Since scientists have not been able to prove or even logically explain the origins of life (abiogenesis) by natural, unguided, gradual processes often referred to as the bottom-up approach, it is conceivable to imply that the process of life origins on Earth could be scientifically explained by the design and creation process often referred to as the top-down approach.The top-down approach is sometimes used by scientists in attempts of recreation of small life forms, like a eukaryotic cell.
I will however apply the top-down approach to the process of the designing and creating of human life Intelligent Designer or God (ID/God) could have used.
In other words, the top-down approach is the only conceivable way of the designing and creating life as even in case of the simplest of cells all organelles and functional structures of a cell have to be present, and at the same time, as they are mutually interdependent, including the cell membrane, for it to function or be alive or stay alive. Without the cell membrane or one of the structures or organelles, the cell stops functioning and eventually dies.
In an attempt to explain how the process of the designing and creating of life could have been achieved by ID/God, I will use the illustration some naturalistic, evolutionary scientists often use to try to explain the process of evolution of life often called descent with modifications, where they refer to an “evolution” or change of one model of the car over the many years.
Since this process itself doesn’t explain how the original car appeared in the first place by slow, unguided processes, (bottom-up) I will use it as an example of what kind of planning, engineering, integration and manufacturing would be necessary for a car to “appear” in the first place, before it could go through the further gradual processes of “descent with modification” or changes over time.
Then I will apply the same methods and principles to the process of the designing and creating of life.
The designer comes up with a general idea and structure for a car and its function
- The designer decides what functional systems would be necessary for the car to work according to the design
- Then the designer decides how the individual parts need to work and be integrated into functional systems and functional systems into functional car
- The designer decides what materials need to be manufactured, such as steel, aluminum, copper, plastic, electrical wires, fabrics etc. for the individual parts to be manufactured he is going to use in order for the functional systems to be assembled, such as an engine, transmission, chassis the body/frame, source of energy and so on
- Once the design has been experimented with the integration of all the individual parts into systems and systems into the functional car, the final blueprint of the car is ready. The final manufacturing process of all the parts can begin
Then, all the parts can be assembled into functional systems and the functional systems into a functional car - The car has been assembled and is ready to function according to the design
Then the designer turns on the ignition, puts into the first gear, then he puts his foot on the accelerator and the car moves - The idea for a car has become reality. It functions according to the initial idea and the design
Let’s look closer at the materials, such as steel, copper, fabrics, wires etc. They are made of smaller elements; really tiny pieces of stuff. Actually, on subatomic level, they are made up of 3 ingredients: protons, neutrons and electrons.
As a matter fact, as far as we know, the whole matter in the universe is made of protons, neutrons and electrons.
The same applies to life, including human body. Life and human body on subatomic level is made of 3 ingredients: protons, neutrons and electrons.
And this is very important information because on this very fact my whole theory as to How ID/God created life is based.
Just like the car, human body is made of or built of many functional systems, like circulatory system, nervous system, lymphatic system, bones, veins, and so on.
Human body systems are made of integrated organs.
Those organs are made of different types of tissues.
Tissues are made of different types of cells (about 200 types of cells).
Cells are made of different organelles – organized or specialized structures within the living cell. Most types of cells share the same organelles or specialized structures within a living cells but other cells do not. Some of the organelles carry DNA, which is necessary for the process of reproduction of the living organism that non-living things, like a cars, don’t obviously have.
Organelles are made of macromolecules, like carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, proteins and so on.
Macromolecules are made of chemical elements, like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and so on.
Chemical elements are made of atoms.
Atoms are made of subatomic elements like protons, neutrons and electrons.
And, as I mentioned earlier, just like the car, on subatomic level is made of protons, neutrons and electrons, so is human body and all life on the Earth.
(Quarks are, as far as we know, the smallest pieces of stuff. There are 6 different types of quarks, and different combinations produce different types of subatomic particles like protons. For simplicity and clarity, I’ll focus on the 3 ingredients or building blocks of all matter: protons, neutrons and electrons as it is just easier to follow what I’m trying to convey.)
