M.D. Rawlings
Classical Liberal
Abiogenesis: The Holy Grail of Atheism
By Michael David Rawlings
March 6, 2011
Years of experience have shown me that most atheists are more obtuse than a pile of bricks. They are either breezily unaware of their metaphysical biases or are unwilling to objectively separate themselves from them long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion about the tenets of their religion: namely, abiogenesis and evolution. While science's historical presupposition is not a metaphysical naturalism (or an ontological naturalism), most of today's practicing scientists insist that the composition of empirical phenomena must be inferred without any consideration given to the possibility of intelligent causation. The limits of scientific inquiry are thereby reconfigured as if they constituted the limits of reality itself, the more expansive potentialities of human consciousness be damned. In other words, if something cannot be readily quantified by science, it doesn't exist, regardless of the conclusions that any rational evaluation of the empirical data might recommend. Hence, should one reject what is nothing more than the guesswork of an arbitrarily imposed apriority, one is said to reject science itself, as if the fanatics of scientism owned the means of science.
The Rest
Warning: this article attempts to address the philosophical/theological implications of what is currently known from the findings of research in the field of prebiotic chemistry; hence, it is posted in the religious forum rather than the science forum. On the other hand, with regard to the scientific aspects of the article, the research was vetted by experts in the fields of biochemistry and microbiology, by friends, both ID scientists and evolutionists. Naturally, the latter would not necessarily agree with my thesis regarding the deleterious effects of Darwinian naturalism on scientific methodology and what I hold to be the only viable explanation for the origins of life and the process of actualization, but the presentation of the science itself is objective, accurate and sound. In other words, because this work unabashedly posits, albeit, based on the findings of scientific research, that life could not and did not arise in the primordial world via the processes of natural causality, it is not strictly a scientific work, but one that evaluates the potentialities of ultimate origins of which we are all cognizant whether we acknowledge them to be pertinently valid or not.
Scientifically, as things stand now, we cannot say with any certitude how life began. We can only consider what scientific research has shown about the monomeric, chemical precursors of life, the extent to which they were available and the apparent conditions under which they travailed. I submit that the evidence strongly indicates the necessity of an intelligent designer; that is to say, I go beyond the Pasteurian law of biogenesis: all live is from live.
By Michael David Rawlings
March 6, 2011
Years of experience have shown me that most atheists are more obtuse than a pile of bricks. They are either breezily unaware of their metaphysical biases or are unwilling to objectively separate themselves from them long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion about the tenets of their religion: namely, abiogenesis and evolution. While science's historical presupposition is not a metaphysical naturalism (or an ontological naturalism), most of today's practicing scientists insist that the composition of empirical phenomena must be inferred without any consideration given to the possibility of intelligent causation. The limits of scientific inquiry are thereby reconfigured as if they constituted the limits of reality itself, the more expansive potentialities of human consciousness be damned. In other words, if something cannot be readily quantified by science, it doesn't exist, regardless of the conclusions that any rational evaluation of the empirical data might recommend. Hence, should one reject what is nothing more than the guesswork of an arbitrarily imposed apriority, one is said to reject science itself, as if the fanatics of scientism owned the means of science.
The Rest
Warning: this article attempts to address the philosophical/theological implications of what is currently known from the findings of research in the field of prebiotic chemistry; hence, it is posted in the religious forum rather than the science forum. On the other hand, with regard to the scientific aspects of the article, the research was vetted by experts in the fields of biochemistry and microbiology, by friends, both ID scientists and evolutionists. Naturally, the latter would not necessarily agree with my thesis regarding the deleterious effects of Darwinian naturalism on scientific methodology and what I hold to be the only viable explanation for the origins of life and the process of actualization, but the presentation of the science itself is objective, accurate and sound. In other words, because this work unabashedly posits, albeit, based on the findings of scientific research, that life could not and did not arise in the primordial world via the processes of natural causality, it is not strictly a scientific work, but one that evaluates the potentialities of ultimate origins of which we are all cognizant whether we acknowledge them to be pertinently valid or not.
Scientifically, as things stand now, we cannot say with any certitude how life began. We can only consider what scientific research has shown about the monomeric, chemical precursors of life, the extent to which they were available and the apparent conditions under which they travailed. I submit that the evidence strongly indicates the necessity of an intelligent designer; that is to say, I go beyond the Pasteurian law of biogenesis: all live is from live.
