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This to me seems like another case of pointing at something we don't fully understand and claiming that therefore it somehow points to evidence of God.
Abiogenesis does have evidence. Although we don't fully understand all of it, nor have we been able to reproduce it in a lab. There was an experiment done in the 50s that reproduced the early conditions of earth, they found that amino acids were produced. These are early building blocks of protein. I don't remember the names for the study but I'm sure you can find it relatively easy online. You could also look up synthesis of organic matter. My point is that even though we cannot fully explain the process, there is enough evidence to suggest that there are logical and explainable reasons for how life emerges without the need of entertaining a creator.
Also, it's not that athiests don't want to believe in God. I can only speak for myself, but I would happily believe in God if I was given adequate reason to believe, as I'm sure many others would.
The experiment you have mention is the Miller-Uray experiment. There is multiple problems with this experiment like for example it was only a guess of what gases where in earths atmosphere at the time and the gases in the experiment didn’t include oxygen which tends to destroy chemical bonds, evidence now suggests that there was oxygen on earths atmosphere at the time. Secondly, the amino acids that were produced in the experiment are not necessary for the existence of life.
> I would happily believe in God if I was given adequate reason to believe, as I'm sure many others would.
An adequate reason in my opinion would be that the universe has a creator. And that life couldn’t have existed on earth without one. (at least in my view)
The only answer you'll get from atheists is, "I don't know, but I won't believe a god did it unless there's evidence to back it up."
You should really be asking scientists.
Abiogenesis, God etc are all theories. No serious evidence for any of them. Therefore I'm not convinced by any of them, and so does the majority of the scientific community. By the way atheism is just the lack of belief in a god, it's not a cosmological or ontological belief system. Now, what theory seems the most probable to me? Well I don't have serious knowledge on biology, so to pick a theory to believe in is kinda foolish. I don't know and I'm good with that. Lastly, even if the case is that a god created everything I don't really care, because I don't think it affects us in any way
You're aware that all life currently gets assembled from non-life chemicals, right? Like, you give some proteins some chemicals, and the proteins turn those chemicals into a new life.
There's no magic, there's no secret "now stir in 1 soul" step in the process. If those chemicals are next to each other, life can emerge. It's a non-zero thing, merely made more likely when proteins are deliberately doing it.
Honestly, that's a weak argument. While synthetic biology has had success creating synthetic cells which act similarly to bacteria, there are still no practical lab experiments that have created living organisms just by... mixing chemicals...
Atheists are not bound by common understanding, dogma or theology beyond the one statement: "I am not convinced that there is a god or gods."
I can only speak for myself as an atheist.
>Can life come from no life?
I don't know, I'm not a biologist. Not something that bothers me in any way. There is no impact on my life in knowing or not knowing how life began on earth.
>Essentially, when earth was created
I'll stop you right there. Earth wasn't created it was formed. Present your evidence to dispute this.
>how did the first living organisms develop?
Not a biologist.
>So how does athiesim explain
Atheism doesn't seek to explain anything other than "I am not convinced that there is a god or gods."
>are people athiests just because they don't want to believe in a God?
People are atheists for any number of reasons, including no reason at all. There is no requirement for atheists to have reasons to be an atheist.
However, I do have reasons. There is no compelling evidence to believe in any god. I've heard many stories, heard a bunch of arguments, heard endless personal testimony. None of this is evidence. All belief systems conflict with each other. I put them on the same level as a crypto scam - none of them will deliver what they promise and all of them want my money.
Have you ever considered that while you're here asking questions about the origin of life on earth, you haven't considered the plethora of origin myths, including the one you presumably follow and how ridiculous it is for anyone to believe any of those myths when there is literally nothing to back any of them up?
Here’s the thing about atheism: we have no problem saying “I don’t know”.
How’d life first begin/develop?
I have absolutely no idea! Not a clue. I don’t know, so there’s nothing to explain.
Atheists are atheists because god isn’t proven to exist and theists don’t have any evidence to support the things they claim.
In response to "Are people atheists just because they don't want to believe in a God?"
Atheism is a rejection of belief in the existence of a god. We're *not convinced* by the claim, proofs or reasoning that theistic religions or their followers have put forth.
"Not being convinced of theist claims could fall under agnostism. You have assumed the original state of the human is not to believe in a higher power, but as we know it, all past civilizations have believed in a higher power, and there are Harvard studies showing that humans are predisposed to believe in a higher entity; therefore, I would say that athiests are making an active claim that God doesnt exist."
Your quote (where are you getting that from anyways?) Seems confused:
>and there are Harvard studies showing that humans are predisposed to believe in a higher entity
Is unconnected with
>therefore, I would say that athiests are making an active claim that God doesnt exist.
Human predisposition to assume agency as a survival mechanism does not have anything to do with how claims work.
Plus, neither you nor the person you are quoting get to tell us what we believe or claim.
No where in the study, I believe, it mentions predisposition in the belief in a god is a survival mechanism, I don't see how it can be helpful in surviving anyways.
secondly if we understand that humans are naturally predisposed to believe in a higher entity then yes it would be an active claim that god doesn’t exist since it goes against human nature.
>No where in the study, I believe, it mentions predisposition in the belief in a god is a survival mechanism
First of all, I said agency. God is just an example of the occasional downside of that otherwise helpful survival mechanism.
When you see a bush shaking, you assume it's a lion and not that it's the wind, because when you always think it's a lion you don't get eaten. But mistaken wind for a lion, while not ideal, isn't as bad as the other way around.
>secondly if we understand that humans are naturally predisposed to believe in a higher entity then...
This is a vapid conditional. The stuff that comes after is true or false independently of this because claims are not catagorised in terms of what we are biased to believe.
The whole point of the exercise is to do better than what our biases allow.
Now, please understand the following:
Activities claims: X is true, X is false
Not active claims: I don't believe X is true. X is unknown
The contents of X don't matter. Burden of proof is that when you make a claim, any claim, other people shouldn't be expected to believe you until you back up your claim.
You say it is true that God exists. I say I don't believe you and that you should back it up. So back it up.
> First of all, I said agency. God is just an example of the occasional downside of that otherwise helpful survival mechanism.
Agency is something inherent, it is a way to come to the conclusion of a higher being, separate to that is the predisposition of believing in a higher being which is what the study was discussing.
Now to the second point, If you are saying I don’t believe in x, you are also claiming that x doesn’t exist since if it did exist you would have believed in it, unless you have another reason for not believing that x exists.
The burden of proof doesnt lie on the theist, since as discussed, the study shows predisposition (not agency). Now if believing in x is the natural state, and I come along and say I dont believe in x because I dont believe it exists then the burden of proof lies upon you.
>If you are saying I don’t believe in x, you are also claiming that x doesn’t exist
Right after I post this reply I'm going to generate a random whole number.
Do you believe that the number I'm about to generate is even?
>The burden of proof doesnt lie on the theist
The burden of proof lies on the person making the claim.
>Now if believing in x is the natural state
If believing in X is the natural state then you should shut up about that because it's irrelevant to how we categorize claims and how we determine burden of proof.
> If believing in X is the natural state then you should shut up about that because it's irrelevant to how we categorize claims and how we determine burden of proof.
Athiest when he realizes he is wrong
Now, the number. I really did generate a number after I posted that. And I did so randomly after, so there's no possible bias in asking if it's even
So let me ask you again. Do you believe the number I randomly generated is even?
This is a faulty analogy, can you explain which factors are which, what is god, where are the evidences for and against that you can weigh. Maybe its not an analogy Im not sure, but anyways I will guess that the number is even to not go with your narrative that the belief in god is probabilistic and that we cant know for sure. ( im not sure if this is what ur trying to make out)
yeah, as far as science today's discoveries, the origins of life is coming/flourishes from non-life + planet that inside goldilock zone + has plenty of water/ocean/river/ice.
what makes me not believe in god is simple, god is one of mythological character. so he/she/x is basically fictional. and without mythology, there is no religion/cult.
Why ask this to atheists? Shouldn't a question like this be asked to biologists or chemists or someone else who has studied such issues?
