The Miracles of God!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 8 2007, 09:51 PM) [snapback]402650[/snapback]</div>

General overview. It may have been altered since I last looked: (I use a wireless keyboard and sometimes it doesn't catch keystrokes)

"The first cells led a precarious existence. The environment around them changed continually, and every hazard presented a new threat to their survival. In the face of these hostile forces-harsh sunlight, meteorite impacts, volcanic eruptions, droughts, and floods-the bacteria had to trap energy, water, and food to maintain their integrity and stay alive. Each crisis must have whiped out large portions of the first patches of life on the planet and would certainly have extinguished them alltogether, had it not been for two vital traits-the abilities of the bacterial DNA to replicate faithfully and to do so with extraordinary speed. Because of theri enormous numbers, the bacteria were able, again and again, to respond creatively to all threats and to develop a great variety of adaptive strategies. Thus they gradually expanded, first in the waters and then in the surfaces of sediments and soils.

Perhaps the most important task was to develop a variety of new metabolic pathways for extracting food and energy from the environment. One of the first bacterial inventions was fermentation-the breaking down of sugars and conversion into ATP molecules, the "energy carriers" that fuel all cellular processes. This inovation allowed the fermenting bacteria to live off chemicals in the earth, in mud and water, protected from the harsh sunlight. Some of the fermenters also developed the ability to absorb nitrogen gas from the air and convert it into various organic compounds. The "fix" nitrogen-in other words, to capture it directly from the air-takes large amounts of energy and it is a feat that even today can be performed only by a few special bacteria. Since nitrogen is an ingredient of the proteins in all cells, all living organisms today depend on the nitrogen-fixing bacteria for their survival.

Early on in the age of bacteria. photosynthesis-"undoubtedly the most importnt single metabolic innovation in the history of life on the planet" 27 -became the primary source of life energy. The first processes of photosynthesis inventd by bacteria were different from those used by plants today. They used hydrogen sulfide, a gas spewed out by volcanoes, instead of water as their source of hydrogen, combined it with sunlight and CO2 from the air to form organic compounds, and never produced oxygen.

These adaptive strategies not only enabled the bacteria to survive and evolve, but also began to change their environment. In fact, almost from the beginning of their existence, the bacteria established the first feedback loops that would eventually result in the tightly coupled system of life and environment. Although the chemistry and climate of the early Earth were conducive to life, this favorable state would not have continued indefinately without bacterial regulation.

As iron and other elements reacted with water, hydrogen gas was released and rose up through the atmosphere, where it broke down into hydrogen atoms. Since these atoms are too light to be held by earths gravity, all the hydrogen would have escaped if this process had continued unchecked, and a billion years later the oceans of the world would have disappeared. Fortunately life intervened. In the later stages of photosynthesis free oxygen was released into the air, as it is today, and some of it combined with the rising hydrogen gas to form water, thus keeping the planet moist and preventing it's oceans from evaporating. However, the continuing removal of CO2 from the air in the process of photosynthesis caused another problem. At the beginning of the age of bacteria, the sun was 25% less luminous than it is now, and the CO2 in the atmosphere was very much needed as a greenhouse gas to keep the planetary temperatures in a comfortable range. Had the removal of CO2 gone without any compensation, the Earth would have frozen and early lbacterial life would have been extinguished.

Such a disasterous course was prevented by the fermenting bacteria, which may have evolved already before the onset of photosynthesis. In this process of producing ATP molecules from sugars, the fermenters also produced methane and CO2 as waste products. These were emitted into the atmosphere, where they restored the planetary greenhouse. In a way fermantation and photosynthesis became mutually balancing processes of the early Gaia system.


The oxygen crisis

As the bacterial web expanded and filled every available space in the waters, rocks, and mudflats of the early planet, its energy needs led to a severe depletion of hydrogen. The carbohydrates that are essential to all life are elaborate structures of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. To build these structures the photosynthesising bacteria took the carbon and oxygen from the air in the form of CO2, as all plants do today. They also found hydrogen in the air, in the form of hydrogen gas, and in the hydrogen sulfide bubbling up from valcanoes. But the light hydrogen gas kept escaping into space, and eventually the hydrogen sulfide became insufficient.

Hydrogen of course, exists in great abundance in water (H2O), but the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen in water molecules are much stronger than those between two hydrogen atoms in hydrogen gas (H2) or hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The photosynthesizing bacteria were not able to break these strong bonds until a special kind of blue-green bacteria invented a new type of photosynthesis that solved the hydrogen problem forever.

