Former Atheists - What convinced you?

[rikuoamero]

What I'm writing here is for those people who consider themselves to be former atheist i.e. at one point in life, they either lacked a belief in a god of any kind, or actively disbelieved there is a God (there's a difference between the two).
I'm hoping that at least some people who are of this group (and hopefully joined the usergroup called 'Former Atheist' on this site) are/were also skeptical, in that they demanded evidence for religious claims.

My question is - What is it that convinced you? If you were to somehow go back in time and meet your previous, atheist (hopefully skeptic) self, would you or could you use whatever it is that convinced you to convince that version of you? Or would your past self be skeptical and dismissive of what it is you present?

Just to be clear - This isn't restricted to Christians only. You can be a Muslim who considers him/herself former atheist or whatever religion or belief you subscribe to. I want to hear from you.
I also promise NOT to debate in this thread. All I want are responses and your thoughts on this question. I will probably debate elsewhere, but not on this thread. This thread is solely for me to gather information.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to bluegreenearth in post #80]

Here are some things to get you started on your own research.
Photolysis and how life through photosynthesis stopped Earth's water from being broken down by the Sun and water's hydrogen atoms lost to space.

The process of photolysis you are referencing that produces free oxygen and hydrogen atoms from water molecules only occurs within the membranes of chloroplasts. Sunlight is unable to break down water molecules on its own.

[2timothy316]

[Replying to bluegreenearth in post #82]

Sorry I meant Photodissociation that happens to water vapor. Without living organisms to both absorb the Sun's light to slow down evaporation of Earth's water and create the earth's atmosphere, liquid water would have been lost to space due to UV light. The amazing thing is we don't think Earth lost much of its water once it got it. The atmosphere would have to show up relatively quickly once liquid water showed up on Earth. Thus why I say, no water without life and no life without water. Also that this is the window where life must of formed. If they are correct that the majority of Earth's water came at the beginning of its forming, that means life will have to begin near the same time. A comet here and there is not going to give Earth a scrap of water and the earth be able to keep it before it's lost to space. The other possibility is that Earth got its water when it got its moon. That whatever hit the Earth to make our moon had a lot of water with it. Either way, Earth's water can't be here in liquid form without an atmosphere and an atmosphere can't be here without life. Without the O2 released from the first microbial life there would have been a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth. The water would have stayed a vapor thus bombarded by the Sun's UN rays and lost to space. This is what happened to Venus, or so we think. Just mush faster to Venus because it is closer to the Sun.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to bluegreenearth in post #82]

Sorry I meant Photodissociation that happens to water vapor.

Here is what I found:

Earlier theoretical studies on the photodissociation of water were subsequently found to have included improper assumptions that resulted in deficiencies. After those deficiencies were resolved, contrary to the earlier results, the oxygen levels necessary to generate a protective ozone layer in the upper atmosphere could have been achieved in the absence of biological activity. In other words, the photodissociation rate of water allowed free oxygen molecules to combine into ozone in concentrations that were sufficient to eventually form an atmospheric layer with the capability of blocking ultraviolet light from breaking down the vast quantities of remaining water. As such, there appears to be no justification to presume the photodissociation of water would have continued unabated if it were not for the presence of photosynthesizing organisms.

[2timothy316]

[Replying to bluegreenearth in post #84]

Link to where you found this? It doesn't account for the runway greenhouse effect if there was no life to take co2 out of the atmosphere.
Britannica says there was no free o2 until life came to this planet.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/evolut ... re-1703862

Are you saying they are wrong?

Scientific American is wrong too?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... tmosphere/

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to bluegreenearth in post #84]

Link to where you found this? It doesn't account for the runway greenhouse effect if there was no life to take co2 out of the atmosphere.
Britannica says there was no free o2 until life came to this planet.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/evolut ... re-1703862

Are you saying they are wrong?

