If this post is stupid or played out then my apologies mods, [intelligent] My God regulars, or anyone else.

Last night I was high and watching Nova (for some reason). It was about the origins of life on prehistoric Earth. The narrator took the viewer through many hypothesis, theories, and speculations about how and where life could've originated.

Furthermore, he stated that several locations on Earth today highly resemble many of the conditions that would've been present billions of years ago.

Toxic gasses in certain caves

Naturally boiling water

Secluded underground deposits

The program even showed one scientist who created amino acids by running an electrical current through a mixture of substances (I can not recall) that could've easily been found on prehistoric Earth. Amino acids, as we all know make up proteins. Proteins which are essential for making life.

Now comes the dumb sounding high part:

If a scientist discovered how to generate life solely from things characteristic of prehistoric Earth, such as: high pressures, electricity, chemical mixtures, etc.

Then the probability of this process was calculated to the chance that this would happen by chance. Yet that chance was immeasurable or incomprehendable to present human knowledge. Would that cause even the most hardened totse doubters to believe in God's existence?

What would it take for you to believe? I know I have things happen to me quite frequently that leave me questioning "Was that God or a coincedence?"

I also don't understand why many theists say that evidence for evolution is crumbling, when scientists are making headway everyday that furthers beliefs that we are here by chance. The building blocks of life are being created in labs, so why would it be so difficult to fathom that life will soon follow?

quote:Originally posted by Goat Saint:

The program even showed one scientist who created amino acids by running an electrical current through a mixture of substances (I can not recall) that could've easily been found on prehistoric Earth. Amino acids, as we all know make up proteins. Proteins which are essential for making life.

Now comes the dumb sounding high part:

If a scientist discovered how to generate life solely from things characteristic of prehistoric Earth, such as: high pressures, electricity, chemical mixtures, etc.

Then the probability of this process was calculated to the chance that this would happen by chance. Yet that chance was immeasurable or incomprehendable to present human knowledge. Would that cause even the most hardened totse doubters to believe in God's existence?

What would it take for you to believe? I know I have things happen to me quite frequently that leave me questioning "Was that God or a coincedence?"

I also don't understand why many theists say that evidence for evolution is crumbling, when scientists are making headway everyday that furthers beliefs that we are here by chance. The building blocks of life are being created in labs, so why would it be so difficult to fathom that life will soon follow?

Im studying biology at uni, and we've studied that exact thing you are talking about, amino acids coming from those conditions. The process seems a bit complicated and unlikely to occur in nature when some arrogant scientist is trying to make himself sound smarter by using lots of big words and complicated terms. In fact the process would have occurred very commonly. I'll just give give the basic rundown of the process, but I can't be bothered explaining the chemical processes (mostly because I can't remember). It begins at an ocean hot vent (under high pressure), where boiling water is produced. This boiling water, and the gas inside the bubbles, goes toward the surface, where it can be evaporated, and is exposed to the altered air conditions(chemical composition) of prehistoric earth. While it's in the air/clouds, its also exposed to electricity in the form of lightning.

Thats pretty much it in a nutshell. It's not really that hard to believe that set of events could happen.

It's not chance it's chemistry.

The probability that the screen on my TV will produce a picture of homer simpson by chance is very very small.

The probability that same screen will produce a picture of Homer if it's recieving a signal, and is tuned to a station playing the Simpsons is almost 1.

In other words, Why try to calculate the probability of something happening by pure chance when there is a mechanism to produce that something?

You mean blind mechanism.

(my italics)

You fail to consider one simple fact:

There are billions of starts in billions of universes. Many of these stars have stable planets. Some of these provide conditions like those found in prehistoric earth. In all of those where the reactions did not occur, there is no one around to wonder why, but in the few (well, relatively few) that these reactions have occured, there may be as a result intelligent beings wondering why.

The chances of such a reaction may be small, but there are so many places on which that chance exists that the chances that it will happen nowhere is buggerall.

This reminds me of the claim by Christians that the precise value of the cosmological constant is proof of God's existence. I'd explain it, but I'm not that good at physics. Google it if you want to know about it.