Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

A review of Nicholas Spencer’s Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion

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Due May 16, 2023:

At UK Spectator:

So this is a profoundly puzzling book. Spencer knows his history of science. He recounts the set pieces of any such story – the trial of Galileo, Huxley vs Wilberforce, the Scopes monkey trial – with bravura. He has a good grasp of how science has changed over time, and he also understands that the word ‘religion’ meant very different things to Cicero, Augustine and the author of The Golden Bough. But he doesn’t seem to grasp that the pared down, purely ‘spiritual’ religion he defends has virtually nothing in common with that of Augustine, Calvin, Loyola and Newman.

What this book marks, in fact, is the quiet triumph of meta-science over faith, for faith in the Bible as history, in the great eschatological drama of redemption, has been replaced here by faith, not in a creator and redeemer God, but in the peculiar specialness of human beings. Perhaps we are special; but there’s more to religion than an insistence that, because we make our lives meaningful, the universe must have a meaning. Though Spencer finds the idea repugnant, maybe we are just peculiar machines whose functioning depends on producing, in endless succession, deepity after deepity. If there is one thing that is clear about human beings, after all, it is that we have a remark-able talent for self-deception – and what is religion but a trick we play on ourselves? – David Wootton (March 18, 2023)

Comments
James Tour on Origin-of-Life Dealbreakers April 8, 2023 On a new episode of ID the Future, distinguished synthetic organic chemist James Tour of Rice University explains why the goal of synthesizing life from non-life in conditions similar to those of the early Earth appears further away than ever. It’s not an illusion, he explains. The illusion was how close OOL researchers thought they were 50-70 years ago. They were never close, and the more we learn about how mind-bogglingly sophisticated even the simplest cells are, and how the complexity is essential for biological life, the more we realize just how far we are from constructing a plausible scenario for the mindless origin of the first life. Tour points out that even granting a great deal of intelligent design in the form of the highly skilled and interventionist work of the origin-of-life researchers in the lab, they still can’t engineer into existence all the key building blocks of a living cell. What if you handed them all the building blocks in the right proportions? They’re still nowhere near being able to intelligently design those ingredients into a living cell, Tour says. It has to do with what’s termed the interactome — that is, all the interdependent molecular interactions in a particular cell, many of which may initially appear unimportant but turn out to be crucial. https://evolutionnews.org/2023/04/james-tour-on-origin-of-life-dealbreakers/ Podcast https://idthefuture.com/1731/
bornagain77
April 8, 2023
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Uploaded 2 days ago,
The TRUTH About the Shroud of Turin w/Fr. Robert Spitzer | Chris Stefanick Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xxiR37eUt8
from the comment section,
What an absolutely totally incredible account of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ! It gave me the most calming peaceful feeling for my soul! I pray people, will watch this video to reassure their faith in our Lord Jesus to believe and know he is the Son of God! The Shroud of Turin is a gift for humanity and proof the Bible is the word from God Almighty! Thank You, Fr. Robert Spitzer, forever and ever I’m very grateful for hearing the Blessed accounting during Holy Week!
and
I couldn’t help but come to tears in the graphic description of our Savior’s wounds and suffering. What He did for us we can never repay. Thank you Jesus. I love you
Verse:
John 20:7-8 The cloth that had been around Jesus’ head was rolled up, lying separate from the linen cloths. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in. And he saw and believed.
bornagain77
April 8, 2023
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Related: The first hyper-realistic body of Christ based on the Holy Shroud is on exhibit in Spain. Gosh, he looks very white.JVL
April 7, 2023
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Good Friday at the Vatican: Papal preacher warns against relativism and ‘vortex of nihilism.’ https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254047/good-friday-at-the-vatican-papal-preacher-warns-against-relativism-and-vortex-of-nihilismrelatd
April 7, 2023
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The first hyper-realistic body of Christ based on the Holy Shroud is on exhibit in Spain. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252551/the-first-hyper-realistic-body-of-christ-based-on-the-holy-shroud-is-on-exhibit-in-spainrelatd
April 7, 2023
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Denial and fatuous comment right on schedule . . .Querius
April 7, 2023
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Seems Uncommon Descent needs some TLC.Alan Fox
April 7, 2023
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AF disingenuously tried to claim that polyglycine is to be considered a legitimate functional protein.
Poly-glycine has structural properties akin to collagen.Alan Fox
April 7, 2023
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Bornagain77,
A few small problems for AF. First, polyglycine is not consider a functional protein but is considered a ‘homopolymer’.
Ouch, that must have hurt. Ok, waiting for a troll to deny this or post something fatuous to change the subject. Thanks for the link in 159. What a great summary! I respect James Tour's scientific openness in not saying anything is impossible. Generally, ingenious people figure out ways of doing things or discovering things once thought to be impossible. -QQuerius
April 7, 2023
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Ba77 at 159, Even the writer of this article is, it appears unintentionally, naively optimistic, since he adds "... anytime soon." Does he really believe that? Or is he so caught up in prevailing Darwinian dogma to the point where he cannot exclude the possibility? In a presentation I watched, atomic-scale assembly is the goal. But, and this is my observation, even if individual atoms can be arranged in atomically precise ways, this does not mean human beings can create life this way. Computers might be created this way, at some point. One aspect of life is its connection to the quantum world. This connection is not purely mechanistic. It is a built-in connection.relatd
April 7, 2023
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Just uploaded at ENV:
Do Present Proposals on Chemical Evolutionary Mechanisms Point Toward the First Life? James M. Tour - April 7, 2023 Excerpt: Working in synthetic chemistry, building relatively simple nanomachines, has led to being sceptical of proposals for the origin of the requisite chemical building blocks necessary for life. Some biologists seem to think that there are well-understood prebiotic molecular mechanisms for the synthesis of carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, or nucleic acids. They have been grossly misinformed. Others think that, if not yet known, such chemical pathways will soon be identified. To me, these biologists are naively optimistic. What they hope for will not happen anytime soon. https://evolutionnews.org/2023/04/are-present-proposals-on-chemical-evolutionary-mechanisms-accurately-pointing-towards-the-first-life/
bornagain77
April 7, 2023
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Ba77, Without actual scientific evidence, people like Richard Dawkins propose "climbing Mount Improbable," where - somehow - life can self-upgrade and in a directional, purposeful way. But, as you've pointed out, even in a lab and even with significant manipulation, this cannot be done. Craig Venter, it is claimed, created "synthetic life." In reality, his 'minimal cell' required actual, living cell components to function. As a businessman, he hopes to hijack the machinery of the cell in order to create biological substances which can be sold. https://www.jcvi.org/research/first-minimal-synthetic-bacterial-cellrelatd
April 7, 2023
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I stated: "Tell you what AF, if you want to be taken seriously, and not be viewed as a dogmatic Darwinian troll who is impervious to reason, experimentally show us completely natural processes creating just a single protein. At least then you will have a tiny smidgeon of real-time empirical evidence supporting your atheistic materialism, and you will not be completely reliant on imaginary just-so stories as you are now." AF responded,"The simplest possible protein is poly-glycine, which is achiral." A few small problems for AF. First, polyglycine is not consider a functional protein but is considered a 'homopolymer'. As the following article explains, ",,, proteins have a defined and complex sequence that includes all 20 of the amino acids, but polyglycine is a homopolymer formed only from glycine residues."
