The Origin of Life--Religion versus Science
By Bruce Renehan
One of the idiosyncrasies of being institutionalized in organizations like the Worldwide Church of God is the belief that ignorance is bliss. Members are indoctrinated to believe that if they faithfully do as they are told, ignoring their conscience, they will certainly gain countless rewards in the sweet by and by. So they trade the responsibility of having to think for themselves for blind acceptance. What happens though, when someone who has been indoctrinated to believe something, is suddenly confronted with contradictory evidence? Depending upon the environment, the true believer will respond with ridicule, denial, or anger.
Several years ago, when my wife and I were in the Worldwide Church of God, we went to England for the feast. When visiting in London we went to Westminster Abby where we saw the famous coronation chair of England. We were with another church member by the name of Merle. I noticed that there was an official docent nearby so I approached her and asked if she had ever heard of the stone in the chair being called Jacob's pillar stone. She perked up and smiled, "Oh, such a wonderful legend it is too! But of course thoroughly disproved by geologists who've studied the stone." I inquired further, "What do you mean?" She responded, "Well granite of that type has never been found anywhere in the Middle East." As we walked away, I noticed Merle working himself up to a dither. "Who does she think she is? I mean, just who does she think she is to be telling people such lies!" he mumbled furiously to himself.
In the past few years scientists have discovered what appears to be fossilized archaebacteria inside Martian rocks --evidence that simple life forms once existed on the planet. I was curious about how the Pope would respond to scientific evidence of life on Mars. . A few years after the discovery, and with the announcement that we are sending Martian probes up to its ancient river beds, a papal edict was finally issued that declared that there may well be life in outer space and that all Catholics can breathe easy because it will not challenge their beliefs. One hundred and fifty years ago too, Christianity was challenged by scientific evidence with the publishing of a book called "Origin of Species" From that point to this very day, creationists have scrambled to invent senseless quips and insults to ridicule what they simply don't understand. Darwin did not invent the theory of evolution. The theory existed in his grandfather's day. Darwin simply found a place on earth that offered irrefutable evidence that the theory works, in a chain of islands due west of Ecuador called the Galapagos. Darwin found 14 distinct sub-species of finches that had adapted in several ecological niches--proof that species adapt to their environment. Six of the finch sub-species have adapted bills to crush and eat the various seeds in their environment. One sub-specie has adapted to eat buds, and the remaining six finches eat various insects abundant in their niches.
Herbert Armstrong's defense was no different than other creationists. One of his assumptions when he wrote about evolution was that "creation demands a creator" and therefore the theory of evolution is impossible. Armstrong stated in his autobiography that he had thoroughly disproved the theory of evolution in the 1920s during his research in the Eugene, Oregon library. He never elaborated on what that alleged proof was. The only "proof" that I ever read him purport is that uranium decays and therefore must have been created once. Unfortunately, that doesn't prove anything more than the second law of thermodynamics (all things move toward entropy--decay).
A few years ago I had the opportunity to go to a creation versus evolution debate at the Civic Center in Bakersfield. The speaker debating the side in favor of creation was a Dr. Gish. He was the first speaker and took a very authoritative stance which appeared to be logical, at least to the audience. The audience was mostly made up of fanatical Christians who remained silent and respectful while Dr. Gish spoke. When the speaker made his points, the audience would ooh and awe. They were not so cordial, though, when the speaker presenting evidence in favor of the theory of evolution rose to take his turn at the podium. There were several doors at the back of the auditorium with those lever type door openers. People began to rise from their seats and proceeded to open and slam the doors repeatedly. Others in the audience began talking out loud to their friends and doing whatever they could to disturb the peace. The sense of fair play simply was not in the room. Again, it appears that when belief systems are challenged, true believers always react with denial, ridicule, or anger. Apparently anything goes when it comes to maintaining sacred myths and censoring those who report bad news. This defensiveness is certainly apparent whenever the belief system of someone in a religious cult is challenged. We've all heard those hackneyed counter attacks: "you're just bitter," "what about David's adultery?", "I know you are but what am I?", and so on.
So, for those of you who want to hide from the facts, I suggest that you read no further because I'm going to present Dr. Gish's strongest proof that life could not have evolved on earth and therefore it had to have been created. Then, I'm going to show you that his argument has already been disproved nearly half a century ago.
Gish posited the questions, "What is the probability of life starting from the raw elements present on earth? What is the probability of the 20 complex molecules known as amino acids coming together in their proper order?" He then produced a very large number and stated, "That is the probability! Therefore life could not have evolved in the time that the earth has existed."