Scientific American is wrong too?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... tmosphere/

I was making an abductive inference based on the following:

The Nasa article, https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/eart ... an-update/, suggests the early atmosphere contained oxygen-rich compounds such as water vapor. When water vapor in the upper atmosphere is exposed to ultraviolet light, the process of photodissociation transforms H2O into H and O2. According to the Britannica article you referenced, "In this process, water vapor is broken up by ultraviolet light and the resulting hydrogen is lost from the top of the atmosphere, so that the products of the photochemical reaction cannot recombine. The residual oxygen-containing products then couple to form O2." With O2 now readily available, ultraviolet light is able to separate O2 into O and O. Each O is highly reactive and subsequently combines with nearby O2 molecules to form O3 molecules (i.e. ozone). From there, it can be abductively inferred that a relatively thin ozone layer could have eventually formed. Since this process can only occur in the uppermost portion of the atmosphere, it probably would not have been possible for O2 to form from the oxygen-rich compounds making up the gasses below the outermost layer of the atmosphere before the emergence of photosynthesizing organisms on the planet's surface. However, following the evolution of aerobic organisms from anaerobic organisms, O2 concentrations in the lower atmosphere would have subsequently increased over millions of years as indicated by the data referenced in the Scientific American article you provided.

As for the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, this is known to occur through the process of subduction as a function of plate tectonics.

[2timothy316]

[Replying to bluegreenearth in post #86]

The NASA article was written in 2011, the Britannica was updated by J.M. Hayes Professor of Biogeochemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington. Coauthor of Chemical Separations and Measurements.
Last Updated: Nov 16, 2020

Shouldn't we use the most up to date knowledge?

From Britannica, "Earths original atmosphere was rich in methane, ammonia, water vapour, and the noble gas neon, but it lacked free oxygen. It is likely that hundreds of millions of years separated the first biological production of oxygen by unicellular organisms and its eventual accumulation in the atmosphere." and "After photosynthesizing organisms multiplied on Earth's surface and in the oceans, much of the carbon dioxide was replaced with oxygen."

According to this no ozone could have been made before life made the oxygen and the co2 was removed by "photosynthesizing organisms".

Do you accept this?

[bluegreenearth]

The NASA article was written in 2011, the Britannica was updated by J.M. Hayes Professor of Biogeochemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington. Coauthor of Chemical Separations and Measurements.
Last Updated: Nov 16, 2020

Shouldn't we use the most up to date knowledge?

If neither source contradicts the other and the information from the older source has not been demonstrated to be false, then both are legitimate sources from which to make an abductive inference.

From Britannica, "Earths original atmosphere was rich in methane, ammonia, water vapour, and the noble gas neon, but it lacked free oxygen. It is likely that hundreds of millions of years separated the first biological production of oxygen by unicellular organisms and its eventual accumulation in the atmosphere." and "After photosynthesizing organisms multiplied on Earth's surface and in the oceans, much of the carbon dioxide was replaced with oxygen."

According to this no ozone could have been made before life made the oxygen and the co2 was removed by "photosynthesizing organisms".

Do you accept this?

I suggest it is a matter of how you interpret the article. The quote I supplied from the Britannica article could be interpreted to indicate that at least some O2 was created through photodissociation of water vapor in the upper atmosphere. Is it possible that the amount of O2 remaining in the upper atmosphere after the rest had combined with O atoms to form O3 molecules was negligible to where the quote you provided would be justifiable? If not, then it is moot point anyway because, as far as I can tell, you haven't provided any credible evidence to support the claim that all liquid water on the early Earth would have been subject to the process of photodissociation and lost to space without the immediate existence of photosynthesizing organisms. The novel testable prediction that hypothesis makes is that

[bluegreenearth]

The NASA article was written in 2011, the Britannica was updated by J.M. Hayes Professor of Biogeochemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington. Coauthor of Chemical Separations and Measurements.
Last Updated: Nov 16, 2020

Shouldn't we use the most up to date knowledge?

If neither source contradicts the other and the information from the older source has not been demonstrated to be false, then both are legitimate sources from which to make an abductive inference.

From Britannica, "Earths original atmosphere was rich in methane, ammonia, water vapour, and the noble gas neon, but it lacked free oxygen. It is likely that hundreds of millions of years separated the first biological production of oxygen by unicellular organisms and its eventual accumulation in the atmosphere." and "After photosynthesizing organisms multiplied on Earth's surface and in the oceans, much of the carbon dioxide was replaced with oxygen."

According to this no ozone could have been made before life made the oxygen and the co2 was removed by "photosynthesizing organisms".

Do you accept this?

