Abiogenesis

[liamconnor]

Again, I rarely wander over to the sciences and more rarely set up an argument. Not my forte.

But I recall reading that a famous atheist became a theist (not a Christian) because of the problem of abiogenesis.

Now, as I understand the term, it refers to the theory that life can come from non-life.

In simplistic terms, a rock can, over time, produce (on its own, nothing added to it; the development happens "within") cells.


Question:

Do I understand the term "abiogenesis"?


Based on my (or your corrected version's) definition, has it been reproduced by scientists?

[DanieltheDragon]

It's called perspective. From the perspective of most humans it's not wrong. From the perspective of cows we could be seen as monsters. From god's perspective it might be like killing cows. Yet from our perspective its monstrous.

Interesting.

Yes and because differing perspectives exist simultaneously objective morality is impossible.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 385 by For_The_Kingdom]

No, you see, there is no evidence regarding the notion that life came from nonlife,

I think this will be the last time I ask you. What in your mind IS non-life? Please finish this sentence
"Non-life = _______ "

Provide me evidence that sentient life can come from nonliving material.

You. I point at you, For_The_Kingdom, as an example of life that is sentient, that came from non-living material. You are sentient, and your physical body is made up of non-living elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, etc.
I highly suspect that you have seen me say this many times before, so please tell me why you more than likely think this answer does not satisfy the above request for evidence.

What about all of the insects you've killed in your life...or how about all of the animal meat that you've consumed in your life? Are you a vegan? Vegetarian? Are you a member and/or supporter of PETA?

This and more is allowed on Christianity. There is nothing in the Bible that indicates humans are meant to be vegetarians/vegans. Indeed God in the Old Testament found the smell of animal sacrifices pleasing.

Naturalists just simply don't have a dog in the fight it comes to the subject of morality.

Neither do Christians, at least when it comes to the subject of objective morality (emphasis mine, deliberately). Is one man marrying multiple females moral, objectively? I don't see how on Christianity, since many of Judaism and Christianity's patriarchs (Abraham, Jacob etc) have multiple wives and God says nothing about it. It is only later on, with Christianity, that we get this idea of monogamous marriage, and that bigamy is immoral.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 384 by For_The_Kingdom]

So, because no reason was given, therefore, there was no reason at all. Non sequitur.

Am I supposed to think there IS a reason for why God is gunning for Moses and doesn't follow through?

Because when God takes a life, he is taking back what is rightfully his. When we take a life, we are taking something that doesn't belong to us.

I don't consider myself to be the property of any other thinking agent. If God strikes me dead right now, he is quite literally committing homicide, murder. It is against my will to die of anything other than old age.
I often hear much from Christians that God values free will. So...?

Taking a life, generally speaking, is not necessarily wrong. There may be morally sufficient reasons to do so and not all cases are equal.

There is no contradiction between taking a life and being loving, just, and merciful.

What about millions of lives? How can I call myself loving, just and merciful towards flies, if I deliberately go out of my way to kill millions of them?

In most modern societies, if not all of them, taking a life is considered a social wrong, and you will be prosecuted for it.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 385 by For_The_Kingdom]

...because on naturalism, a human life has no more intrinsic value than the life of a fly...yet, we kill insects all the time, and we eat the meat of animals all the time.
Naturalists just simply don't have a dog in the fight it comes to the subject of morality.

Where do you get these ideas? Morality is innate in social animals. Have you never seen a flock of sheep or herd of cattle in a pasture coexisting without killing each other or eating their offspring on a regular basis? They don't have the ten commandments or some other religious doctrine to guide them, and yet they appear to have very good morals compared to many humans. Naturalists can and are just as moral as any religious person because this is an innate property of social animals ... it doesn't come from religion (easily proven by the huge number of moral humans who don't practice any religion).