The newly evolved bacteria, the ancestors of the modern-day blue-green algae, used sunlight of higher energy (shorter wavelengths) to split water molecules into their hydrogen and oxygen components. They took the hydrogen for building sugars and other carbohydrates and emited oxygen into the air. This extraction of hydrogen from water, which is one of the planet's most abundant resources, was an extraordinary evolutionary feat with far-reaching implications for subsequent unfolding of life. Indeed, Lynn Margulis is convinced that "the advent of oxygenic photosynthesis was the singular event that led eventually to our modern environment.

However, this evolutionary sucess came at a heavy price. Like all rapidly expanding living systems, the blue-green bacteria produced massive amounts of waste, and in their case this waste was also highly toxic. It was the oxygen gas emitted as a by-product of the new type of photosynthesis. Free oxygen is toxic because it reacts easily with organic matter, producing so-called free radicals that are extremely destructive to carbohydrates and other essential biochemical compounds. Oxygen also reacts easily with atmospheric gases and metals, triggering combustion and corrosion, the two most familiar forms of "oxidizing" (combining with oxygen).

At first the Earth easily absorbed the oxygen waste. There were enough metals and sulfur compounds from volcanic and tectonic sources that quickly captured the free oxygen and prevented it from building up in the air. but after absorbing oxygen for millions of years, the oxidizing metals and minerals became saturated and the toxic gas began to accumulate in the atmospere. About 2 billions years ago the oxygen pollution resulted in a catestrophe of unprecedented global proportions. Numerous species were whiped out completely, and the entire bacterial web had to fundamentally reorganize itself to survive. Many protective devices and adaptive strategies evolved, and finally the oxygen crisis led to one of the greatest and most sucessful innovations in the entire history of life.

In one of the greatest coups of all time, the blue-green bacteria invented a metabolic system that REQUIRED the very substance that had been a deadly poison...... The breathing of oxygen is an ingeniously efficient way of channeling and exploiting the reactivity of oxygen. it is essentially controlled combustion that breaks down organix molecules and yeilds carbon dioxide, water, and a great deal of energy in the bargin... The microcosm did more than adapt: it evolved an oxygen-using dynamo that changed life and its terrestrial dwelling place forever.

With this spectacular invention the blue-green bacteria had two complimentary mechanisms at their disposal-the generation of free oxygen through photosynthesis and its absorption through respiration-and thus they could begin to set up feedback loops that would henceforth regulate the atmosphere's oxygen content, maintaining it at the delicate balance that enabled new oxygen-breathing forms of life to evolve. The proportion of free oxygen in the tmosphere eventually stabalized at 21 percent, a value determined by its range of flammability. If it dropped to below 15 percent, nothing would burn. Organisms could not breathe and would asphyxiate. If the oxygen in the air rose above 25 percent, everything would burn. Combustion would occur spontaneously and fires would rage around the planet. Accordingly, Gaia has kept the atmosphereic oxygen at a level most comfortable for all plants and animals for millions of years. in addition, a layer of ozone (three-atom oxygen molecules) gradually built up at the top of the atmosphere and from then on protected life on Earth from the sun's harsh ultraviolet rays. Now the stage was set for the evolution of the larger formsof life-fungi, plants, and animals-which occured in realtively short periods of time. ~ Fritjof Capra "The Web of Life" 1996

This information is based mainly on studies done by Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan, Manfred Eigen, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, James Lovelock and a host of other contributing scientists over the centuries.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Mar 8 2007, 10:12 PM) [snapback]402659[/snapback]</div>

No they don' Daniel at least not in anything resembling the enviroment they describe as primitive earth.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 9 2007, 12:51 AM) [snapback]402650[/snapback]</div>

Ah, the old where's the transitional fossil argument. Here's one for you - how come we don't see any miracles any more? I'm not talking about virgin mary images in cantaloupes or inspirational nuns. I mean real old testament parting of seas, talking, burning bushes. Why do we have to rely on faith, yet the ancient Hebrews got a pointed object lesson every generation or so?

edited for typos

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RonH @ Mar 8 2007, 11:22 PM) [snapback]402688[/snapback]</div>

Well how well did miracles and the actual presence of God work for Israel in the past? Not to well did it? Actually miracles are something the Bible tells us not to put our faith in, hope that helps. Not because they don’t happen anymore but because Satan also has power to perform miracles to lead astray the unwary. It says that in the Bible.

