Origin of Life: A Challenge for Science and Religion?

Just_PrimalSoup (aka Susan) • 2 hours ago Why Does The Origin of Life Pose a Challenge For Science But Not Religion? It seems to come down to a threshold of what each (I’ll cal them ) “disciplines” can accept as truth. Science’s threshold demands a much higher bar of what is true/real, and what isn’t. Religion’s threshold depends more on “subjective feelings” about possible truths. What is it about the origin of life that has so confounded scientists and persuaded atheists to become deists or theists? How life can be derived from lifelessness. Last I heard, it’s never been done. Even though the “ingredients'' might all be there, getting them promoted to “life status” is the tricky part. Once that can be done, no God is needed to perform that magic trick. Until then, God is the placeholder, the Spark, by default. IMO. 😊

− Avatar greenpeaceRdale1844coop Just_PrimalSoup (aka Susan) • 12 minutes ago I admire your use of the term "disciplines," which is not just a random use on your part, of course. In fact, it gets at a profound issue that is just badly handled overall. However, I´ll point out that you don´t have the details down. Science´s "discipline" is actually not compartmentalized from religion except by its own reductionist tendencies that people have driven into popularity. Thus, awareness of the history of science reveals that science is nothing but Judeo-Christians´ way of exploring the truth of an ordered Universe that they expected because God, in particular and originally through Jesus and his historical legacy, is described as a loving and lawful God. In the case of science, actually better called natural or scientific philosophy, the focus is on the physical aspects of the Universe, with the rise of the social sciences raising further issues that help clarify things. Is "religion" more about "subjective feelings"? The general term actually has broad application that has been part of the broader context of all knowledge about all "disciplines," the rise of the University-based system. Religion has roots in Paleolithic, "Stone Age" shamanism and its modern versions, and deals with more than just "feelings." In fact, philosopher H Rickert by the 1930s was elaborating on the idea that the sciences are different from the historical "sciences" or disciplines because the natural sciences generalize and treat individuality as case examples of "laws," while historical disciplines build concepts to understand "individualized" phenomena. He uses the example of diamonds, that have such high value that alone they are given names and their historical human handling is tracked, The Hope diamond is a famous example, as are a few in the British crown jewels, among many others. The Jewish religion, with their name from "Judah" and reliance on an extended line of prophets, has a broader cultural basis that preceded, and famously diverged from Christianity, is based on historical and other factors that feed any subjective participation in it. The same goes for Christianity, although it is based around the details of the life of the individual Jesus Christ of Nazareth and his Apostles, and the church around their legacy into its larger societal development. Similar broader dynamics apply to Islam, Hinduism, and so on. Religion isn´t just subjective "feelings," nor just "subjective." Maybe subjective elements based on individuals can be said to influence others psychosocially. Luther´s act of confronting the autocratic Roman church and monarchical political authorities. Additional elements and factors of interest include how the Christian FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt as political figures demonstrated the influence of their religious values up to the vision of the United Nations and its human rights. That system then has become signficant in tracking the value dimensions that are more directly understood in their religious origins. The UN role in organizing science around environmental sustainability demonstrates how modern science is not itself oriented to values, action, and the community´s public interest. Not merely subjective, but those factors, values, action, and the community´s public interest are generally religious, and elements for evaluating Christianity in terms of integrity or hypcrisy. As for "life" from "lifelessness," that´s a good way to pose the conventional perception of the issue. If you look at my comment below, I get at the issues related to Fritjof Capra´s developing the Systems Theory of life. Identifying such issues as dissipative structures, structures that dissipate metabolic energetic waste or the like, is part of the developing of the philosophy of the processes. It would appear to be the search for the concept that borders mechanistic process concepts with that of the spiritual-religiously related "sacred," as talked about by pioneer scholar M Eliade. Your referring to the matter as a "magic trick", for one, the "placeholder" for another, and the "Spark" for a third, also gets at that conceptual border interestingly. It occurs to me that geo-historical events on the Earth system´s scale have been involved that bring the subject back to the nature of historical reality, involved in the quality of 3rd order emergent properties, as I´m coming to understand it. The appearance of photosynthesis in evolution was key, for example, and increased the role oxygen in the Earth´s atmosphere, which is a geo-historical landmark. The switch to valuing life isn´t necessarily related to God´s intervention, but people recognizing the connection between University-based philosophical study, the origins of human rights and sustainability values, their spiritual-religious origins, modern pluralism in the UN human rights community of nations, and modern notions of the transcendental. The values embedded in concepts like "magic trick," "placeholder," and "Spark" in relation to God are ultimately given serious weight in relation to the issues around sustainability and human rights.