If I missed a step or more in the structure of what the human body and life is made of, feel free to correct it but this is not really that important now…
Life and human body on subatomic level are built of only 3 ingredients: protons, neutrons and electrons. While this might be mind-boggling if you think about how complex human body is, especially human brain, this is actually true as far as science has revealed it so far.
While the composition of life and human body is based on the 3 subatomic elements protons, neutrons and electrons, how life and human body function is based on how the three elemental building blocks of life (protons, neutrons and electrons) interact with each other or what their quantum state is; what their interactions or relations are.
Quantum state is simply something that encodes or translates the state of a system; how protons, neutrons and electrons interact with each other to form a state of a system. Behind each quantum state is the information that expresses the quantum state of the subatomic particles.
Here is the most interesting part about quantum state and quantum mechanics (science that is a part of physics) that deals with the mathematical description of the motion and interaction of subatomic particles.
According to quantum mechanics any quantum state of protons, neutrons and electrons that form a system or systems can be transferred or teleported due to quantum entanglement (predicament of subatomic particles) from one place to another, without traveling through any physical medium.
Scientists have already successfully teleported photons, which are particles of light as well as small pieces of matter across a short distance.
And this is the most essential part of my theory.
Since scientists have successfully teleported particles and small pieces of matter, who says that humans could not be teleported in the future? While human teleportation is still in theory today, it may very well become reality in the future. It has not been proven wrong at least mathematically.
Let’s just focus on the possibilities of human teleportation.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words here are some videos that explain how quantum teleportation of humans could work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI
I personally like this video at 40 minute mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z8Ma2YT8vY
So, human teleportation in theory seems possible. Whether it will be possible in the future it remains to be seen.
NEXT
So you may wonder; how does human teleportation, whether possible or not in the future, relate to the theme of my post: How did the ID/God create life?
Well, I think it does.
As you may recall on the outset of my post, just like any car is built in the top-down process starting with an idea/design, blueprint etc. all the way down to the elements that are made of subatomic particles, so could human body starting with its blueprint all the way down to the elements that are made subatomic particles; protons, neurons and electrons.
How that could have been done in reality by ID/God, the possibility of human quantum teleportation sheds some light on that.
For human body to be teleported–transferred from one place to another, without actually traveling through any physical medium–the quantum state of each of the subatomic particles that make up the human body to be teleported would have to be extracted (scanned or analyzed) and then teleported or sent exactly to the designated location where the human body is supposed to “arrive” and to be reassembled.
In quantum teleportation, the subatomic particles that make up the original human body are NOT literary sent. No. It’s the information about their quantum state that is sent thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics called quantum entanglement.
Wikipedia–Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the others, even when the particles are separated by a large distance—instead, a quantum state must be described.
QE video link???
For human quantum teleportation to happen, 2 entangled chambers containing subatomic particles, protons, neutrons and electrons are needed. The first chamber will act as a “sending chamber” and the second as a” receiving or reassembling chamber”.
Then, a third chamber will be needed that will act as a body scanner or fax machine that will be interacting with the “sending chamber”, while compering the quantum states of each particle that the human body to be teleported is made of.
The process of quantum teleportation involves the scanning or extracting the quantum state of each of the subatomic particles (protons, neurons and electrons) that the body to be teleported is made of and sending it to the receiving chamber that is entangled with the sending chamber.
Because the particles in the “sending chamber” are entangled with the particles in the “receiving chamber”, the “receiving chamber” reads the quantum state of each particles that was extracted from the human body in the scanning chamber and reassembles it into the exact quantum state or the exact human body composition that it was before being teleported.
In quantum teleportation, the subatomic particles that make up the original human body are not sent. It’s the information about their quantum state that is sent thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics called quantum entanglement.
