Science evolving into Religion?

[Xenjin]

In Biology, there are two schools of thought which seek to rationally explain the origin of life. Evolution is based on the premise that living creatures with the genetic makeup that best survives the changing environment will continue to live on and subsequently change, eventually becoming something else - usually something superior.

Intelligent Design was born out of the premise that evolution doesn't quite explain everything. It is based on the argument that there are some biological processes that are simply irreducible when comes to the potential for evolution. Evolution fails to explain how some of the most simple biological processes came to be - like the simple machines in bacteria. There's no logical way that those machines could've evolved to such a state because there is nothing simpler than what they already are.

Evolution also fails to explain how molecules miraculously came together to form living organisms. The best explanation is that of the "atomic magnetism" of organic compounds in bodies of water. This suffers from the same logic problems in evolution theory that attempts to explain how bacteria came to be. It's as if evolution subscribers have reverse engineered nature until they get to a point where they've hit a brick wall and just invented a "magical" solution to "sweep" this problem under the carpet.

Intelligent Design simply suggests that there has to be some supernatural force at work that created the irreducible complexity in these simple machines, thus spawning the potential for evolution simply because the scientific explanation doesn't hold water. Physicists ran into a similar problem when trying to explain the causation of the big bang. Their solution was M Theory, which in its simplest context resembles very much the idea of God that monotheistic religions define him to be.

Thus, my question to the board is this:

Would you agree that it is rationally impossible to explain the origin of all things without going right back to God?

 

[Nathan H]

I disagree with this, because of the large fatal flaw in that argument, God cannot exist. God is supposedly without time and created whatever stage of the universe, but what created god. It is simply rationally impossible to explain the origins of life through any means. Using science of strongest survive, I will admit does not show why organic life started at all, but using any sort of religion defies the laws of physics. Ie Mass and Energy are constant (Except in certain situations but thats particle physics).
No one explanation can possibly explain everything, every single idea has some fatal flaw, all we can ever do is best guess, which is all science is, best guess at aplying rules and patterns to things. Something as immensly complex as organic life will probably be forever beyond the human mind to comprehend, even today in advanced medicine operations still are chances.
So in answer to the question it is rattionally impossible to explain the origin of life in general because God as a being, Entity, or collection of Gods cannot exist. All life must die for that seems to be the only meaning to it. Nothing can exists since the beginning of time because that is an impossibiliy. What man can only do is try to explain, what we can't we leave to "faith" because as a race we fear the unknown so we create beings to makes us fell as though we have a purpose and to explain things we cannot comprehend

 

[Xenjin]

What if we're wrong about all this? Fine, we know that science doesn't have all the answers. But are we as a race being too arrogant? I agree with the idea that religion was fostered out of mankind's overly conscious awareness of his own mortality. However, what if we, using structured guesswork (which is what science is, really) have effectively guessed wrong? What if even though each individual religion is a manifestation of fear, mankind is ignoring the possibility of some supernatural existence?

 

[Nathan H]

All existence is governed by certain facts, following patterns that no life form can deny. All things that have a beginning must have an end. A supernatural entity like the one that is described would have neither an end nor a beginning and thus would never exist. How can something that logically can not be create something? Although your argument has basis human beings are extremely arrogant, and while yes science is best guess, these guesses are constantly being revised and adapted. A supernatural entity is not being ignored by science, science seems to merely be placing logic first testing and analysing everything that happens has some reason behind it, some logical pattern, science is not ignoring a supernatural existance merely trying to prove and explain what happens. Science has never promised an answer to one question, nor has it given us one, "Why?" Science explains well "How" and "What" never why. If a supernatural existance existed maybe it is within this question that one can exist, the human consious can become obssessed with the "Why", creating images of Gods, Goddesses and Demons simply to fill an answer to a question no one seems to have a solution for.