Polyglycine (Molecular Biology) Excerpt: Polyglycine is the name given to the polyamino acid formed from glycine. Like proteins, the polyglycine polymer is formed by condensation of the amino group of one amino acid and the carboxyl group of another amino acid. On the other hand, proteins have a defined and complex sequence that includes all 20 of the amino acids, but polyglycine is a homopolymer formed only from glycine residues. http://what-when-how.com/molecular-biology/polyglycine-molecular-biology/
AF trying to pass off polyglycine as a functional protein formed by completely natural processes is disingenuous to say the very least. Secondly, and as was already shown to AF at post 135, AF's belief that achirality preceded homochirality is wrong. As Dr. Tour observed, ",, if you don’t have an enantiopure materials. Everything burns up. The chemistry generates too much heat for the cell to ever survive because you get backscattering of electrons.",,,
“People thought we didn’t have to control the handedness of the molecule, the molecular shape. The handedness (of) whether the (molecule was) left hand or right hand. (People thought) that those (handedness of molecules) evolved later on as life got more proficient. (Yet) we now know, because of work coming out of the Weissman Institute by Ron Naaman’s group, that you had to have near perfect enantiopure materials at the start of life. How that ever happened we have no idea. You can’t even get life going because if you don’t have an enantiopure materials. Everything burns up. The chemistry generates too much heat for the cell to ever survive because you get backscattering of electrons. These are spin valves. This is how nature, how natural systems, operate. So we can’t even get it going. We can’t start Evolution. So why even really discuss much about it (evolution if) we can’t even start it till we have the first cell? We can’t even make the first cell.” – James Tour – 27:30 minute mark Origin of Life: Controversial Chemist (James Tour) Shakes up Scientific Community | Problems with Primordial Soup https://youtu.be/ZugOrSD7YL4?t=1654
In other words, homochirality must be solved before life appeared, not after. AF, nor any other Darwinists, have any scientific evidence that such is possible in a prebiotic environment. So thus, when pressed for empirical evidence for a simple protein forming by completely natural processes, AF disingenuously tried to claim that polyglycine is to be considered a legitimate functional protein. And then, on top of that, AF tried to imply that achirality preceded the homochiral proteins we find in life. i.e. "Early proteins, with useful structural properties, emerged before enzymes?" AF simply has no real-time empirical evidence that such a scenario from a hypothetical prebiotic pool of achiral amino acids to homochiral functional proteins is remotely possible. Nor, as Dr. Tour explained, can life even exist until the problem of homochiral proteins is solved. (Not to mention the problem of homochiral DNA). Despite AF trying to hand-wave the homochirality problem off with unsubstantiated just-so stories, homochirality has been, and remains, a huge and vexing problem for Darwinian atheists. A huge problem that, much like the proverbial elephant in the living room, simply refuses to go away.
Dr. James Tour – (Problems with) Abiogenesis Theory – Homochirality https://youtu.be/tqbpd3CmBgE
Moreover, as Dr. Tour pointed out in his interview from 3 weeks ago, the problems for Darwinian atheists go far deeper that just trying to explain the origin of homochiral proteins (and DNA).
"There is no such thing as a simple cell every cell is is amazingly complex. This has been calculated. I've not done the calculation this was done by by biophysicists.,, They have figured this out. They give the pieces that are needed to build a simple cell. So it's a it's about 15 different pieces you would need to build for there to be a simple cellular life. Of those 15 pieces zero, ZERO, have been made by origin of Life researchers. Even in their Laboratories. Even with all their equipment. I'm not talking about under a rock or in some pool by the side of the ocean. I'm talking in the pristine Laboratories building up these molecules and making any of those 15 pieces.,,, You have to have each one of these pieces none of them, ZERO of them, have been made." - James Tour - Origin of Life: Controversial Chemist Shakes up Scientific Community | Problems with Primordial Soup https://youtu.be/ZugOrSD7YL4?t=1393
In fact, it is not just that ZERO of the 15 pieces that were calculated to be necessary for 'simple' life have ever been made in pristine laboratories, and as Dr Tour stated elsewhere, even if you were somehow able to make all of the different pieces that are required for life, still no one would have any realistic clue as to how to put all those different pieces together.
(July 2019) “We have no idea how to put this structure (a simple cell) together.,, So, not only do we not know how to make the basic components, we do not know how to build the structure even if we were given the basic components. So the gedanken (thought) experiment is this. Even if I gave you all the components. Even if I gave you all the amino acids. All the protein structures from those amino acids that you wanted. All the lipids in the purity that you wanted. The DNA. The RNA. Even in the sequence you wanted. I’ve even given you the code. And all the nucleic acids. So now I say, “Can you now assemble a cell, not in a prebiotic cesspool but in your nice laboratory?”. And the answer is a resounding NO! And if anybody claims otherwise they do not know this area (of research).” – James Tour: The Origin of Life Has Not Been Explained – 4:20 minute mark (The more we know, the worse the problem gets for materialists) https://youtu.be/r4sP1E1Jd_Y?t=255
What Dr. Tour touched upon in that preceding comment is the fact that having the correct sequential information in DNA and proteins is not nearly enough. Besides having the correct the sequential information in DNA there is also a vast amount of ‘positional information’ that must somehow be accounted for as well in order to explain life. In short, and to cut to the chase, only a vastly superior Intelligence can provided the vast amount of 'positional information' that is necessary to explain 'simple life', (i.e. 10 to the 12 bits of information), and overcome the tremendous 'thermodynamic hurdle' that prevents non-life from ever forming a 'simple' cell. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/researchers-surface-bubbles-could-have-somehow-become-earths-first-cells-hey-james-tour-will-love-this-um-not/#comment-725762bornagain77
April 7, 2023
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The point is that there is a structural aspect here. Silk, nylon, collagen, all repetitive strings of monomers via CONH bonds. Early proteins, with useful structural properties, emerged before enzymes?Alan Fox
April 6, 2023
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The simplest possible protein is poly-glycine, which is achiral. A bit long but fascinating. https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cbic.202100658Alan Fox
April 6, 2023
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AF: "My question is how the phenomenon of CISS is supposed to be an issue for biochemistry and molecular biology" It is not an issue for biochemistry and molecular biology. In fact, it is finding of biochemistry and molecular biology. But CISS, and homochirality in general, is a HUGE issue for the pseudo-science of Darwinian evolution since Darwinian evolution can't realistically explain how they came about. In fact, the sciences of biochemistry and molecular biology have no need whatsoever for the just-so stories of Darwinian evolution.
