@pettytalk saidYes, sperm meets egg.
Do you have an explanation on how your own life began? We know and understand the biological process as to why you are among the living at this time, the meeting of sperm and egg.
@pettytalk saidThe processes in play in biology, can these spring up (naturally) if what we see occurring does not happen in nature? Denying nature while claiming a natural answer is entirely what is going on.
Do you have an explanation on how your own life began? We know and understand the biological process as to why you are among the living at this time, the meeting of sperm and egg. The old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, is basically asking what came first, the sperm or the egg?
It's really a fundamental and natural question. Using the Biblical acc ...[text shortened]... of life, using non-living matter, the dust of the earth, is relating to us the abiogenesis process.
Entropy with degradation is the natural way systems go, so even in the face of that it’s acceptable to some. So if we are going to call something a natural explanation shouldn’t be what we actually see in nature?
We see a genetic code that we can read, that is something we know minds can do, read and write. What is not seen is a mindless process producing readability and executables instructions! We see what we know thought and foresight produce which are functional specifications are things we see, naturally minds do this!
Information processing in life is no different than computers, the medium is different but the information processing rules are the same. Information processing doesn’t add new information, it only processes what is given, my example is if we put in automotive engineering information in we will only get automotive output not how to plant trees.
That however is how evolution is described instead of processing what is there through random chance and necessities through chemical reactions new features and forms appear, what is being described has more in common with miracles than nature.
The natural world is something that [most] everyone agrees exists.
The supernatural world is disputed; many don't believe it exists. [I do not even think it is a coherent concept.]
It is hard for a supernatural skeptic to even consider hypothetical arguments in this domain, because there are no established rules as to how it might work.
You might as well start a thread complaining about explanations that are biased towards dimensions 1 through 4 [3 space and 1 time], and assert that all the real action takes place in the upper dimensions.
But, we haven't yet proved those upper dimensions exist, the skeptics would say.
Then OP would say, Careful, your bias is showing!!
@divegeester saidTelling anyone that God did it is not an explanation. An explanation must be less mysterious than what it explains, otherwise it doesn't explain. God is more so.
Telling non Christians that “god did it” is not an “explanation”.
"God did it" is merely a terminus which cuts off the alternative answer "it's turtles all the way down."
@divegeester saidWe know what caused it. Your birth was caused most likely by a natural one, from a man and a woman having sex. But I was after a waffle in order to explain why it was caused.
Yes, sperm meets egg.
Was it caused accidentally, or intentionally caused? We are all subject to biological processes, but we all ask if it was planned parenthood? In the Bible we gather and glean that God created us out of love, which is the why we were created. Science gives us the why as being unplanned, and therefore accidental.
Was the birth of the universe accidental? And one may ask the same on an individual case.
Now, here I'm just waffling, as requested by you.
It would make an interesting poll here in reference to why, since we already know, as you say: " Yes, sperm meets egg."
1. Perforated condom.
2. Not wearing one.
3. Late exit.
4. Unplanned pregnancy.
5. All of the above.
@pettytalk saidGood to know you’re on form 👍🏼
Now, here I'm just waffling, as requested by you.
@bigdogg said1. We agree we exist.
The natural world is something that [most] everyone agrees exists.
The supernatural world is disputed; many don't believe it exists. [I do not even think it is a coherent concept.]
It is hard for a supernatural skeptic to even consider hypothetical arguments in this domain, because there are no established rules as to how it might work.
You might as well start a thre ...[text shortened]... pper dimensions exist, the skeptics would say.
Then OP would say, Careful, your bias is showing!!
2. We (humans) are, as far as we know, at the top of the food chain.
3. Whether created, or evolved, we know we exist.
Either way, it seems, we have the capacity to know which is true or not. I'm speculating on that point.
If created, it would seem logical that the creator would have endowed us with the knowledge of his existence.
If evolved, then no such endowment exists, except perhaps the ability to be self deceived, which means evolution has played us for fools.
@josephw saidWe are bewitched by our own words and thinking. We discover a few small truths, get over confident, start making careless truth claims, then have to walk it back later.
1. We agree we exist.
2. We (humans) are, as far as we know, at the top of the food chain.
3. Whether created, or evolved, we know we exist.
Either way, it seems, we have the capacity to know which is true or not. I'm speculating on that point.
If created, it would seem logical that the creator would have endowed us with the knowledge of his existence.
If evolved, ...[text shortened]... ists, except perhaps the ability to be self deceived, which means evolution has played us for fools.
Learning about how things really work is a slow process for us. The more we discover, the more we find out how much more there is to learn.
@bigdogg saidWe may agree the natural world exists, but define it for me!! What makes something natural so we can call it natural?
The natural world is something that [most] everyone agrees exists.
The supernatural world is disputed; many don't believe it exists. [I do not even think it is a coherent concept.]
