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http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html

Not published or verified yet, but some interesting ideas that might shed light on how life on earth might have started - and also shows how life could develop on other planets.

Oooh, exciting stuff.  Poses a big ethical question though.  Should we be allowed to create life from something not living?  Sounds a bit God-like to me.  For the purposes of understanding how life on Earth started, or indeed on other planets, it would be a valueable tool, but not sure I'd like us creating sentient life (not that we are anywhere near that yet) willynilly all over the place.     

It's Life Jim, but not as we know it

Sea Monkeys FTW!!

I don't think there is an ethical problem here at all. This is more like a chemistry experiment than a biological one. There is certainly no possibilty of getting within 2 billion years of anything self-aware in these experiments. Where the first self-replicating molecules came from is a question with many possible answers at the moment, and possibly one that will never be convincingly answered. What happened from there to where we are now is most definitely answered (unless you're one of those strange people who thinks the universe is 6000 years old, obv.). Actually trying to explain where these first molecules came from is something that is definitely worth investigating and testing.
It's quite difficult to even define "living" when you have such basic stuff as this. Just saying something replicates doesn't even cover it - I can grow a sugar crystal in a sugar solution and it's effectively replicating itself, but I doubt you'd call the sugar crystals you put in your tea living. Ditto for viruses even - the line between living and non living is sometimes drawn beyond them, and most viruses are more complex than the stuff they're playing about with here.
It's interesting stuff for sure.

Just for the sake of discussion,

what's wrong with us ( mankind ) acting god-like ?

We rule over the planet as the omnipotent race, destroying life any time we feel it's politically a good thing.  If we can act like god, the question that springs to my mind is, did some huge incomprehendable being out there create our universe in a cosmic petri dish all those years ago ?

Does the advancement of science destroy the idea of God the creator, or does it enhance it ?

Just because something can be designed, it doesn't then mean that the universe was designed.  If it was who created the creator?  Inserting a god doesn't answer the question, it merely shifts the goal posts.

Oh and acting god-like, we do that when we go to war and try to wipe out other nations/cultures/tribes.


(Source: The bible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah).)

Surely this would be acting anti-God like.

Believers have always said that God created man, not killed him. So God-like would be creating man no?

Unusual to hear you say "when we" go to war and try to wipe out other nations etc. Who is this "we?"

I've been to war and I can assure you my intention was not to wipe out other nations etc and I don't believe it was my country's intentions either.

As usual, I may have missed something here.

Geo

I've had people who believe in science tell me that science has proved that god doesn't exist.  I don't know one way or the other.  But I find it strange that people who have seen how science has improved our knowledge over such a short time, can be so emphatic about it. 

If there wasn't a creator how did the very first titchy doobreewhatsit appear ? Answer - because it's always been there.  To me that's every bit as inconclusive as there being a deity around putting it there in the first place.

Something has had to be around at the beginning of it all.  I like to think it's 50/50 whether it was god or dust.

( I try not to take this toooo seriously, because I've found that some people get quite offensive about their beliefs ( scientific or religious ), but I like to keep the idea open that doubt is about the only thing we should be absolutely definate about )

So if something is complex (the universe) then it must be 'created' or designed? 

Therefore you've inserted god. 

God is complex, then it/he/she must be created or designed?

Rinse and repeat.


I don't have the answer (no one does).  But god doesn't answer the question.

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

There's a story of god killing people.

 :goodpost:

Something I couldn't argue one way or the other.  There's no way I'm man enough to potentially fight to the death about my beliefs.

Geo - I wasn't talking about soldiers in my post about 'wiping out other nations'.  I'm talking about the politicians and rulers who want riches, land, power - and are happy to wipe out whole populations for their needs.  I was talking about the genocide we've seen in Rwanda, Germany, Bosnia, Cambodia, etc. 

I wasn't about the hard-working, heroic soldiers who risk their lives carrying out duties that I could never do.  I only have respect for what you do.
 

Like I say, I'm not trying to offend or convert anyone.  I'm not saying there is a god. 

But what I have never understood is how some people that believe in science can say categorically that there isn't .

I'd have thought that with increased knowledge there must be more openmindedness ( ? ) about any ridiculous answer as being potentially the right one.

No proper scientist would ever say that there is 100% no god. Even Richard Dawkins would agree with me there. You can't prove a negative. You can't prove there is no teapot in orbit somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn, but I would say the chance of there not being one is 99.99999999999999999%, or thereabouts :). Of course this example of scientific reasoning is then taken totally out of context by people with other agendas. Sigh.

Oh and Flood of Noah >>>>> Sodom & Gomorrah from a "God can be destructive" perspective... :)

I never said there isn't a god.  I just don't see why there should be or ANY evidence that there is one.

I'm not being closed-minded, exactly the opposite.  Show me a reason to think there is a god and I'll acknowledge there is a god.  Until then, I'll continue to go on thinking there isn't.

