The Blind Atheist

[mactbone]

THIRD ACT PLEASE!

[Lars-E]

What does that mean Macbone?

[Guynemer]

Hamlet, Act III.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. --III, i, 56.

The dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not?
Thus conscience makes cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. --III, i, 78.

Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered. --III, i, 89.

Get thee to a nunnery. --III, i, 124.

Be thous as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. --III, i, 142.

O! woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! --III, i, 169.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action. --III, ii, 20.

Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. --III, ii, 76.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks. --III, ii, 242.

What! frighted with false fire? --III, ii, 282.

For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away. --III, ii, 289.

'Tis now the very witching time of night. --III, ii, 413.

O! my offense is rank, it smells to heaven. --III, iii, 36.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. --III, iii, 97.

How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! --III, iv, 23. (Our first death! Yippie! Only... hmm... carry the one... seven more to go. Hmmm... I think I'm missing one.)

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better. --III, iv, 31.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. --III, iv, 160.

I must be cruel only to be kind. --III, iv, 178.

For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petar. --III, iv, 206.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room. --III, iv, 212.


And I'll be lugging guts all over the place if you force me to continue, Lars.

[Lars-E]

My last post was long yes. I got a pop-up that said "You have 20187 characters. You need to cut down to 20.000". So I deleted 2-3 verses.

[Lincoln]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Aha, the Curse of Apolyton again. Nobody leaves!

Here we go again...

Neither abiogenesis nor evolution contradict any "known facts or laws".

As for "information": haven't we been through this enough times already? Abiogenesis requires a self-replicator small enough to form randomly: like your windswept letters spelling out "RNA". The rest is chemistry, nobody needs to "translate" it. In your analogy, let's assume that the letters have lots of little magnets in them. These tend to attract nearby letters, pulling them into a specific arrangement where they stick together. Then this arrangement can separate (because the links between letters in a word are stronger than between words). So maybe "ABC" generates "FJW" from surrounding letters, and "FJW" generates "YSQ" or whatever. "RNA" is a combination which generates "RNA". That's the only thing that makes it interesting: it is self-replicating.

The genomes of modern organisms ARE too complex to arise by chance. But evolution (even though it incorporates randomness in mutations) isn't chance, it's very selective.

Maybe you should turn this around. Evolution is the only process we know of that can produce intelligence. By your own argument, an intelligent deity is an "outlandish theory" which doesn't "bow to the known facts and laws".

How could God evolve? If he didn't evolve, how can he be intelligent?

It didn't take very long for this thread to turn into a theological discussion. I should take the time to answer Jack's post though if I am not interrupting anything.

You really should read the book Jack (or even this thread). The
"magnetic attractions" have already been discussed here and thee is no dispute over that issue. And saying "evolution did it" is not really answering the question. First you must prove that abiogenesis did it according to existing and established law. Appealing to "evolution" proves nothing except a reliance on circular reasoning i.e. "evoluton did it because I know it can do it because I believe it can do anything..."

Also "self replication" is not the issue either. There is no question that existing information can be duplicated. You can see that at your local Xerox machine. So what is the relevance of your post?

"nobody needs to "translate" it." Right except we are obviously not talking about someone but something. The DNA code is translated and the communication that takes place in the cell and organism is constantly interpreted, translated and used accoding to feedback information. It is trnslated. That is basic biology.

"maybe "ABC" generates "FJW" from surrounding letters, and "FJW" generates "YSQ" or whatever. "RNA" is a combination which generates "RNA". That's the only thing that makes it interesting: it is self-replicating."

So what exactly do you do with "ABC" etc. now? You for some reason asume that a living organism is just a pile of random proteins that float around looking for a function. And making ABC into more ABC's has nothing to do with the information problem which you ignored for some reason. Also you are assuming that a cell is not a biological machine but just random chemical reactions.

Finally, you assume the existance of information is a result of evolution before "evolution" even existed! You assume a biological process existed to make information (that is itself dependant on information) to produce the communicative instructions necessary for biology to even begin.

You need a better solution than "evolution did it".

"By your own argument, an intelligent deity is an "outlandish theory" which doesn't "bow to the known facts and laws"."

No, it is not outlandish to assume a mental source is necessary to produce true communication and information. That is merely The present reality which you prove with each of your posts here. The only mystery that is inovlved is the exact nature of that mental source because it must have existed before life as we know it existed.