And a human life does have no more intrinsic value than the life of a fly or any other living thing. Do you think that just because humans have a higher cognitive intelligence level than a fly we are someone more intrinsically valuable? We happen to be omnivores at the top of the food chain, and we can kill and eat anything we like because of our technological superiority and knowledge of how to hunt, how to domesticate plants and animals (a relatively recent accomplishment by humans), etc. But these skills do not make us intrinsically more valuable than, say, a cow. The righness or wrongness of killing of a fly or a cow vs. killing a human has nothing to do with being an atheist or a naturalist. The moral compass of a naturalist would tell him/her that it is wrong to kill another human because it is a pest, or because of hunger. I don't know of any naturalist who thinks that because humans are "only" very intelligent animals that evolved from a great ape ancestor, that somehow the human qualities of morality and sense of right and wrong don't exist. These are innate in humans regardless of religious association (and some humans are more than happy to kill other humans specifically because of religious beliefs ... just ask your local ISIS supporter).

Personally, I can only hope that mankind didn't originate from slime crawling out of primordial soup.

Slime don't crawl (sorry, couldn't resist that one) ... that ability arose much later in the evolutionary path when multicellular animals obtained muscles and the mechanisms to control them. But we do know that mankind did, in fact, evolve from the common ancestor we share with chimpanzees and bonobos that lived about 6 million years ago (give or take a couple). This isn't conjecture or hypothesis any more ... the fossil record strongly suggested a great ape ancestor, but the genetics work of the last 40 years as proven this beyond any doubt. And the great ape ancestor we evolved from itself evolved from earlier life forms all the way back to some far simpler organism that may well have originated in some primordial "soup."

But abiogenesis is just one hypothesis for the origin of life on Earth and a specific mechanism has not yet been proven. Panspermia is yet another hypothesis, and there are others. The fact that science has not yet solved the origin of life problem does not lead to a conclusion that a supernatural being was involved, or a "creation" event. That is just a convenient explanation for it that made sense 3000 years ago when the nascent state of science didn't allow many things to be explained. But these gaps attributed to gods have been narrowing ever since and continue to do so.

No, you see, there is no evidence regarding the notion that life came from nonlife, order came from chaos, intelligence came from nonintelligence, language came from muteness, the universe came from nothing, etc. So before you go talking about what there is no evidence for regarding the Bible, focus yourself on the lack of evidence for your own religion (naturalism).

Some of these things do have abundant evidence for them:

Order from chaos: This happens all the time in nature and there are countless examples. Formation of snow flakes, formation of crystalline structures, planets coalescing from accretion disks, etc. etc. The evidence for this process is overwhelming in nature.

Intelligence from nonintelligence: Bacteria-like single-celled organisms and their progenitors are not 'intelligent", but every living thing on Earth, including humans, evolved from them. It was a very slow and progressive process that has taken about 4 billion years, and even within the tiny subgroup of great apes that evolved into homo sapians it was a process of progressively increasing intelligence levels as the brain grew in size and complexity of structure. There are no homo erectus around now to interact with but given their accomplishments over a good 1 million years we know they were a lot more intelligent than a chimp, and modern humans are a lot more intelligent than a homo erectus was. I don't know where you draw the line between nonintelligence and intelligence, but this property was progressive in its development and it continues.

Language from muteness: Many animals make sounds and so aren't technically mute, but language in humans is another progressive development like intelligence. Again, we can't observe a group of homo erectus and learn how they communicated, but we do know that they had some ability to make complex sounds. Neanderthals certainly had the physical components necessary for speech, but they are also not around to observe. Language as we use it today required the physical apparatus for speech (apparently present long before complex language became developed), and the intelligence to formulate words, verbs and conjugations, sentence structures, etc. Homo sapians have both the apparatus and the intelligence and eventually complex language was realized. Or would you argue that the Tower of Babel is a better explanation?

Of course, if you believe that humans are special creatures created by a god, fully formed and intelligent just as we are today, then all of this could be written off as nonsense. But that would be completely ignoring the last few hundred years of developments in science, in which case everything relies on myths and miracles and the like.