Since according to quantum mechanics, life on the subatomic level equals the quantum state of each the subatomic particles that make up the life form, there should be no difference between the human body that was alive in the scanning chamber and the reassembled human body that is now alive in the receiving chamber.
Since according to quantum mechanics you can’t create 2 exactly the same quantum states of an object, in quantum teleportation you can’t teleport an object without destroying in the process.
Actually, you can’t extract the quantum state of the object to be teleported without destroying it in the process of scanning it.
While there may be some philosophical implications (depending on one’s beliefs on soul and consciousness) that would have to be answered about the process of human quantum teleportation (I can try to answer them later) let’s just focus on the implications that the possibility of human quantum teleportation presents us with when it comes to the process of creation of human life.
While still in theory, human quantum teleportation seems possible, could the human quantum teleportation be done by the ID/God who created the universe and physical laws that govern quantum mechanics and make human quantum teleportation seem possible?
Let’s just ponder this for a moment: Scientist have already teleported small pieces of matter. Could the creator of matter and the physical laws that make quantum teleportation possible teleport bigger pieces of matter?
How about quantum teleportation of a piece of matter that is alive? Is it possible? Would it be feasible for ID/God who knows every detail about quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement that make quantum teleportation possible, including human teleportation?
And if ID/God is able to teleport matter that is alive, like human body, could he have used the same method, the laws that govern quantum mechanics that he created, like quantum entanglement to create life in the top-down approach rather than bottom-up, like abiogenesis or evolution?
Without answering this question now, let’s assume that ID/God could use the physical laws of quantum mechanics, like quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation to create life on Earth, including humans.
Let’s see how that could have been accomplished considering what we have discussed so far about quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation.
As I said before, according to quantum mechanics, life on subatomic level equals the many quantum states of subatomic particles-protons, neurons and electrons.
In other words, the composition of life is dependent on the information about the many different quantum states of the particles that form the life form, including human life.
As I mentioned earlier, for human quantum teleportation to happen, 2 chambers with entangled particles protons, neutrons and electrons are needed, as well as a scanning device or chamber that compares the quantum state of particles making up the human body to be teleported with the particles found in one of the entangled chambers that will act as the sending chamber.
The sending chamber containing with subatomic particles protons, neutrons and electrons entangled with the particles in the receiving chamber
The receiving chamber with subatomic particles – protons, neurons and electrons that are entangled with the sending chamber
The scanning device or chamber that acts like a scanner or a fax machine that interacts with the sending chamber and extracts the quantum state of the particles making up the human body to be teleported.
Let’s now apply what has been mentioned so far about the possibilities that quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation present us with to the process of creating life.
Could the laws of physics, like quantum mechanics, that govern the universe have been use by ID/ God to create life on earth including humans?
As I mentioned on the outset, the process of the designing and manufacturing the car involves the top-down approach. First an idea for a car, the blueprint, the design of different systems that would make up the car, the parts that would make up the functioning systems, the materials that would be used to manufacture the parts, the elements that the materials would be manufactured from and at the end of top-down method are the subatomic particles that make up the elements that the whole car is made of or built with.
In reality however the whole structure of the car and its function is dependent on the quantum state of the 3 subatomic particles protons, neutrons and electrons. And while in theory today, because of laws of quantum mechanics, the whole car could also be teleported using quantum teleportation method of the 3 chambers mentioned earlier. Scientists have already teleported small pieces of matter. Is it just a matter of time before they teleport bigger, larger ones?
A car to be teleported would have to be scanned in the scanning chamber for the quantum state or the many arrangements of the 3 particles it is made of and reconstructed exactly at the receiving chamber that is entengled with the sending chamber that interacts with the scanning chamber.
???video car teleportation???
Let’s focus now on the creation process of life and humans.
Similarly to the process of the designing and manufacturing the car, the ID/ God comes up with an idea for human life (having already experimented with simpler life forms that had been created before human life); human body and its function.
