Likely Earth Conditions for the Early Production of Amino Acids

Part 4 below is a continuation of my "Origin of Life" series, which started on this Blog back on January 13, 2010. To date, the complete Blog-related, online series is inclusive of the following parts:

Part 1
The Origin of Life is Life (or Something or Someone Already Alive);

Part 2
The Intelligence in Life: Intent and "Time";

Part 3(a)
Intentional Intelligence in Non-Human Life: The Division of Human Language;

Part 3(b)
Correction and Prefatory Note to 'Origin of Life' Blog Series;

Part 4
Advanced "Earth Conditions": Corrections to Miller's 1953 Hypothesis and Its Likely Indications

Part 5 (pending) will complete this specific online series, though I intend to begin a new series which continues where this series will next leave off.

Correction and Prefatory Note to "Origin of Life" Blog Series

In my third part of the "Origin of Life" series, in my post dated April 5, 2010, "Intentional Intelligence in Non-Human Life: The Division of Human Language," I have added the following corrective, clarifying note at the end of that article:

[*AUTHOR'S NOTE: On Monday, May 3, 2010, I removed "biological, evolutionary view of life" from the second-to-last paragraph in this article and in its place I am using "non-biological, evolutionary view of the origin of life." By this I intend to correct and to make clearer that I believe Hawking's (and others') view of life ultimately involves acceptance of something other than "life" or of what or of who is already alive as the origin of life itself. I believe such a "non-biological" view of life's origin is not only unscientific (because it does not build from even one single, observable, repeatable example) but it also contradicts what science otherwise, everywhere, and always to this day has shown us: Life only comes from something or from someone already alive.]

This correction was necessary and important enough to also cite here in a separate Blog, both to highlight the correction itself and so also to then set the stage properly for my next Blog in this series, which will further discuss some of Professor Hawking's views of life, of its origin, and of its evolution, specifically, its intentional or unintentional evolution. In this case, the above error was one of expression on my part, in that the point I am making or that I was trying to express prior to the correction noted above is, in part, that many evolutionists (such as Hawking) ultimately are not consistent with science when it comes to their view of life, that is, from its origin to its evolution. 

I believe and I intend to further show and support with what I believe will be considered good if not the best available reasons, that a large part of the failure to connect life with life and, ultimately, to show that scientifically life should be considered eternal (since life is, in fact, here), involves the misunderstanding and/or a failure for some reason by many to actually use what science shows us more clearly than nearly anything else, namely, that life only comes from something or from someone already alive. Therefore, I will attempt to further this discussion with additional, testable reasons in my next Blog in this series.

Until then, I want to make sure I correctly express my understanding of Professor Hawking's view of the origin of life as "non-biological," ultimately, though his related view of the evolution of already existing life may and is likely in many ways "biological," though after the fact, that is, since I can and will show further that for Hawking life does not evolve from life. Rather, only after life is already existing would its evolution then also be potentially considered as having to do with "life," at least for those who would consider anything but life or something or someone already alive as the scientifically demonstrable, eternal source of all other forms and types of life.

Intentional Intelligence in Non-Human Life: The Division of Human Language

Humans are not that old. By “that old” I write, of course, comparatively, that is, where it involves the apparent periods of life for various other life forms or other bio- or ecosystems which we find through searching the layers of earth’s history (fossils), though there are even here questions about sedimentation and dating which I will consider separately, specifically, as it relates to dating the great variety of life which has come upon the earth.

Viewing the existence of man comparatively with what may be prehistoric forms of life which appear to have lived on the earth for long periods of time, measured by hundreds of thousands or perhaps even by millions of years, when it comes to humankind (men and women) the best available evidence today suggests our existence is from 6,000 to perhaps as old as 10,000 years. True, there are findings and claims by some relative to what is considered early “human” activity in Australia based on what are thought to be pieces of “flint” and “tiny sharp stones that were used as knives,” dating as far back as 35,000 years ago (see, “Ancient Tools Found in Australia,” AP [April 8, 2008]), as well as what some believe to be “footprints” in the same area from about 20,000 years ago (see Sean Markey, “20,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Found in Australia,” National Geographic News [August 3, 2006]). But whether such findings and their present dating are accurate (and some appear questionable on several grounds [see my pending, separate Blog article]), other than what is considered a “paleolithic bone flute” found in Europe (which I will also discuss as part of my separate, pending Blog on dating methods), these and similar findings are limited to things which do not necessarily indicate human existence or intelligence.