 

[MadameSkylark]

You've made a fatal flaw in your original post. Evolution has nothing to do with the beginning of life. It is only a name for the process by which organisms change over time. They are not two different theories on how life came to be, because evolution has nothing to with the origin of life, and has never claimed to explain it.

No, I would not agree that it is impossible to explain the origins of life without God. God is just the easiest answer. It doesn't take much thought if every answer is "God did it."

 

[Nathan H]

With your response we have to first answer how do we define life, from single cell aemobia (*sp) or full fledged logical thought processes like the human beings. Or even down to the first self-sustaining life for like a plant. Who knows whether it was a freak accident that forced specific combinations of carbon that exploded into life as we know it today, or some other forces were at work

 

[MadameSkylark]

The first life was the first cell...pretty straight forward. Anything with cells, alive. Anything without them, not alive. Only time this is not true is in the case of something that is made up of dead cells.

 

[powerof9]

We are biological organisms, made out of organs, then tissues, then cells, then within a cell, it's organelles, then molecules, atoms, electrons/quarks/...
We keep searching for the smaller... what if there is never an end?
An infinity...
just like how 1/10 of a 1/10 size continues.
1/10 -> 1/100 -> 1/1000 -> 1/10000....

 

[xav0989]

I disagree with this, because of the large fatal flaw in that argument, God cannot exist. God is supposedly without time and created whatever stage of the universe, but what created god. It is simply rationally impossible to explain the origins of life through any means. Using science of strongest survive, I will admit does not show why organic life started at all, but using any sort of religion defies the laws of physics. Ie Mass and Energy are constant (Except in certain situations but thats particle physics).

You did here what you told was impossible, you admitted that there was a superior force that could change the "normal" rules of science. This force is God, maybe called something else in other religions. This is why I think that Science is the completion of Religion, and vice-versa.

We are biological organisms, made out of organs, then tissues, then cells, then within a cell, it's organelles, then molecules, atoms, electrons/quarks/...
We keep searching for the smaller... what if there is never an end?
An infinity...
just like how 1/10 of a 1/10 size continues.
1/10 -> 1/100 -> 1/1000 -> 1/10000....

Yes we are constituted of smaller organism, but what makes them alive, and to bring up a new question (we are getting some good philosophical questions here) what makes us know that we are thinking, like how come sometime we feel like we are watching our brain think, and command muscles to move us?

The first life was the first cell...pretty straight forward. Anything with cells, alive. Anything without them, not alive. Only time this is not true is in the case of something that is made up of dead cells.

I agree with that. It also continues on my point: scientists have been able to create in-vitro cells that are exactly like a human cell (can't remember witch) but it was missing one thing, the little spark called Life, and I believe that it's God that can provide this little spark.

 

[Nathan H]

You did here what you told was impossible, you admitted that there was a superior force that could change the "normal" rules of science. This force is God, maybe called something else in other religions. This is why I think that Science is the completion of Religion, and vice-versa.

I did not admit to a God like force, what I am sujjesting is a force we have yet to comprehend, Science is constantly evolving, from for example our understanding of matter has evolved through Atoms, to SubAtomic Particles down to Quarks. Maybe the next level will yield answers. My reference that normal rules cannot apply (Energy is constant) is taught at A-Level in the UK during particle physics. Where Mass and Energy are actually interchangable in the famour formula E=MC^2. This was predicted by eintstien and is the basis of all Fission/Fusion reactions. But out of particle physics. There will forever be something smaller and until we reach the limits of this endless cycle maybe then can a true answer be given to the meaning.

 

[MadameSkylark]

You did here what you told was impossible, you admitted that there was a superior force that could change the "normal" rules of science. This force is God, maybe called something else in other religions. This is why I think that Science is the completion of Religion, and vice-versa.

There is a huge difference between an unknown force and a God-Like force. Gravity was once an unknown force. When gravity was discovered, it "changed" the way normal science worked.