"In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, and physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all." - Marc Kirschner, founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, Boston Globe, Oct. 23, 2005 "While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superflous one.” - Adam S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, Introduction to "Evolutionary Processes" - (2000). "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case. It is difficult enough to study what is happening now. To figure out exactly what happened in evolution is even more difficult. Thus evolutionary achievements can be used as hints to suggest possible lines of research, but it is highly dangerous to trust them too much. It is all too easy to make mistaken inferences unless the process involved is already very well understood." - Francis Crick - What Mad Pursuit (1988) "Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss. In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word – "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.,,, Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology." - Philip S. Skell - (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. - Why Do We Invoke Darwin? - 2005 http://www.discovery.org/a/2816
Moreover, even your cited paper trying to solve the problem of homochirality for Darwinists is a joke as far as the real sciences of molecular biology and biochemistry are concerned, since they, via a model, and not via any real world evidence, estimated "around 300 thousand years plus or minus a couple of orders of magnitude" to reach homochirality. In other words, your cited paper is just another just-so-story in an endless series of just-so stories from Darwinists.
Atheist and Darwinian Science and Story Telling, part 1 of 9 Excerpt: (Darwinists) must deal with the fact that abiogenesis (abiotic synthesis) is not observed anywhere and is not producible in any experiments (and if it was it would be evidence of intelligent design).,,, What is their answer? They can imagine a time, long, long ago in the Earth’s past, when everything happened just so and abiogenesis was possible. What about filling the various gaps in our knowledge? They can imagine a time in the distant future when their beliefs will be proven true: in other words they think that eventually material causes will be discovered for all material effects including the universe itself.,, Herein lies the fallacies: they merely regress to an unknown past in which they can imagine thing occurring that do not occur today (what happened to uniformitarianism?) and they can project into an equally unknown future at which time we will discover that absolute materialism is true. Atheists of this sort appeal to inaccessible, unobserved, un-experimented upon, ideal and self-service concepts and replace evidence for imagination. As long as they can imagine it, it must be true: this appears to be what Richard Dawkins meant by being an intellectually fulfilled atheist. https://truefreethinker.com/atheist-and-darwinian-science-and-story-telling-part-1-of-9/
Tell you what AF, if you want to be taken seriously, and not be viewed as a dogmatic Darwinian troll who is impervious to reason, experimentally show us completely natural processes creating just a single protein. At least then you will have a tiny smidgeon of real-time empirical evidence supporting your atheistic materialism, and you will not be completely reliant on imaginary just-so stories as you are now.