Below I will provide several examples of what we would accept as early, incontrovertibly clear human activity like (and even greater than) we see in our modern age. Indeed, though there is evidence to show the existence of various other human-like creatures on the earth (the most popular of which is “Neanderthal,” who was similar to but also very different from humans today), “humans” are now thought by some to have caused the disappearance of these other, similar but different creatures (see, “How Neanderthals met a grisly fate: devoured by humans,” by Robin McKie, science editor for “The Observer” [May 17, 2009]).

Though there are many ways in which we might define our present-day humanity or our identity as “humans,” the following are five (5) clear indicators of the presence of what I believe we would without hesitation consider a present-day “human”:

1.     Metallurgy:

This involves the study and mixture of metals which is ultimately, and which was originally, for the making of tools and weapons. However, according to Piotr Bienkowski and Alan Ralph Millard, “there is a lack of evidence for metal tools because metal was extensively recycled, because tools were rarely placed in graves, and because much research has focused on public buildings” (Dictionary of the Ancient Near East [Philadelphia: University Press of Pennsylvania, 2000], page 294). Bienkowski and Millard go on to reveal that as far as metal tools are concerned, these are only as early as “Old Babylonian date” (from the 20th century BCE to the late 18th or early 17th centuries BCE), and that a “group of tenth-century BC iron tools from Tell Taanach in Palestine shows a similar range of implements” (Dictionary of the Ancient Near East, page 294). Even if we accept that “the Hongshan” (early Chinese culture from 4500 to 2250 BCE) had “knowledge of metallurgy and employed the use of copper (possible iron) metal tools to work their Jade masterpieces,” this puts the manipulation of metal for use as tools and/or for weapons by humans resembling our use of the same (metal) today, to as far back as between 3,800 and 6,500 years ago.

Again, for a planet that is said to be billions of years old, with life forms which have existed in spectacular completeness and variety for millions of years, 3,800 to 6,500 years is “not that long”! Of interest and in further support of a similar time for when humans began to intentionally and with what we consider “intelligence” manipulate and then use metals and their mixtures (alloys), the historical record in the Bible names the one who began the manipulation of metal within the first 130 to the reported 930 years of the biblical Adam’s life, “Tubalcain.” In Genesis 4:22 Tubalcain is said to have been “the one shaping any kind of bronze or iron.” Compare this with Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews (Book I, Chap. 2.2), “But Tubal/Jubel, ... first of all invented the art of making brass” (Whiston/Loeb translations).

The Bible has been consistently shown to contain reliable historical information confirmed by numerous archaeological findings. For example, in addition to findings such as the Moabite Stone (840-830 BCE) and tiny silver scrolls (7th century BCE), both of which provide ancient validation for portions of the Bible (including 2 Kings Chapter 3 and Numbers 6:24-26, respectively), there is evidence from other nations and kingdoms about events or people from the Bible. These include the Stele of Merneptah (13th century BCE) and the Tel-Dan Stele of the mid-9th century BCE, which records the victory of the Syrians over the “King of Israel” and the “King of the House of David,” the latter of which is consistent also with 2 Kings 6:24, 8:28, and 9:15-16.—See also “Beliefs Based on the Best Available Reasons” (Elihu Books, 2009 [2011]), inside column labeled, “The Bible,” note 8.

It should, therefore, be no great surprise to find that the Bible also records the approximate time and the name of the one who invented metallurgy, or that the time the Bible gives for the rise of metal-working is consistent with the best archaeological evidence concerning the same. The rise and development of metallurgy allows us to trace our modern human history back to between 3,800 and 6,500 years.

2.     Buildings and Civilizations:

Humans today and throughout our recorded past have built buildings, structures, and cities or civilizations in or around them and in which to live. While there have been some findings of structures believed to date back approximately 8,000 years (see, “Prehistoric building found in Tel Aviv,” AP January 11, 2010), these are far different from the kinds of building or structures described as having had their “top in the heavens” (compare Genesis 11:2). Indeed, the oldest of such buildings or cities which have come to light through archeological discovery include the Egyptian pyramids (3809 to 2853 BCE) and Stonehenge (2400-2200 BCE), neither of which exceed 6,000 years in age.

This approximate but good-reason based view is consistent with what is recorded as having occurred within the first 130 or the entire 930 years of the biblical Adam’s life, namely, the birth of “Lamech,” who is described as the first “of those who dwell in tents” (Genesis 4:20). Subsequently, the Bible records that humans like us “migrated from the east” and “came upon a plain in the land of Shinar,” or Babylon (in modern-day Iraq), where they decided to build “a city and a tower with its top in the heavens” (Genesis 11:2-4). This “tower” or “ziggurat” (Hebrew: migdal [likely a loan-word from the Akkadian ziqqurat or zaqaru, meaning, “to be high up”]) of “Shinar”/Babylon may be consistent with archaeological findings of other, similar structures in the region of ancient Mesopotamia, such as the Ziggurat of Ur, which is dated to around 2100 BCE.

