Question for my Athiest friends?

Question

1. Let us assume all creatures on Earth originated from the same common ancestor from a long evolutionary chain. My question is where did the very first life form come from at the start of the chain? How can life start from something that is not living?

2. If evolution is a continous process, why do we not find partially evolved intermediate creatures?

3. In the law of entropy in thermodynamics, systems always go from order to disorder. For example if I smash a glass it will start off with no chaos to chaos and disorder with all the broken glass particles randomly breaking and moving apart. So my question is how can we go from the big bang, an explosion of incomprehensible chaos and magnitude to the order we find the universe running in today?

4. If the rate of expansion after the Big Bang had been lower even by the ratio of one over a billion times a billion, the universe would have collapsed back in on itself, any faster the cosmic material would be dispersed long ago and there would be no question of any life, planets or any system forming. Only because it expanded at the precise rate it did do we find the universe as it is today. Is that pure coincidence?

5. As I understand from cosmologists, before the universe came into existance, there was a void of nothingness and then an infentesimally small and (nearly) infinately dense point came about (ie.The Big Bang) and exploded creating the universe we have today. So my question is how can something come from nothingess?

Answer 1

All the answers to these questions are in part speculative. But the difference between a scientific answer (*not* an "atheist" answer) and a faith-based answer is that the scientists are basing answers on actual observation and experiment, not on holy writ or "revealed truth."



1.) Where did the very first life form come from at the start of the chain?



This is particularly speculative, and depends on what you mean by "life form." Three things (among many) we can observe and measure today:

a.) Evidence of much simpler life forms in very ancient rocks (stromatolites - ancient algae mats).

b.) Simple living forms that have a much smaller set of genetic materials and much simpler means of living, like some of the extreme bacteria around hot vents in the ocean

c.) Evidence of basic organic compounds in gas clouds around distant stars, so we know that organic compounds (like amino acids, simple sugars, methane, etc) can be produced by non-organic means.



So we hypothesize that at some point in the distant past, some organic molecules developed the ability to duplicate themselves - the organic analog to crystal formation. Other molecules blindly acted as catalysts for production of proteins (organic equivalent of cloud seeds). Over time, some of these molecules associated (by mixing, chemical attraction, or ??) and became more efficient by being near each other. Things developed from there.



2.) Why do we not find partially evolved intermediate creatures?



This one is much simpler. First of all, evolution is never "partial" (as in incomplete) because the only surviving creatures are ones that are successful. Creature x evolves some variant capability eventually becoming x'. I think you are asking about "intermediate" forms, and we see loads of those. Think of the Platypus, which looks like a bird, lays eggs, but produces milk. Or think of the Cambrian fossils in all their weird and wonderful shapes during the Cambrian explosion.



3.) How can we go from the big bang, an explosion of incomprehensible chaos and magnitude to the order we find the universe running in today?



The big bang was not an explosion (like a glass breaking), but a massive expansion. That is, the level of "chaos" (in the sense of disorder) was very small and the Universe was fairly uniform.... just *very* hot and small. Studies of the cosmic microwave background are examining just how uniform and how fast expansion happened. And "chaos" or disorder is never uniform. Entropy is a statistical law that applies to a collection of particles and their order relative to each other, but it does not say anything about local areas of relative order.



4.) Only because it expanded at the precise rate it did do we find the universe as it is today. Is that pure coincidence?



Your premise is wrong on this one. As best we can tell, the universe is nowhere near the density and velocity required for it to collapse on itself. Some early cosmologists thought (for religious reasons) that the Universe had to be close to a perfect expansion/collapse balance, and tried to prove this, but it has never been so.



5.) How can something come from nothingness?



This one is an excellent question. Since the Universe at the time of the big bang was singular (that is, it was so small and so hot that our normal laws of physics did not apply), we have no evidence of what might have caused the big bang in the first place., All our evidence is from later, and is worked backwards towards a speculative beginning. Anyone who claims they know the cause of the big bang or what the Universe looked like before then is operating on faith.

Answer 2

Why are religions against evolution, it just makes me sad sometimes that people can be so stupid and ignorant that they don't even do any research about something and just say their religion says something else. I'm glad I'm a Hindu, science and religion are not enemies, you can be a religious person and you can be a scientist too. If you accept the possibility of a creator than you are not an atheist, you are an agnostic. The evolutionary chain started from primordial soups and other theories explain different things about the first life form on Earth. Evolution only takes place when it needs to, if there is no need to evolve further, than this will not happen. When the big band took place there was only gas and nebulae in the universe, over a very very very very very very very very very very very long period of time, the gas coalesced gravitationally and then formed the planets and the universe today, it took a long time for this gas to settle and cool. Everything AROUND the big bang particle was nothingness, the dense point was everything, which just expanded into what the universe is today. Your questions were fairly simple, I'm not offended, just puzzled at how people think that science and religion are against each other. For those people who say things like everyone on this Earth came from another person who was created by God and put on this Earth, God started the chain of events that lead up to the lucky formation of the Earth, the humans and animals that live on the Earth and the universe itself, it is irritating when people turn completely against the theory of evolution without thinking about it, God made science, so they are connected. I'm not insulting anyone's religion, in fact I "believe" in almost all religions, they are complicated.