[For_The_Kingdom]

Where do you get these ideas? Morality is innate in social animals.

Where does morality come from? And are there objective moral values and duties?

Have you never seen a flock of sheep or herd of cattle in a pasture coexisting without killing each other or eating their offspring on a regular basis? They don't have the ten commandments or some other religious doctrine to guide them, and yet they appear to have very good morals compared to many humans.

In order for you claim what you consider to be "good" morals relative to "bad" morals, you have to have an objective standard by which you are basing it off of. So the question becomes: what is the standard, and why is this standard the standard?

Naturalists can and are just as moral as any religious person because this is an innate property of social animals ... it doesn't come from religion (easily proven by the huge number of moral humans who don't practice any religion).

Again, before we determine who has better morals, we need to justify the standard. Science certainly could care less about the actions of either Adolf Hitler or Mother Teresa..so the question of objective morality (or morality in general) is far beyond the scope of science.

Yet, the question remains, what is the standard...what is it based upon, and why is this the right standard (on atheism/naturalism).

And a human life does have no more intrinsic value than the life of a fly or any other living thing. Do you think that just because humans have a higher cognitive intelligence level than a fly we are someone more intrinsically valuable? We happen to be omnivores at the top of the food chain, and we can kill and eat anything we like because of our technological superiority and knowledge of how to hunt, how to domesticate plants and animals (a relatively recent accomplishment by humans), etc. But these skills do not make us intrinsically more valuable than, say, a cow. The righness or wrongness of killing of a fly or a cow vs. killing a human has nothing to do with being an atheist or a naturalist.

It may not have nothing to "do" with being an atheist or naturalist...but if atheism/naturalism is true, then there simply is no objective rightness or wrongness with ANYTHING. It just simply doesn't matter.

If God does not exist, we are simply specks of dust on a bigger speck of dust...and if the universe suddenly gets destroyed or life on earth ceases to exist, nothing that has ever happened in the history of mankind would have mattered.

The moral compass of a naturalist would tell him/her that it is wrong to kill another human because it is a pest, or because of hunger.

Then I would ask; why is it wrong to kill someone?

I don't know of any naturalist who thinks that because humans are "only" very intelligent animals that evolved from a great ape ancestor, that somehow the human qualities of morality and sense of right and wrong don't exist.

I don't follow.

These are innate in humans regardless of religious association (and some humans are more than happy to kill other humans specifically because of religious beliefs ... just ask your local ISIS supporter).

Is ISIS right or wrong?

Slime don't crawl (sorry, couldn't resist that one) ... that ability arose much later in the evolutionary path when multicellular animals obtained muscles and the mechanisms to control them.

Sure, that is the theory..

But we do know that mankind did, in fact, evolve from the common ancestor we share with chimpanzees and bonobos that lived about 6 million years ago (give or take a couple).

Who is "we"?

This isn't conjecture or hypothesis any more ... the fossil record strongly suggested a great ape ancestor

There is no fossil record. If you find a fossil and you determine anything besides "this once living organism has been dead for a long time", then you are speculating. You don't know if that fossil had any offspring, and you certainly don't know if that fossil had different offspring.

, but the genetics work of the last 40 years as proven this beyond any doubt.

Similar genetics is the result of common designer. The same guy is designing the stuff.

And the great ape ancestor we evolved from itself evolved from earlier life forms all the way back to some far simpler organism that may well have originated in some primordial "soup."

Sure...again, that is the "theory".

But abiogenesis is just one hypothesis for the origin of life on Earth and a specific mechanism has not yet been proven.

It cannot possibly be proven, naturally.

Panspermia is yet another hypothesis, and there are others. The fact that science has not yet solved the origin of life problem does not lead to a conclusion that a supernatural being was involved, or a "creation" event.

It does, actually. Consciousness cannot be created from nonliving, raw material. Can't happen.