[ZoboZeWarrior]

Darwin established is theory of evolution in the middle of the XIX centzury. Micro-biology was at its beginnings.

He ignored lot of things about of biologique informations were reproduced or transformed.

At this time there where two scientific mouvements. People who believed that biological information where continue data (the theory of backet of paint) and people who believed the biological where of sequential and 'discret' nature (the theory of beans bag).

Darwin was supporting the first theory (now the genetical aspect of the cell prove that the seconf theory was right). Considering the theory the backet of paint the evolution could be only continue.

But continue evolution can explain the micro-evolution : the evolution of into species. But cannot easly explain the evolution through species : the macro-evolution. In this case the genitical evolution is too important to be continue.

So I think that Darwin was not 100% right. As the gravitional theory of Newton. But this theory is a valuable base to understand the real mechanism who make living form to evolve and to establish new theories.

What I mean in conclusion : Science evolved and can learn from its errors. Theology don't : Christians, jews and muslim are still now fighting to prove their are right.
Prostetant and catholics are still fighting.

Theology have no way to prove the true. Science has.

[ZoboZeWarrior]

-Sorry double post -

[Jack the Bodiless]

You really should read the book Jack (or even this thread). The
"magnetic attractions" have already been discussed here and thee is no dispute over that issue. And saying "evolution did it" is not really answering the question. First you must prove that abiogenesis did it according to existing and established law. Appealing to "evolution" proves nothing except a reliance on circular reasoning i.e. "evoluton did it because I know it can do it because I believe it can do anything..."

Let's be careful not to confuse evolution and abiogenesis here. I'm saying "evolution did it" as an answer to the question of where the information in modern complex life forms came from. Not because "I know it can do it because I believe it can do anything...", but because I know that it CAN and DOES generate new information. Not only is the mechanism well understood, it has also been directly observed.

Also "self replication" is not the issue either. There is no question that existing information can be duplicated. You can see that at your local Xerox machine. So what is the relevance of your post?

As I said earlier, naturalistic abiogeneis is the theory that the first self-replicator was simple enough to form by random chance alone.

"nobody needs to "translate" it." Right except we are obviously not talking about someone but something. The DNA code is translated and the communication that takes place in the cell and organism is constantly interpreted, translated and used accoding to feedback information. It is trnslated. That is basic biology.

For modern organisms. Polynucleotides such as RNA are known to be capable of forming other polynucleotides from free-floating nucleotides and proteins from free-floating amino acids without this extra "machinery". As this "machinery" is itself composed of proteins, the theory is that polynucleotides which were able (by chance) to produce the right proteins to assist reproduction prevailed over those which could not.

So what exactly do you do with "ABC" etc. now? You for some reason asume that a living organism is just a pile of random proteins that float around looking for a function. And making ABC into more ABC's has nothing to do with the information problem which you ignored for some reason. Also you are assuming that a cell is not a biological machine but just random chemical reactions.

We're not talking about cells at this stage. This life is indeed "a pile of random proteins that float around looking for a function". Cells come later, as a refinement of the "machinery": a protein envelope that stops useful proteins from drifting away.

Finally, you assume the existance of information is a result of evolution before "evolution" even existed! You assume a biological process existed to make information (that is itself dependant on information) to produce the communicative instructions necessary for biology to even begin.

Nope. Random chance first, then evolution. Evolution would kick in immediately when the first self-replicator appears, and would then create all of the information that was not initially present.

By your own argument, an intelligent deity is an "outlandish theory" which doesn't "bow to the known facts and laws"."

No, it is not outlandish to assume a mental source is necessary to produce true communication and information. That is merely The present reality which you prove with each of your posts here. The only mystery that is inovlved is the exact nature of that mental source because it must have existed before life as we know it existed.

Given that the only sort of "mental source" we know of is a physical brain shaped by several billion years of evolution, that's a pretty outlandish theory you have there. And what is "true communication and information"? When one tree topples and damages another, they have "truly communicated". When pebbles on a beach get graded in size order by wave action, the pattern contains "information" readily discernible by future geologists.

[Lars-E]

Originally posted by ZoboZeWarrior
What I mean in conclusion : Science evolved and can learn from its errors. Theology don't : Christians, jews and muslim are still now fighting to prove their are right.
Prostetant and catholics are still fighting.

Theology is by definition without errors.

The fighting religious factions of N-Ireland are nominal christians.

We know very little about science and we discover we are wrong all the time thus it seriously needs to develop or 'evolve' as you name it.

