Question for Atheists ( hoping for a interesting debate)
Why do Roses 🌹 have thorns?
36-40, M
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Heavenlywarrior · 36-40, M
@Greyjedi You're pointing to the outcome — "thorns evolved to prevent predation" — but skipping over the mechanisms that make that adaptation possible at all. So let’s ask the real questions:
Why do genes self-regulate with such fidelity?
If evolution is just accumulated accidents, why are genetic networks able to distinguish between harmful and beneficial mutations, filter noise, and maintain stable expression profiles across generations?
Why do genes self-regulate with such fidelity?
If evolution is just accumulated accidents, why are genetic networks able to distinguish between harmful and beneficial mutations, filter noise, and maintain stable expression profiles across generations?
Greyjedi · M
@Heavenlywarrior Genes can be part of thinking organisms but genes are not sentient and thus do not have fidelity. If “genetic networks” as you call them, were able to distinguish between harmful and beneficial mutations as you say, crime would not exist. Harmful and beneficial are largely a matter of opinion, from outsiders. Have you ever played a board game? Life for many organisms is purely chance on this planet and life can be confirmed to have existed for at least 3.5 billion years. For perspective that is 87.5 million times your longer than you have possibly lived. When life has had that long to evolve some things are going to look greater than chance. Factors in soil nutrients, fona, pollinators, sunlight, and space lead to the development roses. A better question is when did Roses evolve. I don’t no that, but I know some one who has more than a basic understanding biology and earth science and I will ask. Another good question to ask is why is there more than one kind of rose?
Heavenlywarrior · 36-40, M
@Greyjedi You're correct that genes aren't sentient — what I find even more fascinating is the cell. Genes are inert strands of code until a cell reads, regulates, and interprets them. A gene is executed within a system that actively maintains order, resists entropy, and repairs itself — which is the hallmark of goal-directed behavior.
Why do they silence harmful mutations and amplify beneficial ones?
Why do they maintain homeostasis — regulating ion gradients, temperature, waste, pH, and nutrient levels — with real-time precision, across billions of cells?
There is no “conscious architect,” according to an Atheists’ world view . But this isn’t chaos either. This is functional order. That’s not superstition — that’s empirical, testable biology.
You said:
“Genes are not sentient and thus do not have fidelity.”
But fidelity doesn’t require consciousness — it requires feedback systems. DNA polymerase corrects errors. Chaperone proteins ensure correct folding. Transcription factors respond to the cellular environment. Cells exhibit non-random preference for order over disorder — they detect damage and act to repair it.
If it’s all chance, why do cells fight randomness at every level of function?
You said:
“Factors like soil, nutrients, pollinators, and sunlight led to roses evolving.”
Yes — but only because the rose’s internal systems are equipped to adapt.
If genes were static or totally random, no adaptation to environmental factors would be possible. The rose developed thorns not because the environment dictated it, but because the rose’s cells responded to environmental stress and pressure — and encoded that response into reproductive success.
That encoding process requires biological logic and stable inheritance mechanisms, not blind chance.
Life doesn’t just appear to defy randomness — it functions as if it were organized. Homeostasis, regulatory networks, and error correction aren’t illusions of order. They are active, measurable, functional order.
If there's no deeper order, why do self-organizing systems in physics (crystals, magnetism, fractals) obey precise laws of emergence?
Why do they silence harmful mutations and amplify beneficial ones?
Why do they maintain homeostasis — regulating ion gradients, temperature, waste, pH, and nutrient levels — with real-time precision, across billions of cells?
There is no “conscious architect,” according to an Atheists’ world view . But this isn’t chaos either. This is functional order. That’s not superstition — that’s empirical, testable biology.
You said:
“Genes are not sentient and thus do not have fidelity.”
But fidelity doesn’t require consciousness — it requires feedback systems. DNA polymerase corrects errors. Chaperone proteins ensure correct folding. Transcription factors respond to the cellular environment. Cells exhibit non-random preference for order over disorder — they detect damage and act to repair it.
If it’s all chance, why do cells fight randomness at every level of function?
You said:
“Factors like soil, nutrients, pollinators, and sunlight led to roses evolving.”
Yes — but only because the rose’s internal systems are equipped to adapt.
If genes were static or totally random, no adaptation to environmental factors would be possible. The rose developed thorns not because the environment dictated it, but because the rose’s cells responded to environmental stress and pressure — and encoded that response into reproductive success.
That encoding process requires biological logic and stable inheritance mechanisms, not blind chance.
Life doesn’t just appear to defy randomness — it functions as if it were organized. Homeostasis, regulatory networks, and error correction aren’t illusions of order. They are active, measurable, functional order.
If there's no deeper order, why do self-organizing systems in physics (crystals, magnetism, fractals) obey precise laws of emergence?
Greyjedi · M
@Heavenlywarrior Behavior isn’t the the right word. Instinct is what you are looking for.
Beneficial and harmful traits are arbitrary. You clearly have not looked at nature enough to see how there are plenty of negative traits in living things.
Traits are sorted arbitrarily and randomly by what happens to work at the time for a species.
No fidelity and trust requires conscience ness. What cells and organisms do is nothing but reaction and unconscious growth.
When life formed on this planet, the structures and compositions of organic molecules compelled occurrences that do not seem random.
Beneficial and harmful traits are arbitrary. You clearly have not looked at nature enough to see how there are plenty of negative traits in living things.
Traits are sorted arbitrarily and randomly by what happens to work at the time for a species.
No fidelity and trust requires conscience ness. What cells and organisms do is nothing but reaction and unconscious growth.
When life formed on this planet, the structures and compositions of organic molecules compelled occurrences that do not seem random.
Greyjedi · M
@Heavenlywarrior Are you aware there have been 5 or 6 mass extinctions? Are you aware there have been almost the same number of ice ages? That is a lot of turbulence in the environment and it has an effect. With roses like with plants there reproduce by pollen or nectar. Both are highly influenced by the wind, with as you know is part of the environment.
Biological logic is essential math when is no real difference to rolling die.
Chemicals con only be a certain number of structures and thus a certain number of way they can be combined and separated. So of course they are organized but not by a “higher power”. By the limits of atoms the and stars. Homeostasis is different for each organism and likely a tiny bit different for each member of that organism.
Things organize the way they do because of the atoms that make up a thing, the environment and if it is alive the way its life goes.
Biological logic is essential math when is no real difference to rolling die.
Chemicals con only be a certain number of structures and thus a certain number of way they can be combined and separated. So of course they are organized but not by a “higher power”. By the limits of atoms the and stars. Homeostasis is different for each organism and likely a tiny bit different for each member of that organism.
Things organize the way they do because of the atoms that make up a thing, the environment and if it is alive the way its life goes.