It was just an example as I was trying to look at this from a non-Christian point of view. I know that God exists. He will not be impressed with me period as I am a sinful, imperfect human being. However, God will overlook this because I am bought with a price through Jesus Christ.

I have a serious problem with this line of thinking.

Eagle, I'm not picking on you. I know this is the "party line" of all Christians, and in this instance, you're just the messenger. You didn't invent the notion that the only way to get into Heaven is to believe in Jesus - I understand that it's what all Christians are told to believe.

But it really doesn't pass the "smell test," in my opinion.

Let's say a man is born in a remote, tiny village. He goes his whole life never hearing about any religion. But he learns medicine, and commits himself to helping others. He doesn't live lavishly, and gives his excesses to his neighbors in need. He has a simple hut, a small garden where he grows vegetables he shares and trades, and a small donkey he uses to pull his cartload of supplies and trading goods.

One day, a greedy neighbor attempts to steal his donkey. The man resists, and the neighbor kills him.

The neighbor is put on trial and convicted of murder, and sentenced to life in prison. While in prison, a well-meaning chaplain introduces him to Christianity, which he accepts with open arms (what else has he got to do?)

According to conventional Christian lore, the man who dedicated his life to helping others will rot in Hell, while the murderous thief gets to hang out in eternal bliss.

To be honest with you, this is one of the major, major problems I have with Christianity. I simply cannot believe that an omnipotent, benevolet being would allow such an injustice to occur. Yet this is exactly how the "rules" are outlined. And it's not a matter of ambiguity or misunderstanding - you've made it quite clear: Repent and believe in Jesus, and you get to go to Heaven. It's as simple as that.

It seems to me that a truly loving, forgiving God would welcome the man into Heaven. After all, it was through sheer random chance that he was born into a region that hadn't heard of Christianity. He didn't turn his back on Jesus - he simply never heard of the fellow. He lived his life generously and made the world a better place. Why would God sentence him to eternal hellfire for things that were beyond his control, when the choices he DID make were so virtuous? Why would that same God reward the man who spread nothing but hate, fear, anger, and sorrow, just because he believed in some arbitrary tenet?

That's the big show-stopper for me.

A distant second is all of the logistical problems associated with the idea of a Heaven. What if you have two devout Christians who believed in Jesus and truly repented for all their sins, but hated each other? Do they BOTH get to go to Heaven? But how can it be Heaven if they're spending eternity with someone they hate? Do dogs get to go to Heaven? If I loved my dog, and cannot be happy without him, how can it be Heaven without my dog? Then where does it end? Tarantulas?

And the idea of "eternity" seems like one of those things that sounds great on paper, but could be very different in practice. Who really WANTS to live forever? Wouldn't you eventually run out of things to say/think? Wouldn't you get tired of the same thing forever and ever? What if I believe in Jesus, but I married an athiest who didn't? She'd be condemned to Hell, but how can it be Heaven for me without her?

And which version of "me" gets to go to Heaven? Me in my 25-year-old prime? Or me in the cancer-ravaged state of my death? And what about infants who die? Do they crawl around Heaven for eternity, with an endless supply of self-changing diapers? Do they "grow up" in Heaven? Or are they immediately admitted in the body they would have had at age 25, had they lived that long?

It all just doesn't make any sense to me.

My plan is to live well, love openly, be sensitive to others, generous to those who deserve it, and basically just be the best person I can be. I don't steal or kill or cheat on my wife, not because some book told me to or I'm afraid some ghost in the sky might be watching - but because I know those things are wrong. The Golden Rule is just plain a good idea. It doesn't belong to any one religion.

I'm going to be a good person, and if it turns out there's a God, I hope He'll look at the way I've lived and determine that I belong with other good people. If it really does just come down to a simple 2-box checklist ("Do you feel bad for the bad things you've done? Yes. Do you believe that story about Jesus? Not completely, no."), then to be honest, I don't know that I'd want to spend eternity hanging out with someone with such a narrow way of thinking anyway.

Sub-Topic: Evolution

First thanks for the responses. I realize my arguments may not be 100% developed but I’m trying to give actual data now to support my arguments – not just opinions. After all everyone has an opinion

And for the sake of simplicity I’m asking for responses to the following numbered (1-4) items in bold.



1. We know this how? Please provide the evidence that the universe began with the theory (as defined by the practical definition # 2 in the post on July 11, 2012 at 4:41pm to DoingHomework; but for the sake of argument see below) of the Big Bang. Or at least point me in the direction of such research.

the•o•ry

Noun

a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural[/b] and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. Synonyms: idea, notion hypothesis, postulate. i.e. The Theories of Evolution, Big Bang, and Intelligent Design.