3.     Writing:

The oldest evidence of any form of written (and, hence, likely spoken) language is believed to be on pottery from Harappa, in southern Egypt, which contain “primitive words” at the tomb of the “Scorpion king” dated to between 3300 and 3200 BCE, as well as the writing of the Sumerians from “the Mesopotamian civilization around 3100 BCE.” The earliest of these Sumerian writings are believed to date between 3500 and 3000 BCE. This is also around the time (early 40th to around the 22nd centuries BCE) when the Tower of Babel (see 2., above) and other, similar structures were likely built. Further, this is the precise area where the division of human language is said to have occurred, at least according to the historical record of the Bible (Genesis 11:7-9), which is supported by the best available evidence here and in 4. and 5., below.

The engravings found on what are alleged to be 60,000 year old egg shells or on “75,000-year-old engraved ochre chunks from the Blombos cave in South Africa,” which “have mostly been one-offs and difficult to tell apart from meaningless doodles,” are not “writing” in the sense which communication is conveyed through the images and markings found in the above-cited evidence (see Kate Ravilious, “Oldest ‘writing’ found on 60,000-year-old eggshells,” New Scientist 2750 [March 3, 2010]). Another form of “writing” or human expression may be in the form of cave drawings and from “semicircles, lines and zigzags also marked on the walls,” which some claim represent a “highly symbolic” “written ‘code’” believed to have been “familiar to all of the prehistoric tribes around France and possibly beyond,” approximately 40,000 to 10,000 years ago.—See Kate Ravilious, “The writing on the cave wall,” New Scientist 2748 (February 17, 2010).

I will consider these and other potential expressions of “humans” whom we might associate with our modern-to-6,000-year-old-or-so “humanity” further in a separate Blog on the subject of the use and the accuracy of various dating methods, including a review of newer technology for dating rock paintings, which is also carbon-based.

4.     Marking of "Time" and Season:

I believe for the good reasons that I provided in my prior Blog article on this subject that intentional intelligence within and outside of humankind can be seen in our use of “time,” in as much as our use of “time” points each one of us to the intelligence in life and in objects which exist all around us, life and objects which move and exist in predictably reliable ways and which we accept and which show us (by our measure) our own existence in relation to these other objects and to other life forms. These objects which exist and which we accept and which we routinely use in our measurement (our “time”) of events, actions, or even our thoughts include the rotation and the axis of the earth, our location on it relative to others who also live on it, as well as the earth’s orbit and its position relative to the moon, to the sun, and even to other stars.

When it comes to humankind’s use of “time,” or our measurement of our existence or that of other life forms, objects, or to our measurement of anything involving our earth, to our location on it relative to others, or concerning our evaluation of the earth’s orbit and position relative to the moon, to the sun, and even to other stars, the best available reasons from our history indicate that we have only kept “time” in these ways since between as late as 5,000 or as early as 7,000 years ago.

For example, the Goseck Circle is presently dated to between 5000 and 4600 BC. Yet, it is considered to be “the earliest sun observatory currently known in the world,” measuring “the heavens far earlier and more accurately than historians have thought.” After this, we find other similar objects being used by humans for measuring or marking time and season, such as the Nebra Disk, which was found 25 kilometers (about 15.5 miles) away from the Goseck Circle, and which is believed to be “the oldest concrete representation of the cosmos” (“Archaeologists Unearth German Stonehenge,” August 8, 2003). Dated to around 2600 BCE (2,400 years younger than the Goseck Circle), the Nebra Sky Disk was found near Goseck and it appears to have an image of very similar if not the same astronomical positions that are believed to exist as part of the Goseck Circle. Therefore, the Goseck Circle and the Nebra Sky Disk likely mark an event of historical significance.

Note what is said in one of the best published understandings and conclusions concerning the Nebra Sky Disk that I have seen to date:

Our revised interpretation of the Nebra Sky Disk concludes that the Nebra Sky Disk records the solar eclipse of April 16, 1699 BC for posterity. That solar eclipse took place next to the Pleiades at sunrise near the point of the Vernal Equinox, together with a near conjunction of the planets Mercury, Mars and Venus as “bridesmaids” for the “wedding” of the Sun and the Moon - a total solar eclipse - a rare and spectacular event for the ancients. This interpretation allows not only for a partial explanation of the Nebra Sky Disk but in fact explains all of the elements found on the disk in an integrated astronomical context which abides by the rules of the burden of proof. This interpretation fulfills the requirements of the preponderance of the evidence. The prevailing balance of probabilities is clearly in favor of our interpretation as opposed to the partial interpretation which has thus far been advanced [Andis Kaulins, “The Sky Disk of Nebra: Evidence and Interpretation,” page 13].

