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]

Life isn't made by another life, but is an extension of the same life.

Extension? Explain yourself.
I'm not an extension of my mother like an arm or leg. Though human, I'm completely different being. A separate life. Not an extension. If mankind ever makes a new life from lifeless materials that is still something living making another life. There is still more evidence that life comes from life than the zero physical evidence that life comes from the lifeless.
If life from life isn't true then I await your physical evidence of life coming from something lifeless with no living thing intervening. Though I will not hold my breath as I searched for years for this to happen before I eyes and never found it. Not even a single strand of DNA not even a partial strand...not even 1/1000 of a strand has ever come into existence without something living to make it. I will accept nothing less than physical evidence that I can witness for my self every step, from lifeless material to a living organism with no living thing to help it do so.

[Difflugia]

I'm not an extension of my mother like an arm or leg. Though human, I'm completely different being. A separate life. Not an extension.

With all due respect to you and your parents, you're wrong, at least by the definitions that you were implicitly using yourself in your prior posts. The division between two lives is arbitrary (not necessarily meaningless, but still arbitrary). There are convenient distinctions in different contexts, but if we're talking about biochemistry in the sense of "life only comes from life," then the only meaningful division is between cells. You and I are either part of one single life or we're each a collection of trillions of lives. You're welcome to try to find some other reasonable division, but I suspect that anything else will end up at least as nonsensical as you think a single, universal life is (you'll end up defining the flask of bacteria as a single organism, for example, or trying to claim that mitosis doesn't qualify as "reproduction").

Going back to the video you shared, the narrator is treating the bacteria in the meat broth as alive and I expect that you agree. The question, then, is if each individual bacterium is a separate life. If so, then when a bacterium divides, what became of the parent cell? Did its life end? At the moment of separation, the daughter cells are each a continuation of the same uninterrupted chain of chemical reactions that comprised a single individual a moment earlier. Are they each a brand-new cell that didn't exist a moment ago? Is each a new life begun at that moment or are they collectively a continuation of the same life?

To using the fire analogy again, does splitting one pile of burning sticks into two create two brand-new fires? What if you then push the two piles back together? Is that a brand-new fire that never existed? Is it the original fire? Did one of the daughter fires disappear? Or die? A sperm and ovum are just two piles of life that smooshed back together. Did the ovum consume the sperm? If so, then we're each an extension of our mothers in the most literal way possible, no matter how we describe the fate of the sperm (death? assimilation?). Every cell in your body is a direct descendant of that ovum. Is a fertilized ovum a new life? If so, it can only be so in the sense of combining two fires to create a new fire.

If mankind ever makes a new life from lifeless materials that is still something living making another life.

Of all people, I would expect a professing Christian to understand the fine distinction between "begotten" and "made."

Unless you intend your argument to be the rhetorical equivalent of your fingers in your ears, I'm pretty sure that creating life de novo from inorganic material falsifies any meaningful interpretation of "life must come from life."

Not even a single strand of DNA not even a partial strand...not even 1/1000 of a strand has ever come into existence without something living to make it.

Spontaneous Emergence of Self-Replicating Molecules Containing Nucleobases and Amino Acids

Which part of the process (formation of ribose sugars, conversion to nucleotides, polymerization) do you think can't happen spontaneously?

I will accept nothing less than physical evidence that I can witness for my self every step, from lifeless material to a living organism with no living thing to help it do so.

Of course. If one were to accept evidence in the way scientists actually present it to the scientific community, there wouldn't be any gaps left for gods to hide in. That would be quite the disaster.

[Difflugia]

Present an experiment where, without human intervention, life came from something lifeless. Or show me where in nature this happens so that I may to witness it. Don't send me theories or papers. I want hard evidence. The burden of proof is on you.

If you're going to hinge your argument on quibbling about burden of proof, keep in mind that you're the one that asserted that life's existence is itself potent evidence for theism. If you're now going to reject evidence because it's not presented in the way you'd personally prefer, then that says more about your approach to evidence than it does the state of the evidence itself.

[2timothy316]

I'm not an extension of my mother like an arm or leg. Though human, I'm completely different being. A separate life. Not an extension.

With all due respect to you and your parents, you're wrong, at least by the definitions that you were implicitly using yourself in your prior posts.

I think you're reaching now, but think as you wish. This not a debate forum.

If mankind ever makes a new life from lifeless materials that is still something living making another life.

Of all people, I would expect a professing Christian to understand the fine distinction between "begotten" and "made."

Unless you intend your argument to be the rhetorical equivalent of your fingers in your ears, I'm pretty sure that creating life de novo from inorganic material falsifies any meaningful interpretation of "life must come from life."

Not even a single strand of DNA not even a partial strand...not even 1/1000 of a strand has ever come into existence without something living to make it.

Spontaneous Emergence of Self-Replicating Molecules Containing Nucleobases and Amino Acids

Which part of the process (formation of ribose sugars, conversion to nucleotides, polymerization) do you think can't happen spontaneously?
[/quote]There was human intervention in this experiment therefore, no I do think RNA or DNA can happen spontaneously without intervention. Do you not understand what I'm looking for? This can't happen in a lab with people making it happen. It must happen in nature on its own. When you see words like "We introduced" "We added" "We mixed" "We did xyz". The "We" can't be part of the evidence. Show me it happening with out the "we".