Starting with a blueprint, first he decides what the human body is going to look like and function, what functional systems are going to be the part of the functioning human, like circulatory system, nervous system, lymphatic system, bones, veins etc. and obviously the reproductive system.
Then he decides what organs are going to be integrated into body systems.
Then he decides on the many different types of tissues that those different organs are going to be made of to perform their many functions.
Then he decides on the many different types of cells (about 200 types of cells) that those tissues are going to be made of.
Then he decides on the many different types of spricialised structures like organelles – organized or specialized structures within the living cell – that the many different types of cells are going to be made of
Then he decides what macromolecules, like carbohydrates, lipids, proteins etc. are going to be used to make up those specialized structures (organelles).
Microelements are made of chemical elements, like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen etc.
The elements, like carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and so on are made of atoms.
Atoms are made of subatomic elements or particles, like protons, neutrons and electrons.
And, as I mentioned earlier, just like a car on subatomic level is made of protons, neutrons and electrons, so is human body and all life on Earth.
Those 3 subatomic particles form all matter in the universe including all known life, like human life.
However, what makes the existence of matter and life possible are the many different quantum states (arrangements) of those 3 subatomic particles or how they interact with each other.
Now, the ID/God has the final blueprint and the design of human body ready.
Now using the same laws of physics that make quantum teleportation possible he encodes (using a big, big efficient quantum computer?) the exact information about the many different quantum states of each of the 3 subatomic particles to form the fundamental elements of the human body like carbon, hydrogen, hydrogen etc. He arranges the many different quantum states of those 3 particles to form a functional human body according to the original blueprint and design.
The process of encoding the information about the many different quantum states into the 3 subatomic particles of life involves foreknowledge and foresight as to how the human body is going to function in the end.
This knowledge requires that the final integration of all systems be encoded in the top-down approach that fully functional human body that is alive is dependent on all functional systems and subsystems that are all present or it can’t function or be alive just like a cell mention earlier.
In other words, the ID/God knows exactly what the entire final quantum state (information) the human body would have to be in for it to function or be alive. So, he encodes this information exactly for the many different quantum states that protons, neurons and electrons would have to be in order to interact with each other to form the many of their quantum states for the elements to form, macromolecules and so on…then the fully functional systems and then he integrates systems to form life and the human body that is alive.
Once all the information about the quantum state of each individual part of the human body is encoded, the process of human creation can begin using the same method that applies to quantum teleportation with one exception of the scanning device or chamber, since no physical human body exists yet to be scanned. It needs to be assembled or materialized first based on the information that has been encoded by ID/God.
In order to create (assemble) the exact human body based on the final quantum state it needs to be in, all the ID/ God needs to do is encode the sending chamber or send the information directly about the quantum state of each of the many particles that the human body is going to be made of.
Just like in quantum teleportation,
the sending chamber (interacts) is encoded with information from the scanning device or chamber about the quantum state of each of the particles the human body to be teleported and reassembled in the receiving chamber,
in human body creation, the sending chamber is encoded directly by ID/God with information about the quantum state of each of the many particles of the human body to be created in the receiving chamber.
The rest of the process of the creation of the human body remains the same as in the quantum teleportation process mentioned earlier.
Based on the information about the quantum state the human body needs to be in to be created, thanks to quantum entanglement, the receiving chamber reconstructs the quantum state of each of the particles based on the information the sending chamber was encoded with or received directly by ID/God.
The human body creation has been accomplished thanks to the possibilities of quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation.
So, the process of creation of life, including human life, would involve the already known process that quantum mechanics allows in the quantum teleportation due to quantum entanglement of particles, which is dependent on the information about their many, many quantum states those particles can be arranged into.
(Another possibility would be for ID/God to encode or send the information about the quantum state of each of the particls to form the humand body directly to the receiving/assembling chamber but because scientist can’t do that yet, the more reasonable approach is the use of quantum entagled chambers.)
Use 1 only
Is there evidence or a clue that the process of creation of life (by top-down approach) on Earth including human life that quantum mechanics allows could have been used by ID/God?