BTW where are all those rascally transitional fossil's anyway? Huh? No one knows? That's weird Billions of fossils found and only a scant few that could be tentatively described as transitional? Hmmmmm, or could they just be evidence of the diversity of life that God created. Yeah, I think that’s the way I’ll go, keep the faith baby because it takes a whole lot of it to believe in evolution.

Wildkow

p.s. BTW those miracles are coming soon make sure you read about them in the Bible so that you can tell who they are coming from, that's important.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Mar 8 2007, 11:28 PM) [snapback]402691[/snapback]</div>

While oxygen is necessary for life, free oxygen would oxidize and thus destroy all organic molecules required for the origin of life. Thus, in spite of much evidence that the earth has always had a significant quantity of free oxygen in the atmosphere, evolutionists persist in declaring that there was no oxygen in the earth's early atmosphere. However, this would also be fatal to an evolutionary origin of life. If there were no oxygen there would be no protective layer of ozone surrounding the earth. Ozone is produced by radiation from the sun on the oxygen in the atmosphere, converting the diatomic oxygen(O2) we breathe to triatomic oxygen O3), which is ozone. Thus if there were no oxygen there would be no ozone. The deadly destructive ultraviolet light from the sun would pour down on the surface of the earth unimpeded, destroying those organic molecules required for life, reducing them to simple gases, such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 8 2007, 11:17 PM) [snapback]402684[/snapback]</div>

Who are "they" and what is the description of early Earth they provide? Based on what you give me I can try to search around for more info.

I know my other post is very long but it does give one possible scenario.

To try and support what Daniel is saying:

Scientists showed that chemical structures satisfying the criteria for autopoietic organization can be produced in the laboratory.

An autopoietic system consists of three criteria:

1. The system must be self-bounded

1. Self-generating

1. Self-perpetuating

The possibility was suggested on theortical grounds by Francisco Varela and Pier Luigi Luisi in 1989 and then realzied in two experiments by Luisi and colleagues at the Swiss Polytechnical Institute (ETH) in Zurich.

Search for "Micelle" for the first structure they suggested.

"After this first example of autopoeitic chemistry, the researchers at ETH succeeded in creating another type of chemical structure that is even more relevant to cellular processes, because its main ingredients-so-called fatty acids-are thought to have been the material for primordial cell walls. The experiments consisted in producing spherical water droplets surrounded by shells of those fatty substances, which have the typical semipermeable structure of biological membranes (but without their protein components) and generate catalytic loops resulting in an autopoeitic system. The researchers who carried out the experiments speculate that these kinds of systems may have been the first closed loop self-reproducing chemical structures before the evolution of the bacterial cell. If this is true, it would mean that scientists have now succeeded in re-creating the first minimal life forms." - The Web of Life"

Links:

http://www.plluisi.org/grl_history.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v357/...s/357057a0.html


This info may be dated though so please do your own research before absorbing it.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 8 2007, 11:48 PM) [snapback]402700[/snapback]</div>

I answered this question in my long post....... It is because of fermenation and photosynthesizing then photosynthesizing and respirating bacteria that this was possible. At least that is how the idea goes.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Mar 8 2007, 10:59 PM) [snapback]402674[/snapback]</div>

This does not make any sense to me. The last thing this article says is that Gaia(?) kept the oxygen level at just the right level and that somewhere after life had started and gotten a good foot hold this Gaia gradually built up a protective layer of ozone to protect life from the sun's harsh ultraviolet rays. Well my question is what protected life’s precarious hold on existence before and how did life start with the destructive ultraviolet rays bombarding it day in and day out. Sorry, but that article doesn't cut it for me.
However, I will keep reading as there are other questions I have about when the food/energy processing mechanisms were created. The main question here is how did the organism survive if it had to wait for these mechanism to evolve?

Thanks good article but I am reserving judgement on this article for awhile.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 9 2007, 01:26 AM) [snapback]402713[/snapback]</div>

I'm not presenting it as the full blown truth or anything. It is not like someone was there collecting data so we'llnever know for sure. It sounds very plausible given everything we know.

