I enjoy debating things around religion because I find the mythology of religions very interesting despite not believing they are true, and I enjoy researching the history of where the myths of religions originally came from and spread to.
But I have to say that you don’t understand what atheism is at all. Atheism is simply not believing in gods or the myths of religions. That’s it. Atheism is not about anything else. Atheism is not a belief system, it’s certainly not a religion, it is not about believing in the Big Bang or even believing in science of any kind especially if the atheist has never studied the science before. To be an atheist you do not have to be able to explain anything to do with the universe or life on Earth because atheism is simply not believing in gods or the myths of religion. An atheist may not even understand the science around the universe so how can that be part of atheism?
Now for those who have studied the science, they actually don’t theorise that the universe popped into being uncaused. And any work done around this has to be reviewed and proven with mathematics in order to be recognised as a theory.
Discover a groundbreaking equation connecting matter, space, and time. Explore the correlation between velocity, time, distance, matter, and energy. Uncover the unified process of electro-gravitation. Integrate cosmological time into a coherent equation. Interpret dark energy and explore the...
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This is far more reliable than just saying “god(s) did it”. And, again, if you believe that nothing doesn’t come from nothing, where did god(s) come from?
I’ve already twice explained to you how life first came about. For the third time now; before there was life on Earth it was the flow of excess charged particles called protons that came from vents pumping out heated alkaline fresh water into cooler more acidic salt sea water that created a chemical reaction and energy that formed molecules that are called cells, and life began.
Biogenesis is the synthesis of substances by living organisms to be able to multiply or reproduce and create new living organisms. However, for biogenesis to have been able to happen, abiogenesis had to have occurred for first life to come about. Like you say, nothing doesn’t come from nothing, there is evidence and mathematical equations to show how abiogenesis created life.
Please, then, show me the evidence and mathematical equation for god(s). And the evidence and mathematical equation for how these god(s) created life. If you can’t, then I’m afraid it is religion that fails in being believable.
We discovered DNA in 1869 and have been studying DNA since around the late 1940s. DNA proves that evolution is factual:
DNA shows we do not need a fossil record to prove anything because it is all there in our genes.
And like I recently said with regards to human evolution from earlier species of Homo and Australopithecines, palaeontologists have found that with each increase of human brain size and a new human species there were sudden catastrophically huge climate changes that occurred at the same time. In reaction to the need to work out how to survive the new conditions, human genes mutated to cause an increase in brain size and intelligence (that is not to say that one day I was a homoheidelbergensis and the next day I woke up and I was a homosapiens, it takes much longer than that!). And again this is proven in the same way that video shows, in our genes. So even when we have the fossil record, we don’t even need it because our DNA proves it and it’s corroborated with the evidence of climate changes in the geological record as well as corroboration from the astronomical record which show changes in the Earth’s path around the Sun at the same time as these climate changes and evolutionary changes in humans occurred.
I thank you mate for your patience and genuine questions . I can't answer absolutely every post.
Well you've written a lot about something you say you atheists don't believe in and that atheism is not about anything when you go on to write atheism is about a lot of stuff. Those are all contradictions .
Atheism in Webster’s dictionary includes a definition of religion with a nontheistic meaning: “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.”Atheists hold a worldview that fits this definition becuse they have a cause to promote, a naturalistic system of beliefs, and hold them with vigour and faith. I think you do have a belief in naturalism because of what you've written. That's not a criticism of you personally. A person's beliefs can be criticised.
"You are correct when you say “the universe does not have an eternal past” because before the Big Bang, time did not exist so the notion of a “past” does not exist."
Reply: THERE is no eternal past . But there is a " past" that is to say ,you were still existing yesterday . So there is a finite past. Infinite collections into the past are impossible, and thus the past is finite and has a beginning.
Where did " vents pumping out heated alkaline fresh water " come from? Matter cannot have existed into an eternal past logically and physically ( due to entropy).Just asserting arbitrarily that vents existed undercuts your own reasoning because you're back into asserting an eternal regressive state of what caused the vents ie. Something causing matter etc on and on into eternity past which you agree doesn't exist. So you contradict yourself. Infinite collections in the past are impossible, and thus the past is finite and has a beginning. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist at some point. The Universe has a cause.So at some point in the past , Time began to exist along with the Universe( space) and Matter. I think you may agree with that . There was no time logically prior to this beginning event. No space ( universe). No matter whatsoever.. . Now, Numbers , abstract objects can't cause anything. That is to say , they don't stand in causal relations. And the universe cannot cause itself from nothing . Time can't cause itself from nothing. Matter can't cause itself from nothing. Universe can't cause itself from nothing. Yet ,the universe has a cause.
But you seemingly want your cake and eat it. You're being ambiguous on the word "nothing" as if it is something. Something cannot come from nothing UNCAUSED. A lot of people misquoting me on that .
Uncaused is an important word. And nothing means nothing.It's not a quantum vacuum or smallest of particles.Those are NOT nothing ,no matter what Lawrence Krauss says.
So there has to be a timeless, immaterial, timeless personal being that brings matter ( Universe ) into being at time t =0. A mind e.g. you can move a pen or physically type letters on this page etc with your mind.
