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

[IWantGod]

How could the universe and life come into existence without God

How can contingent beings exist without a cause, would be a better name for the thread. The universe could be a part of a multiverse after-all.

But in-order for contingent existences to exist without a cause, a contradiction would have to occur. Contingent things would have to exist without existence being essential to their natures. To have only contingent beings is to have only natures that do not exist according to their own nature and yet exist anyway. Thus they would exist without actually receiving existence from any nature since existence is not intrinsic to any of their natures, and thus there would be no reason for any of their natures to exist, which is a contradiction.

If no nature has in itself the reason for it’s own existence, that is to say if no nature is existence, then there can be no existence and certainly no contingent natures.

That is why God is necessary as a cause, and we know God is intelligent because he is sustaining contingent natures in existence and would have to create the laws that govern them.

 

[Freddy]

goout:

Catholics ought to simply accept mainstream science.

I started this thread by asking how could the universe and life come into existence without God. After a thousand replies, I don’t think science has convincing evidence to show this.

There are certainly arguments and beliefs how the universe might happen without God, but you have to want to believe them in the first place. If the proof was convincing, I would abandon my belief in God.

I see I’m going to have to repeat myself again.

If you believe in God then He must have had some (name removed by moderator)ut into the evolutionary process. Obviously. If you don’t believe in God then He didn’t. Obviously.

There is no proof for either.

So how could the universe come into existence without God? The theist will always answer that it’s an unguided natural process and the theist will always answer that God is involved.

I’m pretty certain that was pointed out within the first few posts. What all the other posts have been doing since is arguing about the mechanics of evolution. Which quite a few people in this thread seem not to understand. It’s just another opportunity for a few fundamentalists to indicate that.

 

[Dan123]

I’m pretty certain that was pointed out within the first few posts.

It has in fact been pointed out in dozens possibly hundreds of threads in fact.

 

[Pattylt]

I’m going to answer the original OP question as best I can. One thing I can also ask is how did the universe and life come into existence with God?
Religion has an explanation but it comes from a presupposition of God to begin with…Always using the idea of something from nothing and an uncaused cause. The presupposition is that before the Big Bang there was nothing and that a causal chain within our universe requires a causal chain “outside” of it. These are simply hypothesis that are assumed. We don’t actually know.

You don’t actually know…you believe on faith. I don’t know because people much smarter than I are still working on it and so far…they know very little. I have no problem saying I don’t know the answers to these questions. You have God to give an answer because you don’t know either. We just don’t know and that’s the natural place to land until we know more.

 

[goout]

goout:

Catholics ought to simply accept mainstream science.

I started this thread by asking how could the universe and life come into existence without God. After a thousand replies, I don’t think science has convincing evidence to show this.

SMH.
It’s not the place of science to deal with God. Science is silent on God (the opinions of individual scientists is another matter).

 

[Noose001]

Another obvious error. Mutations may be beneficial or neutral during speciation. See Kimura (1968).

I won’t bother asking you for the details of each step God used to create new species because obviously you have nothing to show. Care to prove me wrong?

Evolution is the idea of speciation through beneficial mutation(s) and natural selection, i’m afraid non of those things you posted exclusively shows ‘evolution’. It is the benefit that is supposedly picked by natural selection, how does neutrality work with natural selection?
Most are Polyploidy in plants which means sickly plants. Polyploidy is not what evolution proposes.

I won’t bother asking you for the details of each step God used to create new species

Very simple - through Knowledge and understanding.

 

[Noose001]

You don’t actually know…you believe on faith. I don’t know because people much smarter than I are still working on it and so far…they know very little. I have no problem saying I don’t know the answers to these questions. You have God to give an answer because you don’t know either. We just don’t know and that’s the natural place to land until we know more.

It is “…by faith we understand that God created the universe…”

This is not the same thing as ‘we don’t know’, take note. Faith is not blind, there has to be some reasons that will make someone believe.

