thank you tricky for paying attention in physics.

i've said this... somewhere... before but way back in the 50s... crap i think i said the 80s... neway, a scientist managed to create that primordial ooze using only gases present in an early earth's atmosphere and electric currents simulating lightening. i find DNA just as amazing as you do, but it's not as if it couldn't be created, we just dont know how to... efficiently, yet.

all these things that seem magical to us are simply science that has yet to be discovered. things change, theories bend, we rarely learn from using the same theory over and over... it's the scientist who looks outside the box that makes the big discoveries.

finally got that off my chest

Agnostocism, why?
Ockham's razor... you know... all things being equal the simplest explanation tends to be the right one. so you have to ask yourself what is simpler to you. God exhists before exhistance and creates everything, ever particle, every law and dictacts it's appearance and it's actions to his fit his fancy. Or that we are the product of a series of unique, though not uncommon, events that have lead to us specifically and this can all be explained without god, because god is something we made up to explain what we don't understand.

I don't know about you... but i'm not sure which one is simpler yet... hopefully some day i will. that is my eternal search, but i will be happy enough if i die not knowing because i was honest with myself and gave both arguments an equal shot.

"something someone else has told you"

Ummm... Sorry I said physics, i'm not going off what someone told me. I learned it myself with the help of a science instructer

this turned into a great thread!

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Or, the laws are omnipresent. Since we can predict the behavior of objects (according to quantum theory) that aren't really there, then this seems to be the case. This means that they had to come from somewhere. Can parameters just simply exist for all of infinity? I'm not saying it's definitely the work of a divine creator, it just raises the question of one. At this point it's just as likely to beleive in a God as it is to beleive in infinite/spontaneous laws. This of course, is my argument against Atheism. It's just as bad as blind relgion.

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I have to agree with DrStrange on this...you must question everything. There is no truth on one side of a spectrum. To find answeres you must test all boundries through belief until it is FACT that one thing or another exists. We are not at this point, though I think through all knowledge coming together as one, there will be a day when we can stop proving eachother wrong...and prove what's right.

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But here is the problem with that: At the creation of the univerese, or time,etc. We've come up with some plausible theories that allow for the spontaneous creation of matter and energy. However, in order for these, or any theory, to be correct, the laws of physics must be present. This means the laws must pre-date spontaneous creation.

Now, since the laws are simply parameters, intangible concepts and rules, how can they exist with no matter? Quantum theory requires independent laws.
So either the laws are an omnipresent force, a standard for the behavior of particles, or each particle has a, for lack of a better word, "knowladge" of how things work. If you bang two electrons together with enough energy, you produce protons. If there are no independent laws, then all the properties of protons must somehow be 'known' by the electrons. This means every elementary particle must carry around enough information to produce the entire universe.

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Though most of our laws describe the behavior of matter, the laws describing spontaneous generation are not actually contingent upon the presence of matter--the describe the behavior of "no matter." So, it's possible that those parameters, as you put it, existed in the presence of a total lack of anything.

That however, is not a fully satisfactory explanation. So, consider the possibility of simultaneous creation. Since behavior are nonexistent if there's nothing there to behave, the laws are nonexistent if there's no matter--as you said. Also, matter is irrelevant (and probably nonexistent) if it has no behaviors, as it would then be doing, quite literally, nothing. So, if one is nonexistent without the other, it's plausible, even likely, that they came into existence at the same time, especially if you think in terms of a theory/law. If there's nothing to observe, a law cannot be formulated (since they depend on observations). Conversely, if there's no observed behavior, there can't be any matter.

Though to be honest, I don't know.

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Again, this is another sticking point. I've laid out before how impossibly complex the creation of DNA/RNA is. And i don't really want to retype the whole thing again. If you'd like to I'll dig it up and repost it.

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I think I saw it. And yes, it is a sticking point, but not an insurmountable one. (All aspects of science have them--if they didn't, that'd mean we knew everything, and we obviously don't.) After all, just because we don't know, doesn't mean we can't. I don't know the oxygen content of the crust of Pluto, but it's certainly a knowable fact. Now, again, I can't see the past, but the best theory I can come up with is that, rather than DNA/RNA suddenly appearing in a huge stewpot of elements, precursor compounds to DNA and RNA existed in various forms. These eventually combined and recombined into what we know as the basis of most life on earth. This is similar to exaptation in evolution, whereby an organism co-opts its own parts to make something else.

Again though, I don't know.

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Explain how this has to do with the elementry particles. Electron energy levels and sub levels, each corresponding perfectly to the amount of energy in certain frequencies of light.