Origin: Probability of a Single Protein Forming by Chance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_KEVaCyaA Mathematical Basis for Probability Calculations Used in (the film) Origin Excerpt: Putting the probabilities together means adding the exponents. The probability of getting a properly folded chain of one-handed amino acids, joined by peptide bonds, is one chance in 10^74+45+45, or one in 10^164 (Meyer, p. 212). This means that, on average, you would need to construct 10^164 chains of amino acids 150 units long to expect to find one that is useful. http://www.originthefilm.com/mathematics.php Minimal Complexity Relegates Life Origin Models To Fanciful Speculation - Nov. 2009 Excerpt: Based on the structural requirements of enzyme activity Axe emphatically argued against a global-ascent model of the function landscape in which incremental improvements of an arbitrary starting sequence "lead to a globally optimal final sequence with reasonably high probability". For a protein made from scratch in a prebiotic soup, the odds of finding such globally optimal solutions are infinitesimally small- somewhere between 1 in 10exp140 and 1 in 10exp164 for a 150 amino acid long sequence if we factor in the probabilities of forming peptide bonds and of incorporating only left handed amino acids. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/minimal-complexity-relegates-life-origin-models-to-wishful-speculation/ The Case Against a Darwinian Origin of Protein Folds - Douglas Axe - 2010 Excerpt Pg. 11: "Based on analysis of the genomes of 447 bacterial species, the projected number of different domain structures per species averages 991. Comparing this to the number of pathways by which metabolic processes are carried out, which is around 263 for E. coli, provides a rough figure of three or four new domain folds being needed, on average, for every new metabolic pathway. In order to accomplish this successfully, an evolutionary search would need to be capable of locating sequences that amount to anything from one in 10^159 to one in 10^308 possibilities, something the neo-Darwinian model falls short of by a very wide margin." https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2010.1 “We have no idea how the molecules that compose living systems could have been devised such that they would work in concert to fulfill biology’s functions.” - James Tour – considered one of the top ten leading synthetic chemists in the world - The Origin of Life: An Inside Story - March 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zQXgJ-dXM4
Verse:
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
bornagain77
April 6, 2023
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Bornagain77 @137,
This is yet another shining example of Darwinists trying to gloss over the severe challenges for naturalistic OOL scenarios. Trying to gloss over homochirality in this instance.
Yes, of course. People who are ideologically poisoned by a failed 19th-century racist theory cannot and will not acknowledge any evidence that contradicts their fundamentalist quasi-religious science fantasy. For example, in @142, Alan Fox mocks “A hypothesis of “Intelligent Design,” but just like Critical Rationalist, he cannot provide a simple definition of what he’s mocking. Also notice that in @133, Alan Fox claims “a quick glance at that Tour video.” Dr. Tour has an open challenge to anyone to explain to him how any of this science fantasy is supposed to work. He promises only to ask questions, but has no takers so far. So here’s what any of the debaters and their sock puppets here can do. Send Dr. Tour an email (on his web page, https://www.jmtour.com/) accepting his challenge. Then, they can let us know how it went. -QQuerius
April 6, 2023
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As always, the mainstream in the biological sciences are working away oblivious to UD commenters telling them their research is impossible.
Great work in generics. We await your analysis on the significance of this for Evolution. How about making your next comment an explanation of how this supports your claims for naturalized Evolution. We don’t mind waiting 6-8 months for you to get it right. We know you want to get it so all the plebes here can understand just how it works.jerry
April 6, 2023
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As always, the mainstream in the biological sciences are working away oblivious to UD commenters telling them their research is impossible. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11084-022-09632-9Alan Fox
April 6, 2023
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Alan at 144 has the audacity to still pretend that CISS, i.e homochirality, is no problem for his atheistic worldview?
My question was what does Phil regard as problematic for biomolecules and biochemistry? After all you raised the subject.
Whatever Alan, chase your own tail in a circle. ? ,,, I have MUCH better things to do today than try to be reasonable with someone who simply refuses to ever be reasonable.
No answer, then. The subject of CISS was just a distraction.Alan Fox
April 6, 2023
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We do not come from blind particles out of nowhere. Who'd a thunk it?Origenes
April 6, 2023
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Ba77, The defense of atheistic naturalism must continue regardless of claims to the contrary. The Soviet Union existed for a number of years prior to collapsing in on itself in the early 1990s. The atheist Workers' Paradise is still admired by some. Intelligent Design points to a designer - as opposed to nothing. As opposed to a mindless process that some still support. The alternative is too frightening to contemplate. God created. And since God created, and we can know this on our own, the truly terrible part is that we are responsible. What we say and do matters. Of course, Christians who fear God understand that He is just.relatd
April 6, 2023
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Alan at 144 has the audacity to still pretend that CISS, i.e homochirality, is no problem for his atheistic worldview? :) Whatever Alan, chase your own tail in a circle. :) ,,, I have MUCH better things to do today than try to be reasonable with someone who simply refuses to ever be reasonable.bornagain77
April 6, 2023
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AF: "Presuming there is such a thing as “atheistic nihilism”." There is, and the psychological, and physical, effects of atheism are bad on humans.