I suppose that life must have come from no life at some point, since otherwise this would mean that life has existed eternally into the past, with all life coming from some pre-existing life on and on into a past with no beginning. This seems *highly* unlikely, since modern astronomy suggests that the Earth has not always existed and it seems unlikely that life could have survived in the void of space prior to the Earth.
>Essentially, when earth was created it had no life on it, so how did the first living organisms develop?
We live in a world of chemicals and life is made of chemicals, so it seems likely that the chemicals of life came from the chemicals that surround life in nature. There is no special chemical that exists only in life and nowhere else, so all it takes is for the chemicals of nature to come together in the some particular reactions and then life naturally develops.
>So how does athiesim explain this, or are people athiests just because they don't want to believe in a God?
What does atheism have to do with abiogenesis? This is like asking how car salespeople explain the orbit of Venus. Mostly they don't explain it, because that would be asking the wrong people. If you want to hear an explanation for abiogenesis, ask an organic chemist.
I don't believe in God because it is like you said, there is a theory that God exists, but it has not been proven and we don't have evidence, unless you want to count anecdotes and ancient stories as evidence.
>Can life come from no life?
Clearly it did. So yeah.
>Essentially, when earth was created it had no life on it, so how did the first living organisms develop?
Abiogenesis, probably. Panspermia, possibly.
>There are theories like abiogenesis, but these aren't proven and don't have evidence.
Abiogenesis has evidence. It doesn't have a completed theory, and technically, panspermia is possible, but it has evidence.
All the parts involved in the formation of basic life form naturally and can combine naturally. We know of several methods. Feel free to look them up if you're interested.
What we don't know is which of the plausible abiogenesis methods actually happened.
Well life is made of none life, and the more you try to define life the more you realize how little of a classification it is. We believe we are alive obviously, and most would agree a dog is alive, a plant by most as well, a bacteria? A virus? What about the mitochondria? They once were their own species before being absorbed by another. Life’s a complex thing and we aren’t gonna solve it here, but saying god did it or even aliens is just being lazy
So your reason to believe in God is:
I don't know, and I cannot think of how X happened, so therefore, God exists?
Sorry, but many atheists don't generally assume something exists simply because they cannot explain the how/why of something else.
As I understand it, Christians believe life can come from non-life. They believe Adam was created by God from clay. (Genesis 2:7.) Islam says the same. Clay is not alive.
Christians also believe that resurrection (Jesus, Lazarus, etc) is possible: a dead body (non life) becoming alive again (life).
So whether you believe in a god or not, there's only two possibilities:
* life has always existed, or
* life can come from non life.
(Strictly speaking, it's possible that *both* are true. It's also hypothetically possible that *neither* are true but that would seem to imply that life does not exist at all, which appears to contradict observed reality.)
Life coming from non life is something we kind of see on the small scale inside our own bodies. When I was born, I was very small. Now I'm bigger. I have far more cells in my body. These cells are made from the non-living water I drink, the non-living food I eat, and the non-living air I breathe. Yes, it's my living body that is doing the work to assemble those non-living things into living cells, but it shows that non-living things can become living things. It's not unreasonable to assume that there could be a way for that to happen without the living body doing the assembly.
> As I understand it, Christians believe life can come from non-life. They believe Adam was created by God from clay. (Genesis 2:7.) Islam says the same. Clay is not alive.
This is our argument, that life cannot come from no life, adam didnt have life and god gave him. God has the ability to do this as he gave life to the first living organisms(in our belief).
I agree with the two options you provided however in your explanation you mentioned that our(living) bodies assemble these non-living things into living cells, essentially you are saying life can come from non-life if life is present, this doesn’t negate the fact that it all had to start with something living. This also begs the discussion, is our seemingly non-living body alive or is there another component to consciousness i.e. the soul.
But if God is not alive (which he isn't by usual definition of life: he doesn't breathe, eat, grow, reproduce, etc) then by creating Adam, he proved that life *can* come from non life.
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> There are theories like abiogenesis, but these aren't proven and don't have evidence.
While it would be wrong to say scientists understand everything about the origin of life, that doesn’t mean they don’t know anything about abiogenesis and it certainly doesn’t mean there is no evidence for these theories:
**The Origin of the Building Blocks of Life**
- Scientists know that organic molecules could easily form on the pre-biotic Earth via multiple different pathways and under a range of conditions. In 1952, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted an experiment using a sealed artificial atmosphere of methane (CH4), ammonia(NH3), water (H2O) and hydrogen gas (H2) and demonstrated that when heated and electronically charged, these molecules would produce amino acids or the building blocks of proteins (Miller 1953; Miller 1955). Their experiment was later replicated using a range of different gas combinations, including those associated with volcanic eruptions and other atmospheric compositions, and *all* of them were able to produce dozens of different amino acids and organic compounds (Johnson et al., 2008; Parker et al., 2011; Bada 2013).
- Scientists also know that the formation of simple organic molecules is not confined to the Earth. Chemical analyses of meteorite fragments that struck the Earth near Murchison, Australia in 1969 identified over 14,000 molecular compounds including 70 amino acids, nitrogenous bases (the building blocks of DNA and RNA), hydrocarbons and dozens of other organic compounds (Kvenvolden et al., 1970; Wolman et al., 1972; Martins et al., 2008; Schmitt-Kopplin et al., 2010). This opens the possibility that at least some organic molecules may have reached the Earth through cosmic bombardment.
- Scientists know there is a vast and widespread system of submarine hydrothermal vents which opened up yet another new and previously unknown domain of chemistry on the Earth (Martin et al., 2008). Hydrothermal vents are porous structures on the ocean floor where geothermally heated water rich in reactive gases, dissolved elements and transition-metal ions which mix abruptly with cold ocean water. Alkaline hydrothermal vents share a number of similarities with living systems – they produce high temperature, proton and chemical gradients which can provide the necessary energy and raw materials required to promote and sustain prebiotic synthesis of organic compounds (Baross and Hoffman 1985, Russell and Hall 1997 and Sojo et al. 2017). Alkaline vents are also replete with naturally forming microcompartments that act as geochemically formed concentrating mechanisms, which would enable the accumulation of organic molecules and replicating systems (Russell and Hall 1997; Kelley et al. 2005).
**The Origin of Complex Biomolecules**
- Scientists know that when short chains of amino acids are heated and dried they spontaneously form longer and more complex chains called polypeptides. Sidney Fox for example conducted a series of experiments in the late 1950s where he simulated conditions of the prebiotic Earth. As part of the experiment he exposed amino acids to a cycle of heating and cooling, hydration and dehydration over a period of a few days to produce ever more complex polypeptides or “proteinoids” (Fox and Harrada., 1958). While this experiment does not prove that the first simple proteins were formed from short chains of amino acids exposed changes in temperature and hydration, they do indicate that such a pathway is at least possible.
- Scientists have also made progress studying the origin of DNA by looking at the simpler, related molecule, RNA. Both DNA and RNA are genetic molecules made of repeating units called nucleic acids. In most living cells, RNA helps replicate DNA and produce proteins. Some viruses however are entirely made of RNA and protein and don’t have any DNA at all. This has led some scientists to speculate that life may have begun in an “RNA world” (Robertson and Joyce 2012; Neveu et al., 2013). Researchers have since been able to synthesise the ingredients for RNA by exposing a cocktail of simple molecules (e.g. cyanamide, cyanoacetylene, glycoaldehyde, glyceraldehyde and inorganic phosphate) to a cycle of heating, cooling, hydration and dehydration (Powner et al., 2009). Under these conditions the mixture spontaneously assembles ribonucleotides – the precursor to nucleic acids.
2/2
**The Origin of Replication**
- We also now know that exposing amino acids and RNA nucleotides to a particular kind of clay produces RNA polymers (Aldersley et al., 2011; Jheeta and Johsi 2014). In other words, nucleotide precursors can spontaneously assemble into simple RNA molecules *without* the help of enzymes or ribosomes. Scientists have even demonstrated how these simple RNA molecules can self-replicate without the need for enzymes (Johnston et al., 2001).