Theology have no way to prove the true. Science has.

Theology doesn't aim to prove scientific truth. Scientific evidence does, but has not come very far with the evolution theory as it has not been proven. So either the evidence is hard to dig out and/or the theory is lacking.

I suggest you stick to evolution theory only. This thread is already 'unclean' due to mixing with other subjects. It would be good at least to discuss these issues separately.

[Goingonit]

Lincoln: if a photocopier spontaneously copied itself to produce two working copiers it would be life.

[Jon Miller]

see sig

[Lincoln]

Hello again Jack,

"I'm saying "evolution did it" as an answer to the question of where the information in modern complex life forms came from. Not because "I know it can do it because I believe it can do anything...", but because I know that it CAN and DOES generate new information. Not only is the mechanism well understood, it has also been directly observed."

You said that the bonds are weaker between the "words" as the genetic code arose somehow. Please explain how AGC,TGA,CTA,GT etc. is seperated into "words" or a specific 3 letter code using the laws of theromodynamics or chemical laws. What natural law causes the CT bond to be less in the first case (after the first AGC) than it is in the third 3 letter code (CTA).

Your statement that asserts that evolution can do it later is irrelevant because we are talking about the origin of information and the code, translation etc. In any case natural selection can of course do it when the popouation is in existance. But in any eary life scenario only mutations are available to do it. Even Richard Dawkins admits that mutations cannot do what you assert they do.

"As I said earlier, naturalistic abiogeneis is the theory that the first self-replicator was simple enough to form by random chance alone."

That theory however is absurd and is based upon the false notion that information and the specific instructions, vehicle for translation, order of asembly of the various machinery,
etc. arises spontaneously according to natural laws. You need to demonstrate how this can happen to be taken seriously. You suggested the words are divided somehow and you also said that there was no translation necessary. Of course a simple 3 letter code answers none of these questions, and it is entirely uselss if not translated into the actual work of making proteins which are likewise useless unless they are specific proteins that are constructed according to a specific order of 20 amino acids.

"For modern organisms..."

No comment is necessary because that is irrelevant to abiogenesis and the origin of information and the construction of a complex machine which are the essential ingredients of even the most basic life.

"Random chance first, then evolution. Evolution would kick in immediately when the first self-replicator appears, and would then create all of the information that was not initially present."

Well then answer the random chance questions. And then you can explain how theoretical early life mutations (which are mistakes) can refine this already delicate information with no help from sexual recombination, or any other factors which are available now.

"Given that the only sort of "mental source" we know of is a physical brain shaped by several billion years of evolution, that's a pretty outlandish theory you have there. And what is "true communication and information"? When one tree topples and damages another, they have "truly communicated". When pebbles on a beach get graded in size order by wave action, the pattern contains "information" readily discernible by future geologists."

When you say "shaped by millions of years of evolution" you realize that you are arguing in a circle? And the tree topling and the grading of pebbles is completely irrelevant to the subject of communicative information. Please explain how geologists interpreting the history of natural grading is analogous to the intelligent order that exists in DNA.

[Goingonit]

Evolution can operate through any random factors, not just sex.

[Lincoln]

Goingonit,

"if a photocopier spontaneously copied itself to produce two working copiers it would be life."

It would also be a miracle. I didn't think you guys believed in miracles.

Replication is only a small part of life. The true miracle of life is how we, as intelligent beings, came into existance regardless of the method used. As Voltaire said, "there must be some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule."

I don't claim to know all of the answers but I do think the case can be fairly drawn that both sides of this discussion believe in miracles. I am just trying to make the atheist face up to that fact. I already concede that I believe in miracles. Why are atheists so reluctant to admit the same?

One posterhere said along with Richard Dawkins that it is entirely possible that a marble statue can wave at us as we pass by. I think a better analogy is that some believe that the marble statue can wave at us and then walk into town and sit down and order a drink!

[Goingonit]

Originally posted by Lincoln
Goingonit,

"if a photocopier spontaneously copied itself to produce two working copiers it would be life."

It would also be a miracle. I didn't think you guys believed in miracles.

It would be a miracle because photocopiers aren't alive. Life is self-replcation.

Replication is only a small part of life. The true miracle of life is how we, as intelligent beings, came into existance regardless of the method used. As Voltaire said, "there must be some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule."

Through evolution - which can't happen without life, which can't happen without replication.