How could the universe and life come into existence without God? How could life evolve without God?

[rossum]

As for beliefs such as reincarnating as a cockroach, a rat or a gnat, that is not built on a historical logical structure, but rather upon mythology imagination and superstition.

You can never step in the same river twice because it is not the same river and you are not the same you.

You are reincarnating every second of your life, or are you still the same person you were when you were born?

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

rossum, as intelligent of a poster that I know you are, you continue to persist in some of the most basic errors in objecting to classical theism. The Uncaused Cause’s act is not done from any point in time, but is an eternal act that occurs at no point in time but reaches to all points in time. And that is only one example. You should take these errors up with the personalist theism school, and expand your thinking to more than that.

I am approaching the usual assumptions of classical theism from a Prasangika-Madhyamika point of view. That approach will probably seem unusual to someone who has not yet encountered Nagarjuna.

Buddhism does not share the underlying assumptions of the Abrahamic religions.

Except you’re not approaching classical theism at all. You consistently get the basics of classical theism wrong and substitute some alternative in. You do the same thing with the Bible. Instead of engaging Catholic theology for what it is, you instead try to tell Catholics what their theology should be. This is called strawmanning.

 

[Wesrock]

Comments on why it couldn’t be Zeus instead also just miss the point. Do believers in Zeus profess that he is the uncreated, Unconditioned Reality? No, then he’s easily dismissed. Yes? Then great! By natural philosophy alone we’re in agreement on the basic principles of monotheism and just disagree on which way he has revealed himself to man. But that doesn’t avail the atheist in his argument. Simply from the perspective that natural philosophy demonstrates there is such a thing we’d be united against atheistic arguments, and the atheist would still need to speak to that common monotheism.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I think in the creed, “unseen” was replaced with “invisible” by U.S.bishops because supposedly the words have different connotations. God is invisible, not just “unseen.”

Hmmm…
God … maybe didin’t create evil, either – at least in a definitive ‘desired’ way; I understand evil as sort of an ‘un-creation’ or decay of what exists. It’s an unavoidable side effect of God’s power leaving creation. Even the devil was originally created good … and only became evil upon sinning against God. That’s part of the nature of a “choice” or “free will”; it allows the created to be causes of things no longer totally attributable to God.

Billy Joel in an ironic philosophical-lyrical moment, remarks that “Your mistakes are the only things you can really call your own.” In a Portland OR Concert some years ago, he also sang “She’s always a woman to me.” after which he quipped about his failed marriage to Christy Brinkly … “I guess that’s why it was so short.”

Science is observational and incremental, based of observed patterns.
Before science can talk about God, it would need to observe him.
That’s rather difficult to do … if God chooses not to allow himself to be put under a microscope.

Likewise, the science of “me” would be difficult if I chose not to participate. For I am a variation of “us”, and not identical to “you.”

“Indeed he is not far from us … In him we live and move and have our being.”
Laughing or crying, it’s still a product of our choices and freedom as well as God’s gift of being.

Good to read you again, Rossum; it’s been a few years.

 

[Gab123]

God is the author of Himself? Your God is a created God? A self-made God? Strange…

In order for something to have a beginning it must exist in time. God is outside of time, hence He had no beginning; He is eternal.

 

[Gab123]

You are reincarnating every second of your life, or are you still the same person you were when you were born?

That’s like saying that you not the same person that was posting to this thread yesterday and that when you woke up this morning and looked into the mirror you were confused. Don’t confuse the myth of incarnation with your body developing.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

One must ask why you bother.

Evolution is not a scientific explanation…

So you say that if a scientist uses scientific terms to explain how he thinks evolution happened from a scientific standpoint, then that is not a scientific explanation.

This is Alice In Wonderland stuff. You have lost any credibility you think you might have had.

 

[rossum]

In order for something to have a beginning it must exist in time. God is outside of time, hence He had no beginning; He is eternal.

Hence life had no beginning, it is eternal. Being eternal it was not created. God did not create Himself and God did not create the first life: Himself.

 

[rossum]

That’s like saying that you not the same person that was posting to this thread yesterday and that when you woke up this morning and looked into the mirror you were confused.

That is exactly what I am saying. Is your memory part of you? As your memory changes, so do you. Yesterday I could not remember what I had for breakfast today – it hadn’t happened yet. Today I can remember today’s breakfast. My memory has changed so I have changed.

The Abrahamic religions tend to see the world as essentially static with a veneer of change. Buddhism sees the world as changing with a veneer of stasis. The approach is very different.

 

[Gab123]

The Christian truth about salvation entails a death to the old self, in order to take on the new self of Christ. Thus life is a process of changing from our old self and becoming Christlike, meaning, a process of sanctification, which entails unmasking, uprooting and removing everything from our heart that separates us from God and neighbor. Thus the process of change is one of true sanctification that ultimately reaches a holiness and perfection which reflects God. Obviously it is a struggle which is only possible with God’s sanctifying grace which is made available through the 7 sacraments of the Church.