“I maintain that whatever else faith may be, it cannot be a delusion. The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health - preface “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – page 100 https://books.google.com/books?id=PREdCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q&f=false Can attending church really help you live longer? This study says yes – June 1, 2017 Excerpt: Specifically, the study says those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%. The Plos One journal published the “Church Attendance, Allostatic Load and Mortality in Middle Aged Adults” study May 16. “For those who did not attend church at all, they were twice as likely to die prematurely than those who did who attended church at some point over the last year,” Bruce said. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/02/can-attending-church-really-help-you-live-longer-study-says-yes/364375001/ Study: Religiously affiliated people lived “9.45 and 5.64 years longer…” July 1, 2018 Excerpt: Self-reported religious service attendance has been linked with longevity. However, previous work has largely relied on self-report data and volunteer samples. Here, mention of a religious affiliation in obituaries was analyzed as an alternative measure of religiosity. In two samples (N = 505 from Des Moines, IA, and N = 1,096 from 42 U.S. cities), the religiously affiliated lived 9.45 and 5.64 years longer, respectively, than the nonreligiously affiliated. Additionally, social integration and volunteerism partially mediated the religion–longevity relation. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/study-religiously-affiliated-people-lived-religiously-affiliated-lived-9-45-and-5-64-years-longer/ Can Religion Extend Your Life? - By Chuck Dinerstein — June 16, 2018 Excerpt: The researcher's regression analysis suggested that the effect of volunteering and participation accounted for 20% or 1 year of the impact, while religious affiliation accounted for the remaining four years or 80%. https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/06/16/can-religion-extend-your-life-13092 Harvard Researchers Have Linked Spirituality To Healthier Lives And Longer Lifespans - August 17, 2022 Excerpt: “This study represents the most rigorous and comprehensive systematic analysis of the modern-day literature regarding health and spirituality to date,” said Tracy Balboni, lead author and senior physician at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center and professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School. “Our findings indicate that attention to spirituality in serious illness and in health should be a vital part of future whole person-centered care, and the results should stimulate more national discussion and progress on how spirituality can be incorporated into this type of value-sensitive care.” https://uncommondescent.com/spirituality/at-scitech-daily-harvard-researchers-have-linked-spirituality-to-healthier-lives-and-longer-lifespans/
bornagain77
April 6, 2023
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Phil says:
...I have no earthly clue how anyone on God’s green earth could ever find ANY comfort whatsoever in the utter despair that is Atheistic Nihilism
Presuming there is such a thing as "atheistic nihilism", what would that have to do with scientific research and explanations in the realm of evolutionary biology?Alan Fox
April 6, 2023
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Alan, already addressed at 135. i.e. “Darwinists, because of their materialistic framework, don’t even have the proper theoretical framework in which to properly understand quantum biology in the first place.”
My question is how the phenomenon of CISS is supposed to be an issue for biochemistry and molecular biology. It appears to be measurable but how is the effect bad news? Be Is there some biological process that has to be revised to take account of the effect? I'm predicting no.Alan Fox
April 6, 2023
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Sri: "RNA-world has imploded. Let’s move on." Yes, true. But alas Origenes, naturalistic OOL pipe dreams are all that Darwinists have to keep them warm at night. (Although I have no earthly clue how anyone on God's green earth could ever find ANY comfort whatsoever in the utter despair that is Atheistic Nihilism).
