Origin of Life in Atheism and Christianity - Research Paper Example

CRISTIANITY’S SUCCESS AND ATHEISM’S FAILURE IN EXPLAINING THE ORIGIN OF LIFE CONTENTS Introduction …………………………………………………………………………….1 What is Atheism about? ………………………………………………………………..1 Atheism is not concerned ………………………………………………………2 Developing a scientific base ………………………………………………….. 3 Modern concerns ………………………………………………………………. 4 Christian answer ………………………………………………………………………. 5 What creationism propose ……………………………………………………. 6 Christian creation story …………………………………………………………7 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………….. 7 References …………………………………………………………………………….. 9 Introduction The question about the origin of life can definitely be called one of the eternals. Since primeval times people were trying to answer this question, and have never wholly succeed. Behind this question however not an ordinary curiosity exist on a background, but the deep culturological problem. One of the main concerns for people on every stage of their existence is finding the origin, the Father, the creator. It is this feeling of loneliness, not belonging to anywhere. To satisfy the curiosity on a subject in religious way means make a belief some ideal creatures are responsible for our existence. For example, primeval people believed they were originated from a particular animal or a plant (depending on a tribe). These “origins” were associated with an under human power. Ancient polytheistic religions also had their explanations formulated in myth, tales etc. The belief in single God (monotheism) came later when the polytheistic worldview could no longer satisfy human curiosity and religious needs. Monotheistic religions (such as Christianity) had come to propose a new answer on a subject. The main word here is “belief”. To be a religious person means to have a particular system of believes which are determined by the religion. Christians believe in a specific number of theses which make their world picture. Those theses can be argued or accepted. It’s different with the atheistic world view. What is atheism about? Firstly, it should be mentioned, that atheists do not deny the whole idea of believing. On the other side, one of the biggest myths about atheism is to consider it a religious system. “Atheism is not a belief system nor is it a religion” (American Atheists, n.d.). It’s a common delusion that atheists believe in “no God”. They really don’t. Atheists do not practice belief in Gods; they are disbelievers (Cline n.d.). Atheists say theists usually are responsible for these disillusions. “Where these preconceived ideas come from varies, but they tend to evolve from theistic influences or other sources” (American Atheists, n.d.). Indeed, theists tend to contrapose atheism and theism as these things are equal. But atheists are skeptical about all supernatural things’ existence (like ghosts and spirits), and the God who has created humankind from nothing (as Christianity puts it) is just one of those things. For their way of thinking atheists in West civilization are commonly considered to be Christians’ antagonists. Meanwhile, “the only common thread that ties all atheists together is a lack of belief in gods and supernatural beings” (American Atheists, n.d.). Atheists are very specific in their views and ideas they are skeptical about. To stand against Christianity is not atheists’ main goal. Also, there’s a variety of individual reasons why atheists do not believe in God. Atheism is not concerned The main reason why atheism cannot fail an explanation of the origin of life is that atheists are not trying to proof any doctrine of creation. Lack of belief does not necessary implies looking for the origin of life. The whole opposition between monotheistic religions and atheism is incorrect and to say atheism has failed in explanation of the origin of life is terminologically incorrect (Cline, n.d.). However, monotheists (and particularly Christians) tend to blame atheists for their disbelieving and keep asking for proofs. It’s the science attitude what works in a way of proving and disapproving theories, not atheism. Therefore it’s the science what can contrapose the religion more logically. Therefore, to be fair it is needed to be mentioned that atheists usually relay on scientific attitude when answering on Christians’ accusations. But science cannot be called an atheistic prerogative. In fact, neo-Creationists, “the believers that the universe and the various forms of life were created by God out of nothing”, also use science with a view to proof their doctrines or disproof strange theories (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014). It’s a common disillusion to ascribe science’s failure in explaining the origin of life to atheism. Developing a scientific base However, the scientific attitude is contraposed to the religious explanation of the origin of life. All theories about the origin of life can be roundly divided on two groups: one is for theories which insist upon life creation by the highest intelligent power, and another group is for theories which consider life to be created on Earth naturally. Atheists usually are considered to be in a second “camp”, because for arguments they turn to science, and science is opposite to religious believing. There are two directions of concerns in scientific “camp” on a subject of the origin of life: either life was originated by biochemical evolution, or life was originated because of chemical reactions under certain conditions. Both these directions were developing since ancient times (even in polytheistic Ancient Greece by Aristotle and others) in half-scientific and half-majestic way. In medieval times alchemists have described a lot of different recipes how to create a life. For example, in XVI century an alchemist Paracelsus described the process of homunculus creation. He supposed man can be raised artificially in flask from sperm and blood under certain environmental conditions (Lachman, 2006). Later, with the scientific progress theories of a similar kind were falsified. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek had discovered microorganisms in XVII century. In XIX century Louis Pasteur had managed to proof that there’s no spontaneous generation for microorganisms, and every life comes from another life. Therefor the question about finding the origin form of life had appeared. Darwin and his theory of evolution is the most common subject for Christians and atheists to argue about, because this theory is particularly about finding the origin of life for every modern life form – the origin from which all species have evolved. “Darwin theory of biological evolution tells us that all life forms may have originated from a single relatively simple reproducing creature, living in a distant past” (Parry, 2014). Though once there was the origin, new and new generations were specializing (changing in order to adapt to the environment) and the strongest ones survived (“natural selection”). Researches on the field confirm Darwin’s theory. “Life forms get simpler and simpler as we go back in time, until the primitive colonies, which firstly appeared 3.5 billon years ago” (Parry, 2014). But there was no answer on a question, where those primitive life forms had come from. Even the most primitive life forms are too complicated to appear from nothing. When it was discovered that the most primitive life origins consist of chemical elements, scientists have refereed to chemistry for the explanation. Modern concerns Nowadays the biggest concern on a field is how chemical elements had managed to make the origin of life. In 1828 Friedrich Wohler accidently had managed to produce urea outside a living creature what meant, life molecules may emerge from not living chemistry under certain conditions (Parry, 2014). Modern scientists are trying to define the conditions for the life creating chemical reactions in order to describe the process of creation. There are several modern theories on a subject. As electric sparks are able to generate amino aside and saccharose from atmosphere within the water environment and with other elements, scientists suppose thunders could be responsible for the main albumins appearing on Earth (Choi, 2011). With the time passing more complicated molecules could be formed from chemical reactions. From different molecular entity life was formed. Or it was clay what had served as a base for the first molecules of life concentration and their cooperation in specific structures, similar to genes. Crystals in clay could structure these molecules in a way similar to DNA amino acids’ organization. With the time this process could become self-organized. Interesting, but in Christianity and Judaism clay also is considered as the material for creation, though in a different way. The First Man – Adam was created by God from clay, as well as later Golem was created by Hohe Rabbi Löw from clay in order to protect Jewish people from Blood libel accusations (Lachman, 2006). The first ecosystems could have been found in deep-sea vents, so mineral accelerants could provide critical reactions. It serves for the prof, that nowadays these vents are able to keep and supply ecosystems. First molecules of life as well could be buried under the layer of ice which once had covered the world ocean. It had helped life to survive underneath and originate in life forms until the warming. DNA evolution from RNA (or other nucleic acids) is also widely considered. But then there’s a question, how RNA was created? More convincing seams the theory that life could be started from easiest proteins which had interreacted and evolved in more complicated ones, until they were able to go in more complicated reactions. Some molecules similar to RNA had been found in meteorites, so they could come from elsewhere in space (Choi, 2011). There’s also another theory which implies that first living molecules could be brought on our planet from another place in space – the theory of panspermy. Meteorite or a comet could have served as a carrier. On the contrary from the similar intelligent design theory which considers life to be brought on Earth by aliens, this one implies an accidental life creation. Different scientists suggest life molecules could be brought either from other planets in solar system or from other stellar systems, though the question about how life has upraised in those planets and systems remains open (Choi, 2011). Christian answer What creationism propose As science commonly represents the second group of theories on a subject of the origin of life were looking for answer, the first group consists of creationistic theories. While scientific attitude was advancing theories and proving or disproving them delving deeper into the research, creationists were forever convinced with the answer they had chosen and stuck to it. Generally, according to creationistic conception, (1) all life forms (including people) as well as the Earth and “not-living” world were