In the begining of the article it states that fementing bacteria lived in the mud and subsurface layers which helped shield them from ultraviolet rays. Other bacteria evolved the ability to utilize UV rays to break down H2O molecules thus they didn't require as much shielding to survive. It wasn't until much later that the ozone formed after millions of years of bacterial activity and then other life forms evolved. So it is saying that the macro forms of life didn't come in until after the ozone had formed, until then it was mostly bacterial life and as we know bacteria can live in some pretty harsh conditions. Bacteria that lived in the mud (or other protective coverings) had to balance their need for protection with their need for solar energy for photosynthesis which led to the evolution of sensing systems and movement. Some migrated to the oceans where certain salts act like a filter, some moved into the sand, other developed pigments that absorbed the harmful rays (much like corals do today). Some built huge colonies of multilevel microbial mats in which the top layers got scorched and died but shielded the lower layers with their dead bodies.

Bacteria also developed mechanisms for repairing radiation damaged DNA, evolving special enzymes for this purpose. Almost all organisms today possess these repair enzymes to some extent.

Bacteria also have the unique ability to share DNA in what I consider almost a Borg like fashion. They can multiply at extremely fast rates. They trade their genes "horizontally", directly to their neihbors unlike us who trade their genes "vertically" through the generations. This makes bacteria supremely adaptable. A fast dividing bacteria can divide every twenty minutes, so that in principle several billion individual bacteria can be generated from a single cell in less than a day. A single sucessful bacterial mutant can spread rapidly through its environment.

Does this help?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Mar 9 2007, 07:04 AM) [snapback]402762[/snapback]</div>

Yes it does help but they blur the lines between the beginning of life and life that has been around long enough to incorporate evolutionary changes. Certainly the first signs of life, as far as I know, could not begin in the environment thus described. Even the elements of life could not assemble in this environment. If so then you have to assume that life formed with all of these complex systems in place and literally skipped the need for initial assembly of the base units and the need for evolutionary changes to take place. In that case the odds of life spontaneously appearing goes up to like 10^1000’s and even with all the time that has gone by times ^10 that just isn’t going to happen IMO. Now I suspect I will see a post from someone worded somewhat like this “And yet here we are!â€

If oxygen is present at the very beginning as has been proven by scientist the oxidation process would destroy the amino acids, proteins and fatty acids that must form for life to begin. If oxygen is not present then ultraviolet radiation destroys them, it’s a catch 22 that you can’t avoid. If they are buried in the mud where does the energy come from to initiate life, if you say lightning then how do you get around the fact that lightning destroys? It does not create life. If you say some other process then it seems that you bypass evolution completely and assemble complex systems from the get go. Highly unlikely IMHO, this is a question that will never be answered by science. Only faith can supply enough belief to take either side of this story.

Wildkow

 

Yes, at the heart of it, this is true.
The difference is that the scientific faith requred continues to be reduced, while the religious need for faith continues to increase. There was a massive lack of knowledge and information (or gaps/inconsistancies) in the time of Charles Darwin. And now it seems we're down to a few very specific nitpicking points remaining today.

IE: this missing transitional fossil record. What a joke that is. The transitions occur rapidly with LOOOnngg periods of stability in between. If you understand statistics AT ALL, you realize that archealogists are looking for a needle in a haystack compared to all other fossils likely to be found.

The "faith" required to NOT believe science as it's knowledge grows in leaps and bounds requires more & more effort, faith, or just plain blinders. Even just 500 years ago, we didn't know a tiny fraction of what we know now. And if someone discovered something, there was no way to quickly disseminate the information. And many who tried to were killed as heretics. These types of knowledge resistors continue today in the form of dissinformation trolls, who fortunately don't have the church blessing to whack the heretics/infidels.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ZenCruiser @ Mar 8 2007, 08:06 PM) [snapback]402524[/snapback]</div>

I can't help it that you were LIED to. One of the biggest weaknesses I see in most religions is their failure to admit that God is NOT in control. He is NOT manipulating your life. He has NOT pre-planned every aspect of your day, what you eat, when you die, etc. Jesus called Satan "the god of this system of things". Man (Adam and Eve) took Satan's side in the arguement. They agreed that they would rather decide for themselves what was right or wrong, and told God to basically take a hike. So he has, for 6,000 years now. Your accident was just part of the "time and unforeseen occurences that befall us all". Accidents happen. Telling people that "God needed another angel in heaven" is just a stupid lie invented to make people feel better, but IT DOESN'T. Its telling people that God needed your child more than you do, which is ridiculous. :angry:
It is NEVER "your time to go".