Are there any clues that ID/God used the top-down method in the creation of life on Earth, like human life using already existing laws of physics like quantum mechanics?
Let’s see.
The biblical account of creation in the book of genesis tells us that God created life including human life out of the dust of the ground. The Hebrew word for “dust” in Genesis 2:7 is aphar can be translated as clay, earth, mud, ashes, earth, ground, mortar, powder.
How would you describe the process of creation of human life to men few thousand years ago involving quantum mechanics or the many quantum states of subatomic particles forming human body? Would you describe it in the terms physicists use today to explain quantum mechanics? I doubt that.
So, to describe the process of creation that would involve the many quantum states of subatomic particles forming human body to simple man few thousand years ago or even few hundred, the word dust or clay could be appropriately used since all the elements necessary to form human body are available in the ground of the earth. It seem that only 11 major elements are necessary for life.
Wikipedia “Almost 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. Only about 0.85% is composed of another five elements: potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium. All 11 are necessary for life. The remaining elements are trace elements, of which more than a dozen are thought on the basis of good evidence to be necessary for life. All of the mass of the trace elements put together (less than 10 grams for a human body) do not add up to the body mass of magnesium, the least common of the 11 non-trace elements.”
All these elements are found in the Earth’s crust.
Now, once all the necessary elements were “formed” (the many quantum states of the subatomic particles have been encoded) into the human body, something would have to be needed to make those elements form a living thing or living human body. The account from genesis definitely implies that.
Other translations ??G, of enesis 2:7
“God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”.
So, just like the designer of the car tuned on the ignition and applied the source of energy for all the systems to start to function, like to start the engine for the car to function, so did the ID/God to make the human body become alive applied the energy sustained by breathing for human body to function.
Fair enough.
I’ll just point out that humans are also blind to the future.
Sure, we make predictions. But that isn’t the same as seeing the future.
Don’t forget lions and tigers and bears
I never can.
Glen Davidson
It was the damn flying monkeys that bothered me as a child.
CharlieM, to Rumraket:
Charlie,
Is there a reason for your belief other than “Me like! Me believe!”?
Apparently, by “design rule” all you mean is “similarity”. But if so, you can’t actually infer design from the existence of design rules, just as you can’t from similarity. There are other potential reasons for similarity than design. Would you agree?
You’re changing the subject again. Those aren’t the features of the environment we were discussing and that are analogous to the puddle’s hole. Either you are incapable of following your own argument or you are so anxious to score a cheap point that you are losing sight of it.
No, I think you may be in error. Could you point out where Darwinists insert magic to explain consciousness?
And of the attempts to explain consciousness that I’ve put time into there has been no magic so far. So I’m not sure what you are getting at.
newton,
Such a being may not be limited by potential but may be limited by choice or plan.
We know the universe is resource limited and therefor designing something within it requires tradeoffs.
Instead of die size as a tradeoff the limitation of cellular power may create a tradeoff between muscle power and brain power. Based on this we would expect the omnipotent being to create with efficient strategies in cases where art or beauty was not the criteria. The evidence of design rules shows this efficiency.
John Harshman,
If design rules are used then we would expect a feature to be effectively the same. If we were to measure the length of adenine and thymine bonded together inside a DNA strand I would expect this length to be the same within a small tolerance across all life. For this to occur we need what looks like the results of design rules all the way down to the sub atomic level.
To get 22 nm line widths across the entire semiconductor industry we need design rules all the way down to the sub atomic level. Without the highly predictable copper atom the design is very difficult.
Those aren’t design rules. Those are consequences of chemistry. You may consider electron orbital geometries and bond strengths to be design rules, but then you’re back to physics being a set of design rules, and you won’t get many takers there.
Again you render the definition of “design rule” useless. You are merely assuming design by definition.
We do?
Seems to me colewd is the perfect example of how theism lost the epistemological battle. Classical theists like Erik and Gregory despise this approach, which consists on pretending that the evidence supports a divinely engineered cosmos, with all the constraints and limitations that our engineering poses.
