It's a futile attempt to even try to convince me to believe a book written by men/humans as word of 'god.' I need actual, physical proof and not mythology and theories.
Well someone else pointed out that most of science is based off theories that could be proven wrong in certain situations. Like for example classical mechanics in physics doesn't apply to things that are really really massive or extremely lack mass.
I know, maybe that's why you can put me more in the agnostic camp rather than an all out atheist. Nobody knows for sure how everything came about, only theories and mythology.
this is true. One has to have a faith/belief to be an athiest that there is absolutely positively no god(s). But one can be unsure about a(n) god(s) and be an agnostic.
I think the question that religion tries to address is the "why" rather than the "how." Science has proved (or brought about theories) regarding the how things happened (big bang, evolution, etc) but it doesn't really have an answer to why. That's why i feel people are drawn to religion as a means of explanation. You also had a point about not believing the Bible. The Bible isn't meant to be taken literally (obviously the Earth was not made in 7 days), most it is metaphorical. Even Jesus uses parables to prove a point. The theories in the Bible can be viewed as parables that are open to interpretation which has led to a lot of horrible things but has also led to morality and ethics
That is a more contemporary, often modern Catholic, approach. But sadly many Christians take the Bible to be history and fact.
The whole accretion theory is somewhat confusing. You have rocky inner planets and giant gas planets and then frozen gases (and water) really far out. Yet we find these exoplanets that are gas giants really close to their suns.
I never thought of the bible as literal. It's a bunch of stories, handed down for generations by word of mouth (and embellished) and eventually canonized by a bunch of men who decided what order and what stories got in and which were left out. Often two stories were merged together, like in Genesis there's two creation stories - 6 days, 7th he rested and garden of eden. However, I do believe that some of it is based upon fact - like flood stories were about some actual flood that seemed to the people to be global, or that certain battles took place or resembled the kind of military action of the time. That sort of thing.
that makes no sense. do you mean solar radiation is the most frequent cause of mutations in the genetic code of reproductive cells? i doubt many scientists would agree with that. last i heard there is more evidence most mutations are due to copying errors.
we know how atoms and most molecules form. we know the history of elementary particles (inc electrons, quarks that make up protons) extending all the way back to a fraction of a second after the big bang. if you want to truly make it "from scratch" (meaning beyond our understanding of how things come into existence) it would be - first you make a universe via a big bang.
comparison makes no sense. people aren't compelled to atheism by the beauty of mathematics. string theory says zero about god. in fact some are actually compelled to theism by the beauty of mathematics. maybe you worded that wrong?
No, I didn't word it wrong. I was speaking to "evidence" being required for belief - in either science or religion.
So stick one of those meteorites in a test tube with an atmosphere you think is like the early earth's and let's see life!
I think we're saying similar things. I"m saying solar radiation knocks off say guanine and adenine in a few places, then those loose compounds find new spots to bond at. What are you saying happens in the copying error?
ok i sort of see but it's still not a valid comparison. scientists don't have "belief" in anything in a sense you can compare to religion. some suspect string theory might be true because there is an existing *proven pattern* of "beautiful" (symmetric, ordered, consistent) mathematical structures corresponding to what occurs in nature, but that is completely different than believing god must exist because you get emotional over a pretty sunset.
The thing is, you're denying what someone else sees as evidence. It doesn't fit my belief system, but I understand how others could see it that way. I also don't think of religious people as idiots. We have a fairly smart religious fellow here, BrianFromWA, who's a nuclear engineer/scientist type. As for "belief," I think scientists believe (they say it outright, believe!) in things that are unseen and unprovable. It's not that different than religious belief.
what if it took 100 million years and billions of steps? you expect scientists should be able to recreate that in a lab?
For certain, it didn't take bottles of pre-mixed chemicals, super computers, and gene sequencers. But yeah, I expect them to figure out the catalysts to make it happen way faster, or to skip some steps.