I suggest it is a matter of how you interpret the article. The quote I supplied from the Britannica article could be interpreted to indicate that at least some O2 was created through photodissociation of water vapor in the upper atmosphere. Are you suggesting that photodissociation of water vapor could not have occurred in the upper atmosphere at that time? Is it possible that the amount of O2 remaining in the upper atmosphere after the rest had combined with O atoms to form O3 molecules was negligible to where the quote you provided would be justifiable? If not, then it is a moot point anyway because, as far as I can tell, you haven't provided any credible evidence to support the claim that all liquid water on the early Earth would have been subject to the process of photodissociation and lost to space without the immediate existence of photosynthesizing organisms. The novel testable prediction your hypothesis seems to make is that we would expect to find microfossils of aerobic organisms in the oldest sedimentary rock layers at least alongside the microfossils of anaerobic organisms if not below them. Which microfossils appear earliest in the geologic record; the aerobic organisms or anaerobic organisms?

[2timothy316]

The NASA article was written in 2011, the Britannica was updated by J.M. Hayes Professor of Biogeochemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington. Coauthor of Chemical Separations and Measurements.
Last Updated: Nov 16, 2020

Shouldn't we use the most up to date knowledge?

If neither source contradicts the other and the information from the older source has not been demonstrated to be false, then both are legitimate sources from which to make an abductive inference.

From Britannica, "Earths original atmosphere was rich in methane, ammonia, water vapour, and the noble gas neon, but it lacked free oxygen. It is likely that hundreds of millions of years separated the first biological production of oxygen by unicellular organisms and its eventual accumulation in the atmosphere." and "After photosynthesizing organisms multiplied on Earth's surface and in the oceans, much of the carbon dioxide was replaced with oxygen."

According to this no ozone could have been made before life made the oxygen and the co2 was removed by "photosynthesizing organisms".

Do you accept this?

I suggest it is a matter of how you interpret the article.

I didn't interpret the article at all. In post 75 you said, "oxygen-rich compounds were released by magma as it was erupted onto the Earths surface just after the planet initially formed." Which have you seen what oxygen does near a heat source? If oxygen came with magma, that would be quite the firework display as oxygen is flammable! The Article in the encyclopedia flatly rejects that earth had any free oxygen at all until the first biological life showed up. For ozone to form, o2 must be present. https://csl.noaa.gov/assessments/ozone/ ... ons/Q2.pdf

Life is responsible for our atmosphere's low co2, high o2, and our o3 to protect our water vapor from being scattered into space and protect all life on this planet from the Sun's UV light.
If one wants to 'interpret' what the article said into something else to fit a dogma, that's not what I'd expect from a person that truly loves science. It's what I'd expect from a radical Creationist that would read the article, then look me in eye and then 'interpret' the information that invents in the article happened in 6 literal days to fit their dogma.

I'd suggest that one's dogma be flexible as new information comes available and not try to flex new information to fit their dogma.
This information fits my dogma AS-IS. I don't need to 'interpret' it to fit my dogma. If supplemental information comes out, I will examine all of this again.

[bluegreenearth]

I didn't interpret the article at all. In post 75 you said, "oxygen-rich compounds were released by magma as it was erupted onto the Earths surface just after the planet initially formed." Which have you seen what oxygen does near a heat source? If oxygen came with magma, that would be quite the firework display as oxygen is flammable! The Article in the encyclopedia flatly rejects that earth had any free oxygen at all until the first biological life showed up. For ozone to form, o2 must be present. https://csl.noaa.gov/assessments/ozone/ ... ons/Q2.pdf

Here is what I found from https://indianapublicmedia.org/amomento ... oxygen.php:

"In 2019, a team of researchers proposed an answer based on the chemistry of Earth's mantle.

The researchers think that the gases that made up Earth's original atmosphere were expelled from the interior. Early Earth's mantle was an ocean of molten rock, called magma. In the laboratory, the researchers subjected molten rock to extreme temperatures and pressures hundreds of kilometers deep in Earth's mantle to understand the chemistry of this magma ocean.

They found that some of the iron combined with oxygen to form iron oxide, and some remained unoxidized metallic iron. The unoxidized iron sank into Earth's core, leaving the mantle enriched in oxidized iron. This explains why the gases the magma released included oxygen compounds like carbon dioxide and water, and didn't include reducing gases. That's why the cyanobacteria could do their work of making free oxygen."

Notice that nothing in the article suggests or even implies that it would be impossible for oxygen-rich compounds to have been released to the atmosphere by magma or that all the water vapor and liquid water on Earth would have been lost to space without the existence of cyanobacteria.

Did you find out which microfossils are observed earliest in the geologic record; aerobic or anaerobic organisms?