2. I’d like to understand your take (and the other posters on this thread) on this specific quote above. DoingHomework is a Scientist who uses the scientific method. Yet we don’t know what caused the alleged “big bang.” Where is the available evidence to support this theory? Please point me in that direction.



So you believe as a scientist life probably evolved spontaneously... Where's the proof [observable evidence]?

There is no evidence there is life elsewhere. It would be really cool if there was though. What are the chances of life happening on Earth by chance I wonder? Please point me to the studies on this as I'm very curious.[/quote]

3. Please also respond to this specific quote above. Believing that something happened sounds a lot like faith to me. Where’s the available evidence to support life evolved spontaneously? There is also no evidence of life outside the Earth. If there is on either spontaneous life or aliens please point me in that direction to this evidence. No sci-fi please

In fact, as DoingHomework described, we have seen living organisms created out of non living material. There is a great deal of research dedicated to understanding how life came into being on this planet. Scientists have discovered crystal deposits with molecular structures remarkably close to those of living organisms. It's possible (probable?) that given enough time, and just the right "tweaking" of these molecular structures (via geologic heat and pressure, or electrical pulses from lightning) that at some point in our history, one of those crystals had its structure rearranged just right so as to form the first living organism on the planet, and started replicating.

4. Please define what you mean by the term “living organisms”. Do you mean the cells that needed nuclei DoingHomework mentioned? If so we re-created a bunch of dead cells that needed essentially a brain (which conveniently was already in existence) to function? Or is there further evidence?

Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it is likely. Spontaneous generation of life from crystals huh? That doesn’t take faith? Where is the evidence? In fact some would argue that the likelihood of spontaneous regeneration is minuscule…


I have four more arguments ready too. I'll wait to post those when these are addressed. Thanks again for taking the time to consider these ideas.

You just (partially) described Pascal's Wager.

Is this yet another example of something someone else put in your head?

But Eagle, you’re shifting your position. Your original statement was that it was never the government’s responsibility. Your new statement is that it shouldn’t be the government’s responsibility. That’s very different. You’ve shifted from stating what you stated as a fact to a statement of opinion. It’s very hard to have a constructive dialog with someone who says, “I said this but I meant something else instead.” It undermines the argument on both sides because it later turns out they were debating different things.


Ummm...the HRL is what we worked out. And with regard to the House, note that every time they vote to repeal, they fail to propose something in it's stead. After over 60 years of this country trying "to work something out," you'd think think they'd have come up with at least an alternative plan. They keep saying that they need time to study it and that the law was rushed into passage. And what alternative have they come up with in the 2 years since it was signed into law? They're a one-trick pony, and that trick is "repeal." Again I ask, "If not us, who? If not now, when?" We have something now. Let's work to make it better, rather than return to the status quo of kicking the can down the road.

Yes.


Correct.


I can't bring you up to date on 100+ years of scientific research in a few sentences. If you are honestly curious about evolution and the big bang then I suggest you start reading on your own from mainstream science texts and then pursue the actual literature if there are claims you question.


We don't prove things in science. That's one of the problems with your approach. You can't prove anything either, you just think you do once you convince yourself to believe something.

Science collects evidence and attempts to explain the evidence with the simplest explanation possible. We do not know for certain that life started spontaneously. But that is a simpler explanation than creating a pantheon of mysterious beings that somehow used their supernatural powers to make little moving things.



You are factually incorrect in your statement that there is no evidence for life elsewhere. There is some evidence. But it is presently not very convincing, at least not to me.

If you want to learn the science around the probabilities, start with the Drake Equation. It is not something I care much about but it will get you started.

Well, we know the "where" and "when" because we can see other items in our universe moving. We can tell how fast they're moving, and in which direction they're moving. Based on those observations, we can tell that they're all diverging from a common point. And given their speeds (and the change in those speeds, if you want to get complicated), and their distances from that common point, we can tell how long they've been diverging. Thus, we know that 14.6 billion years ago, all of the matter in the universe started out at the same point and was rapidly flung outward in all directions.

As DoingHomework said, I cannot explain the entire theory of the universe for you in a single post. But I assure you, the scientists out there aren't just making stuff up with no evidence, just to annoy Christians. There is a wealth of study, research, observation, experiments, and all other manner of evidence that has gone into developing the current theory. Yes, it is complex, and not yet fully understood, but to most people capable of rational, critical thought, it makes more sense than believing that some mystical, magical, sentient, supernatural force just got bored one day (OK, seven days, technically) and decided to flash an entire universe into existence.