 

[Dan123]

Evolution is the idea of speciation through beneficial mutation(s) and natural selection , i’m afraid non of those things you posted exclusively shows ‘evolution’. It is the benefit that is supposedly picked by natural selection, how does neutrality work with natural selection?

Evolution isn’t just when a beneficial mutation occurs and a neutral or even detrimental mutation could still lead to speciation so long as it wasn’t so detrimental that the species went extinct.

A neutral mutation would neither be selected for or against. If later that mutation became beneficial or a hindrance, then it would start being selected for/against. Peppered moths are mostly white/gray spotted, they blend in well with similarly colored rocks. A small number that are born black. The black ones still have the instinct to land on rocks but since they don’t blend in they’re more likely to be eaten by birds and other predators, fewer black ones survive to reproduce, and their numbers stay low. That is so say nature is selecting against the mutation that produces a survival disadvantage.

However once we started industrializing we began throwing soot into the air from coal plants and factories, the soot coated areas around these industrial facilities and suddenly the black winged version became the norm, as they now matched their landscape better and what was a disadvantage is now an advantage.

Mutations and change are good or bad depending on their real world effect it has.

 

[Noose001]

Evolution isn’t just when a beneficial mutation occurs and a neutral or even detrimental mutation could still lead to speciation so long as it wasn’t so detrimental that the species went extinct.

Neutral means no significant change, so getting a new species out of no change won’t work.

Detrimental most often means the organism doesn’t have the fitness to establish a population so no speciation either (but is different for plants and some insects which can thrive in sickness). But i agree that most mutations are detrimental.

Beneficial is to be measured against immediate environment if it confers advantages but this also is not true because it means the parent species is at a disadvantage in the same environment.

Non of these, especially Neutral and beneficial, tackles the genetics of reproductive barriers within species. You need to show how reproductive barriers were affected when the moths changed in color otherwise change in color alone doesn’t necessarily mean new species whether there’s industrialization or not.

The detrimental kind usually affects genetic stability and thus can cause genetic variance in reproductive barriers. But this means ‘sickly’ organisms.

 

[Dan123]

Neutral means no significant change, so getting a new species out of no change won’t work.

I was demonstrating natural selection as you seem to have misunderstandings or that overall there was an issue discussing the concept. A neutral mutation is what we would label a change that has no statistical effect on survival, that’s all. If it has no change that means it has the same survival likelihood as those without the mutation, and if that individual reproduces its offspring will likely have that mutation, and the cycle repeats.

Beneficial is to be measured against immediate environment if it confers advantages but this also is not true because it means the parent species is at a disadvantage in the same environment.

“Less advantaged” isn’t the same as disadvantaged". Detrimental doesn’t mean “unable to establish a population” it just means lower survival odds as compared to others of its species. You continually create binaries, nature is gradients.

 

[Noose001]

I was demonstrating natural selection as you seems to have misunderstandings or that overall there was an issue discussing the concept. A neutral mutation is what we would label a change that has no statistical effect on survival, that’s all. If it has no change that means it has the same survival likelihood as those without the mutation, and if that individual reproduces its offspring will likely have that mutation, and the cycle repeats.

How can a neutral mutation lead to a new species?

Your explanation above also disqualifies the beneficial mutation because if the changes have statistical effect on survival, does it mean the parent species doesn’t have the same effect? When we say advantage, we are actually comparing two things, if one has an advantage, the other doesn’t.

“Less advantaged” isn’t the same as disadvantaged". Detrimental doesn’t mean “unable to establish a population” it just means lower survival odds as compared to others of its species. You continually create binaries, nature is gradients.

This should also apply to ‘advantageous’ and ‘beneficial mutation’. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a population will be established. But there’s no such thing as beneficial mutation

 

[Freddy]

Beneficial is to be measured against immediate environment if it confers advantages but this also is not true because it means the parent species is at a disadvantage in the same environment.

That’s not necessarily true but if it was the case then the parent species would go extinct. That’s quite normal.