The dates for both the Goseck Circle and the Nebra Sky Disk are also consistent with the date ranges for other types of cosmic representations intelligently designed and built by humans. For example, the dates for the building of the three Egyptian pyramids of Khufu (also called the Pyramid of Cheops and the Great Pyramid of Giza), Khafra, and Menkaura are not older than 3000 to 2500 BCE. Yet, together these three pyramids represented the constellation known as the Belt of Orion. The Khufu/Giza Pyramid has to this day defied the best of human engineers to satisfactorily account for how it was even built (compare this overview article from the Great Pyramid of Giza Research Association).

The Goseck Circle, the Nebra Sky Disk, and the Giza Pyramid and other pyramids of Egypt represent incredible human understanding of cosmic objects and of their position relative to the earth and to each other in ways which are not only consistent with our modern human understanding and use of many of these same objects, but in many ways the earlier human uses comparatively exceed or go beyond what humans today can admittedly accomplish! Yet, before the earliest date of these three (the Goseck Circle: around 5000 BCE), there is nothing comparable which would suggest the existence of humans in our modern image, that is, humans who could mark “time” and season by means of the position of the earth, or by the location of the people then on it, and in relation to the sun, to the moon, and to the stars.

The use of structures (the pyramids and the Goseck Circle) to mark or to indicate time, season, or which depict or indicate solar or other cosmological significance, is consistent also with the dates for humankind’s earliest buildings, towers, and civilizations, as noted in 2., above. Further, as noted in my prior article in this series, human use of "time" is consistent with the biblical book of Genesis, which accurately records the intent behind our use of the sun, the moon, and the stars (with my underlining):

Genesis 1:14-15, New Revised Standard Version (1989):

And [Jah] God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.

5.     The Division of Human Language:

The fifth good reason I will here present for the age of that which we define today as “human/mankind,” as opposed to any other, similar but more primitive types of creatures (or concurrently existing creatures, such as Neanderthal or those whom the Bible refers to as “Nephilim” [Genesis 6:4]), will also take us into the expressed subject of this article. That is, to show how the division of human language indicates an intentional, intelligent involvement by some living thing or person, but not solely due to any previously living man or woman, for we are the subjects of what I believe for good reasons to be an intentional act of non-human intelligence which divided our human language.

This is also around the time (between 3500 and 2400) when the Tower of Babel may have been built (see 2., above), which is also where the division of languages is said to have occurred and, more importantly, why it is believed to have occurred, which will be considered (but not merely accepted without testing) according to the following biblical account (with my underlining):

Genesis 11:1-8, New Living Translation:

At one time the whole world spoke a single language and used the same words. As the people migrated eastward, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there. They began to talk about construction projects. “Come,” they said, “let’s make great piles of burnt brick and collect natural asphalt to use as mortar. Let’s build a great city with a tower that reaches to the skies—a monument to our greatness! This will bring us together and keep us from scattering all over the world.”

But [Jah] came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. “Look!” [Jah] said. “If they can accomplish this when they have just begun to take advantage of their common language and political unity, just think of what they will do later. Nothing will be impossible for them!  Come, let’s go down and give them different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.” In that way, [Jah] scattered them all over the earth; and that ended the building of the city.  That is why the city was called Babel, because it was there that [Jah] confused the people by giving them many languages, thus scattering them across the earth.

The division of human language is not merely a dialectical one, or due solely to differing accents within one language which we all share. In our history and in our present human societies and cultures, there are a myriad of different human languages. If the best available evidence today suggests that humankind seeks to break down communication barriers with each other, and to unite in furthering our knowledge and our understanding, then why did we ever develop entirely different, separate language systems dividing people, nation, and tribe by our “tongue,” or by our language, in the first place?

There are, therefore, good reasons to accept the timing and the actual events described in Genesis Chapter 11, and also for accepting the reasons given therein for why human language was intentionally divided, namely:

• The division of our language (as per 3., above) is traceable to the same time frame wherein we find evidence for what humans would today also consider intentionally intelligent “metallurgy,” or metal working (4500 to 2250 for the dating of tools potentially used by the early Chinese Hongshan culture [see 1., above], or to possibly as late as the 20th or even late 18th or early 17th centuries BCE for other metal tools).

• The division of human language is also consistent with what we would for good reasons consider to be the dates for the first human buildings and associated civilizations (namely, 3809 to 2853 BCE for the Egyptian pyramids, or possibly as early as 8,000 years old according to some recent findings [see 2., above]).

• The best available evidence for the division of human language comes from our dating of human writing (from 3500 to 2400 BCE according to Sumerian tomb writing and early cuneiform tablets [see 3., above]).

