Posted on 04/21/2008 7:23:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In Ben Stein's new film "Expelled," there is a great scene where Richard Dawkins is going on about how evolution explains everything. This is part of Dawkins' grand claim, which echoes through several of his books, that evolution by itself has refuted the argument from design. The argument from design hold that the design of the universe and of life are most likely the product of an intelligent designer. Dawkins thinks that Darwin has disproven this argument.
So Stein puts to Dawkins a simple question, "How did life begin?" One would think that this is a question that could be easily answered. Dawkins, however, frankly admits that he has no idea. One might expect Dawkins to invoke evolution as the all-purpose explanation. Evolution, however, only explains transitions from one life form to another. Evolution has no explanation for how life got started in the first place. Darwin was very clear about this.
In order for evolution to take place, there had to be a living cell. The difficulty for atheists is that even this original cell is a work of labyrinthine complexity. Franklin Harold writes in The Way of the Cell that even the simplest cells are more ingeniously complicated than man's most elaborate inventions: the factory system or the computer. Moreover, Harold writes that the various components of the cell do not function like random widgets; rather, they work purposefully together, as if cooperating in a planned organized venture. Dawkins himself has described the cell as the kind of supercomputer, noting that it functions through an information system that resembles the software code.
Is it possible that living cells somehow assembled themselves from nonliving things by chance? The probabilities here are so infinitesimal that they approach zero. Moreover, the earth has been around for some 4.5 billion years and the first traces of life have already been found at some 3.5 billion years ago. This is just what we have discovered: it's quite possible that life existed on earth even earlier. What this means is that, within the scope of evolutionary time, life appeared on earth very quickly after the earth itself was formed. Is it reasonable to posit that a chance combination of atoms and molecules, under those conditions, somehow generated a living thing? Could the random collision of molecules somehow produce a computer?
It is ridiculously implausible to think so. And the absurdity was recognized more than a decade ago by Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix. Yet Crick is a committed atheist. Unwilling to consider the possibility of divine or supernatural creation, Crick suggested that maybe aliens brought life to earth from another planet. And this is precisely the suggestion that Richard Dawkins makes in his response to Ben Stein. Perhaps, he notes, life was delivered to our planet by highly-evolved aliens. Let's call this the "ET" explanation.
Stein brilliantly responds that he had no idea Richard Dawkins believes in intelligent design! And indeed Dawkins does seem to be saying that alien intelligence is responsible for life arriving on earth. What are we to make of this? Basically Dawkins is surrendering on the claim that evolution can account for the origins of life. It can't. The issue now is simply whether a natural intelligence (ET) or a supernatural intelligence (God) created life. Dawkins can't bear the supernatural explanation and so he opts for ET. But doesn't it take as much, or more, faith to believe in extraterrestrial biology majors depositing life on earth than it does to believe in a transcendent creator?
Perfectly stated
Matter has been created in high energy laboratories
“Do you think any of them changed their minds about evolution because of Dawkin’s personal sentiments about religion?”
No. I think everybody came with their mind made up, and wanted to find fuel to prop up their already determined belief system. I include myself in this description. This supports Stein’s point: people first determine their belief system, and then they search out supporting “science”. For this reason, it’s folly to pretend that science and philosophy can be separated.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Is that the way science should be approached, and is Stein film contributing to getting people to view the issues objectively or exacerbating the problem?
The aliens came from other, previous aliens, and so on, ad infinitum. Alternatively, the whole process is contained in a time loop, so eventually we will create the aliens that ultimately will create us ;)
D’Souza’s book, “What’s So Great About Christianity?” is a very good read.
Who said anything about the Bible? The question is, where did the first life come from?
The bible makes no mention of the large intestines, but we are certainly all full of cr*p...
No one should’ve been surprized as Dawkins has made no effort to keep his views hidden. Indeed his views amongst evolutionists are far from uncommon. If you watched the PBS program, “The Power Of Myth”, with the late Joseph Campbell you would hear him say, with a smile of course, that all your religious beliefs were myths constructed to explain what you didn’t understand but what he would now make clear. All religion is “feel goodism”, so to speak.
A pleasant enough fellow but in his way just as arrogant as Dawkins. Answering soft ball questions from Moyers, Campbell, the atheist, made clear that he felt his certitude trumped the “myths” that seized the religious believer.
Since ‘the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom’ no atheist has any wisdom to offer in my view.
One of the scientists, last name 'Fredkin', is into cellular automata - a form of computer whose cells' values vary according to the values of the cells around them according to a certain set of rules. One of the principal qualities of cellular automata is that the end state cannot be inferred from its initial values - you must go through each iteration to find the end state.
Fredkins' main hypothesis is that the universe is comprised of matter, energy, and information; he proposes that the universe is one vast cellular automata, created by a god as a computer to resolve some conundrum; as time passes, each sub-atomic particle reacts, according to set rules, with the particles around it, to ultimately create the flow of history we see around us (of which evolution, and the concept "evolution", are part). The ultimate answer will only be determined at the end of time.
Anyway, I thought it was a good book and that you might enjoy it...
And if they don't realize that God is LOVE, then they spend eternity suffering in Hell?
This can only happen when one submits to the Father through His holy and perfect son, Jesus Christ, who died to pay for all of one's sin thus making one acceptable in the sight of The Eternal Judge who must keep justuce.
Does that mean Ben Stein will go to Hell if he doesn't convert from Judaism to Christianity?
Or not. We still don't quite understand the nature of time.
The answer is 42. The mice had Earth built to solve that one.
Let me see, " Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image,in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
So, what person is created without intestines?
According to today’s best estimates, the universe is about 13.73 billion years old and the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old.
You don’t think an extra 9.19 billion years, in which life could have developed elsewhere in the universe, is significant?
Thanks for thinking of me but I already have the Truth. It is the Bible. Theories are a dime a dozen as Dawkins adds another. No need for me to read fiction.
No, it hasn’t. It has been changed, not created. Einstein is still right, nothing can be created or destroyed, just changed.
God, is God, He was, is, and always will be. He made time.
Gene Rodenberry!
Dinish will be debating this question this Fri. eve. at Biola U. in La Mirada , Ca. I will be there to see how he does against a professor.
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