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Post by humphreyclarke on May 16, 2009 10:40:46 GMT
It its pretty fundamental to my view of the universe as a sort of life generating mechanism that it be able to generate complex life at the end of the process. If life turned out to be looking like some sort of outrageous fluke then I would have to have a rethink. As it is, it is looking increasingly likely that the universe could have cut the odds during its development.
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Post by Al Moritz on May 16, 2009 14:33:36 GMT
I was on the local footy blog (Aust) and they have a religion /politics section. A post mentioned how the building blocks of RNA could have formed by themselves stimulated by ultra violet rays. Here is the supplied link. www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/sc...=1&ref=science . This was followed by a comment that "this could be problematic for Creationists and even Theistic Evolutionists". While I can accept that it would be a problem for Creationists of the Ken Ham - Henry Morris ilk, I would not have thought that it would be a problem for the likes of Simon Conway-Morris, Denis Alexander or Kenneth Miller type of T.E. In fact, I am sure that James Hannam has made the comment that he would not be surprised if the origins of life were discovered. I would be interested in your thoughts. Why should this be a problem? Wraggy, thanks for the input and the link. It does not work, however, probably because it is abbreviated in the middle (with (...). Please repost it, which can be done easily for long URLs if you snip them at www.snipurl.com. Could you also please post the link to the discussion you mentioned? I agree with James that the origin of life is not an area for apologetics -- it reeks of the God-of-the-Gaps. In fact, I would be disappointed if the laws of nature were not designed by God in such a manner that they facilitate an origin of life by natural causes. My thoughts are as expressed in my essay on the origin of life published on the evolution website talkorigins.org: www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.htmlUpon considering this self-organization of material structures in the realm of philosophy, one may conclude that it happens either because the underlying laws of nature simply are the way they are, or because they were designed by God for this purpose. Since we know that the laws of nature are so self-sufficient that, based on them, the complexity of the entire physical universe evolved from fundamental particles, and further, complex life forms from simpler ones during biological evolution, we can reasonably extrapolate that they would also allow life itself to originate spontaneously, by evolution of complex structures – regardless if we believe these laws are designed or undesigned. Therefore, we should expect an origin of life by natural causes from both theistic and atheistic philosophical perspectives.and: The issue of chirality, among others, has been touted by creationists as a "huge problem" for the concept of an origin of life by natural causes. Allegedly, only a miraculous intervention by God could have solved the problem. Yet the above findings are a typical example for why the "God-of-the-gaps" concept does not work: science rapidly closes the gaps that previously might have been thought to be reserved for miraculous intervention.
This is exactly what should be expected if either the material world is all there is, or if the world was created by a God who, as primary cause, chose to create through secondary causes – precisely those natural causes that science studies. In fact, creationists should seriously ask themselves if their concept of God is not a belittling one: the Intelligent Designer as "tinkerer" who is forced to break his own created laws of nature once in a while because they are insufficient to achieve certain stages in the development of the material world. From a theistic philosophical perspective, the actual findings of science suggest a much grander idea of God: the Designer who laid out an elegant and self-sufficient set of laws of nature that accomplish the unfolding of his creation by inducing self-organization of the material world. This idea is easily compatible with the concept of God of many mainstream religions, including most Christian ones.
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Post by wraggy on May 17, 2009 4:59:58 GMT
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Post by Al Moritz on May 17, 2009 21:50:43 GMT
Thanks, Wraggy, for those links. I have posted on that board, let's see what reaction I get, if any.
Al
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Post by wraggy on May 18, 2009 7:39:16 GMT
I read your post Al.
Thanks for the reply.
I notice that you did not display your Aussie Football League team. Can I suggest the "Geelong Cats".
They are the only team from outside of the capital cities of the states of Oz. They are a country team. Of course, this is a completely unbiased suggestion. ;D
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