Answer 3

1. Abiogenesis



2. Because groups evolve not individuals. But we do have fossil examples of animals with characteristics of both its former and later form. But evolution does not take place how you think it does, groups of animals change over time you, every group is "partially evolved"(actually no such thing as partially, its an ongoing process for most groups)



3. Only in a closed system. Locally we are not a closed system. Did you know glass can be found naturally? Overall the universe will run down but there will be local 'spikes' of energy and order.



4. Well how do you know that didn't happen? Maybe this is like the billionth attempt?



5. There was no before. It was not an explosion. We do not yet know what caused time, space and energy to start existing.



Addendum 1. Because we get tired of people asking the same old questions when the answers are out there. Its obvious you copied these from some creationist website. People get tired of creationists putting so little effort into their research but thinking their questions are some clever debunking.



Addendum 2. Do you accept the possibility of the tooth fairy or Santa being real? Why not? In any case most atheists are agnostic-atheists who do not claim to know that which is unknowable.

Also, you are obviously quite new at this. I think you will find most atheists are former Christians and generally it has been shown in studies time and again atheists know more about religion than the religious. So your statement is wrong.



Also, not knowing X does not mean we make X up. We try to find the truth, not fill it with fiction. This is called argument from ignorance, "If we dont know X therefore god." its lazy and foolish.

Answer 4

1. That's a great question, and the fact is, we don't know. That field of study is "abiogenesis," and indeed the main question in abiogenesis is, "How can life start from something that is not living?" Our best guess currently is something called the "RNA world" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis )



2. Evolution does not predict that "partially evolved" creatures should exist. In evolution theory, all creatures are "fully evolved," and their eventual descendents may or may not evolve into other (fully evolved) species. Evolution is not a "ladder of improvement"; it's a branching of species to adapt to their constantly changing environments. Regarding "intermediate" creatures; there are hundreds of examples of those in the fossil record.



3. The fact is, in thermodynamics theory, the big bang was immensely MORE ordered (had a much LOWER entropy) than today's universe. The early universe is sometimes compared to a clock which was initially in a "wound up" (ordered) state, and has been "unwinding" (growing more disordered) ever since. The real mystery in physics is why the initial universe was so ORDERED.



4. That was a great mystery in physics until the 1980's, when inflation theory was introduced. Inflation theory addresses the so called "flatness problem," which is what you're talking about, and also a few other previously mysterious observations. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)#Flatness_problem .



5. The question of HOW something can come from "nothingness" is addressed by quantum physics. Quantum theory postulates that what we normally call a "vacuum" is really a roiling, fluctuating arena of virtual particles that pop into and out of existence. This picture is an indirect consequence of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and is VERY well supported by mountains of experimental evidence. So you might say that, on the quantum level, we see "something" coming from "nothing" all the time. So the idea isn't just made up: it's entirely consistent with everything modern physics knows about the physical world. As to WHY something comes from nothing, that's a philosophical question, not addressed by science.



> "cant athiests even accept the possibility of a creator?"



Most of my atheist acquaintances DO accept the possibility of a creator. However, they just find that believers tend to offer very weak arguments to support their belief. In the minds of my atheist acquaintances, the God presented by (most) believers looks suspiciously like a human invention devised to make people feel better about scary things like death.



I think an atheist would say, such comforting beliefs are probably harmless, until they are substituted for reality by an organized, powerful group. The question of the nature of God is no longer just academic when, for example, one wishes to prevent marriage among a certain group because one's God considers it an "abomination"; or one wishes to criminalize a medical procedure based on one's religious belief about the spirit that resides in an embryo. In those cases, I think an atheist is justified in demanding that believers produce more hard evidence.

Answer 5

1. The origin of the first life is largely irrelevant to evolution per se. There are several proposed mechanisms for abiogenesis that might account for this, and we know from experiment that primordial conditions could have spontaneously given rise to all of the amino acids that currently make up carbon-based life. In the end, whether you accept science or propose that life has a magical origin, abiogenesis occurred at some point, and biological evolution followed.



2. Every single living organism is a "partially evolved intermediate creature," though I suspect most biologists would consider the phrase "partially evolved" nonsensical.



3. First of all, broken glass particles don't randomly break and move apart. They do so according to the laws of motion. With enough data and a precise application of force, you could predict exactly how many shards would be produced and where they would land. Secondly, our planet is an open system. You misunderstand entropy and thermodynamics.



4. With a sample size of a trillion universes, we would expected to find life only in those conducive to its formation. In the same way, we would expect to find a body of water with a specific shape only in a container that allows that shape. It isn't coincidence; it's inevitable.



5. Nothing about the standard model posits "nothingness," but perhaps the answer to your question can be found in quantum vacuum fluctuations.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/vacuum.html



If you're going to ask this question of atheists, then you should also ask it of yourself. The problem applies even more so to theists, because your only way out is to answer, "God did it," which is just a painfully unsatisfactory cop-out. At least quantum fluctuations are observed.