Bill also wants to have his cake and eat it. He wants all that nonsense to be compatible with Aquinas’ 5 ways.
Religion can’t last without sounding sciency these days in the western world. And hopefully it won’t last too long with such a dishonest strategy anyway
And God is limited by the universe?
Theist claims in the ID area are strange, for when it comes to “supernatural” grounding of knowledge, free-will, and rational certainty, God is hardly limited by the universe. When it comes to nut and bolts biology, opportunistic evolution that leads to less than optimal results, and the diseases “designed” to attack other designs, well, what can you expect of God? We’re frogs in the well, except for knowing that God made our minds to have an crucial supernatural component, since supposedly “matter” couldn’t do it.
But ID can never even be self-consistent, let alone consistent with the evidence.
Glen Davidson
Yes, a choice limits all possibilities to the particular.
The resources of the universe are limited by choice not necessity with an omnipotent being. An omnipotent ,omniscient being can create whatever resources it wishes or change the laws governing those resources. Tradeoffs means limitations
An omnipotent being created that limitation from all possible choices if it exists.
If you say so, but you seem to be saying there are different design rules for art and beauty.
There are many inefficiencies in the natural world.
colewd,
Do you have a list of the “design rules” you can supply? Or are you just making it up as you go along?
Given the vast size of the universe and our beyond tiny part it in, what design rule is being followed there?
It is precisely because I observe the puffer fish at work and I know the reason behind it that I know it was intelligently designed.
The design of a snowflake can be explained within the properties of ice crystals, the design of the sand sculpture, although it does not violate the inherent properties of the sand, is above these properties. There is intent in it’s making, it has been made for a purpose.
And we would expect cows and eagles to have cerebrospinal fluid just as humans do. But there are differences which must be taken into account. Humans have an upright stance, our brains sit above the spinal chord which enters the skull from below through the foramen magnum. In both the eagle and the cow it enters horizontally not vertically. Cerebrospinal fluid has multiple functions besides countering the effects of gravity, but this specific function is more vital in humans than it is in cows or eagles. I would guess the human brain to be over 100 times heavier than that of an eagle.
Look at the axial skeleton of a cow, it lies in a horizontal position. Compare human arms with a cow’s forelimbs and observe how much more free they are from the effects of gravity. And it is even more so with the wings of an eagle.
Do we fit so well into the natural environment? Would you say we fit as well as say tardigrades?
Making very accurate predictions is as good as seeing the future and some people do have detailed premonitions of events which do occur.
It is not a case of liking what I believe. Imagine if you believed that after you die your life’s actions and thoughts will be exposed and you will have to account to a higher authority for every one of them. It is not something that any normal person would relish. We all do and have done many things that we would not like to be made public.
I form my beliefs in a way that tries to eliminate contradictions which I perceive and in so doing hopefully get closer to reality.
You said of me “you are fitted to your environment, not the other way around”. I dispute this.
If you are going to give the puddle the attribute of self-consciousness then you will need to accept all that this entails. The puddle and hole argument is the one that is trying to score a cheap trick and it does not understand the interaction between life and the environment.
Because from the physical properties of matter there is no reason, however complex it is arranged, for it to become self-aware. For materialists it must just appear out of nowhere as if by magic.
Too soon to tell, the experiment with large brained hairless apes is pretty recent. Human’s ability to manipulate resources for their benefit is a two edged sword.
But environments change, the ability to adapt to those changes allows a species to fit in a greater diversity of environments.
Assuming your conclusion
Not exactly ,making predictions that are always correct is as good as seeing into the future.
It’s funny then, that religious people constantly make appeals to emotion and appeals to consequences, when attempting to make their religious beliefs appear more appealing.
How often do we hear crap like, if there’s no God, then why live our meaningless lives? Or if there’s no God, how can there be any justice? If there’s no God, then there’s nothing “truly” wrong with what the Nazis did. Which feels bad to think about, so instead why not just believe?