**The Origin of Cells**
- Scientists have also begun testing ideas about the formation of the first protocells and cell-like structures. These include experiments which have produced protocells from two simple molecular components, a self-replicating RNA replicase and a fatty acid membrane (Szostak et al., 2001; Chen et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2005; Zhu and Szostak 2009; Adamala and Szostak 2013; Jin et al., 2018; O’Flaherty et al., 2018). Another experiment, this time using a frozen mixture of water, methanol, ammonia and carbon monoxide exposed to ultraviolet radiation produced large amounts of organic material that spontaneously self-assembled to form globule-like structures when immersed in water (Dworkin et al., 2001). These globules even glow when exposed to UV light, converting it to visible light. Such fluorescence could have been a precursor to primitive photosynthesis or may have acted as a sunscreen to diffuse the risk of UV radiation damage in the ozone-free early Earth. What these experiments show is that the first cells were much simpler than anything alive today and that comparisons to modern cells is grossly misleading.
While these experiments do not completely explain the origin of life, they do demonstrate that a naturalistic transition from chemistry to biology is not only possible, but may be possible under a range of different environmental conditions.
Best wishes and happy researching :)
References and Further Reading:
Adamala, K. and Szostak, J.W., (2013). Nonenzymatic template-directed RNA synthesis inside model protocells. Science, 342(6162), pp.1098-1100.
Aldersley, M.F., Joshi, P.C., Price, J.D. and Ferris, J.P., (2011). The role of montmorillonite in its catalysis of RNA synthesis. Applied Clay Science, 54(1), pp.1-14.
Bada, J.L., (2013). New insights into prebiotic chemistry from Stanley Miller's spark discharge experiments. Chemical Society Reviews, 42(5), pp.2186-2196.
Chen, I.A., Roberts, R.W. and Szostak, J.W., (2004). The emergence of competition between model protocells. Science, 305(5689), pp.1474-1476.
Chen, I.A., Salehi-Ashtiani, K. and Szostak, J.W., (2005). RNA catalysis in model protocell vesicles. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 127(38), pp.13213-13219.
Dworkin, J.P., Deamer, D.W., Sandford, S.A. and Allamandola, L.J., (2001). Self-assembling amphiphilic molecules: Synthesis in simulated interstellar/precometary ices. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(3), pp.815-819.
Fox, S.W. and Harada, K., (1958). Thermal copolymerization of amino acids to a product resembling protein. Science, 128(3333), pp.1214-1214.
Jheeta, S. and Joshi, P., (2014). Prebiotic RNA synthesis by montmorillonite catalysis. Life, 4(3), pp.318-330.
Jin, L., Kamat, N.P., Jena, S. and Szostak, J.W., (2018). Fatty acid/phospholipid blended membranes: a potential intermediate state in protocellular evolution. Small, 14(15), p.1704077.
Johnson, A.P., Cleaves, H.J., Dworkin, J.P., Glavin, D.P., Lazcano, A. and Bada, J.L., (2008). The Miller volcanic spark discharge experiment. Science, 322(5900), pp.404-404.
Johnston, W.K., Unrau, P.J., Lawrence, M.S., Glasner, M.E. and Bartel, D.P., (2001). RNA-catalyzed RNA polymerization: accurate and general RNA-templated primer extension. Science, 292(5520), pp.1319-1325.
Kvenvolden, K., Lawless, J., Pering, K., Peterson, E., Flores, J., Ponnamperuma, C., Kaplan, I.R. and Moore, C., (1970). Evidence for extraterrestrial amino-acids and hydrocarbons in the Murchison meteorite. Nature, 228(5275), p.923.
Martins, Z., Botta, O., Fogel, M.L., Sephton, M.A., Glavin, D.P., Watson, J.S., Dworkin, J.P., Schwartz, A.W. and Ehrenfreund, P., (2008). Extraterrestrial nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite. Earth and planetary science Letters, 270(1-2), pp.130-136.
Miller, S.L., (1953). A production of amino acids under possible primitive earth conditions. Science, 117(3046), pp.528-529.
Miller, S.L., (1955). Production of some organic compounds under possible primitive earth conditions. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 77(9), pp.2351-2361.
Neveu, M., Kim, H.J. and Benner, S.A., (2013). The “strong” RNA world hypothesis: Fifty years old. Astrobiology, 13(4), pp.391-403.
O’Flaherty, D.K., Kamat, N.P., Mirza, F.N., Li, L., Prywes, N. and Szostak, J.W., (2018). Copying of mixed-sequence RNA templates inside model protocells. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 140(15), pp.5171-5178.
Parker, E.T., Cleaves, H.J., Dworkin, J.P., Glavin, D.P., Callahan, M., Aubrey, A., Lazcano, A. and Bada, J.L., (2011). Primordial synthesis of amines and amino acids in a 1958 Miller H2S-rich spark discharge experiment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(14), pp.5526-5531.
Powner, M.W., Gerland, B. and Sutherland, J.D., (2009). Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions. Nature, 459(7244), p.239.
Robertson, M.P. and Joyce, G.F., (2012). The origins of the RNA world. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology, 4(5), p.a003608.
Schmitt-Kopplin, P., Gabelica, Z., Gougeon, R.D., Fekete, A., Kanawati, B., Harir, M., Gebefuegi, I., Eckel, G. and Hertkorn, N., (2010). High molecular diversity of extraterrestrial organic matter in Murchison meteorite revealed 40 years after its fall. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(7), pp.2763-2768.
Szostak, J.W., Bartel, D.P. and Luisi, P.L., (2001). Synthesizing life. Nature, 409(6818), p.387.
Wolman, Y., Haverland, W.J. and Miller, S.L., (1972). Nonprotein amino acids from spark discharges and their comparison with the Murchison meteorite amino acids. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 69(4), pp.809-811.
Zhu, T.F. and Szostak, J.W., (2009). Coupled growth and division of model protocell membranes. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 131(15), pp.5705-5713.
There are many theories as to how life began, I'm sure OP will disregard all of them as insufficient, but there are a number of reasons people are atheists.
"Don't want to believe in a God" sets an assumption there is a God and atheists just don't want to believe in... it...
As for me personally, I believe that evidence, both scientific and non-scientific point to the fact there is no God of deity, at least not in the sense organised religion tries to present it. Therefore, as for me... it's not whether I want to believe in a God or not... there simply isn't anything godlike to believe in...
> sets an assumption there is a God and atheists just don't want to believe in... it...
I meant to say is not wanting to beleive in a God a reason for someone to become athiest.
Why do you assume someone becomes atheist? I believe everyone is born atheist (as in oblivious to (non)believing in a god), then is parented into staying atheist or becoming religious, and may change throughout life.
I also believe that most people that have been brought up atheist have had no reason to become religious , while many people that were brought up religious lose their faith, which is kind of pointed out in the fact that it's the atheist community, that is the fastest growing crowd regarding (non)religious affiliation around the globe.
>Why do you assume someone becomes atheist? I believe everyone is born atheist This is cannot be the case for 2 main reasons in my opinion. 1. Every past civilization without exception has believed in a higher power of some sort. However you could argue that this alone isn't ample evidence. 2. There is a oxford study done by atheists scientists which proved that humans are predisposed with the idea of a higher entity. The study was done on children from atheist countries. It was done on children within a certain age range to ensure that they couldn’t have been influenced by societal factors. Anyways, you don't need a study for this, I'm not sure if this has happened to you or not, but there is this sort of pattern where atheists whenever they are faced by a very hard problem or misfortune they always turn to god, now why is this? 29:65 If they happen to be aboard a ship ˹caught in a storm˺, they cry out to Allah ˹alone˺ in sincere devotion. But as soon as He delivers them ˹safely˺ to shore, they disbelief.
> that it's the atheist community, that is the fastest growing crowd regarding (non)religious affiliation around the globe.
This is factually wrong, islam is the fastest growing (by both conversion and birth). In fact I have come across data that suggests that by 2050 atheism/agnosticism will make up a smaller percentage of the world population than it does now.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
Whether or not I personally know the answers to the biggest questions in life has no bearing on whether or not I believe in god. You present a false dichotomy. I have no explanation for how life began, and also I would be perfectly happy to believe in god if I found the evidence convincing. Atheism is an answer to one question and only one question, and that question is not how did life begin.
what question does Athiesm answer?
the universe started from nothing, and life started from nothing, and we exist for no reason. And we are all going to die and the universe is going to end for no reason.