> "not so nice to see arrogance and personal insults for posing legitimate questions. Why get so defensive? Do you feel threatened?" <



No, but these sorts of insipid questions are veritable dead horses that are asked all the time. If you really don't know the answers, then clearly you haven't looked very hard. This stuff is right up there with, "If we came from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?"



> "Yes we have differences in opinion which we must agree to disagree on but cant we have a civilized dialogue without being branded "deluded" or "close minded"." <



Just climb down off your holy high horse.



> "Secondly cant athiests even accept the possibility of a creator?" <



Sure. Can you accept the possibility that there isn't one?



> "I mean, about something which you hardly know anything about, you have already declared to yourself there can be no creator and you will never beleive in one." <



I never declared anything of the sort. I don't believe in creator gods because 1) there is no evidence of such beings, and 2) they violate the metaphysical subject-object relationship. A subject, by definition, is conscious of something. Existence is irreducible.



> "There are some incredible things we do not know about yet in the universe that we could not begin to imagine, things that defy our understanding of physics.Yet we cannot just deny it completely and say it can never exist." <



Just because our understanding of reality is incomplete, that doesn't mean we have to invoke magic. Again, if you've been at this for any time at all, you should know that the "god of the gaps" appeal is fallacious.



> "So is complete rejection of a creator good logic or just arrogance and hatred of religion?" <



It is sound reasoning to demand evidence for claims and to not explain unknowns away with magic. I do think religion is a blight on humanity, but I frankly don't care if you choose to engage in worship, rituals or whatever else your invisible master/mistress allegedly demands of you through human proxies.

Answer 6

1. There is evidence showing that lipid bubbles can form naturally which could have served as the first cell membranes. Life can begin from stuff that is not living because fundamentally life is made up of non-living material, on a molecular level. There are fossilized single-celled organisms that show that life existed in this simple single-celled form for about 3 billion years, plenty of time to evolve into more complex forms.



2. Well, we do. Contrary to what your Creationist buddies might say there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of intermediate fossils. That is a straw man argument commonly used by Creationists and it is one of the weakest. Just do a search and you'll find that there are a lot.



http://wwsword.blogspot.com/2008/01/intermediate-fossils.html#!/2008/01/intermediate-fossils.html



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils



http://www.examiner.com/evolution-in-phoenix/show-me-the-transitional-fossils (you can watch a video by Richard Dawkins here)



3. The Big Bang was not an explosion. That fact renders this argument moot. As the universe progresses it becomes less ordered though and more chaotic, there is no "order" (and by order I mean intelligent design which is pure conjecture) in the universe other than the laws governing it and the "arbitrary" constants.



4. Wrong, the rate of the expansion of the universe could vary within a quite wide range and we'd still have galaxies and stars, the difference is how long they'd be around. There is no precise rate, if it expanded slightly faster than the stars and galaxies wouldn't be around for slightly longer time given these conditions and vice-versa.



5. Number 1 misconception about the Big Bang. Cosmologists do NOT know what was before the Big Bang or what is beyond the universe if there is even a "beyond" the universe. We don't know, however, the Big Bang does not propose the universe came out of nothing, the Big Bang doesn't concern itself with origins just the expansion of the universe, but there are a range of theories explaining how the universe came about from something none of which are proven yet.

Answer 7

1. There is a lot of work being done on this. We know that the Miller-Urey experiment proved that amino acids can be created with just simple chemicals and electric sparks. There is also the RNA world hypothesis which would be a stepping stone to DNA based life.



2. "Partially evolved" is a meaningless term. There is not complete state of evolution. Every animal living today is gradually evolving, never in a "finished state. For example, imagine if you could see the future and that there would be a race of people that were completely hairless, had big eyes, and six fingers, also assume that they evolved from us. Then does that make us the partially evolved intermediate creatures between apelike ancestors and futuristic super-beings?



3. See: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#thermo



4. If we lived in a universe that had properties that would not allow stars to form, we wouldn't be here to discuss it. Some scientists speculate that this means that the properties of the universe are the way they are due to some fundamental principles (e.g could pi be equal to anything other than 3.1415?). Others suggest there is a multiverse of universes each with different values for its constants of nature, and we happen to be in the one that is good enough for life to form.



5. See Lawrence Krauss' "A Universe from Nothing" lecture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo



The problem with accepting a creator is that it answers nothing. We are still left with the problem of how an omnipotent being came to exist. And if you say that God can exist without being created, then why not cut out the middle man, and just accept that the universe can exist without being created? And even if you accept that God exists and created the universe, you have absolutely no reason to claim to know his nature, or what she wants from us (if anything), if there is a heaven, or any purpose to life. Point is, for all of this we need evidence, and when it comes to the God claim, there is no credible evidence to show she exists.

Answer 8

1. There is a theory that life was seeded on earth from an asteroid impact long ago. Not a well accepted theory but then until we have evidence we can only speculate.

2. All life on earth is partially evolved, we evolve to meet changes in our environment.

3. There is a very large amount of chaos in the universe. The observable order is only a small proportion of the infinite universe. we dont know much about Black Holes, Dark matter, Dark energy etc which may or may not be chaotic.