That is just a convenient explanation for it that made sense 3000 years ago when the nascent state of science didn't allow many things to be explained. But these gaps attributed to gods have been narrowing ever since and continue to do so.

Yet, 3,000 years ago it was said that "In the beginning..." (Gen 1:1). So, while atheists/naturalists were telling us that the universe was infinite/eternal, religious folks have always maintained that the universe began to exist...so fast forward to the 21th century, and it has been proven via science, philosophy, and mathematics that the universe began to exist.

So it was science that was 3,000 behind the curve ball, not religion..and certainly like Judeo-Christianity.

Some of these things do have abundant evidence for them:

Order from chaos: This happens all the time in nature and there are countless examples. Formation of snow flakes, formation of crystalline structures, planets coalescing from accretion disks, etc. etc. The evidence for this process is overwhelming in nature.

Sorry, good sir...but that isn't the kind of "order" I am talking about...I am talking about specified complexity. Just take the human body with all its parts, configuration, and functionality....far more advanced than a snowflake.

I will leave you to your naturalistic theories as to how a mindless/blind process (Mother Nature), was able, in all of her unconscious blindness, was able to assemble fully conscious human bodies (among other life forms)...which is something that human beings, with all of our knowledge and technology, STILL haven't been able to duplicate.

Intelligence from nonintelligence: Bacteria-like single-celled organisms and their progenitors are not 'intelligent", but every living thing on Earth, including humans, evolved from them.

That is the theory. Sure, naturalists seem to have theories for days. Too many theories, not enough evidence for the theories.

It was a very slow and progressive process that has taken about 4 billion years

Stop it right there!! Hold it there!! Do you see what just happened? It happened so quick that I don't even think you know what you just did? Do you see what you just did, based on the above quote?

What you just did, was left science. You just left science and dived right into what is called religion. And it happened so fast, you didn't even know it.

Science isn't telling you that it has taken "4 billion years". That is your PRESUPPOSITION that told you that, not science. That is your religion that told you that, not science.

So sure, just sprinkle in a few BILLIONS of years in the mix and anything can happen, right? That is what I got out of it.

"It is a very, very slow process". Sure, the process is so slow, that it didn't happen in the first place. You don't see the scam, the con involved in evolution and abiogenesis?

Think about it: These macro changes happened so long ago that no one has EVER seen it occur...and it takes SO LONG to occur that no one that is living at any given moment in history will EVER see it occur. Yet, it happened.

You don't see the scam? The con? If you don't see it, I don't know how to help you.

, and even within the tiny subgroup of great apes that evolved into homo sapians it was a process of progressively increasing intelligence levels as the brain grew in size and complexity of structure.

More theories, eh?

There are no homo erectus around now to interact with but given their accomplishments over a good 1 million years we know they were a lot more intelligent than a chimp, and modern humans are a lot more intelligent than a homo erectus was. I don't know where you draw the line between nonintelligence and intelligence, but this property was progressive in its development and it continues.

Easy. You remember the 70's cartoon, Speed Buggy (a talking, sentient race car)? Well, I will assume you have a non-talking, non-sentient automobile. Well, compare your non-sentient vehicle to the concept of Speed Buggy.

That is where I draw the line.

Language from muteness: Many animals make sounds and so aren't technically mute, but language in humans is another progressive development like intelligence. Again, we can't observe a group of homo erectus and learn how they communicated, but we do know that they had some ability to make complex sounds. Neanderthals certainly had the physical components necessary for speech, but they are also not around to observe. Language as we use it today required the physical apparatus for speech (apparently present long before complex language became developed), and the intelligence to formulate words, verbs and conjugations, sentence structures, etc. Homo sapians have both the apparatus and the intelligence and eventually complex language was realized.

How do you go from non-language to language?

Or would you argue that the Tower of Babel is a better explanation?

The better explanation is intelligent design. It makes more sense for humans to be CREATED with common language and aunderstanding of the language as an initial condition...rather than simply coexisting and having to go through a impossible task of a trial and error learning process.