I've always found large numbers are disturbing to many people and it is probably this one factor that overwhelms the unscientific creationist. Dr. Gish skillfully used this sleight of hand to make it appear impossible for life to generate itself in the earth's environment 5 billion years ago. In reality, his argument does not destroy the possibility of the building blocks of life forming on earth as much as it presents a devastating blow to the probability of God's existence. This was first explored in the sixteenth century by Bernard Spanoza in his book "The Ethica." Spanoza used Euclidean logic to prove that things that are infinite and things that are finite cannot be related to each other. In other words, if you attempt to divide infinity by any finite number your answer is always infinity. If an infinite God created everything that exists, he had to have created it from his own essence, otherwise it would have come from outside of himself and we'd be stuck with two problems: 1) God would no longer be infinite if something existed outside of him. 2) Where did that other part of the universe come from? The creationist solves the riddle of life's origin by stating that all that is came from a creator who is infinite. Before him there was no beginning and after him there shall be no end. God is infinite in wisdom (omniscient), infinite in existence (omnipresent), and infinite in power (omnipotent). And there's where Spanoza's rub is: If God who is infinite takes anything from his essence, it too will be infinite in wisdom, existence, and power. Like begets like. But if this is true, what does that say about God's infinite goodness? If God is infinitely good then evil could never have derived from his essence and neither Lucifer nor Adam could have sinned. If we follow Gish's argument that a probability that deals with very large numbers (a billion to one for instance) makes something's occurrence more and more improbable then certainly the number infinity makes something's occurrence impossible.
Now let's get back to Gish's query about the formation of amino acids, without having to worry about mathematics. All of the things that we see around us are made up of bonded atoms. There are currently 111 atoms on the periodic chart of elements beginning with the simplest atom of all, hydrogen. Hydrogen only has one electron spinning in an orbit around its nucleus. The oxygen atom has eight electrons spinning in its orbit. So, without getting into too much theory here, two hydrogen atoms readily bond with one oxygen atom with the loss of some thermal energy. Thus, once hydrogen and oxygen atoms rise up in the atmosphere they begin to lose thermal energy as the upper atmosphere cools them. This exothermic process causes the atoms to bond together to form H2O (water). Conversely, as the thermal energy from the sun heats up the surface of the ocean an endothermic reaction breaks the bond that hydrogen and oxygen atoms have on each other and the cycle continues to form gasses that rise up in the atmosphere.
The structure of an amino acid molecule is a chain of atoms. On one end is an amino group one nitrogen and two hydrogen atoms bonded and at the other end an acid group of one carbon, two oxygen, and one hydrogen atoms. Off of the central carbon atom is bonded a side group of 20 possible oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon combinations. The earth's environment flourishes with these atoms and molecules. On the primitive surface of the earth, with the formation of the oceans, the sheer abundance of these atoms in the environment as it cooled makes Gish's probability theory a moot point.
In chemistry one of the standard measures for the mass of a substance is the gram. There are approximately 28 grams in one ounce. There are 6.022 x1023 hydrogen atoms in one gram. Written out that is 602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 hydrogen atoms in one gram alone. Can you imagine how many hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen atoms are in the vast oceans and environment surrounding the earth? The abundance of these atoms in our environment simply nullifies Dr. Gish's large probability of the right combination eventually coming together.
Now, all we need is a simple experiment to prove that amino acids originated in the primitive environment of earth. This experiment was performed in 1953 by PhD candidate Stanley Miller at the university of Chicago and has been replicated many times since. Miller tested the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis by reproducing the conditions that prevailed on earth billions of years ago and then determining if biological molecules could be produced. "Miller built an apparatus that would circulate a mixture of methane, hydrogen, ammonia, and water (representing the atmosphere of early earth) past an electric spark. The spark represented lightning, a source to provide necessary energy for the chemical reactions. Water in the flask was boiled to produce steam that helped circulate the gases. The products formed in the electrical discharge were condensed in the condenser and collected in the U-tube and small flask (representing the ocean). The control was an apparatus containing the same materials but with no sparking" (Hickman and Roberts, p. 15).
After a week of continuous sparking, the water containing the products was analyzed. The results were surprising. Approximately 15% of the carbon that was originally in the 'atmosphere' had been converted into organic compounds that collected in the 'ocean.' The most striking finding was that many compounds related to life were synthesized. These included four amino acids commonly found in proteins" (Hickman and Roberts). And remember this was performed in a flask in one week's time. Proof, that at least in the formation of biological material and the building blocks of life, creation does not demand a creator.
As an interesting sideline, the biblical story of creation reports that Adam was created from red clay. Clay is one of the most abundant substances on earth--silicon. Unfortunately for the creationists, there are no biological organisms containing silicon. Silicon is simply not an organic material.
Source Cited Hickman Jr., C. P. and L. S. Roberts 1994.
Biology of Animals. Wm. C. Brown Publishers, Dubuque, IA.
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