 

[Freddy]

But there’s no such thing as beneficial mutation

You can’t have meant that as it’s so obviously incorrect. Isn’t it an advantage to run faster, fly further, see better?

 

[Noose001]

That’s not necessarily true but if it was the case then the parent species would go extinct. That’s quite normal.

You can’t have meant that as it’s so obviously incorrect. Isn’t it an advantage to run faster, fly further, see better?

It is advantageous to run faster but running faster to become a new species is an issue to me but my biggest problem is running faster because of a mutation. It has to be shown that this mutation caused the ‘running faster’ and further caused changes in genetic reproductive markers/barriers to the extent that i can’t recognize ‘running slow’ anymore.

 

[Dan123]

Your explanation above also disqualifies the beneficial mutation because if the changes have statistical effect on survival, does it mean the parent species doesn’t have the same effect? When we say advantage , we are actually comparing two things, if one has an advantage, the other doesn’t.

When we say advantage we mean the statistical likelihood of surviving long enough to reproduce and pass one’s genes to the next generation has gone up. And again these aren’t always good/bad binaries. Say the mutation causes the legs to be slightly longer, explaining the speed, but that the larger size and speed of the animal also means it needs slightly more food. Depending on the selection pressures that mutation could be good or bad. There would be a ton of factors and it’s the kind of thing easier to study than predict due to the sheer amount of interactions with the ecosystem. Ultimately natural selection itself is a tautology, the creatures most likely to survive are the creatures most likely to survive.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

That’s not necessarily true but if it was the case then the parent species would go extinct. That’s quite normal.

You can’t have meant that as it’s so obviously incorrect. Isn’t it an advantage to run faster, fly further, see better?

It is advantageous to run faster but running faster to become a new species is an issue to me but my biggest problem is running faster because of a mutation. It has to be shown that this mutation caused the ‘running faster’…

My son can run faster then I could. Was that a glitch in the genetic transfer or a small mutation? Who knows. But back in the day, all other things being equal, he might have had a survival advantage over those that couldn’t run as fast as he could.

Rinse and repeat.

 

[Noose001]

When we say advantage we mean the statistical likelihood of surviving long enough to reproduce and pass one’s genes to the next generation has gone up. And again these aren’t always good/bad binaries. Say the mutation causes the legs to be slightly longer, explaining the speed, but that the larger size and speed of the animal also means it needs slightly more food. Depending on the selection pressures that mutation could be good or bad.

Fair enough but you are still evading the main problem, speciation.

A new species arises when it is established that they can’t exchange genetic material with the parent species. It means the specific reproductive genetic markers have changed in a manner that they are no longer recognized by those of the parent species.

How does having long legs (beneficial mutation) have an effect on these genetic markers?

 

[Noose001]

My son can run faster then I could. Was that a glitch in the genetic transfer or a small mutation? Who knows. But back in the day, all other things being equal, he might have had a survival advantage over those that couldn’t run as fast as he could.

A new species arises when it is established that they can’t exchange genetic material with the parent species. It means the specific reproductive genetic markers have changed in a manner that they are no longer recognized by those of the parent species.

What effect does your son’s running faster have on these genetic markers?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

My son can run faster then I could. Was that a glitch in the genetic transfer or a small mutation? Who knows. But back in the day, all other things being equal, he might have had a survival advantage over those that couldn’t run as fast as he could.

A new species arises when it is established that they can’t exchange genetic material with the parent species. It means the specific reproductive genetic markers have changed in a manner that they are no longer recognized by those of the parent species.

What effect does your son’s running faster have on these genetic markers?

None in isolation. Hence the ‘rinse and repeat’. Keep changing things and you’ll get a different species eventually. What do you think could prevent it?

 

[Noose001]

None in isolation. Hence the ‘rinse and repeat’. Keep changing things and you’ll get a different species eventually. What do you think could prevent it?

I guess this means, no answer.