It is hard for a supernatural skeptic to even consider hypothetical arguments in this domain, because there are no established rules as to how it might work.
You might as well start a thre ...[text shortened]... pper dimensions exist, the skeptics would say.
Then OP would say, Careful, your bias is showing!!
If as I said what you and others here are calling evolution a normal natural occurrence in the universe. It doesn't seem to bother you that this has life turning into a more complex lifeform, and the process of accomplishing it must run counter to what we normally see take place in life, and you still want to call that natural,
The natural way things work is that things wind down, degrade, get soiled, and polluted over time instead of becoming more specialized, and functionally complex, making a mindless process of evolution a miracle instead of a natural process. Now we can see mind-direct processing, we can see minds writing code that can be read and can direct processes that would be the natural explanation, not what you have been calling natural.
If you believe evolution is natural, then what is natural has more to do with an atheist narrative than it isn't a universal natural process, it is normal to an ideological process.
@josephw saidOnce upon a time, we were terrified by storms, plagues, earthquakes, eclipses, epilepsy, birth defects, famines, floods; we had no idea how these things come about, and people fabricated 'narratives' to try to make sense of them. Our primitive ancestors attributed such disasters to God's wrath. In every case we have examined so far, there is has been no evidence of divine intervention, not in plagues, not in earthquakes, not in eclipses, not in floods, not in birth defects, nor in famines. There is therefore no good reason to hide under 'God did it' for any other naturally occurring phenomenon, until we are quite certain that we have exhausted every possible avenue of scientific enquiry and naturalistic cause. We are very far from needing recourse to 'God did it' to explain how life got started; bio-chemistry has already identified the 20 or so chemicals necessary to what we are pleased to call 'life', and there is no reason to think that anything super-natural must still be added to make the bundle 'gel'.
1. We agree we exist.
2. We (humans) are, as far as we know, at the top of the food chain.
3. Whether created, or evolved, we know we exist.
Either way, it seems, we have the capacity to know which is true or not. I'm speculating on that point.
If created, it would seem logical that the creator would have endowed us with the knowledge of his existence.
If evolved, ...[text shortened]... ists, except perhaps the ability to be self deceived, which means evolution has played us for fools.
@moonbus saidBut pushing a theory that is not a naturally occurring phenomenon but one that goes against what naturally occurs, how is it then called a natural solution? You can dismiss gods of the gaps to dismiss the gods that people made up to explain natural occurrences as if that must be true of God as well. So now what is being pushed is not only Abiogenisis of the gaps, but also Evolution of the gaps since there is not only no account for how evolution started nor can you show it being something anyone can point to in it, that has any natural processes with explanatory properties, for anything new ever showing up that requires alterations in the genetic code to build functions and forms.
Once upon a time, we were terrified by storms, plagues, earthquakes, eclipses, epilepsy, birth defects, famines, floods; we had no idea how these things come about, and people fabricated 'narratives' to try to make sense of them. Our primitive ancestors attributed such disasters to God's wrath. In every case we have examined so far, there is has been no evidence of divine int ...[text shortened]... here is no reason to think that anything super-natural must still be added to make the bundle 'gel'.
So you are inserting miracles with evolutionary change to avoid God who does miracles.
@moonbus saidWould you not agree that once upon a time the MIND has played an important key role in the overcoming of the terror from those previously unexplained causes? Can anyone hold mind (consciousness) in their hands?
Once upon a time, we were terrified by storms, plagues, earthquakes, eclipses, epilepsy, birth defects, famines, floods; we had no idea how these things come about, and people fabricated 'narratives' to try to make sense of them. Our primitive ancestors attributed such disasters to God's wrath. In every case we have examined so far, there is has been no evidence of divine int ...[text shortened]... here is no reason to think that anything super-natural must still be added to make the bundle 'gel'.
You say this: "We are very far from needing recourse to 'God did it' to explain how life got started; bio-chemistry has already identified the 20 or so chemicals necessary to what we are pleased to call 'life',...."
Would it not be reasonable to still assume the possibility that God did it, until we can actually create life from those 20 or so chemicals science believes to be the prerequisite ingredients for the creation of life? The creation of actual natural life, as understood in the context of evolution and natural processes.
@pettytalk saidThe most reasonable course is not to assume anyone did anything. Follow the evidence and try to figure out the process that occurred.
Would you not agree that once upon a time the MIND has played an important key role in the overcoming of the terror from those previously unexplained causes? Can anyone hold mind (consciousness) in their hands?
You say this: "We are very far from needing recourse to 'God did it' to explain how life got started; bio-chemistry has already identified the 20 or so chemical ...[text shortened]... od in the context of evolution and natural processes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIcqfdL7atc
Even if it turns out that there WAS a creator, the question that most interests me and many other scientifically minded people is HOW the process went, and how it works.