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It doesn't really have anything to do with the particles, but with the interactions between the particles. But as for energy levels and light emission, think about this: It's excited electrons that give off light, right? Now, if the energies in those levels were different, the light emitted would be different, no? See what I'm getting at? The energy could be anything, since it's the energy that determines the light. They are not two independent energies that just happen to be the same.

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Chaos theory isn't perfect from what i know, however i have to read some more on it.

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No theory is...that's why science still exists, to make better theories.

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Chaos theory also ties into the idea that nothing can be predicted after a certain point (or at least it used to, parts of it have changed, or other researchers have put out thier own 2 cents) so wouldn't that suggest, along with the progression of entropy, that things still shy away from order.

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Ultimately, things do become more chaotic. However, isolated sections can become more ordered, as long as the total entropy is higher.

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Again i must read up on this. If you would know of a quick and easily accecible source please let me at it, lol.

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A decent base of knowledge: Chaos Theory and Fractals

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Ok. I would like to say that before Darwin died he became a christian and that evolution is against the second law of thermophysics.
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Ok this is probably one of the most incorrect arguments creation science nuts have, here is a piece from talkorigins that explains how this idea incorrect.

This shows more a misconception about thermodynamics than about evolution. The second law of thermodynamics says, "No process is possible in which the sole result is the transfer of energy from a cooler to a hotter body." [Atkins, 1984, The Second Law, pg. 25] Now you may be scratching your head wondering what this has to do with evolution. The confusion arises when the 2nd law is phrased in another equivalent way, "The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease." Entropy is an indication of unusable energy and often (but not always!) corresponds to intuitive notions of disorder or randomness. Creationists thus misinterpret the 2nd law to say that things invariably progress from order to disorder.

However, they neglect the fact that life is not a closed system. The sun provides more than enough energy to drive things. If a mature tomato plant can have more usable energy than the seed it grew from, why should anyone expect that the next generation of tomatoes can't have more usable energy still? Creationists sometimes try to get around this by claiming that the information carried by living things lets them create order. However, not only is life irrelevant to the 2nd law, but order from disorder is common in nonliving systems, too. Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just a few examples of order coming from disorder in nature; none require an intelligent program to achieve that order. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system. If order from disorder is supposed to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it ubiquitous in nature?

The thermodynamics argument against evolution displays a misconception about evolution as well as about thermodynamics, since a clear understanding of how evolution works should reveal major flaws in the argument. Evolution says that organisms reproduce with only small changes between generations (after their own kind, so to speak). For example, animals might have appendages which are longer or shorter, thicker or flatter, lighter or darker than their parents. Occasionally, a change might be on the order of having four or six fingers instead of five. Once the differences appear, the theory of evolution calls for differential reproductive success. For example, maybe the animals with longer appendages survive to have more offspring than short-appendaged ones. All of these processes can be observed today. They obviously don't violate any physical laws.

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Please clear this up for me- are you religious, curious, or merely taking a stand for people who do have a god?

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I try and bring up a few points some people usually don't think of. I'm a bit of an semi- gnostic deist. That's how I describe myself.

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I believe that this earth in all it's wonders was a scientific 'miracle' persay- a happening where everything fell together and evolved like hell to create the 'perfection' we see around us that many think is exraterresterially produced.

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You realize that by beleiving solely in this, by believing in things that have no logical or supported explanation, that you are just as bad as the religous zealot.

Call me a hypocrite, but I assumed that by your taking the side of religion you had a god yourself. Please clear this up for me- are you religious, curious, or merely taking a stand for people who do have a god?

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How can you say a God is unlikely?

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I am able to guiltlessly say a god is unlikely because I believe that this earth in all it's wonders was a scientific 'miracle' persay- a happening where everything fell together and evolved like hell to create the 'perfection' we see around us that many think is exraterresterially produced. My mom is my religious link- and I have problems and confusion with what she believes, causing further doubt and dislike toward organized religion.

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If you're talking about the actual natural behaviors observed by those scientists, then the answer is (drumroll)....they just are. They could have very well been different; in which case the laws that beings come up with to describe them would be different as well (assuming those behaviors were conducive to intelligent life--not necessarily human, but intelligent).

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But here is the problem with that: At the creation of the univerese, or time,etc. We've come up with some plausible theories that allow for the spontaneous creation of matter and energy. However, in order for these, or any theory, to be correct, the laws of physics must be present. This means the laws must pre-date spontaneous creation.
Now, since the laws are simply parameters, intangible concepts and rules, how can they exist with no matter? Quantum theory requires independent laws.
So either the laws are an omnipresent force, a standard for the behavior of particles, or each particle has a, for lack of a better word, "knowladge" of how things work. If you bang two electrons together with enough energy, you produce protons. If there are no independent laws, then all the properties of protons must somehow be 'known' by the electrons. This means every elementary particle must carry around enough information to produce the entire universe.

