The End of (the catholic) Church

[futurecurrents]

I'd just like to point out that the fossil record shows both the number of species and the complexity of those species decrease as we go back in time, with the earliest fossils being bacteria. Logic points toward a very simple organism like bacteria as our common ancestor.

Now perhaps one can say God made the bacteria but that seems like a last-gasp attempt to involve him in the process at all.


Lastly, there are numerous very plausible theories as to how abiogenesis occurred, and several lab experiments where the complex organic molecules needed were created under the conditions that would have occurred in the early years of earth. Scientists are getting very close to creating life in the lab.


Humans are a result of the flowering of the universe now having become self-aware.

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from trefoil:

I can honestly say I have no idea at all why jem's arguing with you about this kind of thing or why you're arguing with him.
Actually I do: you're insecure in your atheism, and he's insecure in his theism.
Both of you are raising strawmen, and appealing to authority. To say you look silly would be an understatement in the extreme.
It would take me more time than I'm willing to spend to set you both right, but really, you both should stop; neither of you are doing anything other than making spectacles of yourselves.
With that, sayonara baby. Y'all are welcome to your strawmen and your authorities, whomever they might be. Neither of you have any idea what you're talking about.
A small bit of news to both of you: it's been a real long time since the Catholic Church opposed evolution, or even tried to oppose the stuff science was finding out about the metaphysical (look it up) and the physical. Rilly.
I swear (oh my! a mortal sin! what will I ever do?) every day I spend on ET is another day I wonder where God went wrong.

"I wonder if it bothers the religious that atheists have brilliant physicists, biologists, mathematicians arguing for the atheist side, while they have, really, no one of credible intelligence."

 

[trefoil]

Quote from futurecurrents:

I'd just like to point out that the fossil record shows both the number of species and the complexity of those species decrease as we go back in time, with the earliest fossils being bacteria. Logic points toward a very simple organism like bacteria as our common ancestor.

Now perhaps one can say God made the bacteria but that seems like a last-gasp attempt to involve him in the process at all.


Lastly, there are numerous very plausible theories as to how abiogenesis occurred, and several lab experiments where the complex organic molecules needed were created under the conditions that would have occurred in the early years of earth. Scientists are getting very close to creating life in the lab.


Humans are a result of the flowering of the universe now having become self-aware.

You do realize your post assumes that time isn't also physical?
It is, you know.

 

[futurecurrents]

Quote from trefoil:

You do realize your post assumes that time isn't also physical?
It is, you know.

How does my post assume that? And so what?

 

[trefoil]

Look at the first sentence of your post.
As for the so what, why would a non-time constrained entity care about time?

 

[futurecurrents]

Quote from trefoil:

Look at the first sentence of your post.
As for the so what, why would a non-time constrained entity care about time?

OK I get it. Your "entity" is natural processes that took some 3.5 billion years to cook us up. Yes God is Nature.

 

[trefoil]

Quote from futurecurrents:

OK I get it. Your "entity" is natural processes that took some 3.5 billion years to cook us up. Yes God is Nature.

"took some 3.5 billion years" - You still care what time it is.
Get rid of the idea that time counts.
Your last sentence is a symptom of your incomprehension.

 

[futurecurrents]

Quote from trefoil:

"took some 3.5 billion years" - You still care what time it is.
Get rid of the idea that time counts.
Your last sentence is a symptom of your incomprehension.

You've lost me. Time does count.
Time is real and is needed for evolutionary processes.

 

[trefoil]

Quote from futurecurrents:

You've lost me. Time does count.
Time is real and is needed for evolutionary processes.

I didn't dispute that it's real. It's physical, a measurement of the decay of the Universe. The arrow of time always points towards greater entropy.
An eternal being would obviously not be in a state of decay. That would be a contradiction.

 

[stu]

Quote from trefoil:

I didn't dispute that it's real. It's physical, a measurement of the decay of the Universe. The arrow of time always points towards greater entropy.
An eternal being would obviously not be in a state of decay. That would be a contradiction.

Not obvious, not really.
Why would eternal + decay (ie: gradual decrease/death/whatever) be a contradiction? As a catholic you do resurrection don't you?

An actual universe that evolves from low entropy to high to low .... a cyclic universe expanding and contracting indefinitely, isn't a contradiction.
A supposed eternal being only said not to be in a state of decay, when every being is observed to be in a state of decay, certainly suggests a contradiction.