For me, personally, the primary evidence is the fact that we're here. If life hadn't evolved spontaneously, we would not exist to be asking the question. It's the only explanation that makes sense. To believe that life was created by an invisible, sentient, magical force seems preposterous. There must be a logical explanation. The one I outlined earlier in the thread (about the raw materials of life being randomly rearranged on trillions of planets over billions of years eventually producing the right arrangement) is at least plausible.



Not yet, but we've found environments that could possibly be conducive (or were at one point in the past) to life, even right here in our own solar system! 8 planets and a few dozen moons around a single star, and we have multiple environments with the building blocks for life. So if you consider the billions of stars in our own galaxy, and multiply it by the billions of other galaxies, it seems unfathomably unlikely that in that entire soup of raw materials, and given the billions of years that have elapsed, we would be the one and only lone instance of life.



Single-celled organisms.



Again, you're making a fallacious link between "faith" in science, and "faith" in religion. Science applies the Scientific Method to test and refine theories. Religion just stops at "because this book says so."

There is indeed a great deal of evidence to support the idea that the first instances of life on this planet could have been the result of random molecular rearrangement of crystallized hydrocarbons. Again, I can't repeat all of that research here, but if you're sincerely interested, I would highly recommend the BBC's series "Planet Earth." It's fascinating, educational, and visually stunning (especially on Blu-Ray!).



Of course it is. The odds are astronomically miniscule. But so are the odds of winning the lottery, yet every time, someone eventually does. The odds of having a planet with just the right mix of oxygen, and just the right amount of gravity, at just the right distance from a star that's just the right size are also miniscule. Yet here we are.

Even things that are extremely unlikely become virtually inevitable when you have literally quintillions of chances (the billions of stars in the billions of galaxies, over the billions of years since the birth of the universe).

Put your dictionary away. It gives a generic definition of the the word "theory" that differs from it's meaning in science. When a scientist uses the word it always means it is a widely (though not necessarily universally) accepted explanation for the evidence. If we are going to have an intelligent conversation about something we need to at first agree on operant definitions. If we are discussing science then we need to use theory as it is used among scientists. You don't have to believe that the theory of evolution is correct but you do have to believe it is the accepted explanation if we are going to have a productive discussion.

Idea, notion, hypothesis, postulate, are not synonyms of theory.

Intelligent Design is not a theory. It is at best a hypothesis.

We know the big bang occurred about that long ago from observations of the expansion of the universe and the background radiation present everywhere. The first detection of this was accidental by Penzius and Wilson in the 1950s or 60s. Subsequent dedicated experiments have refined our knowledge of this. I believe the results of the Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe might be of interest to you.


The evidence is in astronomical observations and in models that fit the evidence. See my answer to #1.


Believing something without evidence is like faith. I believe life started spontaneously because that is what I think is most consistent with the evidence. I don't care if you want to call it faith. I am prepared to alter my view if convincing evidence to the contrary is produced.


It's tough to define what is living. I'm not a biologist so I am not sure what they use as the current definition. And, as I said at the start, definitions are important if we are going to get anywhere. Why don't you propose a working definition.

I know that things like prions and viroids straddle the line between living and nonliving. We can create prions for example, but I personally don't consider them living.

Your characterization of the work I mentioned is inaccurate. But since I did not provide a reference that is understandable. You might want to look up the recent work of Craig Ventnor and his team. I'm sure you'll find some way to minimize the significance but if nothing else it will be interesting to hear your thought rather than those of others.


Ok, this is not one of your numbered and bolded items but I can't resist...

First off, you (or whoever you took your thoughts from) is misstating the idea. It seems like a minor slip but the implications are big. I don't think any serious scientist proposes that like spontaneously started in a crystal. Crystals would be a poor place for it to happen for technical reasons. An amorphous soup is more likely.

Second, probability is a strange animal. Even the most improbable (but possible) event will occur with 100% certainty given enough time. It's a hard thing to wrap your mind around in everyday thinking, but it makes your statement wrong. Something that is extraordinarily unlikely to happen tomorrow might be almost certain to occur in the next billion years. So your statement that something being possible does not make it likely is wrong as a matter of math, unless you qualify it somehow.

The Roman Catholic Church did admit it was wrong and Galileo was right. It only took them until 1992. Until then, presumably, all Catholics believed the earth was at the center of the universe and the sun orbited around it. Luckily the Inquisition was disbanded in 1834 and astronomers no longer had to risk torture and death by disembowelment after that.