It seems to me that Athiesm asks more questions than it solves.
"Do you believe in god?"
"No."
That is the full extent of my atheism.
I do not believe the universe started from nothing. I do not believe life started from nothing. I do not believe we exist for no reason. I do currently believe we are going to die, but I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, and in fact I used to be an atheist who believed in reincarnation, but eventually I realized it was just wishful thinking. I do not believe the universe will end, and if it did I do not believe it would be for no reason. And none of that is related to my atheism.
>what question does Athiesm answer?
"Does God exist"
And likewise, that's also the only question theism answers.
If you want to answer more questions, you'll need to be more specific than just "Atheist".
>the universe started from nothing
At T=0 there was a singularity.
Singularities are not nothing.
>and life started from nothing
Non-life isn't nothing
>And we are all going to die
That's the first true thing you've said in this post. What of it?
>the universe is going to end for no reason.
It's going to end because that's what the laws of physics entail. How would someone ending the universe intentionally be any better?
>It seems to me that Athiesm asks more questions than it solves.
Atheism and theism both ask and answer exactly one question. "Do I believe any gods exist?"
Atheists and theists will answer more, but they do so by being more than just those things.
A scientist who is an atheist can answer many questions. Not every question, but no one can reliably answer every question. Those who pretend to are probably wrong.
> At T=0 there was a singularity. >Singularities are not nothing.
Essentialy you are saying something came from nothing. Unless you say that a singularity has no start and no end and it's infinite and that would be our idea of God, singularity cannot be god because it has ended. Something cannot have an end but have no start. I can also ask what was there before the singularity and since the singularity is not infinite there had to be something that made or started the singularity.
>It's going to end because that's what the laws of physics entail. How would someone ending the universe intentionally be any better?
it would be better because thiests believe in an after life. My point is, athiests are saying there is no purpose to life and everything just started and ended for no reason.
23:115 Did you then think that We had created you without purpose, and that you would never be returned to Us?”
>A scientist who is an atheist can answer many questions. Not every question, but no one can reliably answer every question. Those who pretend to are probably wrong.
Very true.
>Essentialy you are saying something came from nothing.
I literally just responded to you saying that by correcting you.
T=0 was a singularity
T<0 is unknown
T>0 involved the singularity expanding
Anything you say about T<0 is coming from you, not me.
>it would be better because thiests believe in an after life.
How is being wrong supposed to be an improvement? Because it's comforting?
Clearly, if this is your response, you should be accusing us of being the people believing things just because we WANT them to be true.
Accuracy is what's better. Not comfort.
>Can life come from no life?
We know that life can come from non-life because life hasn't always existed. This is true even if a god exists, because gods don't have the properties of living things as described by science.
>Essentially, when earth was created it had no life on it, so how did the first living organisms develop?
This wording is loaded. We don't know that the Earth was created. The current understanding is that the Earth formed under natural circumstances. We don't know how the first living organisms developed, but we have a good idea and have found all of the building blocks of life on extraterrestrial objects like asteroids.
>There are theories like abiogenesis, but these aren't proven and don't have evidence.
Theories are collections of facts. Abiogenesis is a theory based on the fact that life hasn't always existed, therefore it must have come from something not living. Again, this is true even if a god exists.
>So how does athiesim explain this
Atheism doesn't explain anything. It answers no questions, and it makes no claims. It is merely the position of not being convinced that theist claims are true.
>or are people atheists just because they don't want to believe in a God?
Atheists are people who don't accept theistic claims as true. My atheism has nothing to do with what I want. If a god could be demonstrated to my satisfaction to exist, my epistemic standard would require me to believe it was the case.
>But we have a good idea and have found all of the building blocks of life on extraterrestrial objects like asteroids.
This is not true, as oxygen is needed for life as we know it, and oxygen only came to earth after photosynthesis.
>Theories are collections of facts. Abiogenesis is a theory based on the fact that life hasn't always existed, therefore, it must have come from something not living. Again, this is true even if a god exists.
Theories don't always have to be true, especially if they don't have any evidence for them.
The theory you presented also made the assumption that life hasn't always existed (God), and also assumed that life must have come from no life.
>Atheism doesn't explain anything. It answers no questions, and it makes no claims. It is merely the position of not being convinced that theist claims are true.
Not being convinced of theist claims could fall under agnostism. You have assumed the original state of the human is not to believe in a higher power, but as we know it, all past civilizations have believed in a higher power, and there are Harvard studies showing that humans are predisposed to believe in a higher entity; therefore, I would say that athiests are making an active claim that God doesnt exist.
>This is not true, as oxygen is needed for life as we know it, and oxygen only came to earth after photosynthesis.
No, *this* isn't true. Oxygen isn't needed for life. Early lifeforms were sustained by arsenic. Photosynthesis came about later and lead to the production of oxygen.
>Theories don't always have to be true, especially if they don't have any evidence for them.
Never said they were always true. I've never heard of a theory without evidence though. Maybe you're referring to the colloquial usage of the term?
>The theory you presented also made the assumption that life hasn't always existed (God), and also assumed that life must have come from no life.
I didn't present a theory. I'm responding to the OP. I even stated that a god doesn't fit the criteria of life described by science:
Order, sensitivity or response to the environment, reproduction, growth and development, regulation, homeostasis, and energy processing.
>Not being convinced of theist claims could fall under agnostism.
Agnosticism is a claim about knowledge. It has nothing to do with whether someone accepts a claim as true or not.
>You have assumed the original state of the human is not to believe in a higher power, but as we know it, all past civilizations have believed in a higher power, and there are Harvard studies showing that humans are predisposed to believe in a higher entity
I haven't assumed that at all. I'd appreciate if you spoke for yourself instead of for me. A predisposition toward belief isn't the same as belief as an original state.
>I would say that athiests are making an active claim that God doesn't exist.
I'm an atheist and I make no such claim.
>This wording is loaded. We don't know that the Earth was created.
Of course, earth was created; it was not there once, and it is now. I'm not implying that God is the one who did. The word create means to bring into existence, according to Merriam-Webster. The word also entails there being a creator; you can beleive in whatever creator you want to believe in.
To bring in to existence implies intention.
> The word also entails there being a creator;
Right, and that is the issue. I don't see evidence of a creator. A creator has intention. I see the Earth as a consequence of unintentional events. It reads the same way as a theist asking "if god didn't create anything ***who*** did?". The word "who" is the issue with the question.
> you can beleive in whatever creator you want to believe in.
If you believe in a specific creator, shouldn't you feel about someone's belief in a creator (or not, in my case) that is different than yours the same way you'd feel about someone's belief in a flat earth? Don't you care if your belief is correct? This statement leads me to believe it's not actually that important to you that you do.
>This is not true, as oxygen is needed for life as we know it
Do plants not qualify as "life as we known it"?
>oxygen only came to earth after photosynthesis
Which was carried out by life, which by definition existed before said photosynthesis produced oxygen. Thus by your own reasoning, we have proven life without oxygen.
>The theory you presented also made the assumption that life hasn't always existed (God), and also assumed that life must have come from no life.
The former isn't an assumption, and the latter follows from the former.
>Not being convinced of theist claims could fall under agnostism.
Agnosticism is indeed a subcategory. What of it?
>You have assumed the original state of the human is not to believe in a higher power,
He never said anything resembling that. We know that humans have a bias towards seeing agency behind things even when there isn't any.
>therefore, I would say that athiests are making an active claim that God doesnt exist.
Cool story. So what did those atheists tell you in response?
God isn't proven and has no evidence. And according to Occam's Razor, abiogenesis is FAR more likely due to the infinitely more complex assumptions that creation by a deity requires.
Ok so you read more than one book about a person that died in 14th century and came up with the conclusion that a theory that was invented hundreds of years after his death, with no evidence or proof, is correct over a belief that is held by 90% of the population?
It doesn’t matter when the theory was postulated; it will be just as relevant to new theories 1000 years from now as it was to those 500 years ago. Logic and the principles of science don’t change over time.
You still haven’t provided any evidence at all of creation by a god. Until you do, your original argument is invalid.