The Incarnation marked the greatest event in human history, when God entered Time and Space and lived among men to not only save us from our sins, but to forge a path which we are to follow. In other words, He taught us by example; thus Christ teaches that in order to be His disciple one must pick up the cross daily and follow Him. He carried it to le crucified upon it in reparation for all the sins of the world. Thus likewise the cross in our life is one of dying to sin, a death to our worldly passions and attachments and thus we can rise with Christ. Most people do not reach the level of perfection they should have on earth, thus the process of sanctification continues in the state called Purgatory, which is known as The Church Suffering.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is an invitation to all peoples from all walks of life everywhere in the world, so that their joy may be complete.

The good news is that nobody returns or reincarnates as a bug, and that salvation means perfect union with God in Heaven, who is Eternal Life, Truth and Love itself. The bad news is that there are pitfalls and dangers which lead a soul into the eternal abyss which Christ warned about.

 

[Gab123]

Hence life had no beginning, it is eternal. Being eternal it was not created. God did not create Himself and God did not create the first life: Himself.

Yes, God has always been; He Is Who Is. He is the Source of Life. And as the Scriptures explain, God Is Love. What had a beginning was the cosmos, and the hierarchy of life, Where man is below the angelic beings.

 

[Noose001]

how he thinks evolution happened

This is not science. Everyone thinks but science is beyond thinking, perhaps demonstrate.
You think evolution happens, i think it doesn’t happen from a scientific standpoint.

Do you think Abiogenesis happened from a scientific standpoint?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

how he thinks evolution happened

This is not science. Everyone thinks but science is beyond thinking, perhaps demonstrate.
You think evolution happens, i think it doesn’t happen from a scientific standpoint.

Do you think Abiogenesis happened from a scientific standpoint?

Noose, it has become apparent that talking to you about science is a complete waste of my time writing anything and a waste of your time reading it.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Research HOX genes. I suggest starting with Shubin’s “Your Inner Fish” which is an excellent introduction to the evolution of various body plans, including our own tetrapod body plan.

That is fine for Shubin to say there are fossil amphibian fins that demonstrate a structural affinity with human hands. But how do these fossil fins resemble bacteria from 3.5 billion years ago?

Evolution means that something has to exist first before it can evolve. What came first, the chicken the egg or the HOX gene?

The vertebra has a symmetry left and right, but our limbs have a mirror image symmetry. On most species there is no symmetry between the top and bottom, or between front and back.

It seems that for the HOX gene to work, it would have to be programmed in advance to recognise every new random mutation, then pass it onto the next generation. If the camera lens took 1829 incremental steps, the HOX gene needs 1829 updates.

How could the HOX gene keep adapting and store so much detailed information purely by natural processes?

 

[rossum]

It seems that for the HOX gene to work, it would have to be programmed in advance to recognise every new random mutation, then pass it onto the next generation. If the camera lens took 1829 incremental steps, the HOX gene needs 1829 updates.

Your “seems” is misleading you. Evolution can easily give the appearance of design, but is not actually design. You are seeing water where there is only a mirage.

How could the HOX gene keep adapting and store so much detailed information purely by natural processes?

By standard evolutionary processes: massively parallel trial-and-error with constant removal of less successful variants.

Over the trillions of generations back billions of years to that original just-about-alive first cell every single one of our ancestors has succeeded in reproducing. Not one failure. Anything which did not succeed has no living descendants. That is a very strong selection process. We are the descendants of successful reproducers and only of successful reproducers. That process weeds out a lot of less successful genetic variants.

All this is standard evolutionary biology. I am surprised you have to ask the question.

 

[o_mlly]

Science may use “seems” to develop a hypothesis, but it needs actual evidence to accept, or reject, the hypothesis.

Actual evidence, as opposed to indirect evidence, means direct observations of the phenomena hypothesized.

So, your criteria dismisses the OP’s questions on the origin of matter and life in this thread as being addressable within the realm of science (as well as macroevolution). Thank you.

 

[o_mlly]

So you say that if a scientist uses scientific terms to explain how he thinks evolution happened from a scientific standpoint, then that is not a scientific explanation.

Yes, the newly elucidated Rossum’s Rule applies. Without actual evidence, it ain’t science.

 

[o_mlly]

Is your memory part of you? As your memory changes, so do you. Yesterday I could not remember what I had for breakfast today – it hadn’t happened yet. Today I can remember today’s breakfast. My memory has changed so I have changed.

Seems a bit of a shell game going on. Increments to memory do not change existing memories. You are still the same. Memories are ephemeral; it’s probable that in a week you will not remember what you had for breakfast today. You are still the same. Memories can be ethereal; it’s possible you may remember an event that never happened. You’re still the same.

 

[rossum]

You’re still the same.

So, today you are still a newly born baby, the same as you were the day you were born.

No. Change is real; stasis is the illusion:

“Impermanent are all compound things.”
When one realises this by wisdom,
then one does not heed ill.
This is the Path of Purity.

– Dhammapada 20:5

 

[rossum]

Actual evidence , as opposed to indirect evidence , means direct observations of the phenomena hypothesized.

No. Actual scientific evidence, either direct or indirect. Not an interpretation of a religious text.