Science and Religion are mutually exclusive- One depends entirely on reason, the other entirely on faith. Science is about the truth that is, faith is about the truth you want.

agree with that. It also continues on my point: scientists have been able to create in-vitro cells
that are exactly like a human cell (can't remember witch) but it was missing one thing, the little spark called Life, and I believe that it's God that can provide this little spark.

It was not missing life. If it was a living cell, it was alive. Scientists have never sat down and created living cells from scratch. In-vitro cells are not man-made cells, they are CLONED cells. There is a huge difference. As of yet, scientists have not created human tissue from scratch. Research before speaking.

 

[allinone]

relegion is a kind pf science so relegion and science are never far away from each other..........................

 

[MadameSkylark]

Religion is nothing like a science in the slightest.

 

[drymouse]

in the last 40-50 years our undertanding of space-time has lead us to think that our universe 1) started in an instant from nothing : "the big ban" and 2)that its cyclic: "big ban - big crush - big ban - big crush - ..."
isn't that exacly what the Abrahamic (christian/muslim/etc) and budhist religions teach? xD

God cannot exist. God is supposedly without time and created whatever stage of the universe, but what created god/....

...God as a being, Entity, or collection of Gods cannot exist. All life must die for that seems to be the only meaning to it. Nothing can exists since the beginning of time because that is an impossibiliy.

not true. Time is a characteristic (a quality) of the universe therefore we can not speak about any time _before_ the creation of the universe; if anything (or anyone) created the Universe its not constrained by time, then it must exist since the beginning of time.

if anything, sciense has proven that our intuitive notion of time and space is completelly wrong; we feel time as constatly passing at the same rate but if someone is moving fast or near a body with big gravity, while he may think time keeps passing at the same rate, for us, it will look as if time is moving slowly for him, also, space curves around bodies with big gravity.

All things that have a beginning must have an end. A supernatural entity like the one that is described would have neither an end nor a beginning and thus would never exist.

by definition the Abrahamic god has the quality of _Omnipotence_ , a superior, all being, all knowing entity; creator of the universe; Time is a characteristic of the universe, he can not be constrained by his creation hence he does not need to have a beggining nor an end.

 

[truthguild]

to reiterate on MadameSkylark's point - the theory of evolution doesn't explain the origin of life for the same reason that theory of gravity doesn't explain lightning - it's something else entirely. they aren't even the same scientific discipline (evolution is biology, abiogenesis is organic chemistry).

as far as intelligent design goes, it's unscientific and isn't a theory as it makes no testable predictions, explains nothing and replaces one unknown, ie. the origin of life, with another unknown, ie. a supernatural designer.
this is an intellectual dead-end. never has human understanding of the universe been improved by attributing something we don't understand yet to the supernatural.
throwing up our hands and saying 'god/allah/the flying spaghetti monster/etc did it' everytime we encounter something in science we don't understand is worthless and gets us nowhere. it's a far superior approach to accept that we don't understand it yet and to continue investigating until we do.

 

[c00ster]

I would agree to an extent. I believe the problem with the theory of evolution is equally prevalent in the argument for creationism. We cannot fully prove the theory of evolution, but we cannot prove the existence of God either.

I find the more reasonable approach to be a combination of both. We do know that things do evolve, there is scientific evidence of that but I dont know if that is enough proof to say that we evolved from apes or anything like that. I believe that whatever we did evolve from may have also played a part in the evolution of apes, but I dont believe we were ever apes ourselves. I believe there are many paths that an organism could take in an evolutionary process, which would be necessary for an organism to adapt to different environments. Human beings for example are all of the same species, but have evolved differently to adapt to the regions they settled in. Interracial procreation is a rapid means of evolution. Genetic mixing is not the same kind of evolution, but it is a compromise between the mixed genes.