I will accept nothing less than physical evidence that I can witness for my self every step, from lifeless material to a living organism with no living thing to help it do so.

Of course. If one were to accept evidence in the way scientists actually present it to the scientific community, there wouldn't be any gaps left for gods to hide in. That would be quite the disaster.

Accept what? That some people made something. I can accept that but that is not what I need to change my mind. I need this to happen on it's own in front of me. Not for someone to tell me, "just accept it". If that is all you need, cool, is not how I accept things.

[2timothy316]

Present an experiment where, without human intervention, life came from something lifeless. Or show me where in nature this happens so that I may to witness it. Don't send me theories or papers. I want hard evidence. The burden of proof is on you.

If you're going to hinge your argument on quibbling about burden of proof, keep in mind that you're the one that asserted that life's existence is itself potent evidence for theism.

The burden of proof is in your hands for life coming from something lifeless with no intelligent intervention. So I await it. So far it's been a lot of excuses and more 'tell' when I'm wanting show AND tell.

If you're now going to reject evidence because it's not presented in the way you'd personally prefer, then that says more about your approach to evidence than it does the state of the evidence itself.

You want me to accept that life comes from something lifeless without any intervention right? Then show exactly that. I don't know how many times I have to say that. If you can't then move on, please stop with excuses telling me what I need to accept. I'm used to watching preachers treat people in their church congregations that way. I don't build my conclusions based on what someone tells me what I need to accept.

[Kylie]

That doesn't really explain his reasoning. It just says, "Based on scientific evidence", yet it doesn't explain what that evidence is. And the abiogenesis argument is little better than an argument from incredulity.

Here is one video explaining the reason for his change of mind. There are others. Simply do a google search for Antony flew.

Again, this is just argument from incredulity. "I can't imagine how such-and-such could have come about without a God, therefore God must have done it.

As far as abiogenesis/spontaneous generation there is no evidence of that happening in nature. Experiments attempting to prove abiogensis/spontaneous generation have all failed. All experiments to prove that nothing living comes from non-living material have been proven true.
Living things only come from other living things is the science fact as the stand today. To stand behind the idea that living things come from non-living things is to accept an archaic idea set back in the 4th century BCE.

The fact that we don't know how it happened does not mean it is impossible, and you are attempting to show that science has proven a negative.

[Kylie]

At anyrate, I never found any convincing evidence from experiments of spontaneous generation or abiogenesis. Because of this, as a former atheist, had to come to terms with that and it's one of the reasons I became convinced that the start of life must have had a creator.

So, god of the gaps?

All experiments support that life doesn't come by accident from lifeless materials.

This is patently false.

Present an experiment where, without human intervention, life came from something lifeless. Or show me where in nature this happens so that I may to witness it. Don't send me theories or papers. I want hard evidence. The burden of proof is on you.

Nice cherry picking there. Difflugia's very next sentence was, "It's true that scientists haven't identified a complete history of the transition from nonlife to life, but many, many experiments support the plausibility of such a transition."

[2timothy316]

The fact that we don't know how it happened does not mean it is impossible, and you are attempting to show that science has proven a negative.

Nope, just that it hasn't proven a positive in abiogenesis. I'll keep waiting and you're free to keep giving excuses.

Yet the 'fact' that it hasn't does point that it is impossible. It's up to you to show me abiogensis happening right in front of my face. Until then, I see more evidence that live is created which there is plenty evidence of that, versus life coming by accident with no intelligent help which there is 0 evidence of that.

[2timothy316]

Nice cherry picking there. Difflugia's very next sentence was, "It's true that scientists haven't identified a complete history of the transition from nonlife to life, but many, many experiments support the plausibility of such a transition."

Proof that abiogensis happens in nature is the only cherry that is important to me. All evidence stands that it doesn't. Excuses and other noise doesn't interest me. That is the great thing about this forum, look at the title of this thread. It asks, 'what convinced former atheists' not what convinced an atheists to be atheists. Want convinced you doesn't interest me.

[Kylie]

The fact that we don't know how it happened does not mean it is impossible, and you are attempting to show that science has proven a negative.

Nope, just that it hasn't proven a positive in abiogenesis. I'll keep waiting and you're free to keep giving excuses.

Yet the 'fact' that it hasn't does point that it is impossible. It's up to you to show me abiogensis happening right in front of my face. Until then, I see more evidence that live is created which there is plenty evidence of that, versus life coming by accident with no intelligent help which there is 0 evidence of that.

Nice cherry picking there. Difflugia's very next sentence was, "It's true that scientists haven't identified a complete history of the transition from nonlife to life, but many, many experiments support the plausibility of such a transition."

Proof that abiogensis happens in nature is the only cherry that is important to me. All evidence stands that it doesn't. Excuses and other noise doesn't interest me. That is the great thing about this forum, look at the title of this thread. It asks, 'what convinced former atheists' not what convinced an atheists to be atheists. Want convinced you doesn't interest me.

So you are taking the fact that science has not explained it and you are assuming it means that science CAN'T EVER explain it.