Hi all,
It was myself who posted the comment pasted into the opening of this thread over on the Atheist Toolbox.
I would like to respond to Gman's comment, whilst maintaining some semblance of manners.
I've stuck my own handle into the quote system, I use the same handle over at the Toolbox.
Gman wrote:Proinsias wrote:For some problems in the Bible you may want to have a look the the Bible sections of the main site. What would prove the Bible false in your eyes? Contradictions within the gospels? and while we're marrying science with religion surely abiogenesis, whilst not perfect, has more going for it than the historical accuracy of Jesus as presented in the gospels.
Abiogenesis is a huge slap in the face of the Darwinists, which is why they go to great lengths to say it has nothing to do with evolution. They know it is damaging to their theory.. The historical accuracy of Jesus is however accepted by most scholars as being a true historical figure.
John Horgan, senior writer for Scientific American, has called the origin of life (abiogenesis) "the weakest strut of the chassis of modern biology." The National Academy of Sciences puts the problem in an interesting way:
“The study of the origin of life is a very active research area in which important progress is being made, although the consensus among scientists is that none of the current hypotheses has thus far been confirmed.” Science and Creationism : A view from the National Academy of sciences, 2nd ed., 1999.
In other words, it is fair to say that we do not know how life originated.
Yes it is fair to say that we do not know how life originated and that abiogenesis may be viewed as the weakest strut of the the chassis of modern biology.
I'm not about to try and distance abiogeneis, or similar ideas, from evolution for fear of a sore face anymore than I want to keep E=MC2 away from modern physics for fear of a broken equation.
I'm aware that the existence of Jesus as a historical figure is accepted by most scholars in this area. I try to remain fairly neutral on the existence of Jesus, although I lean towards it being more probable that he existed than not.
I do feel that abiogenesis, or to be more accurate the issue it is trying to tackle, has more going for it than the historical accuracy of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels. In a similar way to which I would say string theory, or the problems it is trying to solve, has more going for it than the historical accuracy of the actions of Krishna in the Gita.
The amount of information we are currently acquiring surrounding the issues of the limits of physics & biology is fairly large. The information we are acquiring surrounding the historical accuracy of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels or Krishna in the Gita is slim by comparison.
The issues brought up by religion are age old issues and I don't believe the current state of science has much of a bearing on them. If Jesus and Krishna never set foot upon the earth and this, by some miracle, was proven to be the case my contemplation of god and so forth is not going to dry up. In the same that if abiogenesis falls flat on it's face then my interest in science tackling the problem of how 'stuff' became 'living stuff' is not going to vanish either.
Gman wrote:Proinsias wrote:The GodandScience website makes me sad. First to go was the age of the earth, then creation to evolution, now it's time to support god in the jump from chemistry to biology. If Abiogenesis or some other reasonable idea comes along to explain the transition from chemistry to biology these sites will not disappear they'll just drop one argument and move along with science to the next problem down the chain.
Well atheists web sites make me sad too. Their refusal to look at the facts and instead allow themselves to be brainwashed into thinking that chance and time can create human mental life, our consciousness, our intelligence, our purposes, or that it can be explained entirely in the forces involved in chemistry.
I'm not sure what science they are talking about, but their science isn't science at all. It's guesswork...
I should say that when I wrote the site makes me sad it was only from reading some of the links posted to the main site, I has no idea there was a forum here.
This in particular made me sad:
Introduction
Let us look at the origin of life. There are only two possibilities for the existence of life:
1. Spontaneous assembly of life from chemicals
2. There is a Creator who designed biological systems
If you deny the existence of a Creator, scientific studies demonstrate that you must believe each of the following things about the origin of life:.......
As seen it as:
Introduction:
Polarize people on the issue at hand. You can only pick one option.
1. It just happened
2 . God done it
If you don't believe that god done it then you must agree to this rather shaky origin of life speculation assembled from fragmentary information at the limits of current science:....
I don't think I'm refusing to look at the facts or assuming humanity and the universe can be explained by chemistry. I'm just trying to make a little sense of it all. One of the few understandings I have down well is that god is here, there and everywhere. I find it strange when I see people trying to slot god into spaces in scientific knowledge.
Surely god is part of the whole show? no god, no show. Does it really matter if god popped in to make some adjustments or not? Running the whole show seamlessly would seem more godlike to me.