Another factor could be looked at in both pro-evolution and anti-evolution viewpoints. The appendix and tonsils and other organs could be argued that we evolved not to need them anymore because they can be removed at birth without deterring our ability to grow into healthy and normal human beings. The pro argument for evolution might say that since we dont need them to live, we have evolved not to need them. The anti-evolution argument might say that we dont need them anymore because we simply dont live in a manner in which those organs were necessary. The anti-evolution argument might point out that if we DO evolve, why do we still have organs that we dont need? Wouldnt we have evolved to not have those things anymore? I agree that we dont need our wisdom teeth anymore because we have knives to cut our food, but the evolution of an organism takes much longer than we have even had awareness of our own mortality.

I do believe in evolution, but I also believe there is a force that cannot be explained, and that is what I call God. The energy that creates and sustains all life is God. The only argument that scientists have about God is that religion has tried to define God in a way that is just not logical, or even reasonable. When people think of God, it is common to associate some sort of super-human figure to the image of God.

In summary, I believe that evolution is relatively understandable and God is everything beyond our understanding. The argument between creationism and evolution is, to me, both irrelevant and ignorant. People who boast that scientists cannot explain everything, typically have an unrealistic image of God in their head and they look silly by saying "see I told ya so" when they are incorrect as well, simply because they use an unproven explanation for everything that cant be proven YET by science.

Whenever science fails to deliver proof of theory, religious people claim they had known the answers from the beginning- so if they had known them, why havent they proved them and saved a lot of time and debate!?

 

[Xenjin]

I believe that it is somewhat ignorant to completely put away the idea that a supernatural, extra-dimensional force of nature exists. I, like c00ster would like to refer to this force of nature as "God". The Abrahamic definition of God fails because it seeks to anthropomorphise God, i.e. make God into a being that has similar emotional propensities as humans. However, at that time, Abraham had to define God as such, since those ancient men were no were near to understanding what God truly is. This is the selling point that most Atheists use to say that God doesn't exist, because the Abrahamic definition is incomplete and thus logically fallacious.

That argument is flawed in the same way that one could say that some tree doesn't exist because it is undetectable to your senses. That, is what I believe is the crux of atheistic arrogance. It assumes that the only things that can exist are things that we, using our puny minds, can necessarily logically define. By that same rational, I could say that because I can't logically define the kind of evil that would make a man rape a child, that therefore child molesters do not exist. It's rubbish. There is some point where science ends and it is unable to proceed any further (so far). But this is not a reflection of a failure in science. Rather it reflects a failure in human understanding. However, to suggest that some God doesn't exist would be the same as denying your own existence. You DO exist, therefore we MUST come from somewhere. Science can't tell us WHAT that somewhere is, but we know it's there. We can prove it's there simply because we exist.

I therefore, posit that if we exist, then we must be an effect of some cause. If every effect were to be traced back to its original cause, we would end up at some singular point in space time where all things began. This point would probably be in the zeroeth-dimension, (which might be a function of some 11th dimensional force of nature). The specific mechanics are immaterial to my point. My point is that there is some all creating force out there. We may not be able to define explicitly what that force is, but we know it's THERE. That's what science is trying to get to. It is because of the law of cause and effect (As it applies to THIS universe) why I posit that there must be some supernatural entity that is the first cause of all things. Whatever and whoever that entity is, that's what I refer to as God.

 

[Agenator]

I have to go with xenjin on this one at least in the part of God being in creation. The statment was made "God cant have been there at the beginning of time and must therefore not exist because everything is somehow created so who created God" Now lets take a look at the evolutionary theory/big bang 1.3 billion years ago a bunch of particles collided and jumbled together and randomly formed life, and the strongest won out. Couple of flaws there.
1: ITS REALLY HARD to make an airplane out of a bucket of random parts, say for instance, you put all the parts of an airplane in a large bucket, and shook the bucket. Would you ever get an airplane out of it? Of course not... So then how can we believe that very same concept except applied to life, which is much more complex than and air plane?
2: If the above statment is true, nothing can be formed out of total randomnes (which is yet to be proved by science) then think of how much "faith" people who believe in evolution/big bang/ anything having to do with earts random formation.
3: Now look at it this way: Faith in a God or Faith in Randomness why is it so hard to accept faith in a God over faith in a random pile of things being put together. Take the phrase, everything was created, that specifically states the obvious, man was created and since randomness cant create there must be someone/something that can. IE: God...
(oh and a couple of other things, my viewpoint of religion doesn't stem from fear but from a relationship with my God, I'm not going to get nitty gritty just thought I'd point that out and also if its a survival of the fittest, wouldn't fat people be dead? just something to think about....)