4.No this is more than a coincidence. It had to happen in order that we would have a universe to observe. Any other outcome would mean we would not be able to have this discussion.

5.Energy and matter are interchangeable, I like to think of matter as "solid energy" it helps me get my head round the problem.



I am an atheist and cannot conceive of a godlike entity, I am sorry that we must disagree on this one point, I hope this does not close your mind to my answer, I have tried to be as neutral as possible in my reply.

Answer 9

If you have any "atheist friends" then I'm sure they would have explained to you what atheism actually means.



An athiest simply doesn't believe in any of the hundreds of gods invented by Man to explain away his ignorance and incomprehension. Being an atheist neither implies nor confers any knowledge in science or any other subject and your lack of understanding of this basic fact seems to imply you have a somewhat narrow and blinkered existence amongst a bunch of deluded religionists who know not the first thing about either atheism or science.



I have long since ceased explaining basic science to willfully ignorant religionists who remind me of the statement made by Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant Church:-

"If a man wishes to be a christian let him first tear out the eyes of his reason".



Or perhaps Prof. Carl Sagan:-

"You cannot convince a believer of anything because their belief is not based on evidence but on a deep-seated need to believe"



But here are the answers to your questions, all of which are backed not by blind obedience to Bronze Age dogma but by facts, observation and evidence:-

1. It's called Abiogenesis - look it up if you're not already covering your ears and eyes and shouting "lalalala I'm not listening" like a five-year old

2. Evolution states that every living organism is in a continual state of evolution - therefore every organism you see is an intermediate between the last generation and the next. It's only your inability to comprehend the enornous timespans involved which stops you seeing what is actually in front of your eyes

3. The universe as a whole is becoming progressively more disordered, i.e. entropy is continuing to increase. The Big Bang started with a single high energy particle - the most ordered possible state that the universe has ever been in.

4. Look up "Anthropic Effect". In a billion different "Big Bangs" over all of infinite time, the conditions may indeed have not been right to form a universe - in which case we would not be here to wonder about it

5. By definition, there was no "before" the Big Bang. The concept of "before" does not work when time does not exist. See Quantum Theory for an explanation of how a small particle such as a singularity can wink in and out of existence just as light can be both simultaneously a wave and a photon or an electron can jump from one side of the universe to the other.



EDIT: people who believe things without the support of evidence are, by definition, either deluded or close-minded or both.



"cant athiests even accept the possibility of a creator" - not accepting the possibility of a creator is what being an atheist means. Is that really so hard to understand? I have not arbitrarily declared to myself that there is no creator; I have looked for evidence and found none. As a scientist, the absence of evidence plus the entirely logical, evidence-based alternative explanations convince me that there is no such thing as a creator. It is a matter of evidence, not faith (as Mark Twain said: "Faith is believing what you know ain't true").



Under no circumstance is it ever justifiable to say "I don't understand something therefore it must be god".

Answer 10

You've gotten some pretty good answers, here's my 2-bits!



1.) I don't know where this idea came from that life first emerged as a "single" form of life, a single cell. Why would a single cell just out of the blue come together and form a primitive life? In all likelihood, there were many, many photocells that first emerged at pretty much the same time and began to metabolize. It was only at this point that evolution itself occurred and began to influence the course of new life.



"... where did the first life forms come from ...



It has been demonstrated in the lab that under very primitive conditions the building blocks of life can develop on their own under the right conditions.



"... how did life start from something that is nonliving?"



It has been demonstrated that cellular membranes will spontaneously form under certain naturally occurring conditions, see 'microspheres'. As for first life emerging from inorganic materials, see:

Chemists create artificial cell membrane

http://www.kurzweilai.net/chemists-create-artificial-cell-membrane?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=146276f1e2-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email



See: Scientists Take First Step Toward Creating 'Inorganic Life'

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110915091625.htm



Research synthetic life

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2. evolution ... partially evolved intermediate creatures?



You are thinking in a single linear path over a relatively short span of time, evolution and life doesn't work like that. Large population of animals breed and produce lots of offspring. Some survive, but many do not for various reasons. Creatures with intermediate physical alterations generally do not survive but die early or are spontaneously aborted. Those that possess such genetic phenotypic alterations can survive only if the mutation is complete enough to be functional at the time of birth, such that natural selection can test alteration against the population and against the current environment. It is all about genetic mutations and changes in the genome and phenotype at the embryonic and developmental level.



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3. question has been adequately explained.

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4. question concerning the 'fine tuning" of the Universe: There are any number of reasons for the way physics is played out in our Universe. Personally, I believe that the Universe recycles itself every few trillion years or so. If true, the question that comes to mind is, at the next new big bang origin, would the Universe possess the same initial parameters as previous one. My gut feeling is that it wouldn't as initial condition and the resulting physics would vary with each new cycle. Sometimes this Universe is right for supporting life and at other times it isn't. Short answer, there's not enough exact information to know for certain.

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5. void ... how can something come from nothing?



