Former Atheists - What convinced you?

[rikuoamero]

What I'm writing here is for those people who consider themselves to be former atheist i.e. at one point in life, they either lacked a belief in a god of any kind, or actively disbelieved there is a God (there's a difference between the two).
I'm hoping that at least some people who are of this group (and hopefully joined the usergroup called 'Former Atheist' on this site) are/were also skeptical, in that they demanded evidence for religious claims.

My question is - What is it that convinced you? If you were to somehow go back in time and meet your previous, atheist (hopefully skeptic) self, would you or could you use whatever it is that convinced you to convince that version of you? Or would your past self be skeptical and dismissive of what it is you present?

Just to be clear - This isn't restricted to Christians only. You can be a Muslim who considers him/herself former atheist or whatever religion or belief you subscribe to. I want to hear from you.
I also promise NOT to debate in this thread. All I want are responses and your thoughts on this question. I will probably debate elsewhere, but not on this thread. This thread is solely for me to gather information.

[2timothy316]

You can't prove what you're taking about.

No, Kylie can't prove what you're talking about.

I know. No one can because abiogenesis has never been proven as a part of nature because all evidence points that it's a statistical impossibility. No one can provide a single example of it. Yet for some reason people just credulously accept it.
I doesn't matter to me what Kylie accepts. They say abiogenesis happens yet he can't provide an example. They accept it with no example, I do not accept it without an example. I do accept biogenesis because I have seen examples. If I was shown just one real example of abiogenesis then at least there would be evidence that evolution was real. Without it, it is a DOA theory.

[Difflugia]

I know. No one can because abiogenesis has never been proven as a part of nature because all evidence points that it's a statistical impossibility.

As an instantaneous event, yes. As the culmination of an evolutionary process, no.

Since no hypothesized origins of life claim that it was instantaneous, making an instantaneous origin of life a part of your argument is a straw man.

Before this thread, we might assume that you didn't realize that. Now, though, you should know better.

Evolutionary models do still leave some unanswered questions, but they leave only narrow and shrinking gaps into which gods might hide. Considering the rate of research progress, that must be an uncomfortably tight fit, indeed.

[2timothy316]

I know. No one can because abiogenesis has never been proven as a part of nature because all evidence points that it's a statistical impossibility.

As an instantaneous event, yes. As the culmination of an evolutionary process, no.

Since no hypothesized origins of life claim that it was instantaneous, making an instantaneous origin of life a part of your argument is a straw man.

Yet biogenesis can be observed instantaneous over a long amount of time. Abiogenesis cannot be observed as instantaneous, medium speed, slow speed or super slow speed. I never said it had to be instantaneous. I don't care what speed the example you show me. It must have a start, a middle and a finish. I must be recorded event not a theory on paper. Biogenesis is not a theory on paper. I can watch a start, a middle and a finish. BTW this is not argument, as you lost it before you began, as I already knew no one have nothing to give me as an example of abiogenesis. All you give are excuses and insults, that's not a debate, it's just complaining.

[Purple Knight]

I'm going to have to defend the theists here because I don't think they're being treated fairly. People pick words and resort to definitionalism when they're not really that interested in really listening to what the other person has to say.

I see no problem with the use of the word instantaneous to describe life from unlife. There does have to be, for lack of a better way to describe it, some "magic moment" in whatever process you're talking about (personally I would pin it on the life-like, cell-like bags of proteins gaining the ability to self-replicate).

And scientists have created life-like substances from unlife. In a lab.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07289-x

So yes, we have a model for how intelligence can create life. Ironically (to this discussion) these sorts of experiments are usually doing it to see how life might have come from unlife naturally.

[2timothy316]

I see no problem with the use of the word instantaneous to describe life from unlife. There does have to be, for lack of a better way to describe it, some "magic moment" in whatever process you're talking about (personally I would pin it on the life-like, cell-like bags of proteins gaining the ability to self-replicate).