Or, the laws are omnipresent. Since we can predict the behavior of objects (according to quantum theory) that aren't really there, then this seems to be the case. This means that they had to come from somewhere. Can parameters just simply exist for all of infinity? I'm not saying it's definitely the work of a divine creator, it just raises the question of one. At this point it's just as likely to beleive in a God as it is to beleive in infinite/spontaneous laws. This of course, is my argument against Atheism. It's just as bad as blind relgion.

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Damned if I know. I can't see into the past.

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Again, this is another sticking point. I've laid out before how impossibly complex the creation of DNA/RNA is. And i don't really want to retype the whole thing again. If you'd like to I'll dig it up and repost it.

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You heard of chaos theory? Fractal designs, order emerging from chaos and what not? If not, I'd suggest you look into it. Basically, it says that all the disorder we see in nature is actually order on a psychotically complex scale.

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Explain how this has to do with the elementry particles. Electron energy levels and sub levels, each corresponding perfectly to the amount of energy in certain frequencies of light. Chaos theory isn't perfect from what i know, however i have to read some more on it.
Chaos theory also ties into the idea that nothing can be predicted after a certain point (or at least it used to, parts of it have changed, or other researchers have put out thier own 2 cents) so wouldn't that suggest, along with the progression of entropy, that things still shy away from order. Again i must read up on this. If you would know of a quick and easily accecible source please let me at it, lol.

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Everything and anything can be explained through a scientific or logical way of thinking. The Laws Of Physics were there from the beginning of the world and discovered by scientists- but it's VERY unlikely your 'god' just 'put them there'.

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Ah first off, I never said i had a god. And everything, right now, can't be explained by science. This is fact. Beleiving without doubt that it will be is no different than thinking that it is a gods doing. Both require faith.
And you've also hit the fundemental sticking point: How can you say a God is unlikely?

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But Darwin was a believer in God and even though he came up with the thoery of life on earth evolving from nothing

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Well, Darwin supposedly renounced evolution on his deathbed, but.. "shortly after his death, temperance campaigner and evangelist Elizabeth Hope claimed she visited Darwin at his deathbed, and witnessed the renunciation. Her story was printed in a Boston newspaper and subsequently spread. Lady Hope's story was refuted by Darwin's daughter Henrietta who stated, 'I was present at his deathbed ... He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier.'" So there's no proof he became a believer in god; it's simply a rumor. But Darwin refused to discuss his own beliefs about a supreme being in public, once writing to his friend that: "I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton." So there's no proof of whether or not he believed in a deity (i.e. there's no evidence proving he was an Atheist; he simply believed in natural selection, evolution, etc.).

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Darwin still coulded explain how certian things, for example Darwin said that the human eye was just too perfect to have happened by chance.

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Here's an excerpt from "The Origin of Species VI: Difficulties of the Theory": (All thanks to copy + paste)
"Organs of extreme Perfection and Complication: To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility."

Darwin freely admitted that he couldn't explain everything, and, though I don't fully agree with evolution, he does support his theories. For instance, after he says "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus for different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree," but then he goes on to state it could have happened. He begins by making a large concession, but then adds that once we understand his way of viewing things the objections will diminish or disappear. Continually he seems to put the premise at risk through theses seemingly damaging admissions, but then rescues it.

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So anyone who is an aitheist becouse of Darwins theory of evolution sould read up about Darwin

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You should try reading up on the life and works of Charles Darwin. Read The Origin of Species. It may make you a bit more open-minded. Darwin wasn't Atheist, but he wasn't a religious believer, as far as we know. Evolution is an interesting theory, and you shouldn't dismiss it before actually reading up on his personal writings, rather than assuming things based on what others have told you.

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Ok, then you should have no problem coming up with plausible explanations for these questions:

-Where did the laws of physics come from?

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You mean the actual laws (i.e. gravitational attraction) as formulated by scientists? The scientists brains, obviously. See, the concept of describing natural events with "laws" is a specifically human one (you could argue the point with regards to highly intelligent animal species, but that's not the issue at hand). Human minds created those ideas to fit with what they observed.

If you're talking about the actual natural behaviors observed by those scientists, then the answer is (drumroll)....they just are. They could have very well been different; in which case the laws that beings come up with to describe them would be different as well (assuming those behaviors were conducive to intelligent life--not necessarily human, but intelligent).

The behaviors do not have to have a motive force behind them--they simply are. Of course, a theist will say that Diety X created them as they "simply are." And that is where the whole conversation breaks down, since neither side can prove the other wrong.