Einstein's theory of gravity, General Relativity, says that at some time in the past an event occurred that led to the emergence of our Universe from a singularity. General Relativity is a highly tested and highly successful field equation. There's no reason to doubt its predictions or reliability. Its prediction of a big bang origin of the Universe is backed up by a large body of observational and other tangible evidence. As far as I know, General Relativity says nothing about what was outside the singularity or what came before it, if anything. The question cannot be completely answered at this time until a more complete mathematical analysis can be had in the form of a quantum theory of gravity (a synthesis of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics). Nonetheless, there is a real possibility this synthesis can be achieved. In contrast there is no possible avenue for testing a creation myth.





Best regards

Answer 11

Let's assume that atheist is not a proper noun, and hence isn't capitalized.



Let's also assume that scientific literacy is not confined to atheists. I know a good many Catholics and UCCers (including clergy for both) who would roll their eyes at this question. I also know atheists who aren't especially scientifically literate and who just realize that your specific arguments for your deity (or any other deity) basically boil down to 'so you say'.



In any case, your questions:



1) Not precisely known. Opportunity to make an argument from ignorance declined.



2) We do. The vast majority of fossils we find are identifiably intermediate between other species.



3) Irrelevant to open systems. Irrelevant analogy by virtue of grotesque oversimplification.



4) So you say.



5) Actually, according to cosmology, the conditions of the universe prior to the first 10^-43 seconds are unknown. Opportunity to make an argument from ignorance declined. Something from nothing is consistent with Genesis, not the Big Bang Theory.



Yes, I can accept the possibility of a creator. If there is one, it's far, far grander and mysterious than anything dreamed of in any human-originated mythology though. It also begs the question of what created the creator. I also don't see any specific requirement for one, let alone actual evidence for one. Can't you accept the possibility that there isn't one? Isn't failing to do so rather arrogant? If it does exist, isn't presuming to know anything about it based upon accounts from ancient texts rather arrogant? Isn't presuming that it cares about YOU, amid all of the cosmos, and has a specific intention of how you're supposed to live, and that it wants to be worshipped rather arrogant? Isn't presuming that it wants you to act like a dishonest jerk on the internet rather arrogant?



>> Firstly, nice to see many responses, not so nice to see arrogance and personal insults for posing legitimate questions. Why get so defensive? Do you feel threatened? Yes we have differences in opinion which we must agree to disagree on but cant we have a civilized dialogue without being branded "deluded" or "close minded".



Why so prickish? If you wanted "nice" answers, you should've deflated yourself down to a less pompous and presumptuous state before asking the question. Maybe if you'd discarded the assumption that lack of belief is somehow a less legitimate position than your own belief you could've mustered some appearance of good faith.

Answer 12

1. Evolution doesn't concern itself with the beginning of life. Evolution only applies once there is life. So this question is more geared to abiogenesis people. The research there is still lacking but certainly not at a dead end. In fact, so far there is a model that can be replicated in the lab showing membranes with inheritable material. It's a good start.



2. Every living creature is a "partially evolved intermediate creature." Asking this question means that you have not grasped the full idea of evolution.



3. If a system takes in energy, it can become more ordered while the surroundings will be more disordered, overall leading to an increase in entropy. So we have concentrated areas of order in a sea of disorder.



4. I am not a physicist.



5. Well, this is a good question. Either something came from nothing, or something came from something with that something coming from somewhere and so on. I feel like the origin of the universe still yet beyond human understanding, so I'm not going to bother trying.

Answer 13

First off I am not your friend.



1. Organic molecules form easily,they are everywhere. They have detected the molecules that make up alcohol in nebular clouds light years from Earth. Carbon combines with other things easily to make up compounds that make up proteins and amino acids.



2.Evolution is a continuous process, we and all the other species that live on this planet are intermediate creatures.



3.The Earth is not a closed system it receives energy from the Sun. What you have written shows a sad misunderstanding of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. You are not the first person to post this nonsense.



4. Look up anthropic principle and see if you can understand that.



5. You do not understand anything that cosmologist have said. No cosmologist said that there was a void of nothingness. They have said that there was a singularity and that we do not know what was before it only that we have observed what came from it. No one has said that something came form nothing. You christians claim your god came from nothing. You are not the first person to post any of this.

Answer 14

1. We all came from single cell organisms

2. There are millions of single cell organisms that didn't evolve. But more complex would be sharks crocodile or colcanthe fish.

3. There is no order. That's chaos theroy states the universe is still expanding from the big bang. And more than likely new glaxies and black holes still forming.

4. You are trying to compare the big bang to a regular explosion which is obsurd. Eventually eons from the explosion will recede back as in newton law.

5. Threrotical physistis are still trying to figure that out. But won't just put the answer a godlike deity flick a switch. Cuz then I can argue where did the deity come from?

Answer 15

1. You are referring to LUCA [1]. It is unknown exactly how life began. But the scientific study of this subject (of how life arose from non-living materials), is called abiogensis [2]. The prevaling theory today is that life arose from deep-sea black smokers, and there are sound chemical and thermodynamical reasons for such thinking.



2. There is no such thing as 'partially evolved'. A fruit fly or a slug or a plant or any other organism is just as evolved as a human being. As such, your question has no meaning.