Agreed. A microscopic factory. The ability to take energy, raw materials and use it to make more of itself is simply amazing. I can no more say the first cell was accidentally made as I can that a car factory was accidentally made. A car factory is actually easier to make than a living cell! And I'm just supposed to accept that the cell came by accident? Atheist say that theist's beliefs live in the gap of no other explanation other than something had to make it. However, atheist live in the gap of abiogenesis needing an insane amount of time to happen. They can't show it happening because it takes 10 to the 120th power of years to happen. No one will live long enough to prove they were wrong. Yet it's a two edged sword because it also takes too long to prove them right. Despite this, they have credulous beliefs in that is how it happened and fully believe it without having seen it. Isn't that what theist get shouted at to prove? "If there's is a God show him to me!" Well, lets turn the table, if the abiogensesis happens, show it.

Neither can produce what the other wants. So, it comes down to a reasoning question. Which is more likely...biogenesis or abiogenesis for the first life form. Which do we more evidence of? Lets say we have imaginary scales. Let's pretend that the examples a biogenesis and abiogenesis had a weight. Which way would the scales tip?

And scientists have created life-like substances from unlife. In a lab.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07289-x

So yes, we have a model for how intelligence can create life. Ironically (to this discussion) these sorts of experiments are usually doing it to see how life might have come from unlife naturally.

Agreed here too. I have no problems with mankind doing these experiments. I think it's very cool. Yet you're correct in noticing the irony. The thing that many think they are trying to prove abiogenesis is just giving more evidence that life was came about through biogenesis. However, their results have become a point of interpretation for atheist. Yet I don't think the experiments these (most of them) scientist are trying to prove is that there is no God. They are just trying to figure out how the first cell can be made with lifeless materials. Heck! I'd like to know that myself! I know the answer exist and I expect there will be something more that we are not aware of. Much like a car needs a starter, a gas stove needs a spark to ignite the gas, a factory needs electricity, etc. What made those gears turn in the first living cell?

[Difflugia]

BTW this is not argument, as you lost it before you began, as I already knew no one have nothing to give me as an example of abiogenesis.

Any loss must have been before, because it certainly wasn't after the discussion began.

All you give are excuses and insults, that's not a debate, it's just complaining.

"Projection" isn't just a river in Egypt.

I see no problem with the use of the word instantaneous to describe life from unlife.

The video that 2timothy316 chose to illustrate their position presents a refutation of a seventeenth-century idea of spontaneous generation with the apparent intention of applying it to modern concepts of biogenesis. That wasn't some definitional dodge on my part, but either an honest misunderstanding or intentional straw man on theirs.

There does have to be, for lack of a better way to describe it, some "magic moment" in whatever process you're talking about (personally I would pin it on the life-like, cell-like bags of proteins gaining the ability to self-replicate).

But that's exactly what it wasn't and that false view is where creationists get their bogus statistical arguments. The "magic moment" would be the presence of a molecule (or complex of molecules) that can catalyze its own replication. Creationist statistical arguments hinge on the probability of something complex appearing de novo, ignoring (or explicitly discounting) the ability of evolution to add complexity over time. By the time an "RNA world" evolved the ability to catalyze a lipid bilayer and something akin to a ribosome (becoming your "bag of proteins"), the molecular complex had already been replicating for countless generations. Was it alive? If, as some scientists think, there was a simpler precursor to RNA, was the switch to RNA the quantum leap to living versus nonliving? The idea of a "magic moment," as you put it, is a simplification. Such a simplification has conceptual usefulness, but also a certain amount of inaccuracy. As with most simplifications, that's not a problem (like Newtonian physics as a simplification of quantum physics), but there's also the danger, as we've seen here, that an artifact of the simplification is seen as a weakness of the original idea.

Agreed. A microscopic factory. The ability to take energy, raw materials and use it to make more of itself is simply amazing. I can no more say the first cell was accidentally made as I can that a car factory was accidentally made.

And here is a case in point. The "first cell" didn't arise de novo. Because all life now is cellular, it's useful to discuss the "first cell" as a simplification for the long process of the origin of life, but any refutation that relies on a spontaneous appearance of the "first cell" is already meaningless because that's not what biologists think happened.