These questions are appeals to emotion and appeals to consequences (which in turn, are appeals to emotion). The implication is that it should make us feel bad that there’s no everlasting purpose to life, so instead this bad feeling should (it seems to be hoped) compel us to believe.
And the same with justice, evil, morality and so on. If there’s no God, then many evildoers never really get punished, which should (again, it seems to be hoped) cause us to feel so bad that some people “get away with it”, that instead we start believing there’s a God, because this will feel better.
All of this crap is predicated on the idea that theism offers emotionally much more pleasing solutions to life’s big problems and questions. Don’t worry, you don’t get to really die. You’ll never really be alone. The people you love and whom love you won’t really be gone forever. The bad people don’t really get away with it. And all this for the low price of asking for forgiveness for your own relatively minor sins.
Who among us wouldn’t gladly account for our shortcomings if it meant truly despicable people like Kim Jong Il, Heinrich Himmler, most of the popes, Stalin and so on all were forced to have their day in court too? I would.
Rumraket,
It was keiths who brought up the subject of my likes and dislikes and so I was just responding to that. I am not asking anyone to believe in God.
And just because our sins may be forgiven does not mean that we get away with paying for them. We go from the innocence of being a child to the responsibility of adulthood which can be hard. I believe that the transition from the relative innocence of physical existence to a spiritual existence will be far harder.
I’m willing to bet most Christians believe they will go to heaven. For them it’s not so much about accountability but the self serving thought of the promise of life after death. Of course when it comes to atheists the xtian claims they just don’t want to be held accountable for their sins. Laughable and disgusting and immoral train of thought, as if they knew who deserves being tortured for eternity.
If you have to believe you’ll be punished or rewarded by an invisible spook in order to do the right thing, instead of doing it because it’s the right thing to do, you are not being moral at all, just an egoistic deluded fool
John Harshman,
If humans had designed atoms and we observed what we see today. A logical conclusion is that strict design rules were followed. So yes, the laws of physics and chemistry appear to follow a strict set of design rules.
We see repeatable values ( strong force, weak force mass etc) across all copper atoms we measure. If there was variation in these properties across atoms your computer would not work.
How is it that there is almost no variation if these particles originated by accident?
When I look into a microprocessor and measure 22nm lines everywhere we correctly reach the same conclusion. If you ask how were you able to make all the lines 22nm within a very small tolerance then the answer is very complicated. Making a design rule is easy, having your product adhere to it is not.
The ‘motivation’ argument against atheism really is beyond stupid.
Apparently I’m an atheist because I don’t like the idea of being held accountable for my sins.
But if that’s the case then why on Earth wouldn’t I wholeheartedly welcome a guarantee that I will never be held accountable for my sins, which is precisely what salvation offers?
William Murray and Sal both tell us that we may as well believe in God because there is nothing to hope for otherwise.
Now you’re trying to tell us that there is. Sounds pretty lame to me, but then it’s an old attempt to pretend that people just don’t want to believe your warrantless fables.
I’ve noticed theists say that it’s just “unbelievable” that people will try so hard to avoid accountablity, but there it is, plain as day. Yes, it seems to be the best you can do, and it’s still unbelievable, because it makes no sense. I had a hard time believing it as a child, but now I think I know why it was so hard to believe that people would rather die without hope for future life than to be accountable–it’s nonsense.
Glen Davidson
I don’t know the percentage here, but I do agree that there is some truth in this.
I do not believe that this is what salvation offers. My sins as a self conscious thinking person may be forgiven but I will still have to account for and make amends for them.
You know the reason behind it?
Or are you simply claiming that sexual selection is somehow design?
If so, your “argument” is made up of lacunae.
Glen Davidson
The “it” we were discussing was the sand sculpture. It has a pattern therefore it was designed and we know that it was designed in order to attract a mate.
Lacunae.
