Posted on 04/07/2008 2:25:19 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
“If DNA is the language of God then his words are made up of amino acids.”
So where did amino acids come from FRiend?
Good question. I’d suggest reading his book to find out more about his reasoning and see if that answers your question.
The author of “Mere Christianity” started out with views that appear similar to yours. So that book also might be interesting to you as the author, C.S. Lewis, offers an answer to questions such as yours.
Amino acids can and do form spontaneously. It is however, only when they are put together in sequence (DNA codes for an amino acid sequence) and properly folded in the correct 3-D structure that they perform enzymatic or other functions.
It’s not just “intelligent” design, there is a moral component to the design of the universe, including the design of human beings.
So the creator of DNA exercised some sort of moral judgment in that creation, selecting one path over others as the way to create a design that had not only intelligent function, but which functioned morally as well.
Therefore, the creator perforce has a superior moral capacity to his creation. And, obviously, superior power.
What is your definition of a god, for starters?
Put together in sequence....
Do they ever go into sequence spontaneously?
What composes Amino Acids?
How are they sequentially put together and properly folded in a 3-D structure correctly?
Atheist freakout, denouncing him as “not a real scientist” and a “fraud” in...5...4...3...2...1...
As I understand it, quantum physics also states that at some point on the edge of a black hole, a person would be (using terms from the physical world) both dead and alive.
Or, as Hawking put it, information is not lost, but passes through certain black holes from this dimension to a parallel dimension.
IOW, when quantum physicists looked at the very smallest particle of information, and mathematically determined what happened to it on the edge of a black hole, they came up with a “reality” that is strikingly similar to what Christianity teaches occurs at what we call “death.”
I am not a scientist. But I’m trying to articulate a point that agrees with your observation that we tend to find evidence of God in the smallest things.
He explained that he saw no reason why God could not evolve his creation any way He liked, but it was still God’s doing.
I have no problem with that. When this Earth as we know it ends, upon the return of Christ, God may choose to do that-—I don’t know-—with a nuclear bomb or something. But he will do the choosing and do the doing.
I have no problem with that.
Thank you!
Or, as Francis Shaeffer argued, the parts of a Swiss watch in a shoebox will never organize themselves into a Swiss watch, no matter how much the box is shook, baked, etc.
“Rare Earth” is another thoughtful approach, though not explicitly theistic.
Carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen and sulfur.
http://www.biochem.ucl.ac.uk/bsm/dbbrowser/c32/aastruct.html
How are they sequentially put together?
When a DNA open reading frame (a gene) is transcribed by RNA polymerase (a protein) into a messenger RNA (mRNA) it is taken to a ribosome where each three letter nucleic acid ‘codon’ is paired up with a transfer RNA (tRNA) that carries with it the appropriate amino acid that corresponds to that triplet code (the Universal Genetic Code). Thus a sequence of DNA is used as a template for mRNA that is then translated into an amino acid sequence.
Some of the more advanced proteins need other proteins to make sure they fold into the proper 3-D structure. Other proteins fold ‘naturally’; the gist being that there is nothing ‘magical’ about it, it is all electromagnetic interaction. A proper sequence of amino acids in the proper structure is capable of a specific enzymatic, signaling, or structural function.
For His own reasons, he chose to give us a very high degree of confidence in the Resurrection and not nearly so much in Genesis. I don't pretend to understand his reasons.
But He wouldn't have made a universe the way he did, leaving clear clues all over about its immensity and ancientness, if he intended us not to use our reason to discriminate between parts of the Bible that must be accepted as true, as is, and parts that must be accepted as true metaphor.
It makes the job a lot harder. But it doesn't relieve us of the responsibility of applying our God given reason to do the best we can.
In one chapter of Privileged Planet, they discuss a spectrum ranging from the “totally random” to the “completely designed” views of the universe.
There were some others on their scale, but these three ranked this way:
Rare Earth < Privileged Planet < Case for a Creator
PP made STRONG allusions to a Creator and a Purpose, but only specifically stated, strongly, that where we are, as well as the fine tuned rules of the universe, were too precise to be accidental.
And with a handwave and a "don't look behind that curtain", the word "proper" dismisses the complexity of the INFORMATION contained in the sequencing.
If you believe God created life (as I do) he didn't handicap himself such that it was an energetically unfavorable process. Much of the ‘basic building blocks’ were there (according to his plan) forming where he wanted them ‘on their own’ (inasmuch as anything in HIS creation is ‘on their own’; I just mean that it didn't take ‘magic’ or ‘divine intervention’ to get the molecules of life to form here on the Earth, just chemistry.).
If someone somewhere comes up with a rudimentary life form from unliving matter it would do nothing but enhance my amazement at the gloriousness of HIS creation. Some people would see no ‘need’ for God if this was the case, and think this finding was ‘anti-God’ or some such.
But just as stars forming out in the universe show that it didn't take “magic” for God to make our Sun (just gravity and nuclear fusion), it doesn't mean that God didn't make our Sun, just that he used gravity and nuclear fusion to do so.
If life is capable of forming spontaneously by the rules of this universe alone, then the means God used to make life was chemistry and physics; not that God didn't make life.
God made it all, God planned it all, God made the rules that made the formation of planets and stars inevitable, why not life? God did command the oceans to bring forth life in Genesis. What was this ‘command’ and how did the oceans ‘hear’ or ‘obey’?
I wanted to address this statement specifically because it is a huge stumbling block for a lot of Christians. I don't think this is correct at all. As I said in my previous post, the case for the Resurrection is overwhelming. Do we throw that out because the Jewish scholars in about 1000 BC who compiled the Pentateuch made some mistakes? Or because exaggerations crept into the oral history of the Jewish people over millenia?
Your argument is what the humanists want us to say. Then all they have to do is find one contradiction in the old testament (easy to do--have you noticed that there are two different creation stories in Genesis, that are somewhat contradictory on major points), repeat the contradiction over and over and destroy the faith of young people.
If you accept the the humanist premise that there is no basis for faith unless every word is provably true, you are setting up our young people for grim lives of athiesm and much worse after they die.
The resurrection is manifestly true. And that is all a Christian really needs.
Whatsa' matter, you don't believe in Ronald Reagan's "trust but verify" philosophy?;~)
So the “God” you envision is a little man pushing buttons and puling levers behind a curtain?
I don’t think there is a curtain to look behind, nor an understandable agency pulling the levers and pushing buttons to bamboozle the credulous.
In this case look forward to the face upon the Throne. It isn’t a Wizard pulling levers behind the scene, and this is not Oz, and the Emerald City isn’t just green tinted glasses.
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