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tonyrey
Guest
If even Catholics reject miracles it is no wonder atheists do. At least they have some excuse. Jesus had an answer for the sceptics…
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Reply:
But what about microbes and plants? Are they nobler than stars, galaxies and planets?
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tonyrey
Guest
You should be delighted that it has stimulated so much discussion of issues that concern the extent to which God intervenes in our lives. Surely that is important?
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Al_Moritz
Guest
No Catholic rejects miracles. But miracles, special signs performed by God, would not be recognizable if not against the constant backdrop of the regular workings of the laws of nature, also coming from God.
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tonyrey
Guest
The question is irrelevant because neither category is capable of thought.
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tonyrey
Guest
That is true but the constant backdrop of the regular workings of the laws of nature does not exclude suspensions altogether.
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tonyrey
Guest
Our physical deaths are natural, Charlie, because they are an essential element of the biocycle. Whether death is an evil depends on individual circumstances. Often it is a merciful release from a life of misery or suffering. If it is premature it is an evil but a lesser evil - in the case of that individual - than not having been born.
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tdgesq
Guest
I’m glad you asked it. I’ve been wanting to see some of the arguments on this subject for a while. These guys disagree with each other from time to time. There is mutual respect, even though it may seem like there is a lot of yelling going on.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
No, the question is not irrelevant:
So, if physical evolution of stars, galaxies and planets works according to regular processes guided by the laws of nature, then why should not the biological evolution of microbes and plants work according to regular processes guided by the laws of nature? Why would God have to ‘intervene’ here and there?
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Bradski
Guest
Ah, so they are designed to be eaten so they won’t too bored. Gods has their best interests at heart!
I thought that that was Inane Comment of The Week until…
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grannymh
Guest
May all of you have a Merry Christmas
as we celebrate the joy of Christ’s birth.
Lorenzo Lotto, 1523
http://www31.ureach.com/images/blank.gif
as we celebrate the joy of Christ’s birth.
Lorenzo Lotto, 1523
http://www31.ureach.com/images/blank.gif
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
That’s God’s privilege.
Pretty much as I would intervene here and there if my garden needed tending.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Does that not presume laws of physics are sufficient to guide/bring about biological evolution?
Merely to state we have no reason to think they don’t is not a reason for thinking they do.
Assembling the constituents for life is quite a different bag of tricks than building crystals, forming mountains, determining the weather or forming stars.
Why should we assume the same laws cover both physical realities a priori?
Perhaps God is utilizing an inherently dynamic interplay between the living and inorganic strata on Earth to give it a unique character.
Why assume doing so is an inherent limitation of God’s power rather than inbuilt limitations inherent in the “kinds” of physical existents involved?
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grannymh
Guest
May all of you have a Merry Christmas
as we celebrate the joy of Christ’s birth.
Lorenzo Lotto, 1523
as we celebrate the joy of Christ’s birth.
Lorenzo Lotto, 1523
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Al_Moritz
Guest
We don’t need to make a priori assumptions, and certainly it is reasonable to think that there are inbuilt limitations inherent in the “kinds” of physical existents involved. But amazingly, the evidence strongly suggests that indeed the same laws cover both physical realities.
Look, I was in the same camp as you and others here are. I thought that an origin of life by natural causes was impossible, in fact, that the idea was a joke and much more difficult to digest than a biological evolution by just laws of nature. Yet then I sat down for two and a half months reading and seriously studying the primary scientific literature on the subject, which I was able to do as a biochemist. At some crucial point, to my own astonishment – that’s too mildly put, to my own utter shock and confusion about an earth-shattering necessary shift in worldview that had just occurred, I had no other choice but to conclude that an origin of life by natural causes was not only possible, but highly likely. Given my passion about the subject either way, but now inevitably shifting in this new direction, I decided to write the article for Talkorigins.org:
talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html
So yes, assembling the constituents for life is in principle not too much of a different bag of tricks than building crystals, forming mountains, determining the weather or forming stars. It follows from the same very special and exquisitely fine-tuned laws of nature that God created. Yet what is more, these laws of nature cannot be any less incredibly special when it comes to the formation of stars, planets and mountains than when it comes to the formation of life from non-living matter and its development towards immense complexity by biological evolution. There cannot be any less astonishment about why physical evolution of the universe is possible, than there has to be astonishment why chemical evolution (at the origin of life) and biological evolution are possible. The wonder and astonishment is about the laws of nature themselves that govern all these processes and make them possible in the first place. The assumption of the naturalist that there is nothing to be surprised about since all the development of the universe is overarchingly explained by evolution based on laws of nature is mistaken and utterly foolish.
(But given that you have pointed to the right literature about fine-tuning of laws of nature elsewhere, I assume that you are well informed about this issue.)
And again, the human soul is an entirely different thing. As an immaterial entity it is in a completely different realm than laws of nature and material processes. There is no naturalistic explanation for human beings as metaphysical entities.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
By the way, when I found out about a probable origin of life by natural causes I did not yet have any sufficient knowledge about the exquisite fine-tuning of the laws of nature necessary to make such a phenomenon possible in the first place.
I leave it up to your imagination to estimate how utterly great the shock and confusion at that moment indeed had been for me.
I leave it up to your imagination to estimate how utterly great the shock and confusion at that moment indeed had been for me.
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rossum
Guest
Not your fault. Most of us posting here are the usual suspects taking the chance to repeat yet again what we have already said on many other threads many times before. Your OP merely offered us a new opportunity.
Did you get a satisfactory answer to your question?
rossum
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Yes, I too would be filled with shock and awe if I acknowledged for the first time that life could assemble itself into being according to some fixed laws of nature. They would have to be fixed laws of nature, wouldn’t they? Because if they were not fixed laws of nature, life may never have assembled itself. In which case we would not be here to talk about this. But then we get an inherently necessary physical determinism that naturally down the road selects life. How that fixed determinism could exist without the intelligent design and providential hand of God guiding it is beyond me.
Thank you Granny. Right back at you!
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tonyrey
Guest
It is easy to quote people out of context and distort the meaning of their statements in a futile attempt to evade your implication that life is so terrible it is not worth living:
It would be far more to the point to answer questions instead of taking the easy way out…
Since you condemn the existing system can you provide us with a blueprint of a better scheme of things. It shouldn’t be too difficult with your deep insight into the appalling defects of the world we have the great misfortune to inhabit. No doubt you agree with Schopenhauer that this is the worst of all possible worlds and it would have been better if life had never existed on this planet:…
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tonyrey
Guest
The solution to the problem is that the infallible laws of nature themselves unerringly guided events to their destination and ensured that the unerring development of monocellular organisms into intelligent animals proceeded successfully to its intended destination. They are so well designed they never require supervision or assistance of any description.
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