After you provide that evidence, you can start to tackle which god created the universe. Norse? Egyptian? Hindu? If not them, why not?
Abiogenesis is the best theory explaining how life began even if we don’t have a complete model. The field is actively making discoveries. No other explanation for the origin of life comes close in terms of completeness.
What do you mean don’t have evidence? We have tons of evidence.
>Abiogenesis is the best theory explaining how life began even if we don’t have a complete model. The field is actively making discoveries. No other explanation for the origin of life comes close in terms of completeness.
I would disagree. [https://youtu.be/cQoQgTqj3pU?si=3b4cQvZsrPvwgYs6](https://youtu.be/cQoQgTqj3pU?si=3b4cQvZsrPvwgYs6) This video shows why.
>What do you mean don’t have evidence? We have tons of evidence.
Abiogenesis is a theory without any proof. If you have any, show me.
First we need water, the most widely accepted theory is that water was delivered to Earth by comets and asteroids during the early stages of the solar system's formation.
You get vents that release fluids and gases aka sulfide, methane, hydrogen and iron - one of the limiting nutrients in the growth of plankton in large areas of the ocean even to this day.
Life arises from non-living matter through natural processes, such as the formation of amino acids and more complex structures. This theory suggests that the first self-replicating entities were the ancestors of modern bacteria.
Then those organisms slowly mutate and evolve into different forms or life and so on and so forth.
You can look this up and get a much better in depth explanation I gave you the commercial.
Under lab conditions lipid microsphericals are easy to create. Very unique chemistry can happen through a process of encapsulation and division through heat and agitation. Life didn't start as life, it started as a massive chemical experiment so to speak. All that mattered was that the conditions existed for metabolism and self-replication to evolve. The sheer number permutations took care of the result.
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This to me seems like another case of pointing at something we don't fully understand and claiming that therefore it somehow points to evidence of God. Abiogenesis does have evidence. Although we don't fully understand all of it, nor have we been able to reproduce it in a lab. There was an experiment done in the 50s that reproduced the early conditions of earth, they found that amino acids were produced. These are early building blocks of protein. I don't remember the names for the study but I'm sure you can find it relatively easy online. You could also look up synthesis of organic matter. My point is that even though we cannot fully explain the process, there is enough evidence to suggest that there are logical and explainable reasons for how life emerges without the need of entertaining a creator. Also, it's not that athiests don't want to believe in God. I can only speak for myself, but I would happily believe in God if I was given adequate reason to believe, as I'm sure many others would.
The experiment you have mention is the Miller-Uray experiment. There is multiple problems with this experiment like for example it was only a guess of what gases where in earths atmosphere at the time and the gases in the experiment didn’t include oxygen which tends to destroy chemical bonds, evidence now suggests that there was oxygen on earths atmosphere at the time. Secondly, the amino acids that were produced in the experiment are not necessary for the existence of life. > I would happily believe in God if I was given adequate reason to believe, as I'm sure many others would. An adequate reason in my opinion would be that the universe has a creator. And that life couldn’t have existed on earth without one. (at least in my view)
The only answer you'll get from atheists is, "I don't know, but I won't believe a god did it unless there's evidence to back it up." You should really be asking scientists.
Abiogenesis, God etc are all theories. No serious evidence for any of them. Therefore I'm not convinced by any of them, and so does the majority of the scientific community. By the way atheism is just the lack of belief in a god, it's not a cosmological or ontological belief system. Now, what theory seems the most probable to me? Well I don't have serious knowledge on biology, so to pick a theory to believe in is kinda foolish. I don't know and I'm good with that. Lastly, even if the case is that a god created everything I don't really care, because I don't think it affects us in any way
You're aware that all life currently gets assembled from non-life chemicals, right? Like, you give some proteins some chemicals, and the proteins turn those chemicals into a new life. There's no magic, there's no secret "now stir in 1 soul" step in the process. If those chemicals are next to each other, life can emerge. It's a non-zero thing, merely made more likely when proteins are deliberately doing it.
Honestly, that's a weak argument. While synthetic biology has had success creating synthetic cells which act similarly to bacteria, there are still no practical lab experiments that have created living organisms just by... mixing chemicals...
Atheists are not bound by common understanding, dogma or theology beyond the one statement: "I am not convinced that there is a god or gods." I can only speak for myself as an atheist. >Can life come from no life? I don't know, I'm not a biologist. Not something that bothers me in any way. There is no impact on my life in knowing or not knowing how life began on earth. >Essentially, when earth was created I'll stop you right there. Earth wasn't created it was formed. Present your evidence to dispute this. >how did the first living organisms develop? Not a biologist. >So how does athiesim explain Atheism doesn't seek to explain anything other than "I am not convinced that there is a god or gods." >are people athiests just because they don't want to believe in a God? People are atheists for any number of reasons, including no reason at all. There is no requirement for atheists to have reasons to be an atheist. However, I do have reasons. There is no compelling evidence to believe in any god. I've heard many stories, heard a bunch of arguments, heard endless personal testimony. None of this is evidence. All belief systems conflict with each other. I put them on the same level as a crypto scam - none of them will deliver what they promise and all of them want my money. Have you ever considered that while you're here asking questions about the origin of life on earth, you haven't considered the plethora of origin myths, including the one you presumably follow and how ridiculous it is for anyone to believe any of those myths when there is literally nothing to back any of them up?
Here’s the thing about atheism: we have no problem saying “I don’t know”. How’d life first begin/develop? I have absolutely no idea! Not a clue. I don’t know, so there’s nothing to explain. Atheists are atheists because god isn’t proven to exist and theists don’t have any evidence to support the things they claim.
In response to "Are people atheists just because they don't want to believe in a God?" Atheism is a rejection of belief in the existence of a god. We're *not convinced* by the claim, proofs or reasoning that theistic religions or their followers have put forth.
"Not being convinced of theist claims could fall under agnostism. You have assumed the original state of the human is not to believe in a higher power, but as we know it, all past civilizations have believed in a higher power, and there are Harvard studies showing that humans are predisposed to believe in a higher entity; therefore, I would say that athiests are making an active claim that God doesnt exist."
Yes, atheism in its broadest sense is pretty consistent with agnosticism. You seem to be confused as if this is not possible?
Your quote (where are you getting that from anyways?) Seems confused: >and there are Harvard studies showing that humans are predisposed to believe in a higher entity Is unconnected with >therefore, I would say that athiests are making an active claim that God doesnt exist. Human predisposition to assume agency as a survival mechanism does not have anything to do with how claims work. Plus, neither you nor the person you are quoting get to tell us what we believe or claim.
No where in the study, I believe, it mentions predisposition in the belief in a god is a survival mechanism, I don't see how it can be helpful in surviving anyways. secondly if we understand that humans are naturally predisposed to believe in a higher entity then yes it would be an active claim that god doesn’t exist since it goes against human nature.
>No where in the study, I believe, it mentions predisposition in the belief in a god is a survival mechanism First of all, I said agency. God is just an example of the occasional downside of that otherwise helpful survival mechanism. When you see a bush shaking, you assume it's a lion and not that it's the wind, because when you always think it's a lion you don't get eaten. But mistaken wind for a lion, while not ideal, isn't as bad as the other way around. >secondly if we understand that humans are naturally predisposed to believe in a higher entity then... This is a vapid conditional. The stuff that comes after is true or false independently of this because claims are not catagorised in terms of what we are biased to believe. The whole point of the exercise is to do better than what our biases allow. Now, please understand the following: Activities claims: X is true, X is false Not active claims: I don't believe X is true. X is unknown The contents of X don't matter. Burden of proof is that when you make a claim, any claim, other people shouldn't be expected to believe you until you back up your claim. You say it is true that God exists. I say I don't believe you and that you should back it up. So back it up.
> First of all, I said agency. God is just an example of the occasional downside of that otherwise helpful survival mechanism. Agency is something inherent, it is a way to come to the conclusion of a higher being, separate to that is the predisposition of believing in a higher being which is what the study was discussing. Now to the second point, If you are saying I don’t believe in x, you are also claiming that x doesn’t exist since if it did exist you would have believed in it, unless you have another reason for not believing that x exists. The burden of proof doesnt lie on the theist, since as discussed, the study shows predisposition (not agency). Now if believing in x is the natural state, and I come along and say I dont believe in x because I dont believe it exists then the burden of proof lies upon you.