Of course, if you believe that humans are special creatures created by a god, fully formed and intelligent just as we are today, then all of this could be written off as nonsense. But that would be completely ignoring the last few hundred years of developments in science, in which case everything relies on myths and miracles and the like.

Inanimate matter coming to life...that strikes me as a miracle.

[For_The_Kingdom]

Am I supposed to think there IS a reason for why God is gunning for Moses and doesn't follow through?

You certainly don't think there is a reason. Give both options its due diligence.

I don't consider myself to be the property of any other thinking agent. If God strikes me dead right now, he is quite literally committing homicide, murder.

You do realize that there is a such thing as a justifiable homicide, right?

It is against my will to die of anything other than old age.
I often hear much from Christians that God values free will. So...?

Old age to God may be the age that you are now.

What about millions of lives? How can I call myself loving, just and merciful towards flies, if I deliberately go out of my way to kill millions of them?

You are assuming that you have a "right" to live. Who gave you that right? You are also assuming that killing is a bad thing, without, I suppose, a objective standard by which you are basing this.

In most modern societies, if not all of them, taking a life is considered a social wrong, and you will be prosecuted for it.

True, but then the question becomes, again, what is the standard? Is the standard of goodness based upon society? Ok, so if society decided that rape is socially acceptable, would that make it right?

[For_The_Kingdom]

I think this will be the last time I ask you. What in your mind IS non-life? Please finish this sentence
"Non-life = _______ "

Non-sentient life = my couch.

You. I point at you, For_The_Kingdom, as an example of life that is sentient, that came from non-living material. You are sentient, and your physical body is made up of non-living elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, etc.
I highly suspect that you have seen me say this many times before, so please tell me why you more than likely think this answer does not satisfy the above request for evidence.

I am talking about the sentient part of me, which is my consciousness.

This and more is allowed on Christianity. There is nothing in the Bible that indicates humans are meant to be vegetarians/vegans. Indeed God in the Old Testament found the smell of animal sacrifices pleasing.

You missed the point, sir. The point is, unbelievers condemn God and judge him based on what they consider to be acts of savage brutality...and my point is simple; it can't be any more savage/brutal than animals being slaughtered at the slaughterhouse and when you are stuffing hamburgers or fried chicken down your throat.

On naturalism, we are nothing but animals...and in the animal kingdom, animals kill each other all of the time. So on atheism, God is killing animals (humans)...and in "real life", humans are killing animals (slaughterhouse).

So there is no difference, unless the atheist would like to believe that human life has more value than other "animal" life, which he can't logically justify.

That is my counter-argument. Now, on Christian theism, human beings are NOT animals and our lives ARE more valued than animal life...which is why God allows animals to be eaten and forbids any kind of unjustifiable homicide...because it is God's life to give and/or take.

Neither do Christians, at least when it comes to the subject of objective morality (emphasis mine, deliberately). Is one man marrying multiple females moral, objectively? I don't see how on Christianity, since many of Judaism and Christianity's patriarchs (Abraham, Jacob etc) have multiple wives and God says nothing about it. It is only later on, with Christianity, that we get this idea of monogamous marriage, and that bigamy is immoral.

Wow, that is probably the first good point that I've seen you make lol. J/k. I actually agree with you. I have a stirring beef with my fellow Christians on this subject. Now, I haven't fully dived into it yet, but I don't see any Christian law and/or principle that forbids bigamy.

Now, if I missed something, I stand corrected. But at this point, I don't see anything in the Bible to lead me to believe that bigamy was outlawed.

This is more of an internal debate among believers, and it is very important. However, if an unbeliever can see my point, I must be on to something. I commend you for acknowledging this.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 393 by For_The_Kingdom]

If God does not exist, we are simply specks of dust on a bigger speck of dust...and if the universe suddenly gets destroyed or life on earth ceases to exist, nothing that has ever happened in the history of mankind would have mattered.

