The existence of life is definitive proof of the existence of God.
It is laughable that people think it is irrational to believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ but then blithely believe that life itself was birthed from nothing for no reason.
Natural Selection cannot even begin until life exists, which is like saying that you can't even start counting to one million until you're already at nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine.
The existence of life is the only interesting question in the Universe because without life no other question can even arise.
I suspect everyone acknowledges the existence of life, but only a small subset of people think it's because of any particular god, so I'd argue your claim that the former definitely proves the latter.
Objectively, a virgin birth is implausible, and consider that the first claim of this was made some 70 years after the alleged event, by an unknown author writing about people they had never met, nor so far we can tell, had ever talked to anyone who'd met any of the people involved. Then you have the contention around translations - virgin vs young woman, etc.
So, we've got a distinct lack of evidence for any of that -- in comparison to some increasingly gap-reduced hypotheses around how life started on Earth.
Someone else mentioned Nick Lane, and I'd recommend his work if you're genuinely curious.
You did - you used the capital-g version of god, which suggests you had a particular one in mind, and you mentioned the unproven virgin birth of Jesus, who according to that particular mythology was the son of / the actual christian deity.
Thanks for the suggestion on the book - looks like it was written by a couple of christians, is that right? I'll see if I can find a copy at the local library.
Hopefully you get a chance to read some deep-science, non-partisan, non-orthodox books on the subject, like the one I cited.
By "science" I just mean clear, rational thinking that is based on empiricism and does not have a prior commitment to a particular metaphysics or worldview.
Well, I'd say that empiricism is a) a subset of what science is / means, and b) empiricism by itself would rule out any supernatural, by definition.
Did you have an existing commitment to a belief in a deity before you came to conclude that ".. the existence of life is definitive proof of the existence of a god"?
It sounds to me like you're starting with the assumption that empiricism must rule out the supernatural. That is what I mean by having a prior commitment to a metaphysic, and is therefore not a truly scientific approach.
As for me, no I do not have an existing commitment to a belief in a deity before concluding that the existence of life is definitive proof of the existence of a god. Rather, it is the other way around -- it is the empirical observations about life that lead to the conclusion that it must have been designed by a superior intelligence.
Obviously, you cannot begin with the assumption that the supernatural must be ruled out and then come to the conclusion that the supernatural must be ruled out without engaging in circular reasoning. Let the evidence guide you based on reason, but don't begin by assuming your conclusion.
I'm kind of happy with this pithy summary - plucked from the internet just now - of the definition of, and differences between, rationalism and empiricism:
"rationalism is the knowledge that is derived from reason and logic while on the other hand empiricism is the knowledge that is derived from experience and experimentation."
In any case, empiricism is all about evidence based, typically via experimentation, so I'm still confused how you'd go about proving something unprovable (and almost certainly non-existent) by evidence and experiment.
I think if you could demonstrate evidence of the supernatural, it wouldn't be supernatural.
What empirical observations about life lead you to want to believe that life was designed by a superior intelligence?
Is it the eye? (I note that ~60% of the population need glasses.) Is it smallpox, malaria, Leigh syndrome, etc? These don't feel like the result of an especially sophisticated intelligence. Is it the famously circuitous route of the recurrent laryngeal nerve in the giraffe's neck? Perhaps it's the the fact that Earth is one of about
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe, therefore we must be special?
What is it about the Rosetta Stone that makes you think there was an intelligence behind it, rather than wind and erosion? Surely you don't believe that science cannot in principle detect the activity of intelligence, do you? If so you would have to dismiss anthropology, forensic science, cryptography, and the SETI project.
As for your point that if you can detect the supernatural then it isn't supernatural, well, I almost took the time to address this in my earlier response, but decided to save my breath. Basically, I don't care whether you decide to define God as natural or supernatural -- the point is that we can determine with certainty that life is the product of an intelligence.
If you could prove the existence of any of the gods, this would be a pretty popular capability with deity advocates the world over - but given no one's come up with such a proof, and you haven't demonstrated one here, I'm inclined to go with the standard view that it's impossible.
The Rosetta Stone - aligned with and correlated existing writing / languages with a huge swathe of corroborating material. There was nothing mystical about its content - it was a pretty pedestrian payload, if I recall.
The existence of life is proof of the existence of God. That's the end of the story. The language of DNA makes the Rosetta Stone look like the scribbles of children.
No technology ever conceived by the mind of Man can hold a torch to the complexity and intricacy of the technology of life. We don't even understand it. It is not just a machine, it is a machine to build a machine. It is "code" in the most profound sense of the word. Frankly, it is language. A poet might call it poetry. (And, of course, all human poetry is its by-product.)
You referred earlier to "some increasingly gap-reduced hypotheses...", which is just another assumption you've made that is not only unwarranted but at odds with the actual "progress" being made on this front.
The more powerful our exploratory tools become, and the more deeply we understand organic chemistry, microbiology, and nanotechnology, the larger the "gaps" appear. In Darwin's day single-celled organisms were assumed to be simple -- just little blobs animated by "life-force". But now we know they are complex machines beyond anything Darwin could have imagined. We are widening the gaps as we learn more, not decreasing them.
You are assuming, as is typical, that scientific progress always reduces gaps, and so you conclude that the gaps on this front must be getting reduced. But they are not, and you're merely begging the question again.
In fact, a good title for a book on this topic would be "The God of the Gap" because if you want proof of the existence of God, then the existence of life provides it.
And not only is the proof clear, but it has been readily apparent to practically all humans since the beginning of time. Only in the last couple hundred years have some midwits arisen who think they have somehow done away with God. Invariably they turn out to merely have a college-level understanding of what science is and how it progresses.
By your reasoning, one only needs to assume there is no God in order to conclude there is no God. But reality does not bend to your assumptions, and nor does it bow to your circular conclusions.
You're using the proper noun 'God' again - do you have a specific one in mind, or are you suggesting all gods - some 18,000 or so? - are all proven by the existence of life?
I'll gleefully agree that DNA is complex, and certainly more complex than the Ptolemy-related ramblings on a 2200yo stone tablet, but I do not agree that gets us to:
life is complex ⟹ god(s) exist
Things that aren't complex include the 'inspired by deity' writings from 1200-3000 years ago, that all fail to exhibit any of the anticipated god-level complexity, and instead concern themselves with despairingly pedestrian affairs such as rules around food preparation, slave management, agricultural practices, treatment of enemies, other gods, etc.
All of which sound much more like the contemporary concerns of middle aged blokes somewhere on the mildly literate to reasonably angry spectrum.
One would hope a deity that could countenance, let alone create, the complexity of DNA would have far more compelling interests than worrying out loud whether my shirt was a blend of polyester and cotton.
You seem to be concerned with which god or with the character of God. Those are important concerns that you should spend some time contemplating. Good luck.
By the way, you just keep demonstrating circular reasoning. For instance, you write: "I'm still confused how you'd go about proving something unprovable...", which tells me that you're starting with the assumption that the existence of God is unprovable. So you begin with the premise that the existence of God cannot be proven and then you conclude that I must not be able to prove the existence of God. You really need to start laying your assumptions aside and thinking scientifically.
It is laughable that people think it is irrational to believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ but then blithely believe that life itself was birthed from nothing for no reason.
Natural Selection cannot even begin until life exists, which is like saying that you can't even start counting to one million until you're already at nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine.
The existence of life is the only interesting question in the Universe because without life no other question can even arise.