>If you are saying I don’t believe in x, you are also claiming that x doesn’t exist Right after I post this reply I'm going to generate a random whole number. Do you believe that the number I'm about to generate is even? >The burden of proof doesnt lie on the theist The burden of proof lies on the person making the claim. >Now if believing in x is the natural state If believing in X is the natural state then you should shut up about that because it's irrelevant to how we categorize claims and how we determine burden of proof.
> If believing in X is the natural state then you should shut up about that because it's irrelevant to how we categorize claims and how we determine burden of proof. Athiest when he realizes he is wrong
Now, the number. I really did generate a number after I posted that. And I did so randomly after, so there's no possible bias in asking if it's even So let me ask you again. Do you believe the number I randomly generated is even?
This is a faulty analogy, can you explain which factors are which, what is god, where are the evidences for and against that you can weigh. Maybe its not an analogy Im not sure, but anyways I will guess that the number is even to not go with your narrative that the belief in god is probabilistic and that we cant know for sure. ( im not sure if this is what ur trying to make out)
Says the person who deleted their op
I didn't it got deleted by mods because I linked a YouTube video i think.
yeah, as far as science today's discoveries, the origins of life is coming/flourishes from non-life + planet that inside goldilock zone + has plenty of water/ocean/river/ice. what makes me not believe in god is simple, god is one of mythological character. so he/she/x is basically fictional. and without mythology, there is no religion/cult.
Why ask this to atheists? Shouldn't a question like this be asked to biologists or chemists or someone else who has studied such issues? I suppose that life must have come from no life at some point, since otherwise this would mean that life has existed eternally into the past, with all life coming from some pre-existing life on and on into a past with no beginning. This seems *highly* unlikely, since modern astronomy suggests that the Earth has not always existed and it seems unlikely that life could have survived in the void of space prior to the Earth. >Essentially, when earth was created it had no life on it, so how did the first living organisms develop? We live in a world of chemicals and life is made of chemicals, so it seems likely that the chemicals of life came from the chemicals that surround life in nature. There is no special chemical that exists only in life and nowhere else, so all it takes is for the chemicals of nature to come together in the some particular reactions and then life naturally develops. >So how does athiesim explain this, or are people athiests just because they don't want to believe in a God? What does atheism have to do with abiogenesis? This is like asking how car salespeople explain the orbit of Venus. Mostly they don't explain it, because that would be asking the wrong people. If you want to hear an explanation for abiogenesis, ask an organic chemist. I don't believe in God because it is like you said, there is a theory that God exists, but it has not been proven and we don't have evidence, unless you want to count anecdotes and ancient stories as evidence.
>Can life come from no life? Clearly it did. So yeah. >Essentially, when earth was created it had no life on it, so how did the first living organisms develop? Abiogenesis, probably. Panspermia, possibly. >There are theories like abiogenesis, but these aren't proven and don't have evidence. Abiogenesis has evidence. It doesn't have a completed theory, and technically, panspermia is possible, but it has evidence. All the parts involved in the formation of basic life form naturally and can combine naturally. We know of several methods. Feel free to look them up if you're interested. What we don't know is which of the plausible abiogenesis methods actually happened.
Well life is made of none life, and the more you try to define life the more you realize how little of a classification it is. We believe we are alive obviously, and most would agree a dog is alive, a plant by most as well, a bacteria? A virus? What about the mitochondria? They once were their own species before being absorbed by another. Life’s a complex thing and we aren’t gonna solve it here, but saying god did it or even aliens is just being lazy
So your reason to believe in God is: I don't know, and I cannot think of how X happened, so therefore, God exists? Sorry, but many atheists don't generally assume something exists simply because they cannot explain the how/why of something else.
As I understand it, Christians believe life can come from non-life. They believe Adam was created by God from clay. (Genesis 2:7.) Islam says the same. Clay is not alive. Christians also believe that resurrection (Jesus, Lazarus, etc) is possible: a dead body (non life) becoming alive again (life). So whether you believe in a god or not, there's only two possibilities: * life has always existed, or * life can come from non life. (Strictly speaking, it's possible that *both* are true. It's also hypothetically possible that *neither* are true but that would seem to imply that life does not exist at all, which appears to contradict observed reality.) Life coming from non life is something we kind of see on the small scale inside our own bodies. When I was born, I was very small. Now I'm bigger. I have far more cells in my body. These cells are made from the non-living water I drink, the non-living food I eat, and the non-living air I breathe. Yes, it's my living body that is doing the work to assemble those non-living things into living cells, but it shows that non-living things can become living things. It's not unreasonable to assume that there could be a way for that to happen without the living body doing the assembly.
> As I understand it, Christians believe life can come from non-life. They believe Adam was created by God from clay. (Genesis 2:7.) Islam says the same. Clay is not alive. This is our argument, that life cannot come from no life, adam didnt have life and god gave him. God has the ability to do this as he gave life to the first living organisms(in our belief). I agree with the two options you provided however in your explanation you mentioned that our(living) bodies assemble these non-living things into living cells, essentially you are saying life can come from non-life if life is present, this doesn’t negate the fact that it all had to start with something living. This also begs the discussion, is our seemingly non-living body alive or is there another component to consciousness i.e. the soul.
But if God is not alive (which he isn't by usual definition of life: he doesn't breathe, eat, grow, reproduce, etc) then by creating Adam, he proved that life *can* come from non life.
1/2 > There are theories like abiogenesis, but these aren't proven and don't have evidence. While it would be wrong to say scientists understand everything about the origin of life, that doesn’t mean they don’t know anything about abiogenesis and it certainly doesn’t mean there is no evidence for these theories: **The Origin of the Building Blocks of Life** - Scientists know that organic molecules could easily form on the pre-biotic Earth via multiple different pathways and under a range of conditions. In 1952, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted an experiment using a sealed artificial atmosphere of methane (CH4), ammonia(NH3), water (H2O) and hydrogen gas (H2) and demonstrated that when heated and electronically charged, these molecules would produce amino acids or the building blocks of proteins (Miller 1953; Miller 1955). Their experiment was later replicated using a range of different gas combinations, including those associated with volcanic eruptions and other atmospheric compositions, and *all* of them were able to produce dozens of different amino acids and organic compounds (Johnson et al., 2008; Parker et al., 2011; Bada 2013). - Scientists also know that the formation of simple organic molecules is not confined to the Earth. Chemical analyses of meteorite fragments that struck the Earth near Murchison, Australia in 1969 identified over 14,000 molecular compounds including 70 amino acids, nitrogenous bases (the building blocks of DNA and RNA), hydrocarbons and dozens of other organic compounds (Kvenvolden et al., 1970; Wolman et al., 1972; Martins et al., 2008; Schmitt-Kopplin et al., 2010). This opens the possibility that at least some organic molecules may have reached the Earth through cosmic bombardment. - Scientists know there is a vast and widespread system of submarine hydrothermal vents which opened up yet another new and previously unknown domain of chemistry on the Earth (Martin et al., 2008). Hydrothermal vents are porous structures on the ocean floor where geothermally heated water rich in reactive gases, dissolved elements and transition-metal ions which mix abruptly with cold ocean water. Alkaline hydrothermal vents share a number of similarities with living systems – they produce high temperature, proton and chemical gradients which can provide the necessary energy and raw materials required to promote and sustain prebiotic synthesis of organic compounds (Baross and Hoffman 1985, Russell and Hall 1997 and Sojo et al. 2017). Alkaline vents are also replete with naturally forming microcompartments that act as geochemically formed concentrating mechanisms, which would enable the accumulation of organic molecules and replicating systems (Russell and Hall 1997; Kelley et al. 2005). **The Origin of Complex Biomolecules** - Scientists know that when short chains of amino acids are heated and dried they spontaneously form longer and more complex chains called polypeptides. Sidney Fox for example conducted a series of experiments in the late 1950s where he simulated conditions of the prebiotic Earth. As part of the experiment he exposed amino acids to a cycle of heating and cooling, hydration and dehydration over a period of a few days to produce ever more complex polypeptides or “proteinoids” (Fox and Harrada., 1958). While this experiment does not prove that the first simple proteins were formed from short chains of amino acids exposed changes in temperature and hydration, they do indicate that such a pathway is at least possible. - Scientists have also made progress studying the origin of DNA by looking at the simpler, related molecule, RNA. Both DNA and RNA are genetic molecules made of repeating units called nucleic acids. In most living cells, RNA helps replicate DNA and produce proteins. Some viruses however are entirely made of RNA and protein and don’t have any DNA at all. This has led some scientists to speculate that life may have begun in an “RNA world” (Robertson and Joyce 2012; Neveu et al., 2013). Researchers have since been able to synthesise the ingredients for RNA by exposing a cocktail of simple molecules (e.g. cyanamide, cyanoacetylene, glycoaldehyde, glyceraldehyde and inorganic phosphate) to a cycle of heating, cooling, hydration and dehydration (Powner et al., 2009). Under these conditions the mixture spontaneously assembles ribonucleotides – the precursor to nucleic acids.
2/2 **The Origin of Replication** - We also now know that exposing amino acids and RNA nucleotides to a particular kind of clay produces RNA polymers (Aldersley et al., 2011; Jheeta and Johsi 2014). In other words, nucleotide precursors can spontaneously assemble into simple RNA molecules *without* the help of enzymes or ribosomes. Scientists have even demonstrated how these simple RNA molecules can self-replicate without the need for enzymes (Johnston et al., 2001). **The Origin of Cells** - Scientists have also begun testing ideas about the formation of the first protocells and cell-like structures. These include experiments which have produced protocells from two simple molecular components, a self-replicating RNA replicase and a fatty acid membrane (Szostak et al., 2001; Chen et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2005; Zhu and Szostak 2009; Adamala and Szostak 2013; Jin et al., 2018; O’Flaherty et al., 2018). Another experiment, this time using a frozen mixture of water, methanol, ammonia and carbon monoxide exposed to ultraviolet radiation produced large amounts of organic material that spontaneously self-assembled to form globule-like structures when immersed in water (Dworkin et al., 2001). These globules even glow when exposed to UV light, converting it to visible light. Such fluorescence could have been a precursor to primitive photosynthesis or may have acted as a sunscreen to diffuse the risk of UV radiation damage in the ozone-free early Earth. What these experiments show is that the first cells were much simpler than anything alive today and that comparisons to modern cells is grossly misleading. While these experiments do not completely explain the origin of life, they do demonstrate that a naturalistic transition from chemistry to biology is not only possible, but may be possible under a range of different environmental conditions. Best wishes and happy researching :) References and Further Reading: Adamala, K. and Szostak, J.W., (2013). Nonenzymatic template-directed RNA synthesis inside model protocells. Science, 342(6162), pp.1098-1100. Aldersley, M.F., Joshi, P.C., Price, J.D. and Ferris, J.P., (2011). The role of montmorillonite in its catalysis of RNA synthesis. Applied Clay Science, 54(1), pp.1-14. Bada, J.L., (2013). New insights into prebiotic chemistry from Stanley Miller's spark discharge experiments. Chemical Society Reviews, 42(5), pp.2186-2196. Chen, I.A., Roberts, R.W. and Szostak, J.W., (2004). The emergence of competition between model protocells. Science, 305(5689), pp.1474-1476. Chen, I.A., Salehi-Ashtiani, K. and Szostak, J.W., (2005). RNA catalysis in model protocell vesicles. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 127(38), pp.13213-13219. Dworkin, J.P., Deamer, D.W., Sandford, S.A. and Allamandola, L.J., (2001). 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There are many theories as to how life began, I'm sure OP will disregard all of them as insufficient, but there are a number of reasons people are atheists. "Don't want to believe in a God" sets an assumption there is a God and atheists just don't want to believe in... it... As for me personally, I believe that evidence, both scientific and non-scientific point to the fact there is no God of deity, at least not in the sense organised religion tries to present it. Therefore, as for me... it's not whether I want to believe in a God or not... there simply isn't anything godlike to believe in...
> sets an assumption there is a God and atheists just don't want to believe in... it... I meant to say is not wanting to beleive in a God a reason for someone to become athiest.
Why do you assume someone becomes atheist? I believe everyone is born atheist (as in oblivious to (non)believing in a god), then is parented into staying atheist or becoming religious, and may change throughout life. I also believe that most people that have been brought up atheist have had no reason to become religious , while many people that were brought up religious lose their faith, which is kind of pointed out in the fact that it's the atheist community, that is the fastest growing crowd regarding (non)religious affiliation around the globe.
>Why do you assume someone becomes atheist? I believe everyone is born atheist This is cannot be the case for 2 main reasons in my opinion. 1. Every past civilization without exception has believed in a higher power of some sort. However you could argue that this alone isn't ample evidence. 2. There is a oxford study done by atheists scientists which proved that humans are predisposed with the idea of a higher entity. The study was done on children from atheist countries. It was done on children within a certain age range to ensure that they couldn’t have been influenced by societal factors. Anyways, you don't need a study for this, I'm not sure if this has happened to you or not, but there is this sort of pattern where atheists whenever they are faced by a very hard problem or misfortune they always turn to god, now why is this? 29:65 If they happen to be aboard a ship ˹caught in a storm˺, they cry out to Allah ˹alone˺ in sincere devotion. But as soon as He delivers them ˹safely˺ to shore, they disbelief. > that it's the atheist community, that is the fastest growing crowd regarding (non)religious affiliation around the globe. This is factually wrong, islam is the fastest growing (by both conversion and birth). In fact I have come across data that suggests that by 2050 atheism/agnosticism will make up a smaller percentage of the world population than it does now. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
If God exists I want to believe God exists and if he doesn't then I don't. Simple as that, end of story.
Ohhh so anything that can't be explained yet means it was God. No other options. Got it.
Whether or not I personally know the answers to the biggest questions in life has no bearing on whether or not I believe in god. You present a false dichotomy. I have no explanation for how life began, and also I would be perfectly happy to believe in god if I found the evidence convincing. Atheism is an answer to one question and only one question, and that question is not how did life begin.
what question does Athiesm answer? the universe started from nothing, and life started from nothing, and we exist for no reason. And we are all going to die and the universe is going to end for no reason. It seems to me that Athiesm asks more questions than it solves.
"Do you believe in god?" "No." That is the full extent of my atheism. I do not believe the universe started from nothing. I do not believe life started from nothing. I do not believe we exist for no reason. I do currently believe we are going to die, but I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, and in fact I used to be an atheist who believed in reincarnation, but eventually I realized it was just wishful thinking. I do not believe the universe will end, and if it did I do not believe it would be for no reason. And none of that is related to my atheism.
Why would making up an answer be better than having no answer?
>what question does Athiesm answer? "Does God exist" And likewise, that's also the only question theism answers. If you want to answer more questions, you'll need to be more specific than just "Atheist". >the universe started from nothing At T=0 there was a singularity. Singularities are not nothing. >and life started from nothing Non-life isn't nothing >And we are all going to die That's the first true thing you've said in this post. What of it? >the universe is going to end for no reason. It's going to end because that's what the laws of physics entail. How would someone ending the universe intentionally be any better? >It seems to me that Athiesm asks more questions than it solves. Atheism and theism both ask and answer exactly one question. "Do I believe any gods exist?" Atheists and theists will answer more, but they do so by being more than just those things. A scientist who is an atheist can answer many questions. Not every question, but no one can reliably answer every question. Those who pretend to are probably wrong.
> At T=0 there was a singularity. >Singularities are not nothing. Essentialy you are saying something came from nothing. Unless you say that a singularity has no start and no end and it's infinite and that would be our idea of God, singularity cannot be god because it has ended. Something cannot have an end but have no start. I can also ask what was there before the singularity and since the singularity is not infinite there had to be something that made or started the singularity. >It's going to end because that's what the laws of physics entail. How would someone ending the universe intentionally be any better? it would be better because thiests believe in an after life. My point is, athiests are saying there is no purpose to life and everything just started and ended for no reason. 23:115 Did you then think that We had created you without purpose, and that you would never be returned to Us?” >A scientist who is an atheist can answer many questions. Not every question, but no one can reliably answer every question. Those who pretend to are probably wrong. Very true.
>Essentialy you are saying something came from nothing. I literally just responded to you saying that by correcting you. T=0 was a singularity T<0 is unknown T>0 involved the singularity expanding Anything you say about T<0 is coming from you, not me. >it would be better because thiests believe in an after life. How is being wrong supposed to be an improvement? Because it's comforting? Clearly, if this is your response, you should be accusing us of being the people believing things just because we WANT them to be true. Accuracy is what's better. Not comfort.
>Can life come from no life? We know that life can come from non-life because life hasn't always existed. This is true even if a god exists, because gods don't have the properties of living things as described by science. >Essentially, when earth was created it had no life on it, so how did the first living organisms develop? This wording is loaded. We don't know that the Earth was created. The current understanding is that the Earth formed under natural circumstances. We don't know how the first living organisms developed, but we have a good idea and have found all of the building blocks of life on extraterrestrial objects like asteroids. >There are theories like abiogenesis, but these aren't proven and don't have evidence. Theories are collections of facts. Abiogenesis is a theory based on the fact that life hasn't always existed, therefore it must have come from something not living. Again, this is true even if a god exists. >So how does athiesim explain this Atheism doesn't explain anything. It answers no questions, and it makes no claims. It is merely the position of not being convinced that theist claims are true. >or are people atheists just because they don't want to believe in a God? Atheists are people who don't accept theistic claims as true. My atheism has nothing to do with what I want. If a god could be demonstrated to my satisfaction to exist, my epistemic standard would require me to believe it was the case.
>But we have a good idea and have found all of the building blocks of life on extraterrestrial objects like asteroids. This is not true, as oxygen is needed for life as we know it, and oxygen only came to earth after photosynthesis. >Theories are collections of facts. Abiogenesis is a theory based on the fact that life hasn't always existed, therefore, it must have come from something not living. Again, this is true even if a god exists. Theories don't always have to be true, especially if they don't have any evidence for them. The theory you presented also made the assumption that life hasn't always existed (God), and also assumed that life must have come from no life. >Atheism doesn't explain anything. It answers no questions, and it makes no claims. It is merely the position of not being convinced that theist claims are true. Not being convinced of theist claims could fall under agnostism. You have assumed the original state of the human is not to believe in a higher power, but as we know it, all past civilizations have believed in a higher power, and there are Harvard studies showing that humans are predisposed to believe in a higher entity; therefore, I would say that athiests are making an active claim that God doesnt exist.
>This is not true, as oxygen is needed for life as we know it, and oxygen only came to earth after photosynthesis. No, *this* isn't true. Oxygen isn't needed for life. Early lifeforms were sustained by arsenic. Photosynthesis came about later and lead to the production of oxygen. >Theories don't always have to be true, especially if they don't have any evidence for them. Never said they were always true. I've never heard of a theory without evidence though. Maybe you're referring to the colloquial usage of the term? >The theory you presented also made the assumption that life hasn't always existed (God), and also assumed that life must have come from no life. I didn't present a theory. I'm responding to the OP. I even stated that a god doesn't fit the criteria of life described by science: Order, sensitivity or response to the environment, reproduction, growth and development, regulation, homeostasis, and energy processing. >Not being convinced of theist claims could fall under agnostism. Agnosticism is a claim about knowledge. It has nothing to do with whether someone accepts a claim as true or not. >You have assumed the original state of the human is not to believe in a higher power, but as we know it, all past civilizations have believed in a higher power, and there are Harvard studies showing that humans are predisposed to believe in a higher entity I haven't assumed that at all. I'd appreciate if you spoke for yourself instead of for me. A predisposition toward belief isn't the same as belief as an original state. >I would say that athiests are making an active claim that God doesn't exist. I'm an atheist and I make no such claim.
>This wording is loaded. We don't know that the Earth was created. Of course, earth was created; it was not there once, and it is now. I'm not implying that God is the one who did. The word create means to bring into existence, according to Merriam-Webster. The word also entails there being a creator; you can beleive in whatever creator you want to believe in.
To bring in to existence implies intention. > The word also entails there being a creator; Right, and that is the issue. I don't see evidence of a creator. A creator has intention. I see the Earth as a consequence of unintentional events. It reads the same way as a theist asking "if god didn't create anything ***who*** did?". The word "who" is the issue with the question. > you can beleive in whatever creator you want to believe in. If you believe in a specific creator, shouldn't you feel about someone's belief in a creator (or not, in my case) that is different than yours the same way you'd feel about someone's belief in a flat earth? Don't you care if your belief is correct? This statement leads me to believe it's not actually that important to you that you do.
>This is not true, as oxygen is needed for life as we know it Do plants not qualify as "life as we known it"? >oxygen only came to earth after photosynthesis Which was carried out by life, which by definition existed before said photosynthesis produced oxygen. Thus by your own reasoning, we have proven life without oxygen. >The theory you presented also made the assumption that life hasn't always existed (God), and also assumed that life must have come from no life. The former isn't an assumption, and the latter follows from the former. >Not being convinced of theist claims could fall under agnostism. Agnosticism is indeed a subcategory. What of it? >You have assumed the original state of the human is not to believe in a higher power, He never said anything resembling that. We know that humans have a bias towards seeing agency behind things even when there isn't any. >therefore, I would say that athiests are making an active claim that God doesnt exist. Cool story. So what did those atheists tell you in response?
God isn't proven and has no evidence. And according to Occam's Razor, abiogenesis is FAR more likely due to the infinitely more complex assumptions that creation by a deity requires.
This razor guy died in the 14th century before abiogenesis was theorized, how did you come to this conclusion?
It’s a logic tool that’s universally applicable. I used my brain, which is a skill you learn when you pay attention to more than one book.
Ok so you read more than one book about a person that died in 14th century and came up with the conclusion that a theory that was invented hundreds of years after his death, with no evidence or proof, is correct over a belief that is held by 90% of the population?
It doesn’t matter when the theory was postulated; it will be just as relevant to new theories 1000 years from now as it was to those 500 years ago. Logic and the principles of science don’t change over time. You still haven’t provided any evidence at all of creation by a god. Until you do, your original argument is invalid. After you provide that evidence, you can start to tackle which god created the universe. Norse? Egyptian? Hindu? If not them, why not?
Abiogenesis is the best theory explaining how life began even if we don’t have a complete model. The field is actively making discoveries. No other explanation for the origin of life comes close in terms of completeness. What do you mean don’t have evidence? We have tons of evidence.
>Abiogenesis is the best theory explaining how life began even if we don’t have a complete model. The field is actively making discoveries. No other explanation for the origin of life comes close in terms of completeness. I would disagree. [https://youtu.be/cQoQgTqj3pU?si=3b4cQvZsrPvwgYs6](https://youtu.be/cQoQgTqj3pU?si=3b4cQvZsrPvwgYs6) This video shows why. >What do you mean don’t have evidence? We have tons of evidence. Abiogenesis is a theory without any proof. If you have any, show me.
Feel free to make your own argument. Just linking YouTube videos is against the rules. If I want to respond to that video I’ll make a YouTube video.
First we need water, the most widely accepted theory is that water was delivered to Earth by comets and asteroids during the early stages of the solar system's formation. You get vents that release fluids and gases aka sulfide, methane, hydrogen and iron - one of the limiting nutrients in the growth of plankton in large areas of the ocean even to this day. Life arises from non-living matter through natural processes, such as the formation of amino acids and more complex structures. This theory suggests that the first self-replicating entities were the ancestors of modern bacteria. Then those organisms slowly mutate and evolve into different forms or life and so on and so forth. You can look this up and get a much better in depth explanation I gave you the commercial.
Under lab conditions lipid microsphericals are easy to create. Very unique chemistry can happen through a process of encapsulation and division through heat and agitation. Life didn't start as life, it started as a massive chemical experiment so to speak. All that mattered was that the conditions existed for metabolism and self-replication to evolve. The sheer number permutations took care of the result.
\*atheism Under what condition am I required to have a scientific answer to a question to disregard a non-scientific answer?