• All three of the above are consistent with the earliest dates for our use of the sun, the moon, the stars and the earth, and of our position on the earth, that is, for measuring or for marking our “time” and our seasons (that is, from 5000 to 2600 BCE, based on dates for the Goseck Circle and the Nebra Sky Disk, respectively [see 4., above]).

Therefore, it is clear from the best available evidence from our human history, which includes our actual separation into different people, distinguishable by race, nationality, and tribe, that  each group retained a highly effective, intentional intelligence capable of using a particular language system complete with words and with understandings of objects including buildings and civilizations and which language, in fact, defined each civilization and its people’s culture. Since then, humans continue to do the same things, also using language as a means of uniting and dividing people. 

Related to the significance of the development of human language Professor Stephen Hawking writes the following from the perspective of the biological (that is, non-intentionally-intelligent) evolution of life:

The process of biological evolution was very slow at first. It took two and a half billion years, to evolve from the earliest cells to multi-cell animals, and another billion years to evolve through fish and reptiles, to mammals. But then evolution seemed to have speeded up. ... with the human race, evolution reached a critical stage, comparable in importance with the development of DNA. This was the development of language, and particularly written language. It meant that information can be passed on, from generation to generation, other than genetically, through DNA. There has been no detectable change in human DNA, brought about by biological evolution, in the ten thousand years of recorded history. But the amount of knowledge handed on from generation to generation has grown enormously [Hawking, “Life in the Universe” (underlining added)].

Now consider what may have occurred, that is, if after seeing what we have seen or what we see and knowing what we have good reasons to believe about humanity today, the “good” and the “bad,” in particular, the really bad or worst of what we can do or have done, though we may have survived if we had always kept “one language and one speech” (compare Genesis 11:1), that is unlikely. It is even less likely that early humans like us would have been able to or would have committed themselves to diversifying their shared language on their own, so fast, with similar if not equally expressive capacities though using entirely different language systems, which neither could understand when speaking to the other except for special learning or circumstance (such as the number of languages spoken in a given region when growing up as a child).

When it comes to the subject of this Blog, namely, language(s), or what the division of human language may constitute as far as a good reason indicative of intentional intelligence in non-human (but human-involved) life, just think how “enormously” the “amount of knowledge handed on” would have been had it not been for what for what appears to have been done intentionally by an intelligent, living, non-human, but for good reasons, namely, divide human language in order to:

1) Protect humanity from the consequences of our own self-glorification at an early age when it is unlikely (as I am sure Professor Hawking would agree) we would have been able “to reduce or eliminate the risk of self-destruction” (Hawking, “Life in the Universe”), even if we spoke only one “language” and used the same words; and

2) ‘Scatter’ humankind across the surface of the earth, exactly as we see happening throughout our history and since the time when mankind’s language was first divided several thousand years ago, and which remains divided even to this day.—Compare Genesis 1:28.

Professor Hawking’s concerns about our human potential are not at all unfounded. Indeed, while in my next Blog article on in this series I intend to show that Hawking’s non-biological, evolutionary view of the origin of life is not well-founded, Hawking appears right to me when he speaks about how “with the exponential rate of growth of knowledge that we have had in the last three hundred years,” impulses humans had thousands of years ago could now “destroy the entire human race, and much of the rest of life on Earth” (Hawking, “Life in the Universe”). Of course, that depends a good deal if not entirely on your view of the origin of life.

Thankfully, it appears that for good reasons we were intentionally diverted away from our own self-destruction, and then ‘scattered across the earth’ into peoples, nations, and tribes, separated by our “tongues,” so that only rather recently, or perhaps not even yet, have we truly ‘filled the earth’ as was also the expressed intent of the biblical God, “Jah,” even as is our use of the earth and of the heavenly objects for keeping “time,” and the separation of our human language.—Genesis 1:28; 9:1; 11:1-9; compare Revelation 7:9; 21:24, 26.

[*AUTHOR'S NOTE: On Monday, May 3, 2010, I removed "biological, evolutionary view of life" from the second-to-last paragraph in this article and in its place I am using "non-biological, evolutionary view of the origin of life." By this I intend to correct and to make clearer that I believe Hawking's (and others') view of life ultimately involves acceptance of something other than "life" or of what or of who is already alive as the origin of life itself. I believe such a "non-biological" view of life's origin is not only unscientific (because it does not build from even one single, observable, repeatable example) but it also contradicts what science otherwise, everywhere, and always to this day has shown us: Life only comes from something or from someone already alive.]

