# Well, it probably won't shut up creationists... \[self-replicating RNA enzyme systems\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 12, 2009, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901 "2009-01-12T12:08:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/41 "2009-01-12T21:27:38Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > You know who I depend on for my daily bread? Me. Just me. I go to work every day to earn the money for that daily bread. God doesn’t have a whole lot to do with that, in my view. Or else he’s sponging his reputation off of my hard work. So you are your own god then. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/42 "2009-01-12T21:34:28Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > So you are your own god then. I am not my own god, the same way that the farmer who grew the wheat and the miller who made the flour and the baker who actually baked the bread are not my gods. Bread is not something that needs to come from a god. Bread is something that man makes. This is the fundamental difference between you and me. I do not need a god to exist in order to live my life. I don’t worship anything. Not myself, not another person, not money, not gods. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/43 "2009-01-12T21:39:39Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > And **kanicbird** , you do realize that atheists don’t actually venerate people, right ? Contrary to popular belief, we don’t congregate on weekends to kneel before images of Descartes and Einstein, and recite Their Holy Words that can not be questioned… They don’t? They don’t take E=mc^2 as a absolute truth? They don’t read their ‘bibles’ such as newspapers (or modern internet equivalents) for finding out how to do things such as invest? They don’t watch TV for those things either? They don’t worship at the alter of modern medicine relying on their priests (doctors) and their potions (pharmaceuticals) for, usually temporary, relief. They don’t bow down and kneel to the accumulation of things (or in other words they don’t submit themselves to bondage to buy things)? ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/44 "2009-01-12T21:42:49Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Can you explain how you believe it is possible to be a christian evolutionist? It seems to me that being a christian requires the belief that god intended to create humans while evolutionary theory holds that humans are not a required outcome or the end result of the process. So, I contend that a christian evolutionist can only believe in “evolution light” or something, which says that one species involved from another with humans as the goal all along. As I understand it, there are two ways Christians except the concept of evolution. The first is that God set up creation in the beginning (via Big Bang, or whatever) so perfectly as to cause the world we see to naturally come about. This presupposes a that God is so good that he could predict what time you would need to go to the bathroom this afternoon and which way it would splash just from the energy relationships of the first second of the universe. The second is that God is actively guiding evolution to produce the results we see today. This requires a more involved, but less far sighted deity. Full disclosure: I subscribed to the first school of thought when I truly believed in God. I figured that if God was as mighty, knowledgeable and powerful as the Bible claims, why would he need to keep tweaking things? I also felt (as do others, I am sure) that part of the reason for doing things this way is that faith is a requirement. If there were scientific evidence that could prove God, who would need faith? > [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > My biology and chemistry suck. What sort of gap is there between the product of the Miller-Urey experiments and these molecules? Miller-Urey just showed that natural (non-biological) processes could create the the complex molecules that are required for life. This seems to be showing that simple molecules not much more complex than the ones produced during the Miller-Urey experiments can self replicate and evolve. Jonathan ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/45 "2009-01-12T21:43:22Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I am not my own god, the same way that the farmer who grew the wheat and the miller who made the flour and the baker who actually baked the bread are not my gods. Bread is not something that needs to come from a god. Bread is something that man makes. Well you are providing for your own needs, this seems like a quality that a god must have. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/46 "2009-01-12T21:44:38Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > They don’t? They don’t take E=mc^2 as a absolute truth? They don’t read their ‘bibles’ such as newspapers (or modern internet equivalents) for finding out how to do things such as invest? They don’t watch TV for those things either? They don’t worship at the alter of modern medicine relying on their priests (doctors) and their potions (pharmaceuticals) for, usually temporary, relief. They don’t bow down and kneel to the accumulation of things (or in other words they don’t submit themselves to bondage to buy things)? Um, no. They just read newspapers the same way you do, without venerating them as some kind of holy text. And so on for all the rest of it. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/47 "2009-01-12T21:44:42Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > Miller-Urey just showed that natural (non-biological) processes could create the the complex molecules that are required for life. This seems to be showing that simple molecules not much more complex than the ones produced during the Miller-Urey experiments can self replicate and evolve. > > Jonathan Right. How much more complex are they though? ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/48 "2009-01-12T21:45:32Z")
> [@KGS](#): > > This is actually the fundie Christian belief, that God exists outside of Spacetime and created the entire observable Universe in six days, 6012 years ago, solely for Earth’s benefit. Which, when you consider all those billions of galactic superclusters, each comprised of wasted galaxies filled with dead, empty solar systems serving no useful function, can only lead to one conclusion…God works for the government! Now that is funny. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/49 "2009-01-12T21:46:43Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > They don’t? If I define God as “my feet,” then God is in my shoe. If I define God as “the subway,” God took me to work. And if I say black is white and up is down, I’m probably going to get hit by a car when I cross the street- unless I kill myself by falling down an elevator shaft first. In other words, yes, you can prove atheists believe in gods if you make up definitions for a lot of things and then pretend those things are equivalent to religious faith. But nobody’s going to take your argument seriously, owing to the fact that it’s absurd. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/50 "2009-01-12T21:48:19Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Well you are providing for your own needs, this seems like a quality that a god must have. Only if you presuppose the need for a god. As the noted French mathematician/astronomer Pierre-Simone Laplace was said to have told Napoleon, on the occasion of the Emperor questioning the lack of mention of God in Laplace’s recently published _Celestial Mechanics_, “I have no need of that hypothesis.” ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/51 "2009-01-12T21:52:15Z")
No, it won’t shut up the creationists. Neither will anything we say. Banging your head against the stupid doesn’t give the stupid a headache. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/52 "2009-01-12T21:56:12Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > They don’t? They don’t take E=mc^2 as a absolute truth? They don’t read their ‘bibles’ such as newspapers (or modern internet equivalents) for finding out how to do things such as invest? They don’t watch TV for those things either? They don’t worship at the alter of modern medicine relying on their priests (doctors) and their potions (pharmaceuticals) for, usually temporary, relief. They don’t bow down and kneel to the accumulation of things (or in other words they don’t submit themselves to bondage to buy things)? No, actually we don’t. E=mc^2 is a simplified approximation that works in many cases to describe a certain relationship (the mass of an object at rest and its energy). We use it because it is useful. There are many people who try and find a more useful formula, and if they do and can prove it we will use that. You seem to be arguing that to not believe in God means that you cannot accept anything as true. I try to take as little as possible on faith. i know it is not possible to verify everything and know everything, but I keep informed of the drugs I am prescribed and the workings of the markets I invest in. On thinking about it, you comment is extremely deeming to religious faith. Do you consider your faith in God to be no more deep than your confidence in your bank teller correctly depositing your check, or your doctor correctly inserting an IV? Jonathan ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/53 "2009-01-12T22:00:17Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Well you are providing for your own needs, this seems like a quality that a god must have. And you are communicating with people in vastly remote areas. That seems like a quality a god should have as well. [Gozer]Are you a god?[/Gozer] Jonathan ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/54 "2009-01-12T22:03:43Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Yes, but that does not stop them from depending on them for their daily needs, as I depend on the Lord for things like my daily bread. I rely on Albertson’s for my daily bread. Except I only visit the grocery store every few days, so it’s more like my bi-weekly bread. 🆒 > [@kanicbird](#): > > Accept Jesus as your Lord and savior, and have some incorrect belief about how God created the universe. Whoa, hold the phone – I’m starting to realize you’re not just playing Devil’s Advocate here. In which case, riddle me this… WHY would God create our universe with the appearance of age?? Why would He create dinosaur fossils, geological strata, and laws of physics which allow us to objectively measure the distance of stars up to 14 billion light-years away? Was it all to intentionally deceive His children? Because there’s no chance I would trust ANY God who acts with such inherent deception – such an entity, if He existed, would be THE DEVIL and must be rebuked. So…why do you remain a believer? ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/55 "2009-01-12T22:11:35Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Actually, let that stuff stew in a lab for a couple million years, then check in after and see what kind of critters come out. I bet the stuff I find when I clean out my fridge could take it in a fight. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/56 "2009-01-12T22:14:50Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > I bet the stuff I find when I clean out my fridge could take it in a fight. The stuff in my fridge won’t let me clean it out. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/57 "2009-01-12T22:16:49Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Only if you presuppose the need for a god. We need a provider of resources, which you claim you are your own provider. Providing our own resources is part of the original sin, Eve followed (worshiped) Satan in obtaining the fruit, Adam followed (worshiped) himself in trying to get back with Eve. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/58 "2009-01-12T22:20:12Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Um, no. They just read newspapers the same way you do, without venerating them as some kind of holy text. And so on for all the rest of it. I read the newspaper as a text inferior to scriptures, and that text has to be taken into context of the scriptures. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/59 "2009-01-12T22:21:45Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > On thinking about it, you comment is extremely deeming to religious faith. Do you consider your faith in God to be no more deep than your confidence in your bank teller correctly depositing your check, or your doctor correctly inserting an IV? > > Jonathan No, I have a infallible God as my God, they have gods that are known to be error prone, but it’s the best they can come up with. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901/60 "2009-01-12T22:24:15Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I read the newspaper as a text inferior to scriptures, and that text has to be taken into context of the scriptures. I, like you, read the newspaper as fallible. The difference is that I think all texts are potentially fallible. It’s not at all as though my perspective on the newspaper is the same as your perspective on the Bible. Anyway, whatever. This isn’t going anywhere. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-it-probably-wont-shut-up-creationists-self-replicating-rna-enzyme-systems/480901.md?page=4)