Bingo ... that's exactly right! If the Earth ceases to exist tomorrow then nothing that has ever happened in the (brief) history of mankind would have mattered. How could it? There would be no humans around for it to matter to. The entire existence of humans, even going as far back as that common ancestor we share with chimpanzees and bonobos about 6 million years ago, has been nothing but a tiny blip in the length of time since the Earth formed from the accretion disk surrounding the sun after it formed some 4.6 billion years ago. Go back a measly 10 million years ago and there were no humans around of any kind, and there may well be none around 10 million years hence. But planet Earth will be orbiting the sun just as it is now with whatever life forms do exist, humans or no humans, not knowing or caring that there are no humans around, or that there ever was.

Science isn't telling you that it has taken "4 billion years". That is your PRESUPPOSITION that told you that, not science. That is your religion that told you that, not science.

So sure, just sprinkle in a few BILLIONS of years in the mix and anything can happen, right? That is what I got out of it.

"It is a very, very slow process". Sure, the process is so slow, that it didn't happen in the first place. You don't see the scam, the con involved in evolution and abiogenesis?

Think about it: These macro changes happened so long ago that no one has EVER seen it occur...and it takes SO LONG to occur that no one that is living at any given moment in history will EVER see it occur. Yet, it happened.

You don't see the scam? The con? If you don't see it, I don't know how to help you.

Scam? That 4 billion number doesn't come from thin air. It comes from radiometric dating which is very well understood and perfectly valid. We (referring to the community of humans and our accumulated scientific knowledge) know that the Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago, and the earliest definitive evidence of life dates from sometime in the 3.5 to 4 billion year ago time frame. I didn't suddenly get religious to make that statement ... it is the result of radiometric dating of actual rocks (eg. zircons), meteorites, fossil evidence (eg. stromatolites), etc. Of course no humans were around to see it as we just arrived on the scene during the last 0.0043% of Earth's existence (using 200,000 years since the Omo remains) . But we can date rocks.

Is ISIS right or wrong?

Wrong. Killing other humans to force one's religious beliefs on them is wrong. Enslaving and raping the women of groups who don't share your religious beliefs is wrong. This kind of moral understanding doesn't require a standard of any kind ... it is innate in most humans. Groups like ISIS do what they do because religious fervor has driven them to believe that only their religious views are correct, and they use that belief to justify their horrendous actions, all in the name of their god (which is the same God of Abraham that Christians and Jews worship).

There is no fossil record.

What? I must be missing the joke.

It does, actually. Consciousness cannot be created from nonliving, raw material. Can't happen.

Can't happen based on what principle? Our genus (homo) has shown progressively higher levels of intelligence from homo habilis all the way to homo sapiens. We know this from the tools and artifacts that have been found and dated, and eventually evidence of symbolic thought via musical instruments, cave paintings, sculptures like the venus figurines, etc. These things didn't just happen overnight on a creation event where suddenly fully formed and intelligent (at our level of modern homo sapien) humans appeared. I know that is the biblical account, but the real world account proves otherwise.

Just take the human body with all its parts, configuration, and functionality....far more advanced than a snowflake.

Sure ... it is now. But it didn't start out that way. It started with a far simpler (but still complex) single-celled organism with no brain, heart, liver, eyes, skeleton or any semblance of consciousness. After literally billions of years of evolution and many millions of animal species something as complex as a human appeared on the scene. Evolution has reached the exalted status of "theory" because it has been experimentally verified to the point that it is confirmed. Mother nature may be unconscious and blind in human terms, but chemistry can do amazing things given a few billion years to operate. When considering life from nonliving materials you can't start with a human ... you have to start with something at least at the prokaryote level or earlier, and ask how that came about. From that point on we do have the answer.

The better explanation is intelligent design. It makes more sense for humans to be CREATED with common language and aunderstanding of the language as an initial condition...rather than simply coexisting and having to go through a impossible task of a trial and error learning process.