3. You describe entropy. That is the trend of the universe, but there are examples of positive-entropy in open systems; life is one.



4. Nonsense. Care to provide a reliable source to your claim?



5. It happens all the time. Virtual particles appear spontaneously from literally nothing. It seems you are not aware of quatum phenomena. The origin of the Big Bang is unknown. But it could have formed from nothing. See [3].



Any other questions?



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EDIT:



'...so is complete rejection of a creator good logic or just arrogance and hatred of religion?'



Good logic, and that is NOT an arrogant thing to say. Why? Because we can explain almost all of the important questions about life and the universe through natural means, without invoking any creators. No supernatural explantion needed. (Just read the perfectly satisfactory answers to your questions above).



So, you are the one making the positive claim - where is the evidence of God? Of course, there is none. Atheism is by default. Finally, I do not hate religion, but I do think it is absurd.

Answer 16

A living thing that assembled by accident from non living stuff does seem extremely improbable, but there are about a google places where it may have happened, so perhaps God stared as a one celled creature and evolved gradually to the present God, somewhere else in the Universe. We should not be surprised that God does not want to tell us that His ancestors were ape like creatures. The first few pages of Genesis may be how God came to be. There does seem to be a second, somewhat different creation story starting about chapter 4. Clearly science does not have all the details. The Bible clearly is not a science text book. Perhaps no one has all the details correct except God and a few extremely devoted Mormons who receive revelation from God. The rest of us are not prepared to receive the detailed explanation any more than a kindergarten child is ready for the details of quantum physics. I don't know that any of the above is reality, but I am willing to speculate while keeping an open mind. Many atheists, and religious people have minds like cement = all mixed up and set. No beginning and no end does not seem logical for God, unless he traveled in time and went back and created Himself, but time travel is likely nonsence as it violates causality. Neil

Answer 17

This question basically asks "why don't you believe in my god?". As an atheist brought up as a christian (still with christian moral code enshrined, which is a fantastic thing to have) I see religion as a need to believe in something that to be honest just isn't there. Belief in a god was a way of controlling the masses when they had nothing else to look forward to. Life was cruel, meaningless and hard, but with a god to worship, the people had a reason to continue. Surely we are better than that now, the church is a great thing, it gives much needed community spirit, but that doesn't mean some superior being had to be responsible for creating it for us. The only question we would need to ask if there was a god, is "who created god?" - surely you can't be so ignorant as to say "god did", and that is as far as that argument can possibly go.

Answer 18

This question basically asks "why don't you believe in my god?". As an atheist brought up as a christian (still with christian moral code enshrined, which is a fantastic thing to have) I see religion as a need to believe in something that to be honest just isn't there. Belief in a god was a way of controlling the masses when they had nothing else to look forward to. Life was cruel, meaningless and hard, but with a god to worship, the people had a reason to continue. Surely we are better than that now, the church is a great thing, it gives much needed community spirit, but that doesn't mean some superior being had to be responsible for creating it for us. The only question we would need to ask if there was a god, is "who created god?" - surely you can't be so ignorant as to say "god did", and that is as far as that argument can possibly go.

Answer 19

1. Evolution only explains the diversity of life, not how life formed.



2 Evidence lies in this link

http://www.livescience.com/3306-fossils-reveal-truth-darwin-theory.html



3. The big bang wasn't an explosion in the traditional sense, but more like a rapid expansion like a loaf of bread rising.

a link again that explains it better- http://paul-a-heckert.suite101.com/the-universe-and-the-big-bang-a16412



4. The big bang theory doesn't neccisarly rule out the possibility of a God.



5. No one knows, the big bang theory only proves the universe had some sort of beginning. Though it is possible e.g virtual particles.

Answer 20

hey,

you should have read the books of evolution of species in this universe......



i actually meant that , before the big bang had taken place, there was no existence of time but the second after the big bang had taken place, the time has originated and all the dust,gases,rocks etc.,etc., have come out of that huge ball so far after that bigbang there was creation of the present galaxies,solarsystems.. planets, stars etc., so due to the planetesimal hypothesis, earh and other planets have formed... after the formation of the planets, the earth took the best position from the sun for having all the requirements to the formation of life... so firstly some small organism has originated... and there was formation of different species at last it ended with dinosaurs due to some asteroid hitting our planet... so after some thousands of years earth came back in to it's normal position were different forms of life has originated till man.......

Answer 21

Atheists are just people who don't believe in any gods. We don't have to know all the answers to reject "a magic invisible being did it." This is especially true because there's no reliable evidence for God/Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Zeus, Odin, Quetzlcoatl, Vishnu, Thor, Shiva, or any of the thousands of other gods that people have worshiped.



I've done some research:



We now have a good idea about how life started from normal chemical reactions. For info about our current knowledge of abiogenesis (life from non-life), see the 6th link. For a good video, see the 7th link.



The fossil record is full of transitional species. See the 8th link. The species we see now are the result of countless transitions, and could be viewed as transitional species for what evolves in the future.



