"Which Came First?"

I began this series with posts:

“Nothing Did It” http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/nothing-did-it.html

“Atheism of the Gaps” - http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/atheism-of-gaps.html

“Es - ka - Pay” - http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/es-ka-pay.html

“Please Read This” - http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/please-read-this.html
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I proposed to Ginx that as we post back and forth, we were sharing something very real > Information.

I’m defining information between Ginx and I as, “The communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence.” And I`m defining information found in biological organisms as , “the attribute inherent in, and communicated by alternative sequences or arrangements of something that produces specific effects.” Both definitions are from Webster’s English Dictionary.

Information as it is defined in the second definition does not require a conscious recipient of a message; because it is referring to a sequence of characters that produces a specific effect.

Information as it is defined in the first definition means that the only thing preceding our information exchanges were our thoughts which in turn found their origin in our intelligence, our intellect, our mind.

Ginx said that information exists only as a concept and that we were, “conveying semantic clues in the form of light pixels which travel between "a series of tubes"”

I could ask then, which came first, the “inter tubes” or the information on how to construct the said tubes?

Well, in this instance I’m sure that most would have no trouble understanding that for the Internet to exist we first had:
. Intelligence in the form of a mind that generated
. Thoughts from that intelligence that generated
. Information on the design and construction of the Internet that generated
. Construction of the Internet based upon that intelligent design, and finally
. The sharing of further information between people who use this intelligent design to construct, copy, code, transmit, decode, absorb the information and so on and so forth.

But what about the origins of life? I don’t think that my friend quite gets what exactly it is that’s being dealt with here. Atheists throw out terms like “billions of years,” and “DNA” and “Monkeys typing Shakespeare,” as though these are the normal events of any given day.

Consider this:
Atheists tell us that the evolution of one thousand volumes of coded information that is contained within each and every DNA molecule is like a million monkeys typing for a billion years and out comes the complete works of Shakespeare. It’s a slam dunk. It a done deal. It can’t help but happen. Well, not so fast.

“No living molecule is self-reproducing. Not only is DNA incapable of making copies of itself, but it is incapable of “making” anything else. The proteins of the cell are made from other proteins, and without that protein-forming machinery nothing can be made.” Richard Lewontin, “The Dream of the Human Genome.”

Did you get that?

Our cells don’t just contain a place to store vast amounts of information. They contain a code, a specified code (information) for translating that code AND they contain a means, a processing system which allows the construction of proteins. Two questions arise:
. Where did the code (information) come from? And
. Aren’t we saying that proteins have to exist in order for proteins to exist?

If, as atheists propose, that all of these systems evolved, they’re also saying that proteins with a decoding ability evolved before the protein with the decoding system itself evolved.

Both the coding and decoding systems of protein cells are made by this very process of coding and decoding. The code that is used to build enzymes is decoded during the decoding process that the decoding process itself makes happen.

How can that be?

“The synthesis of proteins requires a tightly integrated sequence of reactions, most of which are themselves performed by the synthesis of proteins.”
David Goodsell, “The Machinery of Life.”

“The (DNA) code is meaningless unless translated. The modern cell’s translating machinery consists of at least fifty macromolecular components which are THEMSELVES coded in DNA: the code cannot be translated other than by products of translation. Jacques Monod, “Chance and Necessity.”

Stephen Meyer says, “If proteins must have arisen first then how did they do so, since all extant cells construct proteins from assembly instructions in DNA. How did either arise without the other?

That atheist’s answer. A million monkeys had a billion years and presto! Out came life itself.

The Christian answer. An intelligence resembling a supernatural mind far, far beyond human comprehension created life and the universe.

Believe what you will.