Sub-Topic: Religion



I'm not Roman Catholic What about the three religions you mentioned? Hinduism, Budhism, and Zoroastrianism... They aren't violent? All religions have been misused in some form or fashion to promote killings and violations of human rights. Take Scientology's Sea Organization as an example.

Edit: To add subtopic header.

Sub-Topic: Evolution



We “know” the universe to be about 14.6 billion old. That is interesting. See the next post



Believing (opinion) in something that cannot be verified is having faith in something no? So perhaps even science requires a little faith… And are there aliens?



Okay so there is unconvincing evidence there is life elsewhere. That is interesting albeight a bit humurous too.



So at least kombat and I can agree there are no aliens out there.



Kombat says the evidence that we evolved spontaneously is that we’re here. That’s opinion. Doing homework believes that life on earth probably evolved a long time ago… Opinion. My turn to ask who put this idea in your heads?

I say the evidence that God created us is that we’re here. Also an opinion. Both are hypothesis and both cannot be proved or disproved to my knowledge. But again if this is possible point me in the direction of the evidence.



Intelligent Design proposes there was just one all powerful being that did the moving of little things (Big Bang). Like Evolution, Intelligent Design is a hypothesis since we don’t know for certain how they occurred (we won’t use theory since clearly we have different definitions of the word). Just to be clear I believe in a God who is big enough to create everything in 6 days (He rested on the 7th). Can we all agree we just take it on faith that what we believe is true? Lol.



Okay so have we developed self-sustaining single-celled organisms? I mean it should be possible to either observe or recreate right? Once again is there evidence that life can be created spontaneously? I’ll look into the work of Craig Ventnor and his team.



I understand that it [evolution] is an explanation held by many scientists that hold it in high esteem to be the truth. I understand in a majority of schools (public) it is taught as the only acceptable explanation. I understand there are holes in this “theory” or hypothesis and I’m interested in learning more about the evidence for it. I’m also curious as to whether the people on this thread know much about it or are just going with something someone they respected told them to believe



I’m glad you mentioned this. See the next post



Really? See the next post

proof? LOL, such double standards. where is the concrete proof of your deity's existence? do you also refute the theory of gravity? thermodynamics?

a single cell is the result of the near-flawless execution of billions and billions of discrete events (by which i am specifically referring to DNA replication, though there are lots of other ongoing events in the cell division cycle), each with a fairly low probability of success. and yet, you alone have billions upon billions of cells. the mere healing of that little scrape on your arm is statistically very improbable.

scientists do not actively *prove* things. science involves forming a hypothesis, and then testing to see whether or not we reject it. so i actually make a living proving myself wrong... i have yet to meet a religious person working to prove themselves anything but right!

Eagle, at some point, every belief requires a degree of "faith."

I have faith that the world is round. I have seen satellite photos, and it looks pretty round. But of course, they can be easily faked with Photoshop. I have heard the testimony of astronauts who have been up in space and seen it for themselves. But it's possible they're lying to me. I haven't actually gone up and personally seen it for myself. Every science textbook says it is so, but again, they could all be lying to me. So I have to have "faith" that it's not all a vast conspiracy to make me look like a fool by convincing me that the world is round when it is in fact, flat.

But I have all this evidence to support my "faith."

Religion has no such evidence. Just a book and a bunch of bedtime stories.

That's the difference.

But Galileo was and that was the context for my original comment.

Yes, most religions are violent. Kind of sad, isn't it.

Sub-Topic: Evolution

Once and for all I believe all established theories (I think at least) of the earth being round, relativity, gravity, thermodynamics, etc. I'm interested in particular in what I would call the hypothesis (some call it theory) of Evolution.



See example two (section 5D) on this proposed age of the universe we “know” to be true.



I’m glad you mentioned this. See example one (section 5C).



See DoingHomework’s response below. So my question is where or from whom did you hear this from? Or is this something you developed on your own? If that explanation originated elsewhere, I would like to understand why you believed it. And if that statement is part of your own original thought, I would like to understand how you arrived at that conclusion.





Welcome to the thread galactic If you read the history of the thread I’m willing to at least contemplate the alternative view of say an atheist or another religion. I’m not interested in proving God’s existence. I'm not interested in being right I'm interested in evidence.



