The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Originally Posted by SL00b If you're not going to approach the subject with an open mind, and let the evidence take you where it will, then you're wasting your time.

I mean "I have shown" what I'm expecting to find in these books.

And I'm not an enemy of open mind; but when you don't know what you're looking for, it can hardly be called a "research"?

Originally Posted by kostya And I'm not an enemy of open mind; but when you don't know what you're looking for, it can hardly be called a "research"?

And letting authors just invade my "open mind" and take me by surprise by intellectually beautiful speculations is not my purpose either, mind you .
Perhaps it will satisfy you if I explain it thus: if the author is terribly mistaken by his own intellectual constructions, then I will fall into the same error. Hence the need to be wary of this danger.

Originally Posted by kostya Perhaps it will satisfy you if I explain it thus: if the author is terribly mistaken by his own intellectual constructions says anything different than a random creationist website that I google up, then I will fall into the same error. Hence the need to be wary of this danger.

Fixed.

You've already demonstrated that this is indeed how you approach information.

OK, waiting for those books you mentioned will take time. And I want to quicken the process a bit...

So: I was able to find "The Egoistic Gene" by Dawkins so far. In Russian only, but I have to trust the translators, have no choice. OK, the book is not meant to explain what I was looking for, but one such thing IS found there.

I'm talking about his "replicator" molecules. Here I need your advice as you're more updated to the modern development of these theories.
The problem in "The Egoistic Gene" is that he only mentions "replicator molecules" as the starting stage of what later evolves into "life" and ... moves on to the more advanced stages. This, of course, is mere speculation without proving that such molecules COULD be formed, even proving that they are possible IN PRINCIPLE.

So are there any theories where the origin and possible composition (at least in principle) of this "replicator molecule" is better explained?
Or have evolutionists in general given up on these and have other alternatives? Your advice will be priceless as it can help to save my time, which I hope you appreciate as good as yours.

Did you want books on evolution, or about the origin of life? Remember that they are two different topics.

Originally Posted by dugan Did you want books on evolution, or about the origin of life? Remember that they are two different topics.

Origin of life according to evolutionist view on things will be a good beginning.

I expect this to be the weakest point in all the building. If, contrary to what I expect, it is "very well supported", then at least I will know HOW it is supposed to have happened and what to discuss without being dismissed for lack of knowledge and understanding.

And some material from this site on Abiogenesis given by don't remember whom of the members here is in a very interesting way answered here and the answer commented on here. The latter seems to be, as well, an answer to my question about the "replicator molecule".

The above authors are advocates of creation (as one would naturally expect), so it would be nice if you could expose the possible mistakes in their reasonings given there.
Or perhaps their word is not the last say on the problem and you know of any further clarifications on that.

Otherwise their word sounds like a sentence to at least one link in the evolutionist construction.

Did you actually read the first link before googling for rebuttals?

Originally Posted by kostya is in a very interesting way answered here and the answer commented on here.

Well, I would say that these are perfect examples of:

intellectually beautiful speculations... the author is terribly mistaken by his own intellectual constructions

BTW, here are the usual answers to their "it's so improbable" argument that those two morons in pseudo-intellectual gibberish:

1. Toss a pack of cards in the air, and calculate the the odds of having gotten that exact arrangement. That should tell you why retroactively saying "it was so improbable!" doesn't work.

2. The actual odds of conditions to support life arising need to be divided by the number of molecules in the universe. (Or an infinite number of universes, if you want to go there). So they're actually good.

3. The last sentence of the second link seems to assume the "irreducible complexity" nonsense that some creationlists advocate, which only would seem valid if you have no idea how evolution works.

Do keep in mind that this has nothing to do with evolution.

Originally Posted by dugan Since he posted his (obviously evasive) answer, he's posted multiple links to Jehova's Witness' material and made rambling claims about evil conspiracies involving blood transfusions. You can draw your own conclusion from that.

He's from russia, obviously christian. Hence it should be one of those:

1. Follower of russian orthodoxal church.
2. Homebrew Christian of uncertain branch
3. Jehowa Witness
4. Catholic (least probable)

Originally Posted by dugan 3. The last sentence of the second link seems to assume the "irreducible complexity" nonsense that some creationlists advocate, which only would seem valid if you have no idea how evolution works.

Yea but how do you destroy that "nonsense"?
How exactly does evolution step over the problems described there? That's exactly what I've been trying to find out without the least success so far.

Oh, and before you do so it will remain a question, which is "nonsense": theirs or yours.

SegTerm and dudan, I'm not at all trying to hide my identity as a Witness of Jehova, or else I'd never post those links.
Just this wasn't the subject of this discussion. And JW are Christians, so I said that I'm a Christian. And since a "Christian" is someone following teachings of Christ as they are found in the Bible, I agree that Jehovah's Witnesses are Christians and I'm one of them.

Originally Posted by kostya I agree that Jehovah's Witnesses are Christians and I'm one of them.

I do not argue/reason with JWs (already wasted enough time in the past). Have a nice day.

Originally Posted by dugan Toss a pack of cards in the air, and calculate the the odds of having gotten that exact arrangement. That should tell you why retroactively saying "it was so improbable!" doesn't work.

In other words you're saying that probability can be calculated. This is exactly the point being discussed: what results these calculations produce in case of elementary life forms being formed from the chemical elements they're known to consist of as result of the mechanisms suggested by evolutionists.

So please, something more to the point than a pack of cards. Or it would appear that you don't understand the issue yourself, which I hope you do.

Originally Posted by SigTerm I do not argue/reason with JWs (already wasted enough time in the past). Have a nice day.

Yea, have a nice day .

I got my own religion it's based on Linux

spring logout

Originally Posted by kostya And some material from this site on Abiogenesis given by don't remember whom of the members here is in a very interesting way answered here and the answer commented on here. The latter seems to be, as well, an answer to my question about the "replicator molecule". The above authors are advocates of creation (as one would naturally expect), so it would be nice if you could expose the possible mistakes in their reasonings given there. Or perhaps their word is not the last say on the problem and you know of any further clarifications on that. Otherwise their word sounds like a sentence to at least one link in the evolutionist construction.

The cell is the basic unit of life.[11] A single-celled organism such as a bacterium is therefore the lowest level of structure capable of independently performing all the activities of life.[12] Therefore, for evolutionists the origin of life is the origin of the first, minimal cell.[13]

This is a classic creationist misdirection, the "all or nothing" fallacy. While a cell might be "the lowest level of structure capable of independently performing all the activities of life" (my emphasis), that's not what we're looking for in the origins of life and nobody believes we jumped from a primordial soup to fully formed cells with DNA. That would indeed be incredible. One contender with some evidence behind it for a simpler replicator than a cell is called the "RNA World Hypothesis". Once we have something that can transmit information, the non-random selection processes of evolution can build up to something as complex as a cell.

(And FYI, the translation of the title for the Dawkins book you found is off, it's the "Selfish Gene".)