 

[truthguild]

I believe that it is somewhat ignorant to completely put away the idea that a supernatural, extra-dimensional force of nature exists.

we don't put away the idea. it just useless in science to use the supernatural as an explanation for what is currently not understood - a 'god of the gaps' argument.

I, like c00ster would like to refer to this force of nature as "God". The Abrahamic definition of God fails because it seeks to anthropomorphise God, i.e. make God into a being that has similar emotional propensities as humans. However, at that time, Abraham had to define God as such, since those ancient men were no were near to understanding what God truly is. This is the selling point that most Atheists use to say that God doesn't exist, because the Abrahamic definition is incomplete and thus logically fallacious.

atheists don't believe in any god or gods, nihilists posit there is no god. this is also totally irrelevant.

That argument is flawed in the same way that one could say that some tree doesn't exist because it is undetectable to your senses. That, is what I believe is the crux of atheistic arrogance. It assumes that the only things that can exist are things that we, using our puny minds, can necessarily logically define. By that same rational, I could say that because I can't logically define the kind of evil that would make a man rape a child, that therefore child molesters do not exist. It's rubbish. There is some point where science ends and it is unable to proceed any further (so far).

that isn't a reason to posit the supernatural. human knowledge and understanding is continuously expanding - through research and hard work; the supernatural has never improved our understanding of anything.

But this is not a reflection of a failure in science. Rather it reflects a failure in human understanding. However, to suggest that some God doesn't exist would be the same as denying your own existence. You DO exist, therefore we MUST come from somewhere. Science can't tell us WHAT that somewhere is, but we know it's there. We can prove it's there simply because we exist.

we know perfectly well where we came from - our parents. this can go back all the way to the origin of life. there are currently a few ideas on how life began on earth, some having fairly strong evidence, but none yet having quite enough to constitute a theory.

I therefore, posit that if we exist, then we must be an effect of some cause. If every effect were to be traced back to its original cause, we would end up at some singular point in space time where all things began.

we call this the Big Bang

This point would probably be in the zeroeth-dimension, (which might be a function of some 11th dimensional force of nature).

supporting evidence? preferably peer reviewed.

The specific mechanics are immaterial to my point. My point is that there is some all creating force out there. We may not be able to define explicitly what that force is, but we know it's THERE.

no, we know of exactly 4 forces, gravity,, the strong molecular force, the weak molecular force, and the electromagnetic force

That's what science is trying to get to. It is because of the law of cause and effect (As it applies to THIS universe) why I posit that there must be some supernatural entity that is the first cause of all things. Whatever and whoever that entity is, that's what I refer to as God.

again, evidence for that posit? esp. since we have a fairly good naturalistic explanation that has been quite successful in it's predictions.

@Aginator - who ever said random? not one peer reviewed scientific journal i have ever read regarding evolution, the big bang, or abiogenesis has ever claimed that these are random. also, fittest, when used in evolutionary context, does not refer to healthiest but rather to ability to survive in it's environment.

 

[Agenator]

healthiest but rather to ability to survive in it's environment.

bad joke on my end trying to lighten the mood, I understand that...
Also if the big bang theory/evolution/etc. isn't considered random, then waht was it considered? (as far as I know, human life forming from primordal goo is prety random, at least to me, but please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm very interested to learn all sides of this argument)