created by God directly with a view of God’s design and God’s will in a single act of creation. Christianity insists that (2) there’s no such thing as evolution. All life forms exist now exactly in forms they once were created by God, because nothing goes against God’s will. This doctrine contradicts Darwin theory totally, and that’s why there are so many arguments on a subject. Despite that in modern world theists also can use scientific attitude to confirm some of their dogmas, (3) every religion has a specific story about act of creation. Such story is fixed in Holy Scriptures and therefore, is undoubted. Whatever can be proved or disproved scientifically, it must not contradict Holy Scriptures (BBC, 2009). Naturally, this way of using scientific attitude isn’t considered truly scientific by the scientific society, as well as evidences it adduces. Also, logically thinking on a subject, creationists’ explanation “God created all” does not answer the question about the origin of life (Cline, n.d.). God was the one who created life, but who created God? On the other hand, creationists’ ideas look quite logical, and therefore, successful. For now science has failed explaining the origin of life constantly proving and exploding own theories, constantly stumbling upon questions outside the radius of human’s capacity. Therefore, it’s fair enough to suggest that understanding of the design is hard because it was designed by someone with the greater intelligence and greater power – by God. Christian creation story Christians has own specific story about genesis which is determined by the Bible. Man, the world and the universe were created in a six days from nothing, according to God’s intelligent design and by the God’s will. Firstly, the unshaped universe was created in a single act. Than using by intelligence and will, God had organized life on Earth in a specific reasonable way, which had embodied God’s design totally. The first human on Earth, Adam, was created on the sixth day out of Earth material (from soil or clay) “and given life by God’s breath”, when all living creatures had already existed (Innovations Learning, n.d.). The most important thing is that Christianity reasonably determines the way of creation and doesn’t try to explain things which are considered inexplicable. On the contrary, science is trying to understand inexplicable things. Conclusion In view of the above, when answering the question why Christianity has succeeded and Atheism has failed in explaining the origin of life, two thoughts come as a conclusion. Firstly, Atheism has failed because Atheism never really took part “in the race”. Atheism is not a religious system, so there’s no postulate about the origin of life to be argued. Atheistic explanation of the origin of life cannot succeed or fail, because Atheism has no determined answer on the question. What is true, that because of disbelieving in creationistic theories, atheists are more likely to use scientific explanations when determining the origin of life, but not necessary. Therefore, it’s science that has failed with an explanation of the origin of life. It’s more logical to counterpose scientific attitude and religion. Secondly, scientific attitude has already failed in explanation of the origin of life for many times, but it keeps looking for a provable answer. On a contrary, Christianity has stable and determined explanation on a subject. Christians’ answer can be argued or accepted, proved by Holy Scripts or even scientifically. The point is that Christianity puts forward an explanation, while Atheism doesn’t have one, and science keeps looking. Personally I tend to believe that Christianity’s success on a subject is reasoned by a proposed determined answer, however convincing it may seem. Human by nature is in need of belief and hope, and of explanation to survive life’s difficulties. Science (as well as Atheism) proposes no approval for living, while Christianity proposes a clear meaning of life. Also Christianity satisfies human’s need in finding the Father – God. Scientists have failed to propose a more convincing candidate. References “Creationism”. Encyclopedia Britannica. (January 21, 2014). Accessed November 6, 2014. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/142233/creationism “Creationism and Intelligent design”. BBC. (July 2, 2009). Accessed November 6, 2014. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/creationism_1.shtml “Christian Creation Story”. Innovations Learning. Accessed November 6, 2014. http://www.innovationslearning.co.uk/subjects/re/information/creation/christian_creation.htm “What is Atheism?” American Atheists. Accessed November 6, 2014. http://atheists.org/activism/resources/what-is-atheism Cline, Austin. “Myth: Atheism Cannot Explain the Origin of Universe, Nature of Existence”. About Religion. Accessed November 6, 2014. http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismscienceevolution/a/ExplainUniverse.htm Choi, Charles Q. “7 Theories on the Origin of Life”. LiveScience. (March 22, 2011). Accessed November 6, 2014. http://www.livescience.com/13363-7-theories-origin-life.html Lachman, Gary. “Homuncli, Golems, and Artificial Life”. Quest, 94.1 (January-February 2006): 7-10. Accessed November 6, 2014. http://www.theosophical.org/publications/1253 Parry, John. Can Science Explain the Origin of Life? YouTube. Directed by Stated Clearly, March 31, 2014. Accessed November 6, 2014. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgQLyqWaCbA Read More