark, Matthew and Luke were so much alike. Matthew and Luke most likely copied large slabs of the earlier Mark but other independent sources that scholars have dubbed "Q" (Mark), "M" and "L". Almost all critical scholars mark the more authentic passages of the Gospels as being found in all of those independent traditions. If a story, a saying or a deed of Jesus is found in only one source then it cannot be corroborated independentlyand so it is less likely to be authentic. For example the Three Wise Men in Matthew is only found in Matthew is less likely to have happened.

So the Gospel you are in fact quoting from is John, which is the only Gospel to suggest that Jesus claimed to be God. John of course is the latest written and the most theolgically orintated Gospel. What the Gospel of John claims about Jesus is part of John's distinctive theology and its clear that the view of Christ was a later development in the Christian tradition. It was not something that Jesus taught and it isn't something found in the earlier Gospels or in Paul. Nor is it something the disciples believed in. If they had there would be heavy doses of such views - in the Synoptic Gospels and the independent sources of Q, M, and L.

 

[chelseacarlton]

Poe's Law?

Yes.
I have a habit of it.

 

[Bennett.]

John Meier, Bart Ehrman, E.P.Sanders, Geza Vermes, Dale Allison, Paula Frederickson are all eminent Biblical scholars who have all written well regarded but varied tomes on the historical Jesus. The one thing they all agree on is that Jesus did NOT spend his ministry declaring himself to be divine.

The Gospels cannot simply be taken as face value giving us historically reliable accounts of the things Jesus said and did. If the Gospels were those sorts of trustworthy biographies that recorded Jesus' life "as it really was", there would be little need for historical scholarship that stresses the need to:
1) learn the ancient biblical languages (Hebrew and Greek)
2) emphasize the importance of Jesus' historical context in his first century Palestinian world
3) maintain a full understanding of the true chatacter of the Gospels as historical records.
in order to establish what Jesus really said and did.

The first Christian author that we can establish is Paul (who wrote about twenty to thirty years after the time assigned to Jesus' death) He didn't know Jesus personally and didn't tell us much about Jesus's teachings, activities or experiences.

The next are the Gospels. They are not eyewitness accounts, even though they are named after two of the disciples of Jesus and Mark the secretary of Peter and Luke the travellig companion of Paul. In fact the books are written anonymously - the authors never identify themselves - and they circulated for decades before anyone claimed they were written by these people. Those first claims came a century after they were produced. It is almost certain tey were produced after Paul's earliest writings. Mark was written about AD 65-70 (Paul was about a decade earlier), Matthew and Luke were written about AD 80-85 while John was written last about AD 90-95 (55-60 years after the reputed time of Jesus' death in the early AD 30s). As such as the Gospels contain non-historical information and stories that have been modified, exaggerated and mebellished. They are books that are intending to tell the "good news" (which is of course what "gospel" means.)

Three of the Gospels are "Synoptic Gospels. "Synoptic meaning "seen together" which was attributed to them because Mark, Matthew and Luke were so much alike. Matthew and Luke most likely copied large slabs of the earlier Mark but other independent sources that scholars have dubbed "Q" (Mark), "M" and "L". Almost all critical scholars mark the more authentic passages of the Gospels as being found in all of those independent traditions. If a story, a saying or a deed of Jesus is found in only one source then it cannot be corroborated independentlyand so it is less likely to be authentic. For example the Three Wise Men in Matthew is only found in Matthew is less likely to have happened.

So the Gospel you are in fact quoting from is John, which is the only Gospel to suggest that Jesus claimed to be God. John of course is the latest written and the most theolgically orintated Gospel. What the Gospel of John claims about Jesus is part of John's distinctive theology and its clear that the view of Christ was a later development in the Christian tradition. It was not something that Jesus taught and it isn't something found in the earlier Gospels or in Paul. Nor is it something the disciples believed in. If they had there would be heavy doses of such views - in the Synoptic Gospels and the independent sources of Q, M, and L.

Jesus had a very unique and specific understanding of who HE was. Of course he didn't travel around proclaiming this, apart from close to the end of his life and the disciples STILL didn't get it. Also 'Q' is theoretical and definitely not a definitive source.

(By the way, there was no number of wise men given!)
Oh, and Matthew's gospel was very specifically aimed at the Jewish people, therefore, different details for that target audience.

 

[Roylion]

Jesus had a very unique and specific understanding of who HE was.

And it wasn't divine. Whoever wrote the Gospel of John lived sixty years after Jesus, in a different part of the world, in a different cultural context, speaking a different language - Greek rather than Aramaic - and with a completely different level of education. It is clear that whatever "John" was saying they were John's words placed into the mouth of Jesus for theological purposes.