I’m interested in understanding the fundamental arguments for and against Evolution being fact. The issue here is that Theory of Evolution by DoingHomework’s scientific definition:

1. a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena; i.e. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

requires objective, repeatable, and measurable evidence. I’m interested in discussion on the evidence that it is “fact.”

In regards to Evolution I propose the alternative definition for “theory”:

2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. Synonyms: idea, notion hypothesis, postulate. i.e. The Theories of Evolution, Big Bang, and Intelligent Design.

If it is fact then it can be objectively reproduced and the evidence can be measured.

To catch you up on the conversation: We agree that there is unconvincing evidence at best there are aliens out there. We agree we do not know with 100% certainty how the Big Bang or life on Earth began. And, I think, we agree at some point even faith (belief in something that cannot be proven but may have some evidence) has to enter the enter conversation.




Let’s proceed to the next three arguments. The first three were just a warm-up. I’m really interested in your thoughts on these. I wonder who will actually attempt to tackle them…


Fourth Argument: Catch 22 Dilemma & Oxygen

The "catch 22" has been noted by evolutionist and molecular biologist Michael Denton: "What we have then is a sort of ‘Catch 22’ situation. If we have oxygen we have no organic compounds, but if we don’t we have none either." Even if the building blocks of life could survive the effects of intense ultraviolet radiation and form life spontaneously, the survival of any subsequent life forms would be impossible in the presence of such heavy ultraviolet light. Ozone must be present to protect any surface life from the deadly effects of ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

Also the assumption that there was no oxygen in the early atmosphere is not borne out by the geologic evidence. Geologists have discovered evidence of abundant oxygen content in the oldest known rocks on earth. Evolutionist and molecular biologist Michael Denton: "Ominously, for believers in the traditional organic soup scenario, there is no clear geochemical evidence to exclude the possibility that oxygen was present in the Earth’s atmosphere soon after the formation of its crust."


Fifth Argument: Spontaneous Generation Probability

6A) Sir Frederick Hoyle

In the 1970’s British astronomer Sir Frederick Hoyle set out to calculate the mathematical probability of the spontaneous origin of life from a primordial soup environment. Applying the laws of chemistry, mathematical probability and thermodynamics, he calculated the odds of the spontaneous generation of the simplest known free-living life form on earth – a bacterium.

Hoyle and his associates knew that the smallest conceivable free-living life form needed at least 2,000 independent functional proteins in order to accomplish cellular metabolism and reproduction. Starting with the hypothetical primordial soup he calculated the probability of the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of a single amoebae. He determined that the probability of such an event is one chance in ten to the 40 thousandth power, i.e., 1 in 1040,000.

Prior to this project, Hoyle was a believer in the spontaneous generation of life.

This project, however, changed his opinion 180 degrees.

Hoyle stated: "The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40 thousand naughts [zeros] after it. It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence."

Hoyle also concluded that the probability of the spontaneous generation of a single bacteria, "is about the same as the probability that a tornado sweeping through a junk yard could assemble a 747 from the contents therein."

Hoyle’s calculations may seem impressive, but they don’t even begin to approximate the difficulty of the task. He only calculated the probability of the spontaneous generation of the proteins in the cell. He did not calculate the chance formation of the DNA, RNA, nor the cell wall that holds the contents of the cell together.

5B) Harold Morowitz

A more detailed estimate for spontaneous generation has been made by Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist. Morowitz imagined a broth of living bacteria that was super-heated so that all the complex chemicals were broken down into their basic building blocks. After cooling the mixture, he concluded that the odds of a single bacterium re-assembling by chance is one in 10100,000,000,000. This number is so large that it would require several thousand books just to write it out. To put this number into perspective, it is more likely that an entire extended family would win the state lottery every week for a million years than for a bacterium to form by chance!

5C) Let’s take an example:

Example 1
Consider this. The odds of winning a state lottery are about 1 chance in ten million. The odds of someone winning the state lottery every single week from age 18 to age 99 is 1 chance in 4.6 x 1029,120. Therefore, the odds of winning the state lottery every week consecutively for eighty years is more likely than the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of an amoebae!

5D) Let’s take a little more complex example:

Example 2
Here's another great example of how chance disproves evolution theory. Suppose we have 10 small blank discs. We number them from 1 – 10 and as we do we throw each into a bucket. So in this example, the question is: How many attempts would it take to randomly draw out the discs in order from 1 to 10? Only one disc is randomly selected from the bucket at a time, noted, and tossed back in the bucket. What is the probability of selecting all ten discs in order?