Glen Davidson
CharlieM, to Rumraket:
keiths:
CharlieM:
I was asking specifically about your stated belief:
Is there a reason for that belief other than “Me like! Me believe!”?
colewd,
If that was right (it’s not) then since everything is made of atoms, everything is “designed” in the weird and confused sense you define it. There would be no way of telling apart design from non-design
My dog just took a dump on your new Persian carpet. Look! it’s made of atoms! An intelligently designed dog turd! praise the lord
What specific contradiction have you perceived that have led you to the belief that
I think you just happen to like that idea too.
I think that this is the wrong framing of the problem. The question should be framed as, “under what conditions would complex living organisms tend to become self-aware?”
We shouldn’t think of self-awareness as a single thing that magically comes into existence all at once, but of degrees of self-awareness. Any organism that can reliably distinguish between itself and its environment will be self-aware to a minimal degree. Creatures with central nervous systems will be far more self-aware, and creatures that need to coordinate their activities with other creatures even more so.
Put otherwise: what is the human kind of self-awareness good for? It’s good for many things, but chiefly it’s good for monitoring one’s relationship to social norms. And that is clearly going to be adaptive for a species that depends on highly reliable cooperation as its characteristic way of life.
You have identified an instance of what is a pervasive characteristic of the creationist mindset. Everything is black or white, everything appears in a poof, there are never any degrees or gradual steps of development or change in their models.
For them, abiogenesis is the first complete, modern cell popping into existence without any precursor, with no long slow stages of chemistry. For them, the chore of understanding physics and chemistry is replaced by miracles. For them, every origin of anything is a matter of all at once and nothing first.
This is compatible with the conviction that if evolution can’t work that way, there can be no evolution, but this is not required, it’s simply that evolution flat violates the god-poofed-us model.
Flint,
Yes, they think that atheism is just “matter –> [poof] –> mind”, never minding that their own alternative is “mind –> [poof] –> matter.”
They seem not to realize that “matter –> [poof] –> mind” is precisely not what one gets from 20th and 21st century physics, chemistry, and biology.
I do not expect matter to become self-aware, though I cannot rule it out.
What I expect is for material processes, specifically homeostatic processes, to become self-aware.
I claim to have a pretty good understanding of consciousness. I wish I could explain it. But people are unreceptive to my attempts to explain.
My understanding does not require any magic. But it does require looking at our relation to reality in a very unconventional manner.
Keep trying. I like them.
The interesting thing is not that we are self aware, but that we are selectively self aware. We are not, for example, aware of the machinations of the old, alligator brain, which is mostly where decisions are made. Certainly where motives are made.
In a story I read recently, the author said that the human intellect is like a monkey riding on the head of an elephant. The elephant (our DNA, our hindbrain) does whatever it’s going to do, and the monkey finds some way to rationalize that whatever it does, is just what the monkey wanted in the first place.
I suspect that people buy a good many products for reasons having nothing to do with any sort of cost/benefit evaluation, but rather a post facto search for reasons why the one they liked and had to have, was the objectively best choice.
Religion is often this tendency on steroids, and the contortions and circumlocutions and ad hoc inanities used to justify convictions over which they have no control are astounding to behold. The elephant on a rampage.
I guess the difference is that their notion of atheism lacks any plausible agency, while their approach is grounded in a solid basis of pure imagination. Their poofer is real, while the atheists’ poofer cannot exist.
Report on discovery and purpose of japanese puffer fish nest sites. Two interesting things to me were that when the circles were first found they weren’t sure whether they were “natural phenomena” or made by some animal, and while they are seen as the result of sexual selection, the structures also provide fine sand (good for egg laying–I didn’t notice an explanation for that) to the middle where the females lay the eggs, when properly impressed. Males don’t reuse their circles, the authors think it’s because the fine sand has been depleted in one breeding season.
Amazing little animal, anyhow.
Glen Davidson
I would characterize consciousness as a sense organ, one that sort of sees the future. But what is doing the seeing?