In the beginning( Time) God, (a Mind) , created the heavens ( universe =space) and the earth ( matter)
Where are the mathematical equations showing life coming from non life? There are none. You've got to have matter come into existence first before you apply mathematics to it. Mathematics obeys laws of logic which are eternal and dont arise in matter. So that has to be looked at first.
But let's look at what are the minimum requirements for a cell to live?
A minimal free-living cell that can manufacture its components using chemicals and energy obtained from its surrounding environment and reproduce itself must have:
1.A cell membrane. This separates the cell from the environment. It must be capable of maintaining a different chemical environment inside the cell compared to outside (as above). Without this, life’s chemical processes are not possible.
2.A way of storing the information or specifications that instructs a cell how to make another cell and how to operate moment by moment. The only known means of doing this is DNA and any proposals for it to be something else (such as RNA) are not viable—and then there has still to be a way of changing from the other system to DNA, which is the basis of all known life.
3. A way of reading the information to make the cell’s components and also control the amount produced and the timing of production. The major components are proteins, which are strings (polymers) of hundreds to thousands of some 20 different amino acids. The only known way of making the cell’s proteins from the DNA specifications involves over 100 proteins and other complex co-factors. Involved are:
nano-machines such as RNA polymerase (smallest known type has ~4,500 amino acids),
gyrases, which twist/untwist the DNA spiral to enable it to be ‘read’ (again these are very large proteins),
ribosomes, sub-cellular ‘factories’ where proteins are manufactured, and
at least 20 transfer-RNA molecules; these select the right amino acid to be placed in the order specified on the DNA (all cells that we know of have at least 61 because most amino acids are specified by more than one DNA three-letter code). The transfer-RNAs have sophisticated mechanisms for making sure the right amino acid is selected according to the DNA code.
There are also mechanisms to make sure that the proteins made are folded three-dimensionally in the correct way that involve chaperones to protect the proteins from mis-folding, plus chaperonin folding ‘machines’ in which the proteins are helped to fold correctly). All cells have these.
And that's just for starters ! You've got to get matter arising uncaused from nothing by itself for there to be No God. Then you've got to get matter to come to life without any design whatsoever.
Next :
"The video shows" is not a proof for evolution of man. It is at best guess work.
For most categories of ‘hominid’ claimed, there are usually even evolutionist experts who themselves will point out something that seriously questions, if not disqualifies, the idea that the fossils concerned are ‘in-between’ apes and humans. For example:
Australopithecines (like ‘Lucy’): there are distinguished evolutionists who admit that these extinct primates were not anatomically intermediate between apes and humans.
Neandertals: probably most evolutionist paleoanthropologists now say that, although being robust in their anatomy, these are fully human.
Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis: some evolutionists classify them as ‘early’ and/or ‘archaic’ Homo sapiens. They had robust anatomy, as did the Neandertals, and like these there is no reason to believe that they were not fully human .
Homo habilis: whilst evolutionists generally regard these specimens as hominids (ape-men), when scrutinized this species appears to consist of specimens that should be grouped with the australopithecines, or other extinct apes, apart from a few that are likely Homo erectus. Even some prominent evolutionists, whilst still saying they were hominids, have suggested most of the specimens in Homo habilis should be re-assigned to the genus Australopithecus. So Homo habilis is a false category. Terms such as ‘wastebasket’ and ‘garbage bag’ have been used by evolutionists to describe it.
Anyway, there are substantial biological reasons why ‘ape-men’ could never even have existed. A huge one of these reasons is the so-called waiting time problem. No-one disagrees that to cause all of the anatomical changes required to transform an ape-like creature (the supposed common ancestor of chimps and humans) into a human would take millions of DNA mutations. This is because there are millions of nucleotide (‘DNA letter’) differences between chimps and humans. In the evolutionary timeline, this is supposed to have happened in six to seven million years. The problem is that calculations show that it would take way too long for these specific mutations to arise and become established within a so-called population.
In any case, however, there are substantial biological reasons why ‘ape-men’ could never even have existed. A major one of these reasons is the so-called ‘waiting time problem’. No-one disagrees that to cause all of the anatomical changes required to transform an ape-like creature (the supposed common ancestor of chimps and humans) into a human would take millions of DNA mutations. This is because there are millions of nucleotide (‘DNA letter’) differences between chimps and humans. And in the evolutionary timeline, this is supposed to have happened in six to seven million years. The problem in a nutshell is that calculations show that it would take way too long for these specific mutations to arise and become established within a so-called ‘hominin’ population.
For example, even for one point mutation (one letter change) to become fixed or established the waiting time is a minimum of 1.5 million years. The number of nucleotides that can be selected for simultaneously is believed to be small, as it interferes with the selection of other nucleotides (called selection interference). It has been estimated that at most 1,000 beneficial mutations could become fixed in six million years—and using seven million, the upper end of the range, makes no practical difference.
But this is only a minuscule fraction of the information needed to turn an ape into a human and this is only for independent, unlinked mutations: Selection for 1,000 specific and adjacent mutations (to create a 1,000-letter string) could not happen in 6 million years because that specific sequence of adjacent mutations would never arise, not even after trillions of years.
Even if the genome (DNA) difference between chimps and humans were as little as 1%, as used to be widely touted, this still represents around 30 million nucleotide differences. And hence in the evolving hominid line, around 15 million nucleotide changes would need to take place. compared to the 1,000 changes at most that could have happened in that time