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

"no proper scientist would say 100% there isn't a god"

"i never said there isn't a god"

[ ] Haven't seen threads this this before

let me paraphrase the usual way in which the next 8 pages develop and then you can all go about your poker playing for the day:

"yeah but there probably is a god and that"

"yeah well why are people dying and stuff"?

"look in the bible and that, life ain't fair"

"yeah well look at this example from the bible that contradicts your point"

"yeah well look at this one that has no relevance"

"yeah well Scotland is crap"

"yeah well so is England"

GG thread

This site will piss you off.

www.proofthatgodexists.org

Hehe.

This sentence is false.

God mentions somewhere in his autobiography that he can't exist without faith, and faith can't exist alongside categorical proof.
See the Douglas Adams bit where God accidentally proves himself by creating the Babelfish, and in so doing, ceases to exist.

Anyway, if it turned out that Christian kids never got cancer, it wouldn't take long before people sussed this out. Religion would no longer become a choice, you have to go to church or your kids might die. No true faith exists anymore.

Anyway, my point is, I'm fed up off this nonsense that some Christians spout about disability and cancer and stuff being some sort of divine punishment for crimes commited against God 5 or 6 generations ago.

Why is there dying and shit, because there is.
Why doesn't god help, because taking sides would prove his existence.

Brings about another good question, what does God actually do?
Stephen Merchant suggests that he plays Sudoku. I think that's as good a guess as any.

Maybe he reads internet forums.

yeah but then God would know that you were just respecting him so that your kids didnt get cancer and not because he created the universe and stuff and i cant see him falling for that.

I kneel beside my bed every night and start dissing God. He can't do shit.

I'm not joking about this anymore, i can imagine at the pearly gates:

Bolt: "what fucking thread"?

Saint Peter or whoever: "Blondepoker, september 2008, it's all here"

Bolt: "ohhhhh, this is bollox man, i was fucking about"

sp: "that's not what god thinks"

Bolt: "can i talk to him then"?

sp: "whats your ticket number"?

Bolt: "2,4456,4333455,4445667"

sp: "then no"

Bolt: "what about if i get a doctors note"?

sp: "about what"

Bolt: "that i'm mentally ill and that"

sp: "your gonna need a case worker and it takes a while to get to the review stage"

Bolt: "what about when i went on that charity mission to south America to save kids and that"?

sp: "we havnt got that file yet"

bloke behind me in line: "can you hurry up please, ive got three wives in there and i want to get to the fit one before the other two clock me"

Bolt: "stop fucking trying to push in bruv, let me sort my shit out then you'll get your turn or it's all gonna kick off alright"!

sp: "Security"

Bolt: "that's how it is yeah? wait till some my pals die, im coming back and it's going off!! you dont even know who your fucking with"!!!
 
sp: "yeah yeah big man, see you then"

*gets dragged off by angel security*

 ;applause; ;applause; ;applause;

I've read about the second coming.  I thought it meant something totally different . 

But that in itself is a closed statement isn't it.  ?

Paraphrasing, you're saying ''I never said there isn't a god. But I continue to think there isn't one''.

Open minded would surely be something along the lines of

''I see absolutely no indication that a god exsists, although there is no positive proof that he doesn't, so it has to remain a doubtful posibility, at best''.

What little I've read of Dawkins implies that while he acknowledges a possibility of god, he puts it down to something like a 0.000001 % probability.   What I don't understand is what bits of science can give one that sort of confidence.

I'm not talking about religion or the bible, or anything specific.  I'm talking about that initial pre split second moment.  There was something there.  And that something did something.  Did it do it on it's own, or did something make it do it. 

I see it as a 50 / 50 possibility.  What swings it so it's 99.999 % one way ?

What's a 50/50 possibility? 

Do you believe in the invisible pink unicorn?  Or are you 50/50 on that as well?

Which invisible pink unicorn ?

Bob, or Mable ?

Coz, obviously Bob doesn't exist.  He's just a figment of Mable's imagination.

Them fools believing in Science, madmen!

Great thread. The answer is 42 btw.

Completely agree with this.  I'm not closed off to the possibility that there is a god, I just won't believe it until I see it.  Science has never proved that there isn't a god, and there are possibilities where the existence of a god and the big bang theory could go hand in hand.  But yet science has never proved that there is a god either.  Aliens on the other hand I do believe in, even though I have never seen one, purely because I think it's very arrogant of us to assume that we are the only sentient living beings in the entire universe.


Yes I know that we are nowhere near being able to create sentient life yet, and tbh I don't have a problem with us creating life unless we start using it for our own gain.  It's like this issue of "designer babies".  If we are to create life for the sake of creating life then go for it.  For example I don't have a problem with IVF etc.  But if we are creating life for a particular purpose then that to me is unacceptable.  And as some have said on the Hadron Collider thread, wherever there are humans, there will be humans willing to exploit stuff like this for their own gain.