I don't see it as an impossible task. If you start with a relatively simple single-celled organism 4 billion years ago, and let nature do her thing via chemistry, physics, geology, biology, etc., you can get to a human. It happened, and although we can't explain that first step yet from nonliving to living, I expect we'll get there long before Jesus returns to claim his souls.

[Bust Nak]

*the origin of consciousness.

Okay, let me clarify my statement. Your contention is that naturalism cannot in principle explain the origin of consciousness.

And one required intelligent design, while the other one didn't.

Meh, doesn't change a thing I said. Both are still naturalistic.

But why? LOL.

Because I gave up trying to convince you.

Organ transplants is science at its best.

Okay, but that doesn't change anything I said.

Yeah...big one.

How so?

Wrong.

So tell me explicitly what you meant.

Oh, so the natural history museum will support your otherwise unsupported claims?

Well there are also the links that you could look at, but you were expecting more.

Tell ya what...give me the number to YOUR local natural history museum, and I will call them and ask them about abiogenesis...and see what they say? Fair enough?

No good. You don't need to know here I live, I know better than to give away anything online that could lead to my identify. I will instead give you the number of a natural history museum I found on Google: Field Museum of Natural History: +1 312-922-9410

[For_The_Kingdom]

Bingo ... that's exactly right! If the Earth ceases to exist tomorrow then nothing that has ever happened in the (brief) history of mankind would have mattered. How could it? There would be no humans around for it to matter to. The entire existence of humans, even going as far back as that common ancestor we share with chimpanzees and bonobos about 6 million years ago, has been nothing but a tiny blip in the length of time since the Earth formed from the accretion disk surrounding the sun after it formed some 4.6 billion years ago. Go back a measly 10 million years ago and there were no humans around of any kind, and there may well be none around 10 million years hence. But planet Earth will be orbiting the sun just as it is now with whatever life forms do exist, humans or no humans, not knowing or caring that there are no humans around, or that there ever was.

Excellent.So based on that, life appears to be objectively meaningless. And on top of that, morality is apparently subjective; so that not only doesn't it matter what one does in the "meantime", but there is no objective moral standard, either way.

Nothing matters.

Scam? That 4 billion number doesn't come from thin air. It comes from radiometric dating which is very well understood and perfectly valid.

Hey, you can use whatever dating method you'd like, that doesn't mean that it happened the way that you (scientific community) claims it happened. That would be like using a dating method to date Mount Rushmore. Sure, you can date the rocks to whatever date you like, but that doesn't tell the "story" of how the pattern/sculpture of the faces in the rocks came about.

You are implying "Hey, in 4 billion years of rain, erosion, wind, and rock...and those faces could get in there with no problem. All it takes it time".

And I am saying "Sorry charlie, but even given 4 trillion years, those faces wouldn't get there. Mother Nature isn't a sculptor."

That is what we are dealing with whenever the "time" element is thrown in there. The implication is that "anything can happen, given enough time".....but no, uh uh, still aint happening.

We (referring to the community of humans and our accumulated scientific knowledge) know that the Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago, and the earliest definitive evidence of life dates from sometime in the 3.5 to 4 billion year ago time frame.

And the universe got here some 14.7 billion years ago, right? Where did it come from? You see, with nature, you can only go back so far. You can't extend time back infinitely into the past. You need an initial beginning. The cause of all causes. A First Cause.

This is necessary.

I didn't suddenly get religious to make that statement ... it is the result of radiometric dating of actual rocks (eg. zircons), meteorites, fossil evidence (eg. stromatolites), etc. Of course no humans were around to see it as we just arrived on the scene during the last 0.0043% of Earth's existence (using 200,000 years since the Omo remains) . But we can date rocks.

There have been some that has questioned the viability of carbon dating. However, for the sake of argument, I am willing to grant that it is viable. However, that still doesn't prove naturalism true.

Wrong.

