More like a firecracker, heh? LOL
Seems to me quite a few of you were rather offended because someone dared to title a thread "Atheists.....Your Life is Pointless?"
So, it's okay for you to be offended but you can justify what we feel is offensive to us?
All any of us have asked for is some respect. You don't have to accept our ideas, beliefs, etc. But, do you really think it's necessary to use words like assinine, idiotic, ID-iots, etc., to the ones that don't agree with you?
If you will notice, quite a few of the Christians on these forums have differing beliefs from each other, yet, we don't find it necessary to trash you or your beliefs.
If being an atheist gives you license to treat people the way some of you do, then keep it!
timber,
Disingenuously? I had more respect for you than that.
cicerone imposter wrote:More like a firecracker, heh? LOL
I wish - more like a "dud squib", a type of firecracker that fails to properly explode because the gunpowder has gotten wet, a real disappointment to those of us who live for the BIG bang.
farmerman, It seems as though many presuppositions need to be made in order for there to be the perfect conditions for life to spontaneously exsist. Not to mention these experiments, don't result in any signifficant life forms. Another little secret for you is that the world is not a series of test tubes. I also think you should read the judges entire finding. It was directed at the people not at the theory. But, nice try. Also, are you saying that you base your beliefs off of what a federal judge says. Let's not go down that road, since they have differing opinions.
It is generaly believed in science that this "prebiotic soup" as it is called is where life originated. The famous Miller-Urey experiment duplicated the conditions of early Earth in a laboratory (Orgel, 1994). In a self-contained apparatus an "atmosphere" consisting of hydrogen, water, methane and ammonia was created above an "ocean" of water. These gasses were subjected to "lightning" in the formof an electrical discharge. They found that 10% of the carbon (C) in the system had converted into organic compounds and 2% of this carbon went on to make amino-acids, the buildingblocks of our carbon-based life.
Although doubt has arisen because recent investigations indicate that Earth's early atmosphere may have contained more gasses than in the experiment, like CO2 (Orgel, 1994)(De Jager, 1995). But it is still the best theory we have.
These amino-acids that formed on Earth are very important, they are the buildingblocks of the nucleic-acids RNA and DNA which in their turn carry the genetic information of organisms. Whether RNA arose spontanous or replaced some earlier geneticsystem is not quite clear. But its development was probably the key in the development of life. It very likely led to the synthesis of proteins, the formation of DNA and the emergence of a cell that could be the ancestor of all current lifeforms as theory implies. (Orgel, 1994).
Nowadays one of the vital needs for survival of complex organisms is the presence of oxigen (O2). Yet if one looks at Miller-Urey's experiment one sees that no free oxigen has been included in the initial mixture of gasses. Free oxigen was little or not present at the creation of life on the Earth. For it is an agressive element, it oxidizes other chemicals; it subtracts hydrogen from existing molecules. Therefore under oxidizing conditions amino-acids do not or very little form.
The atmosphere plays a major part in the creation of life and sustaining it.
I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year or happy holiday or whatever doesn't offend you. I'll be away for a while so I won't be replying to anyone. Thanks for the lively debates. I really do hope you all have a great time over the next week. Be safe, and spend as much time with your friends and family as possible. Thanks again.
derve--I have read the entire judges decision and at least half of it is directed at the theory, because, in his words, "wasting the courts(plural) time and resources on these kinds of cases is not worth the effort. Thats why his opinion was more sweeping and took a needed shot at the the history of the "confidence racket" and the churlishness of the bases of the manufactured "pseudo-science" behind the Creatinist (linked with) ID hypotheses. I think, perhaps, it is who you should read it more carefully if your implying that youve read it already. I really dont think youve even read the first page because in the first pages he lays out what hes trying to do
Ofcourse science still doe.snt fully know about our chemical origins yet. Thats the beauty of science, we work at what we dont yet understand. That is the subject of much investigation and research. I know it offends the "special friendists" who , by remaining selectively ignorant of science or the evidence that has been collected in the last 10 years, continue to choose a magic creation event that defies reason.
All I showed was the evidence we now have at our disposal. You are certainly free to believe in magic or elves or whatever. Just remeber , your position has ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE to support it, just your unerring faith in an event that most mainstream religions agree was merely a metaphorical reference using a measure of time everyone could understand. (PS, the order of appearance of life in genesis is all wrong anyway)
ci, the Miller/Urey experiment has been redone with a more recent knowledge of the Archean atmosphere and , because the atmosphere was found to be more enriched in hydrogen than we originally thought , the nucleotides were being produced in the space of the " reaction burrettes". Also, the more recent experiments have added a "reaction surface" of sterile smectites to act as ion grabbers. We are already reporting self-replicating complex polymerized nucleotides in the space of just a few years.