The Intelligence in Life: Intent and "Time"

Christian Witnesses of Jah do not define what we choose to believe by what we assume is true. We define our beliefs based on what we believe we can show or demonstrate is true or most likely true according to the best available reasons.

In other words, just because we call ourselves “Christian” does not mean we start with the assumption that the Bible is true, or even reliable. We come to these conclusions (or to ones like them) after we evaluate the beliefs according to their supporting good reasons which is the standard each one of us uses every day, in one way or another, as we consider books, religions, and ways of life.

It is just as incorrect to assume the Bible is inspired as it is to assume that God exists, or to assume he or some personal being or “life” does not exist. If it’s an assumption, then it is not a decision reached after considering the best available reasons. This does not mean every belief with supporting good reasons is the right one, only that beliefs with good reasons supporting them are better than are those beliefs without good reasons, or beliefs which are based purely on one or more assumptions.

Consider the life that we are, each one of us, and then look at the life existing all around us, on land, in the air, and in the sea. Living things exist all over the earth, and they and various objects move on, over, and even through it. Since our existence or our life here on the earth is demonstrably true and so accepted by all living beings, from here we can use the best available reasons to show that the life who/which gave life to other life is, ultimately, eternal. Here again is my argument for the eternal existence of the life who/which gave life to life:

1)    Life exists.

2)    Based on all known, shared, and/or otherwise available scientific study and information life can only come from something or from someone already alive or living.

3)    Therefore, since based on all known, shared, and/or otherwise available scientific study and information life can only come from something or from someone already alive or living, the origin of life must be life, or something or someone already alive.

4)    Further, and based on the above (namely, that all known, shared, and/or otherwise available scientific study and information which shows without exception that life can only come from something or from someone already alive or living), life is eternal because life is, in fact, here.

Having reached this point, any one of us can credibly (or for good reasons) ask whether this eternal life is intelligent, or “unintelligent”? Using the same reasoning we use every day in a variety of ways, even according to principles of science based on observation (as per my above argument for the origin of life), we can credibly answer this question and do so convincingly, as reasonably as we might answer any other, similar question for which good reasons exist and can be presented.

Apart from the existence of so much varied, complete, and demonstrably systemic forms of life, including the many ‘moving’ processes of the earth (weather systems, plate tectonics, and the rotation of the earth itself, among others), consider something which is not “alive,” or even moving the way trees move because of the wind, or the way the moon moves across the night sky as it orbits around the earth. Consider our use of “time.”

Elsewhere I have written about our use of “time” and how it relates to our human evaluation of beliefs, that is, whether we accept or reject beliefs about events in the world around us, beliefs about “time,” even where it concerns believing “any ‘truth’ in a religious sense.” My conclusion is we believe and often act according to what we have accepted as the best available reasons (see my, “The People of God, Part Two: ‘On the Side of the Truth,’” IN MEDIO 2.4 [April, 2007 (rev. April, 2008)], pages 1-16). In this same online article, I presented reasoning which I will here quote from extendedly in order to help establish my position and argument concerning the intelligence of the eternal life whose existence has already been demonstrated, according to the best available reasons.

Since I believe the intelligence in life can be seen and easily accepted by how we measure our existence and the events and the affairs of this world by “time,” I therefore ask the reader to consider each of these four full paragraphs, and my comments which follow them, in this light:

How do you determine something is true every day of your life? For example, when it comes to your decision about what time you will get out of bed, on what basis do you accept the truth of a particular clock’s “time” so that you structure your activities around it in order to get dressed, eat breakfast, and then go to work, school, or elsewhere? How is that you have the confidence that the world around you (your family, your employer, your teacher, etc.) will receive your decisions about time in a way that will fit with, not run contrary to, the way they have structured their life, work, or school? What about decisions you make when you drive a vehicle on public roads? If you drive a car and you live in the United States, on what basis do you accept as true the color of the stop lights so that you stop and go according whether the light is red, yellow, or green?

Let’s take a closer look at “time.” We view and treat time as a discernable measurement of events, actions, or periods. The “measurement” is in relation to accepted sequences that progress from event to event, from act to act, or from one point in a period to another point (such as in a period of “life,” that is, the period [of time] in which a person is alive). For example, we may start work at 8:00 AM and end at 5:00 PM. The measured sequences between these points are usually hours, minutes, and seconds. The “time” of this period, lunches and breaks aside, is nine hours. This is the “measurement,” or “time,” from one point to another, from the start to the end. So it is with an “act.” I may clench my fist (thereby beginning the act), hold it clenched for one minute, and then release it (ending the act). The “time” of this act is one minute, or sixty seconds. A “period,” then, is an extent of “time” in which something occurs in one sense or another, usually (with an exception admitted for certain periods that may have had no beginning or ending, such as God’s eternal existence) with a start and a finish.

The period of our human life outside of our mother’s womb begins when we are born, and it ends when we die. The “time” of this period is the length of years, months, days, and however many other accepted life sequences can be measured. Again, as we use it, “time” is a discernable measurement of events, actions, or periods, or other similarly measurable things, that occur. Anything that is measurable in this way is “in time,” by being measured by time, at least in terms of how we actually view time and use time in our lives. Thus, “time” is as old as the first act, or as eternal as the acts, or even the thoughts (if sequential, as are our thoughts), of Jehovah God himself.

Philosophically, speculatively, people can say whatever they want about “time.” But we actually have good reasons to define time the way I have done. These good reasons include the very treatment and use of time that we accept, whether we realize it or not, in our everyday lives. Unless someone is going to argue for some other [view of] time than that which we know and use in our everyday lives, then “time” must be defined in relation to what we know, or what we believe, which belief is shown by our actions relative to it. Our actions relative to “time” (our planning, our expectations for others, etc.) show that we accept as reliable the sequential measurements with which we act in harmony. Thus, for the truth about the time of day we have as good reasons such things as the time when the sun will rise, the time when the sun will set, and the fact that such things occur with predictable regularity absent any reasons for doubting that they will continue as they always have in our relatable and historical human experience.

Of course, not all human clocks are exactly the same. Some run slow and others run fast, but such clocks are considered to be “slow” or “fast” in relation to the most widely accepted clock or time which is set in relation to the time of day or night relative to our position on earth and in relation to the position of the earth relative to the sun, moon, and stars. Thus, if our watch is set according to the measurements of time accepted in accordance with our position and the position of our earth relative to these heavenly bodies and if someone then asks us, “What time is it?” we can give the time with a reasonable degree of confidence and expect that there will be no good reason that can be given as a legitimate contradiction to the “time” we give relative to such settings. So, if we are asked by the same person, “Is what you just gave me the true time?” we can answer “yes” because we know that the time of our watch is based on the accepted standards for which time can be given on this earth, according to such positions, without any reason to believe otherwise. We recognize such time because of its recurrence without contradiction. We are “on the side of time,” so to speak, when we accept the time that we have good reasons to believe. When the accepted time tells us it’s 8:00 AM, if that is when we are supposed to be at work then we do not show up at 9:00 AM and act as if there is something wrong with anyone who thinks that we should have been there at 8:00 AM. [“The People of God, Part Two: ‘On the Side of the Truth,’” IN MEDIO 2.4 (April, 2007 [rev. April, 2008], pages 2-3. Note: A hyperlink was added to the main text in the quote above from this article due to its relationship to the expressed point.]

Our acceptance and even daily use of such beliefs, indeed, our reliance on them for the structure and planning of our days and throughout our lives, links our view of intelligence with a defined intent that can be isolated and expressed according to the moving objects and living things on or outside of and within the earth. Otherwise, it is not consistent with how we otherwise form beliefs and make decisions, that is, we already make regular (daily and nightly) use of the tested predictability of (as described in quoted par. 4, above) “the time of day or night relative to our position on earth and in relation to the position of the earth relative to the sun, moon, and stars.”

So much so is this the case, that if we set our watches or clocks “according to the measurements of time accepted in accordance with our position and the position of our earth relative to these heavenly bodies and if someone then asks us, ‘What time is it?’ we can give the time with a reasonable degree of confidence and expect that there will be no good reason that can be given as a legitimate contradiction to the ‘time’ we give relative to such settings” (“The People of God,” quote from above, par. 4).

Consider further the question of intent. When we evaluate a person’s intelligence we do not simply look at the person’s test score, ultimately, because a person might guess at the answers and in guessing accidentally receive a passing or even a high grade but without knowing why, as opposed to a student who answers correctly because of knowing the good reasons which help him or her answer with understanding. Clearly more than just guessing correctly is needed before we would say there is real intelligence behind the intent of the answer. This again shows the necessity of demonstrating our intended intelligence through the presentation of good reasons (the best available) so the reasons can inform the answer (thus, rightly, preceding the conclusion) and, ultimately, the good reasons may validate the answer (or the conclusion) to others. Consider another example.

Today my eldest son Jared asked me a two-part question, the first of which was a “yes or no” answer and in the second part I was asked to give the specific reasons informing my answer. (I did not put him up to this; but it complemented what I was already in the process of writing here, so I am using it now.) The question had to do with whether certain dinosaurs were grouped similarly and, if so, what were the similarities used to establish their common grouping. I had no specific reasons behind my answer to the first part of the question, but I answered “yes” anyway. When he asked about the second part, I admitted I had guessed with my first answer, and so I did not have any good reason for giving my first answer, even though I was accidentally correct.

We then discussed how my answer to the first part of the question was a guess, that is, I answered “yes” without any specific reasons (I had a 50/50 chance). That I was correct was accidental, a random chance among two existing options by an “intelligent” being, by a human. But the answer to the second part could not be so described because it required what could only (by any standard humans actually use) be considered a response showing actual understanding of the subject, a response showing that the answer to the first part of the question was intentional.

The type of response required for the second part of the question, when provided, can be used to validate whether the answer to the first part of the question was correct by intent. This shows the importance and the difference between ‘just guessing’ and answering with an understanding that is (to the person’s available knowledge [= what we have each learned through to this point in our lives]) based on the best available reasons. As illustrated above, ultimately it is this process which defines (and in the process validates or invalidates) our own beliefs about ourselves, about our history, and about the world in which we presently live, or that is all around us, or directly available to us (unlike much or our history), and so testable in ways beyond our own unique, personal experience or feelings, though these, too, are often important; they are simply not so easily testable by others.—Compare Revelation 2:2, 10; 3:10; 1 John 4:1.

I believe for the good reasons given in this Blog and in the material referenced within it that our use of “time” points each one of us to the intelligence in the life and in objects that exist all around us, life and objects which move and by which we measure our existence in predictably reliable ways, indeed, without which we would not have a basis for measuring “time,” at least not as we use it (which is often different from how people explain it). Otherwise, why are we placing so much trust (faith) in “time”? We did not make it. But we believe in it; we accept it; we define our very existence each day according to it. We do so for good reasons, the best available, in fact.

Separately I intend to show this further, specifically where the intentional intelligence in life can be seen, again, according to how we already view and evaluate whether something or someone is intelligent by intent. After I have considered this question of the eternal life who/which gave life to the life which exists further, I intend to move the discussion about this scientifically demonstrable eternal life further and consider where this life’s intentional intelligence may be seen in the history and in the present affairs of the earth and of that which fills it (Psalm 24:1). But every day we move and exist and use “time” we do so, in my belief (which I will show further, later in this Blog series), because of the eternal life who gave life to life’s intent to use the sun, the moon, and the earth for reasons which have been captioned this way in at least one historical source attributed to an intelligent, intentional Life Giver named Jah God:

New Revised Standard Version (1989), Genesis 1:14-18

And [Jah] God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. [Underlining added.]

Whether we believe the above as historically accurate, in general or in specifics, the early attribution of purpose or intent for these heavenly lights, not just to “be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth” (though that is an existing condition which is itself marvelous), but for the sun, the moon, and for “the stars” to serve as “signs and for seasons and for days and years,” is something we use, and will continue to use, each and every single day of our lives on the earth just as Genesis says they were to be used.

As I wrote when I started this article, Christians do not assume things are true before we have good reasons to believe them. We will apply this test to Genesis further as this series continues. As of now, however, I believe I have given a reasonable response scientifically and socially testable by all of the highest living creatures on the earth, in ways we can individually consider before we believe anything about the origin of life or about any intentional intelligence found in it, in us, and in the things which move and exist around us.

The Origin of Life Is Life (or Something or Someone Already Alive)

Life exists. It is all around us. We are alive, or living beings, creatures, either intentionally (intelligently) made/designed or the product of time, a lot of time and chance, and unintentional in design and in purpose or function. But we're alive! Even the most ardent skeptic must accept this. So how does that help us, or answer the question, What is the origin of life?

Here is an argument which I believe demonstrates sufficiently the origin of life is life, and therefore life must ultimately be eternal, since we are alive now. According to how we generally consider a matter to be "scientific," that is, by having sufficiently demonstrable results according to a repeated and testable process, I believe this argument fits the requirements for being accepted as the best available means of reliably explaining the origin of life:

1) Life exists.

2) Based on all known, shared, and/or otherwise available scientific study and information life can only come from something or from someone already alive or living.

3) Therefore, since based on all known, shared, and/or otherwise available scientific study and information life can only come from something or from someone already alive or living, the origin of life must be life, or something or someone already alive.

4) Further, and based on the above, namely, all known, shared, and/or otherwise available scientific study and information shows us without exception life can only come from something or from someone already alive or living, life must be considered eternal (without any beginning or start from non-life) because life is here now.

I also believe the above argument sufficiently responds to any argument which claims not to be able to account for the origin of life as life itself, or as something or someone already alive or living. This also means it is scientific to say life is eternal. This provides a basis for claiming it is scientific to believe "God" or some other superhuman being or alien is also eternal.

Whether this demonstrably and logically eternal origin of life is personal and intelligent, or impersonal or simply unintelligent, I will consider separately.