Are you religious or not

[Gillette]

That life started just once through a unique event is a reasonable hypothesis.

No, it isn't. But thank you for missing the entire point of my post.

If you understand how speciation works then you'd understand that it begins with a simple mutation of a single organism. If that mutation hinders the organism's success in it's environment it likely dies with that individual organism. If it aids the organism's success there is a better chance it will be passed on to future generations (adaptation). If there is separation between a population of these adapted organisms and an unadapted population and sufficient time passes for other mutations in the genetic code to make offspring from a combination of the two non-viable you then have speciation.

Short version- for every species there have to be at the very least two mutations. The truth is that there are countless more mutations that are expressed to the organism's detriment, expressed with neutral consequences that don't lead to speciation and more yet that go completely unexpressed. The cases where the individuals die out without passing it on and the ones with unexpressed mutations go completely unnoticed.

Even the individuals that have beneficial adaptative mutations in relation to others of their species could fail to pass on their trait to following generations for any number of reasons. What if the first giraffe was wounded in in a fight for mating rights and died of it's injuries? What if it became prey prior to passing on it's genes? What if being able to reach higher branches also enabled it to eat something poisonous? Whoops! We're not going to know about that one are we? It's not until one has that beneficial mutation* and passes it on for generations that we say, "Look, there's something".

*What are the odds of the same mutation happening twice, mutations are random aren't they? Maybe not as much as we think. Carcinogens increase the likelihood of specific protein transcription error (mutation) leading to uncontrolled cell division. However in low doses they aren't a guarantee of cancer in every individual. Xenoestrogens have been shown to act in a very specific way on a cellular level in sufficient concentrations. Chernobyl has also given us a glimpse at the influence outside factors can have on our genetic code. It's not beyond reason to think that some outside factor could have caused a specific protein transcription error in the sex cells of individuals susceptible to the level present.



It takes expression, success and survival.

Expression. Let's look at your jump from RNA to DNA. The fundamental difference between the two is that RNA has uracil where DNA has thymine. Methylation of uracil produces thymine. This is chemistry, not divinity. The concept that it's improbable to occur more than once is absurd.

Success. This process of methylation could be occuring quite often but in order for something to come of it the right conditions have to be present. Global temperatures change as does the atmospheric content. This could have occurred millions of times before one occurred in an environment not hostile enough to kill it. Maybe that was us. Maybe that was an incidence or three dozen before us that only survived a couple of generations before environmental factors wiped each out.

Maybe ours was just the one that happened when the environment was stable enough to allow for further developments which made for survival despite challenging factors. (and that without interspecial/interlife competition)

Survival. What if this spontaneous genesis is still going on today? Not only does it have to happen in the right environment to support it but it also has to compete with an abundance of existing, specialized life for it's sustenance while avoiding predation or unwitting destruction by them. "Look at me! First of my kind to achieve cellhood! I'm in the right spot, gettin' nutrients. Life is good. What's an oil spill? Shit.

Oh, yes, and in order to satisfy you they have to be discovered by a scientist, confirmed and reported before this happens. You know those new species being discovered each year? They probably didn't just evolve that year. They were there undetected but still existing.

That life started just once through a unique event isn't a reasonable hypothesis.
That it succeeded just once is. And even that's wobbly.

Viruses aren't universally recognized as a form of life because they can't replicate on their own. They are purely parasitic, relying on a living host cell for reproduction. Some actually require both a host cell and a complimentary virus for survival. There are three hypotheses regarding their origin, one of which is spontaneous assembly of complex molecules. They do, however, evolve as the development of resistant strains prove. Here's the kicker, computer analysis of viral DNA sequences doesn't even indicate that all known viruses evolved from a common ancestor. (Oh my!) What if viruses came out of a different "zap" of life force when already existing life on the planet was of sufficient density that there was one near to attach itself to?
And then again another time in a different form?

Yes, viruses share the same nucleotides but what if these are the only nucleotides capable of sustained life on our planet?

RNA & DNA form? There's a reason triangular wheels didn't catch on.

Oooooh, what if there is other life on the planet and we just aren't capable of recognizing it as such yet?

This "argument from design" is a powerful argument for the existence of God.

It's a closed and self-perpetuating argument because without the god there is no design. You are accepting one unproven (that our spark was the only one and succeeded on it's first try) over another (and far more likely, IMO) unproven (that it wasn't) and using that as a strong argument in favour of the unprovable (existence of god)?

Really? What do you suppose god's design was for the microorganisms we keep finding fossil evidence of in meteorites?

Your narrow viewed acceptance that our life origins was the only one ergo it must have been design, in turn arguing for the existense of god is hubris.
Go sit with the geocentrists.

 

[JustAsking]

...This "argument from design" is a powerful argument for the existence of God. It is possible to question the vaidity of the argument (ie be an agnostic) but it seems to be impossible to prove it wrong (ie be an atheist). Thus atheist Bertrand Russell saw atheism as a form of agnosticism, effectively a theoretical extreme that can never truly be reached because it cannot be proved.

But as per Russell, the only argument for design anyone can put forth is dependent on a false dichotomy supported by an appeal to ignorance. There is no empirical evidence of design in the universe.

 

[Axcess]

Currently I'm reading the Connected Discourses Of The Buddha : A translation of the Samyutta Nikaya impressive stuff. Huge book over 2000 pages .