Defending TJump's statements about Abiogenesis; as seen at r/Catholicism Subreddit

 https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/10gzfcd/does_abiogenesis_disprove_god/

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Posted byu/[deleted]4 months ago

Does abiogenesis disprove God?

Someone on a video states this:

The only process we know of in which

organisms multiply and change is

through natural means.


Who(ever) disagrees with this has to

provide an alternative solution, which

of course doesn’t exist.

The video also goes into depth how

how since abiogenesis explains

more, it’s the better alternative.

Video: TJump

Can someone help refute this?

My answer:
--
 TJump is correct.

Abiogenesis is a scientific explanation.

No alternative scientific theories exist.

Whereas, "God did it" is the same as saying "Invisible Magic Man In Sky did it".

Abiogenesis attempts to figure out the physical/chemical processes which led up to the simplest biological organisms.

Now, saying one explanation is better than the other ... is a matter of utility.

--

Many people prefer the simplest possible explanations for things.

 They may find that more "useful" because they either can't understand a more complex answer, or because they don't want to worry about a more complex answer.

 Others may prefer the sense of comfort they get, from any possible reassurances that Magic Dad is up there somewhere ... watching over everything, and assuring a brighter tomorrow.

 And yes, that does mean that "Magic Man did magic" has greater utility ... for them.

--

Tjump has different interests.

 He more greatly values the utility of scientific inquiry and resulting explanations.

He would rather know how things really work. So this has greater utility ... for him.

It's up to every person to decide which types of answers have greater utility for them personally.

And as some people have mentioned, you don't really have to pick between these two types of answers.

You can have both.

You can have both "Magic Man did Magic" and then add:
"but only to start the whole thing off. And then the rest has been the dominoes of physics that Magic Man set up to stand and fall ... however they do."

However, let's be clear about what you're getting (or keeping) yourself into, when you go the Magic Man route.

If you do that as a freelance Magic Man fan, ... you'll be ok.

Deists go that route, without any ill effects.

Pantheism is also a good option.
 However, pantheism is really just sexed-up atheism.

In a fuzzy space between Deism and Pantheism: Stoicism.
Some people find greater utility in that.

But if you rely on religious books to define Magic Man In Sky for you, with their laughable claims of being his authorized biographers, ...

 you'll be granting other fallible humans ~undue access~ to jack around with your headspace and every meaningful facet of our life.

---
As for the origins of our universe...

Nobody (really; nobody) knows anything about our universe prior to first moments of rapid expansion.

We don't know what started that event.

We don't know about the laws of physics prior to that event.

We don't know if ours was the first universe.

We don't know if ours is the only universe. Although, we have good reason to doubt it.

We don't know anything about time, space, or energy before then.

We don't know that was the absolute beginning of everything that physically exists.

As Sean Carrol and Alan Guth explained to the comically uninformed Dr William Lane Craig, ...

The physics paper(s) he cited which mention "the beginning of the Universe" are only talking about the beginning of "classical descriptions of the/our universe".



It's like describing any kind of event.

The beginning OF an event ... is not necessarily the beginning of everything in existence.
---
Meanwhile,
the "Kalam" argument also requires the assumption that that A-Theory of time is true; 
despite the B-Theory of time being the far better and accepted theory of time. 

---
As for Bible-story authors getting any of it right, ...those writers were absolutely clueless.

They thought the Earth was a bumpy chunk of rock floating in something like a snow-globe.

Our sky, they thought, was a solid dome (the Firmament).

The Sun, moon, and stars were pretty small. They were all inside of our sky-dome.

Outer space was a massive ocean.

The rain poured in through windows in the dome.

The "heavens" that their deity stretched out ... was created with a giant hammer, in the hands of their physical deity.




[See "God; An Anatomy" by Dr francesca stavrakopoulou] <---- link 

Translators got a lot of it wrong.

To make matters worse, modern readers don't even understand what they're reading.

Even the phrase "In the beginning" was mistranslated.
 But it had nothing to do with the absolute beginning of all time, space, energy, or matter.

It was just meaning "When our (preferred) god started creating our heavens (sky) and our earth (ground)". 

In conclusion, ...