For thousands of years, people have said that their god was behind what they didn't understand -- life, lightning, stars, earthquakes, the origin of life, the world or the universe, etc. Positing a god to supposedly answer a question solves nothing. It just adds an unwarranted level of complexity and stops you from asking more questions.



It used to be that science couldn't answer the question about the origin of the universe or of the Big Bang, but that didn't mean we should make up an answer (such as a god) and say that it was the cause. Within the last few decades science has discovered some good answers.



Quantum mechanics shows that "nothing," as a philosophical concept, does not exist. There is always a quantum field with random fluctuations.



There are many well-respected physicists, such as Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Sean M. Carroll, Victor Stenger, Michio Kaku, Alan Guth, Alex Vilenkin, Robert A.J. Matthews, and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, who have created scientific models where the Big Bang and thus the entire universe could arise from nothing but a quantum vacuum fluctuation in the quantum field -- via natural processes. The Big Bang was smooth and started with very low entropy, not chaos.



In relativity, gravity is negative energy, and matter and photons are positive energy. Because negative and positive energy seem to be equal in absolute total value, our observable universe appears balanced to the sum of zero. Our universe could thus have come into existence without violating conservation of mass and energy — with the matter of the universe condensing out of the positive energy as the universe cooled, and gravity created from the negative energy. When energy condenses into matter, equal parts of matter and antimatter are created — which annihilate each other to form energy. However there is a slight imbalance to the process, which results in matter dominating over antimatter.



I know that this doesn't make sense in our Newtonian experience, but it does in the realm of quantum mechanics and relativity. As Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman wrote, "The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as she is — absurd."



"As far as I can see, such a theory [of the primeval atom] remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being… For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with God."

— Georges Lemaître, Catholic priest who first proposed what became the Big Bang Theory



For more, watch the video at the 1st link - "A Universe From Nothing" by theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, read an interview with him (at the 2nd link), get his new book (at the 3rd link), or read an excerpt from his book (at the 4th link).

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Answer 22

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Answer 23

Question for my Athiest friends?



Why are you asking only a part of the population and what does it have to do with Astronomy?





where did the very first life form come from at the start of the chain?



Earth.





How can life start from something that is not living?



Why are you asking that to Astronomers instead of asking it to BIOLOGISTS?





2. If evolution is a continous process, why do we not find partially evolved intermediate creatures?



When you boil an egg at home, at which point is the egg boiled and at which point is the egg unboiled?

(It does feel fighting an uphill battle having to answer the same questions over and over again.)





In the law of entropy in thermodynamics



Oh, the most-cited and most misunderstood and misused law of thermodynamics...

Ok, go on.





systems always go from order to disorder.



Wrong.

You can reduce the entropy of an **>>OPEN<<** system. (I said something about the Second Law being misunderstood, didn't I?...)





if I smash a glass it will start off with no chaos to chaos and disorder



You can put the pieces back, and very patiently fuse the pieces and let them cool off and after a while you have a glass which looks like what you broke before.



You do that with a lot of work and patience from your part. And that work is allowed because you've eaten enough so your muscles and viscera could work and allow you to live. And that happens because you live in a sun-warmed planet and the animals and plants you've eaten grew up under the sun with the plants doing photosynthesis to grow themselves from carbon dioxide in the air and nutrients on the ground. And the Sun gave off that light because its own weight pushed the hydrogen into being fused and thus lost that energy into space. So after the Sun exhausts its fuel some billions of years into the future, you can forget about putting pieces of glass back on; until then, you can use up energy ultimately coming from it to revert entropy of small systems with patience and care because we live in an *OPEN* system.



As I said: "misunderstood and misused law".





how can we go from the big bang, an explosion of incomprehensible chaos and magnitude to the order we find the universe running in today?



Because of high-mass particles (that can only exist in high-energy environments) that released their energy after decay. That's why you don't scoop out atoms with muons in the place of electrons, for example. The early universe actually had *LOWER* entropy than the current age and it increased with the decay of relic particles.



Did I mention "misunderstood and misused law"?...





If the rate of expansion after the Big Bang had been lower even by the ratio of one over a billion times a billion



OK, now this one seems an interesting question. Yes, go on. (And that billion times a billion is easier to handle if you write 1 in 10^18.) I'm not going to fact check that figure, I'm lazy -- sorry about that -- so for now I'll trust that you got it right.





Is that pure coincidence?



That actually is an interesting question, and it actually allows to exclude Big Bang models which produce the wrong outcome.



If you pick a few cosmology books, you'll read the authors alluding to this as the "anthropic principle", in that if it had been different then we wouldn't have been here in the first place. The fact that it happened though means that it made it possible for life to appear and intelligent (?!) life to develop and observe that.



You can throw 90 coins and they can all fall with "heads" as result on the first throw. There's no law the prohibits it; it's just very unlikely. Some people appear shocked and repulsed by it, but the Universe doesn't care about our preferences.



So can it be a coincidence? Amazingly, yes. But that also makes cosmology interesting, because you can look into the factors that might allow such coincidence to occur.





before the universe came into existance,



People don't know how the universe came into existence. Speak up, Dr. Greene! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P3iymn1yzc#t=3m07s





my question is how can something come from nothingess?



And now Dr. Krauss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo#t=32m24s

Answer 24

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Answer 25

First off, let me say that I agree with you about people getting all uppity with you. Personally, I think it's rather close-minded NOT to believe in the *possibility* of a creator. I believe evolution should be taught in school, and not creationism, because there is substantial evidence for evolution, and none for creationism. However, science (the theories, ideas, facts, etc.) has changed constantly throughout history, so I think it's stupid to deny the possibility of anything. Now, to answer your questions (to the best of my limited abilities...) :



1. Of course, we don't really know what the origins of life are. However, if you want to ask a (somewhat silly, in my opinion) question like this, you have to be willing to receive a question like this:

If life, or "being," can not start from something that is not living, as you seem to imply, then where did this proposed "god" of yours come from?



2. Why would we? Things are never "partially" evolved, as there is no end to evolution. Humans are going through the process of evolution right now. In millions of years, if we don't kill ourselves off, we'll be a different type of animal. I also predict us evolving into machines eventually.



3. Where is there proof of the universe being "orderly" today? I'd say it's just as chaotic as ever.



4. All I can say is that the universe is infinite. We, as humans, tend to think that we were given safe passage to survive and develop by some sort of god, but in reality, it would be impossible for us not to exist. Because the universe is infinite, everything that you can imagine, and everything that you cannot imagine, is happening, has happened, or will happen, somewhere in the universe. Every world, every creature, every event.



5. Again, I say *where did this "god" guy come from then?*

Answer 26

Does it matter?



Our planet is full of different species of life. As far as we know our is the only planest we positively know that life exists io our great Universe.



Each year we humans hunt,pollute, habitat destruction destroy many species that live on earth



and our military research scientists are constantly actively doing research the best way to destroy humans and everything they have created



A few of us will at least do something to save our planet but most of us wont.



This is the Fact and God, Athesim, religeon has nothing to do with it.

Answer 27

Your questions have NOTHING to do with atheism. They are questions about biology and physics. Ask biologists and physicists.



You seem to think that in order to be an atheist, one must have a complete scientific understanding of how everything in the past happened to lead up to what we have today. That is absolutely ridiculous. Science has not yet discovered everything, and that simple fact does not prove that some invisible man in the sky spoke some magical words that made everything pop into existence.

Answer 28

Answers to your questions can be easily found elsewhere with a little research. They have been well argued by great minds better than those likely to answer your question on Yahoo. Yet you and your God-fearing buddies always seem to find a way to argue against anything that doesn't fit with your magical fantasies of an all powerful super being.



So lets face it. Any answer no matter how rational or how well argued would not be accepted by you if it doesn't suit your world view. To attempt to do so would be a waste of time and would be completely pointless. One thing I have learned about God-fearing types is that they seem to be content in their ignorance. I figure it is best to let you be and allow the world to continue its climb out of the church induced dark ages in spite of the illogical ramblings of you faithful troglodytes.



Oh... By the way thanks for the 2 points.

Answer 29

basic answer go and learn science . you just asking these with out doing you research . ım not atheist ı believe in god . quick question how could a creator be created he must have a creator for that . trust me the atheist one makes more logic .

Answer 30

"You cannot convince a believer of anything because their belief is not based on evidence but on a deep-seated need to believe"



If Sagan said that, he is a tad bit delusional himself. Using rhetoric and sales tactice I can convince believers of Many things. Just because Sagan was a śhîtty closer doesn't mean the rest of the world is.



Persuasion is a SKILL.

Answer 31

Well, i do believe in god, but i have also studied and learnt about astronomy and other sciences, i've learnt to believe that not all of the bible is true and i believe in evolution, but learning about astronomy, physics and geology hasn't took my belief in god away, so i'm kind of in the middle, believing in both god and science.



I respect other peoples decisions to not believe in god, because i have no right to force them to believe in god, as they are there own person.



I think a lot of people who answered your question were very arrogant and ignorant, the people how are calling you closed minded are actually very closed minded themselves, simply insulting you because you believe in god and that you are asking some ordinary questions.

If they weren't closed minded then they would answer the questions without insulting you and disrespecting your belief.



One day i hope that people will realise that they can't control what other people think and believe, on both sides religious and atheist.



I know that i haven't answered your questions as i don't know the answers to some of them, but i just wanted to give my view on some of the answers that i saw on your question today.

Answer 32

The Big Bang was not an explosion, it was an expansion.

Answer 33

Amen enough said from me

Answer 34

Your "science" is to flawed to correct please learn and understand science, then (if you still disagree) look at the evidence, then question it

Answer 35

Gravity is also a theory but you don't seem to be jumping off buildings!

Answer 36

Too lazy to read everything -_-

Answer 37

Us athiests don't usually hang out with people with closed minds like yourself. I bet you don't have a single "athiest friend," except maybe an "imaginary friend."

Answer 38

you won't get any satisfying answers.

1. no one was there, guesses are lightening, chemical blind action or chance molecular activity

2. there are none, all life forms are complete as they were created

3. no one was there, but God was and He set things in motion

4. no, Intelligent Design in action

5. it can't---except some theories