Of course he didn't travel around proclaiming this, apart from close to the end of his life and the disciples STILL didn't get it.

OK. So we've established that the disciples didn't claim Jesus to be "God". They "didn't get it". So what appears in the Gospel of John was not written by a disciple and Jesus' claim to divinity - to be God - attributed to Jesus in that Gospel is unlikely to have happened.

Also 'Q' is theoretical and definitely not a definitive source.

Q is common material found in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark. It appears to be a collection of Jesus' sayings and quotations. Luke mentioned in Luke 1:1-4 that he knows of other written sources of Jesus' life, and that he has investigated in order to gather the most information. The fact that no Q manuscripts exist today does not necessarily argue against its existence. Many early Christian texts no longer exist, and we only know they did from their citation or mention in surviving texts. Once Q's text was incorporated into the body of Matthew and Luke, it was no longer necessary to preserve it, just as interest in copying Mark seems to have waned substantially once it was incorporated into Matthew.

(By the way, there was no number of wise men given!)

That's correct. Matthew does not mention the number of Magi but the three gifts has led to the widespread assumption that there were three men.

Oh, and Matthew's gospel was very specifically aimed at the Jewish people, therefore, different details for that target audience.

And Matthew does not say that Jesus regarded himself as God. Neither does Mark or Luke. Paul never says that Jesus declared himself to be divine. For example he never says "I forgive you" as God might say, but "your sins are forgiven" which means that God had forgiven the sins. This prerogative for pronouncing sins forgiven was otherwise reserved for Jewish priests in honour of sacrifices that worshipers made at the Temple. Jesus may be claiming a priestly prerogative, but he's not claiming a divine one.

The synoptic Gospels indicate that if anything Jesus was an apocalyptist - that is a Jew who believed that God was very soon to intervene in this world of pain and suffering to overthrow the forces of evil and to bring in a kingdom where there would be no more misery or injustice. This worldview of the 1st century is well attested from Jewish sources such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and Enoch 1, not to mention Mark, Q, L and M. And its clear from the Gospels he spent the week up to the Passover feast preaching exactly this (Mark 13, Matthew 24-25).

So Jesus' public ministry was not focused on Jesus' divinity or that Jesus was God. It was certainly about God. But it was about the kingdom that God was going to bring. When this happened the wicked would be destroyed and the righteous would be brought into the kingdom - a kingdom where there would be no more pain, misery or suffering. The twelve disciples of Jesus would be the future rulers of the futue kingdom and Jesus would rule over them. Jesus did not declare himself to be God. He believed and taught that he was the future king of the coming Kingdom of God, the messiah of God yet to be revealed.

Only when early Christians began to believe that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead, that Jesus was elevated by them to some superhuman plane - a divine human at first (which was a common motif in the ancient world) and eventually - God.

 

[Procrastinator35]

Somehow, this current discussion has deviated from the point of the thread, methinks.

Which is: The notion of competing cosmological theories for the origins of life.....Accident, or Design.

People who want to discuss the origins & nature of Christ & the Monotheistic God, can find other threads which already cater to these topics.

Most religions & mythologies offer a Creationist reading for the origins of life on earth.....Only Darwinism offers up 'Accidental mutation' & 'abiogenesis' as an alternative competing theory to the collective mind-set & common-sense accounts, that flourish throughout mankind's history.

And Darwinism, in spite of many scientific nerds opinions to the contrary, still remains a theoretical construct only.....And a rather absurd one, at that.

Just add time to the recipe & 'Shazam'....Life appears.....One miraculous, yet meaningless Myth, is offered in place of another, more meaningful one.

 

[Thats Wright]

Somehow, this current discussion has deviated from the point of the thread, methinks.

Which is: The notion of competing cosmological theories for the origins of life.....Accident, or Design.

People who want to discuss the origins & nature of Christ & the Monotheistic God, can find other threads which already cater to these topics.

Most religions & mythologies offer a Creationist reading for the origins of life on earth.....Only Darwinism offers up 'Accidental mutation' & 'abiogenesis' as an alternative competing theory to the collective mind-set & common-sense accounts, that flourish throughout mankind's history.

And Darwinism, in spite of many scientific nerds opinions to the contrary, still remains a theoretical construct only.....And a rather absurd one, at that.

Just add time to the recipe & 'Shazam'....Life appears.....One miraculous, yet meaningless Myth, is offered in place of another, more meaningful one.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161026-the-secret-of-how-life-on-earth-began

How can you explain life forming in such varied conditions on earth p35?