The fact that evidence shows that life didnt just explode out of an event, but appeared in gradual stages, comports well with how we understand the evolution of the worlds oceans and atmosphere, and the roles of these features had in making it "habitable by a gradual terraforming process that took about 3/4 of a billion years" Then when life appeared , it was merely evidenced by the accumulation of specific carbon isotopes. LAter life that actually fossilized, included archeobacter, which could live in a methane rich, oxygen poor environment. Then almost 2 billion years since the enucleation of the earth , we begin to see that free oxygen became available to allow precipitation of banded iron formations. These formations occured shortly after the first cyano bacter and stromatolite deposits were showing fossils.This indicated that Oxygen production by photosynthesis began. ALl the rest of the life on the planet occured in a series of rapid sequences that lasted freom the Vendean until the mid Miocenewhen the great mammals were evolved and whales became the typical big honkers we see today. (Almost)All the life on the planet(that has left fossil evidence) occured in the last 17% of the total time the planet was in existence , so the belief that many people have in a "poofistic" creation is not supportedby any evidence.
But I guess you and I will be reminding them of that for the forseeable future
Have a great Cristmas and a Happy New Year to you and everyone on the thread. Its been a real bit of enjoyment and Ive learned a lot from these interactions ,no matter what anyone "believes" its cool how we can share disparate ideas and only get mildly riled..
Ive gotta say that , since judge jones decision, the usual Creation apologists have been relatively quiet . Ive even visited a couple of whackadoo Creation blogs and have seen that the correspondents have taken a fairly restarined position. I believe they are waiting for some direction from their useless leaders.
I am so happy that the Discovery Institute decided to make their stand in Dover Pa, because from all the evidence weve had, judge jones was not a typical appointee that Bush had selected. Yes, jones is conservative, No hes not a mindless :Borg" that the Conservatives and Evangelicals presume will drive their camel under the tent. Jones had a personal belief 9according to pre press) that certain issues had been clogging up the courts in the past (whoda thought that by "clogging" hed produce such a verbal repudiation of the " science of ID " and the "practitioners", just to produce a precedent that will give pause to all those other silly cases that loom on the horizon.
I think creationism and evolution should be taught.
evo-devo in science, and Creationism, or ID somewhere else, it has no vlidity as science.
Just side stepping the thread for a moment Farmerman, how come you have Baldrick for an avatar?
I didn't think you got Blackadder in the U.S.A
Please enlighten my substantial darkness.
All BBC stuff is available to us on PBS and the BBC channel of our cable TV. Ive been a big Blackadder fan since his first appearance over 20 years ago on PBS.
I miss Ballykissangel . With the exception of Benny Hill and "are you being served" I find most UK comedies very good . Im also a huge fan of "Cash in the Attic" is that show still on in UK?
AYBS is like LAwrence WHelk. I dont think Im that old to find that stuff funny. I found my wife watching a "Murder She wrote" show the other week and I was unable to cope.
I love you, Farmerman...usually.
I don't know as you get appreciated for your sterling work on these threads, you know, (and the other superstition-kyboshing stalwarts too), so I just thought I would say something.
I got reminded by the Baldrick stuff, because Black Adder and Baldrick are very hot, too.
Baldrick is my hero. Obviously I dont aim too high.
Ive noticed that he smokes turnip leaves for a wee toke.
evolution is intelligent design
Is the whole world missing something, or has someone considered this yet:
Ever thought that Evolution is a part of Intelligent Design?
If we ever shoot probes into outer space with the chemicals / basic organisms to possibly spread life from our planet to other planets (outside our solar system), we better send organisms that can naturally adapt (evolve) to changing conditions... and in the dna carry the blueprints that will direct these organisms to evolve one day into intelligent life, possibly even evolve into humans or a human like species... guess what? we humans back on earth (now eons in the past) just became intelligent designers
Rgars one way to look at it. However, you or I, cant prove it. We can prove that chemical "self assembly" is possible, and, with the right conditions, is inescapable.
DNA is only one set of "bar code " recordkeeping, in Silicate minerals, the layer spacing between leaves of phyllosilicates contain different chemicals and spacing and are arrangeable in a series of tetradecimal patterns. Is that life? no, but its surprising how organicchemicals and imnorganic chemicals, just by following rules of intermolecular spacing or ionic ratios, can assemble themselves without our help.
Chemical self assembley is readable in the pre-fossil record of rocks and is visible from spectra freom other star clusters. (we can see spectra of various nucleotides in the galaxies' spectra)
Id like to start of thread on a game . Id call it the "Not-so-Intelligent-Design-Game" Wherein we could compile a list of the really dumb things within living organisms or the environmental consequences that life shares . EG , why do anuimals on islands appear no where else except that particular island>? Or Why do cave animals (blind and almost albimo) most closely resemble the animals local to that cave and not to any othe cave system .