Since each disc has only one number on it, there is one chance in ten (1/10) of selecting it. The probability of selecting the first one followed by the second one is 1/10 x 1/10 or 1 in 100. To select all 10 in the right order the probability is 1/10 x 1/10 x 1/10 x 1/10 x 1/10 x 1/10 x 1/10 x 1/10 x 1/10 x 1/10 or 1x1010. This means that the discs would be selected in the right order only once in 10 billion attempts. Put another way, ‘chance’ requires 10 billion attempts, on the average, to count from 1 to 10.

Let's take that example one step further and say there is a bucket with 27 wooden squares inside. Each square has one letter of the alphabet on it and one square is blank. How many attempts would it take to randomly pull letters out one at a time in order to spell the phrase ‘the theory of evolution?’

Each letter of the alphabet plus one space has 1 chance in 27 of being selected. There are 20 letters plus 3 spaces in the phrase ‘the theory of evolution’. Therefore chance will, on the average, spell the given phrase correctly only once in 2723 outcomes.

This computes to only one success in a mind-boggling 8.3 hundred quadrillion, quadrillion attempts (8.3 x 1032). Suppose ‘chance’ uses a machine which removes, records and replaces all the letters randomly at the fantastic speed of one billion per microsecond (one quadrillion per second)! On average the phrase would happen once in 25 billion years. If, as evolutionists would have us believe, the earth has been in existence for approximately 15 billion years, then nature could not even have created even this simple sentence, much less any protein, even at this phenomenal rate of experimentation.

The information on the discs and squares in the examples above represent the genetic information in DNA. DNA is the storehouse of genetics that establishes each organism's physical characteristics. It wasn't until 2001 that the Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics jointly presented the true nature and complexity of the digital code inherent in DNA. We now know that the DNA molecule is comprised of chemical bases arranged in approximately 3 billion precise sequences. Even the DNA molecule for the single-celled bacterium, E. coli, contains enough information to fill an entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica.

It would take nature 25 billion years to create the correct sequence of 27 letters. Clearly, it could not have correctly sequenced 3 billion chemicals to make even the simplest life form. So if nature couldn’t create life, Who did?


Sixth Argument: Time & Equilibrium

There is one other hurdle that must be successfully cleared if the evolutionist’s scenario on the origin of life is to have credibility. This is the problem of chemical equilibrium. In any broth or solution, there is the tendency for the materials to become evenly distributed with time. This tendency is called the development of equilibrium.

For example, if a drop of red dye is put into a container of water the dye particles gradually disperse throughout the solution until the entire solution turns a dilute red color. The larger the volume of the solvent (i.e., the water in the dye example), the more dilute will be the solution once the dye particles have become evenly distributed. This dilutional effect is irreversibly tied to time. As time advances, the dye particles become evenly distributed until the solution reaches a state of chemical equilibrium.

Again the chemical reactions leading to the formation of DNA and proteins are reversible. This means that the building blocks of DNA and proteins are broken off of the chain just as easily as they are added. Consequently, the building blocks of life, if they survived the effects of oxygen and UV radiation, would constantly be combining and coming apart in the primordial soup. This combining and coming apart of chemical building blocks proceeds until a state of equilibrium is reached. In the case of amino acids and nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA and proteins will be predominantly unbounded when the solution is at equilibrium.

Since the natural tendency for the building blocks of life is to disperse and remain un-bonded, the question evolutionists must answer is how did the building blocks of life become bonded and stay bonded in a primordial soup which is steadily progressing towards equilibrium? When confronted with the problem of equilibrium, most evolutionists will appeal to the magic ingredient of time. Nobel Laureate George Wald attempted to explain: "Time is in fact the hero of the plot. Given so much time the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: Time itself performs the miracles."

Dr. Harold Blum, who is an evolutionist himself, points out that Wald’s faith in the miraculous ingredient of time is mere wishful thinking. Prolonged time periods, he asserts, actually worsen the dilemma: "I think if I were rewriting this chapter [on the origin of life] completely, I should want to change the emphasis somewhat. I should want to play down still more the importance of the great amount of time available for highly improbable events to occur. One may take the view that the greater the time elapsed the greater should be the approach to equilibrium, the most probable state, and it seems that this ought to take precedence in our thinking over the idea that time provides the possibility for the occurrence of the highly improbable."

According to Dr. Blum, the magic bullet of time does not increase the likelihood that chains of DNA or proteins will form by chance chemistry. In fact, increasing the time factor actually ensures that any primordial soup would consist of predominantly unbonded amino acids and nucleotides!

See http://www.truenews.org/Creation_vs_Evo ... _life.html