As for talking about spirits and ghosts - we don't have any evidence they even exist, so trying to bring them into a scientific discussion is
pointless.
So first person accounts don’t count as evidence?
Nor do tape recordings?
Or photos (electronic voice phenononmina rium nmium)?
CCTV?
I suppose even scientific reports-studies don’t count as evidence…
news.bbc.co.uk...
And healing power of prayer revealed.
news.bbc.co.uk...
All I can say is that if I was facing court for a crime in a place I had never even existed in, and if somehow the prosecution still had the above
evidence against me, then I would be pissing myself. Unlike fairies at the bottom of my garden, doorways to another universe, or Santa clause
there’s a surprising amount of evidence for something that (apparently) doesn’t exist.
But I suppose there’s nothing like a bit of old fashioned BBC reporting when it sticks to simply what the professionals have done, and think about
what they’ve found!!!
Your problem (like everybody else’s) is that there’s evidence for anything and everything (including cheese on the moon!!).
To say “
science proves the lack of evidence for” something is a
propagandistic use-abuse of sciences reputation. The
reason is all science has ever done is show us the evidence for things. Ultimately it’s a matter of either common sense, or statistical analysis
(both being essentially the same thing) to come to a conclusion from the evidence that science presents us.
So if atheists (or anyone) would actually make a
logic proofed statement about what the nature of the universe tells us about the
chances of an afterlife; then they would need to resort to statistics (because unlike science they really do deal with the probabilities against
things, rather than simply for them).
However the first problem is….
1. That knowing how to assemble these statistics is probably up there (in difficulty) with the quest for a Unification Theory of Everything.
2. The second problem is that any formulas would have to take into account a value for “what we don’t know”. This might be equally as
impossible.
3. The third problem is that whatever this second value is, it would detract from the first value, thereby giving us a total uncertainly value.
4. Dare I suggest whatever (this final figure is) it may be about equal to what most peoples brains already compute about the entire afterlife
question!!! I mean it’s probably going to have a margin of error so wide that in one interpretation it backs religious fundamentalism, and in
another militant atheism.
If so the great news is that the power of the human mind saves us from a lot of calculating, for something that’s not that useful.
The bad news is that a potentially powerful persuasion tool has failed to materialise from what we know.
The good and bad news about that is we have propaganda in its place!!! Therefore both atheists and creationists can enjoy arguing how “science”
proves the other is wrong (but with clever use, of easy to pick up thoughts; no actual reference to how this is actually so).
Well at least not beyond this statement
“One thing (out of a universe filled with millions of known and unknown things) seems to point this way i.e. in favour of my argument”.
Sadly that’s not actually proof but hay since when did that bother the converted?
Regarding the First Subject…
I think matter came first because the mind cannot exist without matter. And according to evolution (in order to evolve) matter (of some sort) would
have been needed.
However I doubt chemicals released by the earths rocks managed to create an organism that then went on to found all others.
The problem is that the first life on earth would have needed food. And that appears to have been that plankton like creature that (inadvertently)
made the first oil reserves (all from H2O, CO2 and Nitrogen). At the time the earth’s atmosphere was almost completely CO2 and nitrogen.
All I'm saying is that to go from a chemical soup (that doesn’t evolve), to an organism with your own solar panel, and organic chemistry set, is
quite a freakish achievement.
I guess it’s possible (like everything’s possible) but in order for it to happen it might take probabilities less than those used in bible code!!!
(Could be wrong, but it’s not even like our earth is very old (unlike the universe).
Qu: Anyway getting energy from the sun is quite simple, what’s the argument it’s simpler to get it from some other energy source, what is that
source?
Don’t get easily confused with crystals…
Crystals can “reproduce” (in a sense) and can also emerge from (and survive in) a chemical soup (even when it’s massively diluted with either
ocean or fresh water). However the potential of crystals is always finite because they will always use their food source up. They cannot evolve
because they always react as best as they can, to whatever they can (in their local environment).
Therefore they lack opportunity for survival of the fittest (it has no opportunity to ever begin!!!).
This is not because crystals are perfect,
but because they’re already busy doing something (if they’ve got any hope of doing anything at all) and what they’re doing is always determined
by chemistry itself i.e. they’re about as alive as boiling water, or soot collecting inside a chimney smokestack.
“Change” is the only word like evolution; and which best describes the path of crystals (and all other non living things).
Spontaneous life from watery rocks? What about bank notes?