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How was a highly complex DNA/RNA molecule created, along with the enzymes needed for reproduction. And how did these fragile molecules and enzymes survive long enough in a highly hostile environment to reproduce in great enough numbers for survival and proliferation.

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Damned if I know. I can't see into the past.

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Why is the subatomic structure of the universe so ordered and quantifiable when every trend we see in nature is toward disorder?

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You heard of chaos theory? Fractal designs, order emerging from chaos and what not? If not, I'd suggest you look into it. Basically, it says that all the disorder we see in nature is actually order on a psychotically complex scale.

I talk to people all the time who are atheists beleive in macro evolution and claim that Darwin was right. But Darwin was a believer in God and even though he came up with the thoery of life on earth evolving from nothing. Darwin still coulded explain how certian things, for example Darwin said that the human eye was just too perfect to have happened by chance. So anyone who is an aitheist becouse of Darwins theory of evolution sould read up about Darwin.

Just amazing science, nothing more. No heavenly intervention, etc. Everything and anything can be explained through a scientific or logical way of thinking. The Laws Of Physics were there from the beginning of the world and discovered by scientists- but it's VERY unlikely your 'god' just 'put them there'.

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Anyway, I believe in having faith in things. I have faith that there's not a god because everything can be explained through science or by means of explanation

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Ok, then you should have no problem coming up with plausible explanations for these questions:

-Where did the laws of physics come from?

-How was a highly complex DNA/RNA molecule created, along with the enzymes needed for reproduction. And how did these fragile molecules and enzymes survive long enough in a highly hostile environment to reproduce in great enough numbers for survival and proliferation.

-Why is the subatomic structure of the universe so ordered and quantifiable when every trend we see in nature is toward disorder?

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"Well, yaseeherr-God did that!"

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Well good thing I've never said that, lol.

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My god lets me question stuff that doesn't seem right to me. She's cool like that.

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Then "she" would have no problem with my asking why a God would need a gender in the first place.

Rash? Perhaps- you could percieve it that way I suppose. I just have fun with religion and tend to fly off the handle- but... whatever.
Anyway, I believe in having faith in things. I have faith that there's not a god because everything can be explained through science or by means of explanation other than- "Well, yaseeherr-God did that!"

Lots of people "find God" right before they die, <b>fillefolle</b>. It makes them feel better when they know they're on their way out. Awfully convenient, eh? That doesn't mean we should discount his secular works.

If evolution isn't patently obvious to you, you are guided by blind faith. I don't think god would want you to maintain your ignorance because you are too friggin' stupid to form opinions of your own. My god lets me question stuff that doesn't seem right to me. She's cool like that.

likeamigrane-

So just because some people beleive in unsupported or illogical things, you choose to ignore the possibility of a God, divine creator, etc. alltogethor? Doesn't that seem a little rash?

The problem I have with religion is the fact that it tends to contradict its self and make no sense what so ever. Also- I don't like how people are being held above others. I can understand if there's one almighty big guy or a lot of big guys and girls (gods and goddesses) but Catholics believe that Mary is held above other normal people- and I think that's wrong. I fight and fight and fight discrimination and prefrencing to go to church and worship someone who walked this earth as I have. It also makes no sense that people say- "Well, lookie therr! There's a whole damn book on this- how can you not believe you obviously evil atheist child?" What if I wrote a large book explaining that I was god and that I had rules for my people to follow, burried it in the ground, and it was dug up thousands of years later- would this make me god? Ha. What a religion THAT'D be...
I like atheism because it leaves me to make my own rules and judgements- I can look out for myself, and it's worked thusfar, so I'm not worried. Also, reincarnation does sound really spiffy. I think that'd be neato.

Some people just need more proof that there is a God other than what the Bible say. Someone once said to me, "Look around you, all this is the making of God" but what if it's not? What if the Bible isn't the word of God? What if there's isn't a God? What if there is? What if all the religions known to man and woman are all wrong? What if all the religions are all right somehow, someway?

I came to the conclusion that no one knows. How many questions that I ask and how many ways that I try to seek the answers, no one will know. I came to the conclusion that for me it's all what you beleive in and what is the actual truth in the end.

So they believe there is no God and they will find out if there isn't or if there is a God in end. Just like people who do believe in God will find out the same thing.

Or maybe there is no truth and we will never find out. Or maybe what we beleived in becomes the truth in the end. Or maybe there is a God but the Bible isn't the word of God. So people have God all wrong and misunderstood.

Anything could be possible so I rather just believe anything could be possible other than believing one thing.

And if I'm going to Hell for this then so be it.

I might have got a little off the topic here so sorry and I'm shutting up now.

Wow, this thread is 8 sections long and I decided to post in it now. Well, I'm a bit slow.

Bye n Have a nice day