Why do people believe what they believe?

Dear Lam:I don't know that I can answer the complete context of your question, but I can give you a few reasons.Before I begin, I would like to point out that I'm disappointed in some of the responses you received. People should have a better head on their shoulders than to shovel in emotional arguments.For starters, I will state that I am not an adherent to the theory of evolution.It comes down to a couple of things very simply:1) I have a hard time reconciling life coming from non-life.
2) Laws of Thermodynamics: particularly the law of entropy.The difficulty in all this comes from the fact that whether you believe in evolution or creation, it comes from a 'belief' structure. You have to have faith in order to follow either one. To me, it is a matter of preference and how you view the data.

Not to play with semantics, but your last statement kind of sums up exactly what I am saying.You mention that evolution just happens to make more sense to you then Christianity or other religions. To read between the lines, that is a statement showing how much of a role religion plays in evolution. Religion in definition is the holding of a certain group of beliefs. In a great deal of ways, evolution is just as much a religion as Christianity.Now in regards to life from non-life, I don't see where you or Mike can think that I am confusing this matter. Evolution is the gradual movement upward (which is completely contrary to entropy). Evolution in its barest form is have a soup or mixture of different chemicals that somehow became amino acids, to proteins, to simple celled organisms, to plants, to animals... How is that not life from non-life. Just because chance played the great decider in all this does not erase that fact.Furthermore, the mathematical impossibility of the said lineage of life is more proof that you need to have a belief structure to follow the tenets of evolution.

I realize that this is a completely different idea to post here, but in response to your statement as far as God and evolution. It truly depends on what religious base you hold to. For a born-again Christian, then evolution (macro) is completely incompatible. That has more to do with salvation, but that is on a completely different thread.As I mentioned to DC, I am not confused are far as evolution and abiogenesis. The two play a role together and I reference that in the response to him

I imagine the first response is going to be the closed/open system argument. However, I still do not agree with the statement that that has been disproven in the past.I do not have the time to review all things that have been stated before, but I can take up that measure in another post at another time.

I found the information in your note to Mike fairly fruitful.
Moreover, I have to admit that I am finding it difficult to come up with an actual definition of what we are debating in this forum. Is there a definition drawn from general consensus that I can use as a reference for the future.The only time that I have ever come upon it was in evolutionary biology and the presentation always went the way that I have already discussed.

You stick the one major point of life from non-life in a philosophical box, because it makes it easier to digest. It goes along with the same argument, "Because we are, it must have been." Let's speak of this in the sciences (even though as Mike said, it's a point to be discussed else where). Mathematically, quite possibly the most scientific of all disciplines, the possibility of life coming from non-life is nil. This isn't even taking all of what we know into consideration. The production of amino acids by chance, the organization of said amino acids into proteins of proper structure, the determination of proteins to be put into order to begin the chain of life. You ridicule me as though I am speaking of things in too light of a manner because 'they have already been dealt with' while that is demeaning and unscientific. Life from non-life is a principle that cannot and probably will not be overcome through laboratory conditions or any other means. I ask that you be careful before trivializing something of such bare bones evaluation.I hold on to things because of my faith, and I hold on to other things because of observation.

Dear Lam:Here is what I have to clarify my statement.By one article's presentation, the possibility of one cell evolving through any process is 1.4,478,296 to one or 1 followed by 4,478,296 zeros).My information is coming from an article by the organization ICR, Institute for Creation Research. The article is in an Impact article called Evolution is Biologically Impossible November 1999 by Joseph Mastropaolo, Ph.D. This information is not available electronically, so I will try my best to present it here."To set a better example, let us take up the evolutionist's burden of evidence to see where it leads. Our first observation is that apparently all functions in a living organism are based largely upon the structures of its proteins The trail of the first cell therefore leads us to the microbiological geometry of amino acids and a search for the probability of creating a protein by mindless chance as specified by evolution. Hubert Yockey published a monograph on the microbiology, information theory, and mathematics necessary to accomplish that feat. Accordingly, the probability of evolving one molecule of iso-1-cytochrome c, a small protein common in plants and animals, is an astonding one chance in 2.3 times ten billion vigitillion. The magnitude of this impossibility may be appreciated by realizing that ten billion vigitillion is one followed by 75 zeros. Or to put it in evolutionary terms, if a random mutation is provided every second from the alleged birth of the universe, then to date that protein molecule would be only 43% of the way to completion. Yockey concluded, "The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpertual motion machine is impossible in probability.""Yockey, Hubert P. (1992) Information Theory and Molecular Biology, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, pp. 255, 257The article continues:"For a minimal cell, 60,000 proteins of 100 different configurations would be needed (to create a living cell)."Morowitz, H.J. (1996) "The Minimum Size of Cells" in Principles of Biomolecular Organization, eds. G.E.W. Wostenholme and M. O'Connor, London: J.A. Churchill pp. 446-459.If these raw materials evolved at the same time, and if they were not more complex on average to evolve than iso-1-cytochrome c molecule, and if these proteins were stacked at the cell's construction site, then we may make a gross underestimation of what the chances would be to evolve that first cell. That probability is 10^4,478,296 power." (end of paragraph)Now, mind you, 10 to the 150th power is deemed the standard for impossible, then this is by far even more impossible to credit evolution with.I have read the 10^150 power standard in the article and it comes from the following information and this will come from information by William A. Dembski.Dembski, William A. (1998) The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, pp. 5,209,210."(Dembski) estimated 10^80 power elementary particles in the universe and asked how many times per second an event could occur. He found 10^45. He then calculated the number of seconds from the beginning of the universe to present and for good measure multiplied by one billion for 10^25 seconds in all. He thereby obtained 10^80 x 10^45 x 10^25 = 10^150 for his Law of Small Probability.
(The author) have not been able to find a criterion more stringent than Dembski's one chance in 10^150. Anything as rare as that probability had absolutely no possibility of happening by chance at any time by any conceivable specifying agent by any conceivable process throughout all of cosmic history. And if the specified event is not a regularity, as the origin of life is not, and if it is not chance, as Dembski's criterion and Yockey's probability prove it is not, then it must have happened by design, the only remaining probability."This is my long elaboration on why I said that life from non-life is mathematically impossible.

I beg to differ with you sir on your analogy, because the shuffling of two decks of cards is a mere matter of chance. There was reason to it and it spawned nothing to the level of complexity such as life. The circular reasoning of the argument, presented by many on this site, that 'because we are, it must be' is illogical and completely based on assumption.I present this literature simply as a way of trying to perceive the reality. However, as you noted in the ending of your post:Real scientists haven't calculated such probabilities either, because we don't yet know enough to do so.This lends itself to strictly to allowing your assertions to go un-answered through ignorance.