Can you point me to the passge where God condemned Adam and Eve for incest, or their offspring? As I've posted on PC before, incest was NOT prohibited until 2500 years later. By this time there were many genetic imperfections, and God realized the danger, so he prohibited the Jews from incest. If 2 perfect or near perfect people, like Cain and his sister had sex, there was near zero chance of any birth defects resulting, so there wasn't any prohibition. BTW, why is it that you can't post with the slightest tolerance of my beliefs, without the sarcastic blasphemy, and yet criticize Christians as being "intolerant"? Whose the real hypocrit? I try to respond respectfully and tactfully, but few, if any, aetheist on here respond in kind. I feel like I'm back in kindergarden with the petty name calling and taunting.

 

Welcome to Fred's house of pancakes...Read more closely and you'll see that kindergarten name calling seems the norm on both sides and is not an athiestic tendency only.

I think Christianity does a lot of good and I thank you and yours for that. I have no desire to see the demise of Christianity. But I also have no desire to follow it myself either. There is a lot of pent up religious anger on both sides and its not going away anytime soon. I, and other agnostics/athiest usually only get angry when we're told that we're somehow less moral because we don't believe as you do. Athiests won't generally argue that a Christian is somehow immoral. They just accuse you of being a sheep that doesn't understand the facts (which isn't any better).

Even if its not you, others on your side of the arguement use the same childish poop throwing.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 8 2007, 09:51 PM) [snapback]402650[/snapback]</div>

There was little or no oxygen in the early atmosphere. The first life was anaerobic. Some bacteria today are anaerobic. Life does NOT require oxygen. The predominant life forms on Earth today do require it, but the first life did not.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 8 2007, 11:17 PM) [snapback]402684[/snapback]</div>

You are mistaken. They have and they do. (Citation repeated below.)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 8 2007, 11:48 PM) [snapback]402700[/snapback]</div>

Life on the surface of the Earth depends on the ozone layer for protection. Life under water or underground is protected from cosmic rays. Life could not emerge from the sea until the ozone layer had formed. And it is well documented that life did not come out onto dry land until there was oxygen.

My source for all the above is, as I cited earlier, the lecture series The Origins of Life from The Teaching Company. This is just one more example of how listening to creationists, who are ignorant of science and love to make up "facts" (which are not facts at all, but lies) can throw you off.

Life formed in an oxygen-free environment, in locations protected from the sky, and produced oxygen as a waste product, then evolved to utilize or tolerate the oxygen (animals use it, plants tolerate it) while anerobic organisms (some forms of bacteria) retreated to oxygen-poor environments.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 9 2007, 09:54 AM) [snapback]402876[/snapback]</div>

I understand your reasoning and it sounds valid except that the excerpt I posted detaled all of that. You might have read to fast and missed it or my poor attempt to recreate it blurred the information.

The first "life" were complex (non-random) chemical reactions that evenutally formed a membrane and allowed for different concentrations of chemicals on the "inside" vs the outside world. With catalysts and feedback loops going on inside these "cells", points of non-equalibrium were reached and new levels of complex organization appear and soon (a billion years or so lol) self perpetuating, self-replicating systems evolved. That is the simple version.

Now to answer your questions about energy. The first bacteria were likely using fermentation as a means of producing energy and thus do not require heavy sunlight like photosynthetic orgnisms. I am not sure you could rule out chemosynthetic energy production at this time either (just guessing here). When more energy was required photosynthetic bacteria evolved (not the same photosynthesis we are familiar with) and invented new sensing organs and mobility so they could inhabit other areas that were safe from too much shortwave radiation yet they could still obtain enough sunlight to function. They would have adapted to this more intensely lit world with pigmentation differences, living in deeper water or even shielding by dead bacteria. You can see the effect of pigmentation in modern day corals. In my reef tank I can alter the colors of my stony corals by changing to different metal halide bulbs and/or ballasts and in effect alter the intensity and wavelength of light or how much UV is hitting them. The photosynthetic algae inside their tissues (zooxanthellae) will respond to the change in lighting by developing different pigments. The Lighting Strike is not required to start life according to the stuff I have read.

Does that help with you energy question and how the bacteria were not burned up by UV?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Mar 9 2007, 12:31 AM) [snapback]402637[/snapback]</div>

Actually, I believe we are all descendents of Moses's family(Moses and wife, 3sons and wives). Everyone else was killed during the flood.
How could you not know that? From there we procede to the tower of Babel, People move off to be with others who speak their language, a "few" years of evolution, and we have many races who can't get along.

When really we are all related.(You can add your incest fetish here)

Of course this is REALLY abreviated but you probably don't care, and thats fine. Some will believe others won't.