Wrong based on whose standards? Yours? How is your standard the correct standard over anyone else's

Killing other humans to force one's religious beliefs on them is wrong. Enslaving and raping the women of groups who don't share your religious beliefs is wrong.

Well, you certainly can't scientifically prove right or wrong moral actions. So I'd like to know what is the guideline...the standard?

This kind of moral understanding doesn't require a standard of any kind

An objective standard is needed for something to be considered objectively wrong. Theists argue that the objective standard is God. I don't know what the naturalistic objective standard is.

... it is innate in most humans.

Coming from natural selection. Still, no moral lawgiver in there.

Groups like ISIS do what they do because religious fervor has driven them to believe that only their religious views are correct, and they use that belief to justify their horrendous actions, all in the name of their god (which is the same God of Abraham that Christians and Jews worship).

Same God, yet not all Christians, Jews, Muslims agree with their actions.

What? I must be missing the joke.

The joke is; seeing the fossilized remains of an animal and unjustifiably concluded that this animal is the evolutionary predecessor of that animal. I am talking about on the macro level, of course.

Can't happen based on what principle?

Based on the fact that if you had all of the brain matter in the universe and you were able to go in a lab and successfully shape and mold together the perfect human brain, you would create the brain, but you wouldn't be able to create the consciousness.

The consciousness wouldn't be stored in some freezer nor would it be locked away in a cabinet or safe. You wouldn't have it...but if you want the brain to become sentient, where would you get the consciousness? From what source?

Our genus (homo) has shown progressively higher levels of intelligence from homo habilis all the way to homo sapiens. We know this from the tools and artifacts that have been found and dated, and eventually evidence of symbolic thought via musical instruments, cave paintings, sculptures like the venus figurines, etc.

So let me get this straight; it took intelligence to create tools and artifacts, instruments and paintings...but it didn't take intelligence to create hearts, veins, brains, consciousness, eyes, and ears?

Hmmm.

These things didn't just happen overnight on a creation event where suddenly fully formed and intelligent (at our level of modern homo sapien) humans appeared.

I know that is the biblical account, but the real world account proves otherwise.

Not every Bible believer is a young earth creationist. Hugh Ross, for example, is an old earth, Christian believer. Me, on the other hand, I am neutral. I just know that God did it.

Sure ... it is now. But it didn't start out that way. It started with a far simpler (but still complex) single-celled organism with no brain, heart, liver, eyes, skeleton or any semblance of consciousness. After literally billions of years of evolution and many millions of animal species something as complex as a human appeared on the scene.

Sure, and things evolved, why? Everything that you said goes completely again entropy. If you start off with high entropy, you will only end with high entropy. Things don't get more ordered over time...if anything, they get less ordered.

That is the complete opposite of what you are saying. You are saying that things were chaotic from the beginning and began to get very, very, VERY organized and orderly over time...which would be like an explosion at a paint factory (in very slow motion) giving you the "School of Athens" painting (my favorite painting of all time, btw) as an end result.

Do you really think that that is gonna happen?

Evolution has reached the exalted status of "theory" because it has been experimentally verified to the point that it is confirmed.

Micro evolution is what has been confirmed. Macro evolution, on the other hand, is where the evidence is lacking.

Mother nature may be unconscious and blind in human terms, but chemistry can do amazing things given a few billion years to operate.

"Given enough time, anything can happen" approach. See, I told ya lol.

When considering life from nonliving materials you can't start with a human ... you have to start with something at least at the prokaryote level or earlier, and ask how that came about. From that point on we do have the answer.

Do we have the answer as to how you will get consciousness squirted in there if you eventually start with a prokaryote?

I don't see it as an impossible task. If you start with a relatively simple single-celled organism 4 billion years ago, and let nature do her thing via chemistry, physics, geology, biology, etc., you can get to a human. It happened, and although we can't explain that first step yet from nonliving to living, I expect we'll get there long before Jesus returns to claim his souls.

LOL.