Hydrothermal vents and millions of years.

Hydrogen powers our sun but is useless until needed for hydration a handful of years ago?

 

[Roylion]

Only Darwinism offers up 'Accidental mutation' & 'abiogenesis' as an alternative competing theory to the collective mind-set & common-sense accounts, that flourish throughout mankind's history.

Abiogenesis is the process by which life arises naturally from non-living matter. 'Darwinism' says nothing about Abiogenesis. All this shows is your continuing ignorance of evolution. Or your repeated tendency to troll. Perhaps both.

And Darwinism, in spite of many scientific nerds opinions to the contrary, still remains a theoretical construct only.....And a rather absurd one, at that.

Another example of your ignorance. Do you understand what a 'scientific theory' actually is?

Scientists have extreme confidence that the scientific theory of evolution, (the model of evolution), is correct because every piece of empirical evidence (and there are multiple hundred of thousands of pieces across a variety of fields including biochemisty, comparative anatomy, bio-geography, comparative embryology, molecular biology, palaeontology and radioisotope dating, amongst others) collected thus far supports that theory / model.

Falsifiability or refutability of a statement, hypothesis, or theory is the inherent possibility that it can be proven false. A statement / hypothesis / theory is falsifiable if it is possible to conceive of an observation or an argument which negates the statement / hypothesis in question.

Evolution is based on three main principles: variation, heritability and selection. Given these three principles have all been observed to be true, evolution must occur. If any of these were shown to be flawed then the theory would be untenable.

Consequently any of the following would falsify the theory:

• If it could be shown that organisms with identical DNA have different genetic traits.
• If it could be shown that mutations do not occur.
• If it could be shown that when mutations do occur, they are not passed down through the generations.
• If it could be shown that although mutations are passed down, no mutation could produce the sort of phenotypic changes that drive natural selection
• If it could be shown that selection or environmental pressures do not favor the reproductive success of better adapted individuals.
• If it could be shown that even though selection or environmental pressures favor the reproductive success of better adapted individuals, "better adapted individuals" (at any one time) are not shown to change into other species.

Common descent could also easily be falsified if there was discovered a form of life that was not related to all the life we know - most simply, by finding life that does not use the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) for information storage and retrieval as known biological life does.

No piece of evidence of the hundreds of thousands of pieces of empirical evidence (at the very least), found so far has falsified the scientific theory.

And the term "scientific theory" relates to the model of evolution, and NOT whether evolution is fact or not.

Evolution is a scientific fact. Scientists themselves most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists also use fact to mean something that has been tested and/or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples (even though this continues so that the "model" of evolution can continued to be refined/improved). So the occurrence of evolution in this sense is fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the supporting evidence is so overwhelming. There has not been one piece of scientific evidence from the many hundreds of thousands pieces collected so far (and this number continues to be added to) that has falsified evolution.

Evolution is so firmly supported by the collected evidence that we assume it is true, and act as if it were true.

It's tiresome having to explain this to you over and over again.

Just add time to the recipe & 'Shazam'....Life appears.....One miraculous, yet meaningless Myth, is offered in place of another, more meaningful one.

Don't confuse abiogenesis and evolution.

But while we're on 'abiogenesis', which incidentally has NOT been confirmed anywhere near as comprehensively in science as evolution has, we have gathered some scientific evidence for abiogenesis.

Once again.

In the 1950s, several experiments by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey verified that the natural formation of amino acids, components of proteins, and other organic compounds out of inorganic materials was possible under the atmospheric conditions of Primordial Earth.

In 2001 Jennifer Blank at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reported: "Through subsequent chemical analysis, the team discovered that the initial amino acids in the mixture had linked together to form peptides, from which proteins can be formed."

A 2015 paper from a a team of chemists working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, at Cambridge in the UK, published in the journal Nature Chemistry, showed that the chemical precursors for the synthesis of amino acids, lipids and nucleotides, which would be required in a primitive cell, could have all arisen simultaneously through reactions driven by ultraviolet light.

In 2015, NASA scientists studying the origin of life managed to reproduce uracil, cytosine, and thymine (all building blocks of life) from an ice sample containing pyrimidine under conditions found in space.

A 2016 study showed that the building blocks of life can be replicated in deep-sea vents. These experiments have for the first time demonstrated that RNA molecules can form in alkaline hydrothermal chimneys.

And while none of the above is conclusive, empirical evidence for the possibility of abiogenesis existing does exist.

I'm prepared to wait for more evidence of abiogenesis rather than adopting the belief system of "Scientists can't exactly explain the origin of life yet, therefore it must have been God and more specifically, the version of God I believe in."