The Despair of Atheism - KYLE BUTT, M.Div. - 2019 Excerpt: Nothing left but Despair What is left in a world where meaninglessness reigns supreme, but its human inhabitants are wired to need meaning in their lives? As Lawrence Krauss so brazenly reminds his readers and listeners: “And by the way, that’s the second of the two things I wanted to remind you of. The first is that you’re insignificant. And the second, the future is miserable.”25 French humanist, Voltaire, encapsulated this recognition of misery in his “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster,” in which he wrote: “What is the verdict of the vastest mind? Silence: the book of fate is closed to us. Man is a stranger to his own research; He knows not whence he comes, nor whither goes. Tormented atoms in a bed of mud, devoured by death, a mockery of fate.”26 So, humans are “insignificant,” “miserable,” “tormented atoms in a bed of mud.” Yet, atheism is not finished painting humanity’s sad plight with the pale colors of despair. Peter Atkins opined: “We are children of chaos, and the deep structure of change is decay. At root, there is only corruption, and the unstemmable tide of chaos. Gone is purpose; all that is left is direction. This is the bleakness we have to accept as we peer deeply and dispassionately into the heart of the Universe.”27 Albert Camus quoted Kirkegaard, who said: “If man had no eternal consciousness…what would life be but despair?” Camus then wrote: “This cry is not likely to stop the absurd man. Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable. If in order to elude the anxious question: ‘What would life be?’ one must, like the donkey, feed on the roses of illusion, then the absurd mind, rather than resigning itself to falsehood, prefers to adopt fearlessly Kierkegaard’s reply: ‘despair.’”28 Bertrand Russell bemoaned: “Brief and powerless is Man’s life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness….”29 Into this chaos of bleakness, meaninglessness, insignificance, torment, and despair, Christianity offers a hope that can anchor the soul (Hebrews 6:19) and a truth that does not need a “noble lie” to make it palatable. Christianity provides the only system that can give humanity a reason to get up in the morning and live life to the fullest. A Response to Atheism’s Despair Madalyn Murray O’Hair was the founder of the American Atheist organization. She lived a life in complete rebellion against her God. Her rabid atheism prodded her to attack the idea of God whenever she could. But her atheism could not bring her joy, only a forlorn heart of desperation. When her personal belongings were auctioned, it was discovered that on six different pages of her writings was the heartbreaking cry: “Somebody, somewhere, love me!”30 The greatest tragedy of atheism is that it strips the world of everything meaningful, including real love. Atheist Dan Barker admitted that, according to atheism, “In the end of the cosmos it’s not going to matter. You and I are like ants or rats or like pieces of broccoli, really, in the big picture…there is no value to our species…we are no different than a piece of broccoli in the cosmic sense.”31 As we have seen, according to atheism, humans are nothing more than matter in motion, “tormented atoms in a bed of mud.” Our actions will not determine where we spend eternity. And any “feeling” that one person may have for another person can only be “skin deep.” It can only be a product of the physical brain. As much as atheists try to discuss love, hope, honor, or any of the elevated human virtues, they cannot explain how such can exist in a world without God. Sadly, just like O’Hair, there is a world full of people who want someone to love them, but they refuse to recognize that there is Someone Who does. Their Creator, God, loves them so much that He came to die on the cross for them. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, gave His life to prove His love for humanity and to show humans that they are not cosmic accidents, but intentionally designed persons who have a meaning and purpose in life. And He gave His life so that those humans who choose to obey Him can live eternally in heaven. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). But God’s love has a limit. He will not force anyone to believe in Him. He loves each person enough to let us all freely choose whether or not to believe in and obey Him. And our choice will determine our eternal destiny. Moses once wrote to the Israelites: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). The failure to choose the right beliefs and actions in this life has real consequences. These are not imagined consequences that have to be endowed with meaning by subjective, arbitrary feelings. On the contrary, the consequences are objectively real. We are not ultimately like broccoli or rats. Our decisions really matter, for now and for eternity. Those who refuse to acknowledge God can have no hope for an afterlife or joy in death, only despair. Agnostic Bart Ehrman, who once claimed to be a Christian, wrote: “The fear of death gripped me for years, and there are still moments when I wake up at night in a cold sweat.”32 The Bible explains that Christ came to defeat death, and “release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:15). The only solution to the fear of death and the deep, abiding despair that stems from atheism is to seek God and His will. Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s cry, “Somebody, somewhere, love me!” echoes across the world from millions of voices who are trying to find love and hope apart from God. The irony of it all is that they have shut their ears to the voice of God, Who through His Son, calls from the cross, “I love you.” Instead of the bleak, tormented, useless, meaningless, purposeless, pitiless, miserable despair that atheism demands, let us turn our faces to the true light, hope, joy, and love that our Creator provides.33 https://apologeticspress.org/the-despair-of-atheism-5713/
bornagain77
April 6, 2023
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RNA-world has imploded. Let’s move on.
Who's us and what will you move on to? A hypothesis of "Intelligent Design"?Alan Fox
April 6, 2023
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RNA-world has imploded. Let's move on.Origenes
April 6, 2023
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Alan, already addressed at 135. i.e. "Darwinists, because of their materialistic framework, don’t even have the proper theoretical framework in which to properly understand quantum biology in the first place."bornagain77
April 6, 2023
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