From: max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb)
Subject: Re: Atheist's views on Christianity (was: Re: "Accepting Jeesus in your heart...")
Organization: Cypress Semi, Beaverton OR
Lines: 55

In article <Apr.14.03.08.08.1993.5448@athos.rutgers.edu> jasons@atlastele.com (Jason Smith) writes:

>One of the Laws of Nature, specifying cause and effect seems to dictate 
>(at least to this layman's mind) there must be a causal event.  No
>reasonable alternative exists.

The big-bang model supposes a temporal singularity at the point of
origin. There was _no_ time for a prior cause to occur in. If you
want to invent fables for the surrounding context, fine, but one fable
is only as good as any other. Why should I prefer to believe in a God that
_just_ exists, as opposed to a singularity that _just happened_, or 
giant puce subspace iguanas, that fling universes off their tongues
like gobs of spit?

|As far as I can tell, the very laws of nature demand a "why".  That isn't
|true of something outside of nature (i.e., *super*natural).

>I believe the "genetic code" will be entirely deciphered in our lifetimes,
>but we will not see man convert entirely inert material into self sustaining, 
>reproducing life, *ever*.  (I've never been much of a prophet, though. I
>can't even *picture* New York in my mind 8^] ).  I don't believe *any*
>technology would be able to produce that necessary *spark* of life, despite
>having all of the parts available. Just my opinion.

Just your opinion, and unfortunately wrong. Self assembling molecules
have already been produced, entirely from inert matter, and have
spontaneously mutated into a more rapidly assembling form on exposure
to ultraviolet light. Both abiogenesis and the beginnings of evolution,
TODAY. (saw this in "Nature", early last year.)

Biological vitalism is dead, and has been dead for many, many years.
Give it up. Life is not a 'spark'. Life is the self-organization
of systems poised between chaos and order.

>Until the King returns,
>
>Jason

Your King baldly and repeatedly stated he would be back within the lifetime
of some then present and alive. "Soon, soon" he said, over and over - as
have many would be messiahs.

It is Nineteen Ninety Three
	of Years Anno Domini
Tell me, Tell me, where is He?
	Nowhere at all, Q. E. D.

	Max G. Webb

[I should have watched this more closely.  We had a discussion about
the first cause, etc., not long ago.  I'm not up for a replay.
There was also a detailed discussion of the point Max brings up
here about the initial singularity.  The geometry near the big bang
is very interesting.  Time turns into space, so there is no "before".
--clh]