Fires and hurricanes both grow and spread using energy and raw material from the environment. It's a good thing for us that there's no "hurricane" version of chemo- or phototaxis.

However, atheist live in the gap of abiogenesis needing an insane amount of time to happen.

It's only "insane" if all large numbers are dismissed as incomprehensible; numerical illiteracy ("innumeracy") is the gap, not time per se.

They can't show it happening because it takes 10 to the 120th power of years to happen.

There's evidence of life that dates to around a billion (10⁹) years after the Earth's formation. If a proposed evolutionary process really took 10¹²⁰ years, it would be dismissed on that basis alone. It's not that scientists ignore limitations imposed by time, it's that creationists want there to be much less of it than there really was.

No one will live long enough to prove they were wrong. Yet it's a two edged sword because it also takes too long to prove them right. Despite this, they have credulous beliefs in that is how it happened and fully believe it without having seen it.

But certain kinds of evolutionary changes can be shown in species that reproduce rapidly. There's a reason that evolutionary experiments proceed with bacteria and fruit flies rather than elephants. We can extrapolate data from those experiments and combine them with genomic comparisons between species to get a detailed idea of how long various kinds of evolutionary pathways take and how often we should expect them. We can also collect data on rates of various types of chemical reactions in various environments. Such reasoning is normally considered valid across all scientific disciplines. It seems to only be challenged by those that dogmatically believe that we only have 10⁴ years to work with.

Isn't that what theist get shouted at to prove? "If there's is a God show him to me!" Well, lets turn the table, if the abiogensesis happens, show it.

That's exactly what they're working on. What they have shown thus far is that various steps in the process either do or can occur spontaneously. Is there evidence of even similar quality for the existence of gods? I don't think there is and that's what we're asking for. Presenting it as hyperbole as though there's some incredibly high bar only works if there's enough evidence to overcome at least a few lower hurdles. For gods, that so far consists of the lack of another explanation along with gods being considered the implicit default. No explanation for lightning? It must be from Zeus. The origin of life is pretty complicated? It must have been Jehovah.

A car factory is actually easier to make than a living cell! And I'm just supposed to accept that the cell came by accident?

No, you're supposed to accept that it arose via evolutionary processes.

Atheist say that theist's beliefs live in the gap of no other explanation other than something had to make it.

Isn't that what you, a theist, literally just argued?

[2timothy316]

BTW this is not argument, as you lost it before you began, as I already knew no one have nothing to give me as an example of abiogenesis.

Any loss must have been before, because it certainly wasn't after the discussion began.

I was arguing this subject before the internet existed. I know it's a dead end discussion with no one proving anything to anyone. What's more I have argued both sides of this subject. I know all the points you and every other atheist are going to use. There has been nothing new to point out in years and no one can show anything.

[2timothy316]

A car factory is actually easier to make than a living cell! And I'm just supposed to accept that the cell came by accident?

No, you're supposed to accept that it arose via evolutionary processes.

Same thing to me. I do not accept the evolutionary/accidental/abiogenesis whatever process without me seeing it happen. You are believing in something that you have never seen happen. So be it, that is your call. Do not expect everyone to be like you, telling them what they are supposed to do. So unless you're going to do something other than type your feelings and stuff I have read a hundred times, you have nothing new for me to discuss.

[Difflugia]

I was arguing this subject before the internet existed.

Amusingly enough, it was a copy of Life—How did it get here? that I found in a used bookstore (while a Christian) in the early 90s that clued me in to the existence of creationists. It wasn't until a few years later that I learned from the internet that there were creationists other than Jehovah's Witnesses.

[2timothy316]

I was arguing this subject before the internet existed.

Amusingly enough, it was a copy of Life—How did it get here? that I found in a used bookstore (while a Christian) in the early 90s that clued me in to the existence of creationists. It wasn't until a few years later that I learned from the internet that there were creationists other than Jehovah's Witnesses.

JWs don't associate themselves as being creationists. Not the definition that it is normally associated with. We had to accept that the Earth being created in literal 24 hour days is non-sense.
https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesse ... sm-belief/