NEW

God vs Science

This is an edited extract from Can Science Explain Everything? by John C Lennox (January 2019). The book is the first of a series in a joint venture with the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, Zacharias Institute, and The Good Book Company. “Surely you can’t be...

Objection Overruled

By William A. Dembski & Sean McDowell This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 31, number 5 (2008). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org. Synopsis The controversy...

A “Sign” of the Times

So sorry rabbi… Recently a friend of mine gave me a short clip out of a local newspaper to read (see below) and asked my opinion about what it said.  My friend knows that I’m a Christian and where I stand on issues of faith, but I think he was trying to get me to see...

Starting a Grassroots Apologetics Ministry

Starting an Apologetic Ministry I had the privilege of speaking with Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio about the birth of New York Apologetics and how to start an apologetics ministry.  We know that "unless the Lord builds it, it's laborers labor in vain", so...

Beware the Hebrew Roots Movement

Hebrew Roots is dangerous! In my recent radio interview with Chris Arnzen on the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Show, I was asked a question about the Hebrew Roots movement.  Although I've heard about the movement and knew some basic information, I promised to post some...

Who was Jesus? | NY Minute

We're using the "Handbook of Apologetics" by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli to go over the arguments for the existence of God.  Today, we will be covering the above referenced subject in relation to the existence of God. Dr. Kreeft teaches logic in two major...

The Deity of Jesus: the alternative | NY Minute

We're using the "Handbook of Apologetics" by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli to go over the arguments for the existence of God.  Today, we will be covering the above referenced subject in relation to the existence of God. Dr. Kreeft teaches logic in two major...

Jesus’ Divinity leads to Trustworthiness | NY Minute

We're using the "Handbook of Apologetics" by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli to go over the arguments for the existence of God.  Today, we will be covering the above referenced subject in relation to the existence of God. Dr. Kreeft teaches logic in two major...

Divinity of Jesus Difficulties | NY Minute

We're using the "Handbook of Apologetics" by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli to go over the arguments for the existence of God.  Today, we will be covering the above referenced subject in relation to the existence of God. Dr. Kreeft teaches logic in two major...

Evolution: Science Fable, or fact?

This hilarious video on evolution illustrates the absurdity of the Theory of Evolution and the consequences that follow.  On evolution, you have no significant value or meaning.  

Without God, How Can One Explain the Origin of Life?

Written by Lenny Esposito

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk on the origin of life and how it is providing incredibly serious problems for naturalists who seek to eliminate God from the scene. Modern biology has discovered quite a bit about the cell and its complexity, but in so discovering, they have also created quite a conundrum for themselves. How do you get any kind of life, with its requisite DNA code that carries the instructions for how things work operating together with the proteins that carry out the work? David Berlinski, who classifies himself as an agnostic, puts the problem in clear terms. He first identifies the different functions that go into creating proteins in the cell.1:

Replication duplicates the genetic message in DNA.
Transcription copies the genetic message from DNA to RNA.
Translation conveys the genetic message from RNA to the amino acids—whereupon in a fourth and final step, the amino acids are assembled into proteins.

None of the above is controversial. Biologists know that proteins are the things that do all the work of life. The description of DNA to RNA to amino acids to proteins is simple and directional. But Berlinski then notes that when we are talking about the origin of life, the description is reversed. In order to get a replication process, one must have proteins already. In fact, the famous Miller-Urey experiment sought to show that amino acids, not DNA chains, could be produced using natural processes. They were assuming that with amino acids, one can begin the replication process. Berlinski then makes an astute observation:

If nucleic acids are the cell’s administrators, the proteins are its chemical executives: both the staff and stuff of life. The molecular arrow goes one way with respect to information, but it goes the other way with respect to chemistry.

Replication, transcription, and translation represent the grand unfolding of the central dogma as it proceeds in one direction. The chemical activities initiated by the enzymes represent the grand unfolding of the central dogma as it goes in the other. Within the cell, the two halves of the central dogma combine to reveal a system of coded chemistry, an exquisitely intricate but remarkably coherent temporal tableau suggesting a great army in action.

From these considerations a familiar figure now emerges: the figure of a chicken and its egg. Replication, transcription, and translation are all under the control of various enzymes, but enzymes are proteins, and these particular proteins are specified by the cell s nucleic acids, DNA requires the enzymes in order to undertake the work of replication, transcription, and translation and the enzymes require DNA in order to initiate it. The nucleic acids and the proteins are thus profoundly coordinated, each depending upon the other. Without amino-acyl-tRNA synthetase, there is no translation from RNA; but without DNA, there is no amino-acyl-tRNA synthetase.

On the level of intuition and experience, these facts suggest nothing more mysterious than the longstanding truism that life comes only from life.Omnia viva ex vivo, as Latin writers said. It is only when they are embedded in various theories about the origins of life that the facts engender a paradox, or at least a question: in the receding molecular spiral, which came first—the chicken in the form of DNA, or its egg in the form of various proteins? And if neither came first, how could life have begun?2(Emphases in the original.)

Original article Here: http://apologetics-notes.comereason.org/2014/06/without-god-how-can-one-explain-origin.html

Share This: