Interesting attempt to be analytical about such a vague subject. I read a view expressed recently that due to the infinite nature of the afterlife, that even if only think there is a 0.000001% probablity of God existing then you should still be devout and worship him.

God and Evo grand alliance: 40%
Evo: 40%
God: 19%
Aliens: 1%

You have identified the fear factor in religion there Braveheart. It is actually quite terrifying to consider the existence of eternity...

@Braveheart: That view you read contain several fallacies:
1) which God? the Christian one will probably be pissed if you worship the Muslim one and vice versa and who knows what Zeus will think. Since there is no evidence to make any of these Gods more likely then its just up to who guesses right.
2) Who knows if any of these Gods even care that they're worshiped. Perhaps
a good dress since a a more important factor when she decides who get's rewarded and who doesn't.

The original question is a bit vague.
If the question is just about life starting / coming to Earth then the two
term terms to mention would be Abiogenesis and Panspermia. (google them if you care). Evolution just deals with how life changes.
Right now I'm probably about:
Abiogenesis 67%
Panspermia 33 %
Some space creature or god starts life on Earth: insignificant % (no evidence)

But if question is about how life well evolved to its current form.
Aliens: 0% so far no evidence has been found that aliens even exist.
God*: 0% so far no evidence has been found that gods even exist.
Evolution: 100% we've got a shitload of evidence that this happens.
God made universe so that she could sit back and watch evolution unfold: 0% so far no evidence has been found that gods even exist, but if you want to believe it go ahead and be my guest, at least your not ignoring the shitload of evidence for evolution.

yes i cant believe how low people are rating evolution( either A or P).
aliens0% (but im a sci fi nut so i like this one...for a good story)
evolution 100%
god 0%

If a god did exist wouldn't he/she/it/them be by definition an alien? non human non Terran intelligent sapient life form? immortal, ever knowing, wings of an angel yada yada yada ...but still an alien right?

Evolution has been established as an observational fact in some species (although these are only species with short generation times. E. coli is a good example with a generation time -- and population-doubling time -- of only 20 minutes).

However, evolution cannot explain biogenesis; it only explains subsequent modification of life. One could take a self-consistent position that God or some other such supreme being created all life and subsequently it was modified, either through evolution on its own or via evolutionary processes guided divinely.

While I personally believe God does not exist, I also believe that it is inherently futile to ever prove such a claim or to prove the opposite claim ("God does exist."). With science being unable to run controlled experiments to test for the presence of divine influence (think about it: if science could control for an influence, then that influence is beneath the control of people and thus not divine), it can never hack up any evidence supporting or refuting the existence of divine beings.

My personal belief regarding biogenesis is that early life formed at mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal sites as those provide energy sources and also sources of several primitive organic compounds. Additionally, EVERY heavy metal found at the core of protein structures in modern organisms is one that is readily present at hydrothermal vent sites, with many of them also being chemically identical to some of the rocks formed at these sites (iron pyrite comes to mind immediately). Furthermore, there's evidence of iron pyrite being able to catalyze carboxylic acid reactions. It seems that life could have, and probably inevitably MUST have, formed initially at such a site.

100 % the Big Bang, obviously. And Gods (all of them, valids or obsoletes) are 100 % a political construction and nothing more.
I will recomend you a book written by Michael Onfray, the wiki reference is in French and also in English:
Traité d'athéologie : Physique de la métaphysique, Paris, Grasset, (2005); English translation by Jeremy Leggatt as Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007)

you people are ridiculous. Stop debating and either just answer the "vague" question or dont say anything. I said in the beginning that this was not going to become a verbal debate. The only way for you to do you debating is with numbers...only numbers. Of course you have to title your numbers but that is the only time that words are allowed. I honestly believe that you can get more out of a persons arguement with numbers and not debate banter. So please stop and just do what i asked of you thats all. I think you'd be suprised by the results.

Correction to an early post by Archonix: Life began on Earth 3.5 billion years ago, not 3.5 billion years after the planet formed. Obviously this is a detail and not central to anyone's post, but it might as well be pointed out.

true...

hey cteno4 could you rephrase you ideas into the format that i suggested people to use

sammy, it would appear that people would rather discuss your question that post inane numbers. Deal with it. here's a percentage for you - 46 - percetage of replies on this thread by whitesammy.

there was an interesting article written by noted atheist Penn Jillette about the differnce between stating 'I don't believe in god' and 'I believe there is no god.'

Discuss.

there is no word strong enough to explain my hate for you at the moment Treefarn.

LOL. Lighten up Francis.

just answer me this
why do the people of this website who post on a regular basis half to make things(no matter how simple they are) as difficult as possible.
what is so hard with doing something someone asks of you, if not just once?

whenever i post in a thread i try to make sure that it is on topic.

half=have

Originally Sammy, people weren't doing it to be dicks (though you called them that), but thought they were being on topic. They actually liked your topic, but either didn't understand, didn't notice or didn't care about the rules you placed on it. They didn't realize the stringency with which you were going to try to enforce the rules. When you started calling people dicks, 'your expletive here', accusing Jerkface of living up to name, I suspect others just piled on.

Jerk was living up to his name by using almost every possible word combination of the words that i though seemed necessary. In the beginning i thought that phil was trying to be a dick by finding a loophole in the question, more specifically the part about "brought"

but to me this sounds like someone is trying to be a smartass
"for that matter - I think I'll go with God created Aliens, who then brought the first organisms to earth, which then evoled into all of the life forms we've grown so fond of eating"

but if people are confused then why dont they just ask for clarification like Archonix did?

and Tree
i know i snapped at some people and i apologize
but just humor me


what is you answer to the original question(in %)

No, my answer is one of those you wouldn't appreciate.

See Sammy - it wasn't my fault - everyone would have answered in the way they did anyway, I was just the first cause we were online at the same time - I didn't even see your response to my first response before typing my second one, because they occured so close together. And you were right - I was trying to be a smartass in the option I chose - cause I thought we were supposed to chose one.

Having said that I must say I did misunderstand the question. I didn't realize you were looking for everyone elses assesments of the probabilities of the different options. So to make it up to you, here is my well thought out and honest response (forgive me for adding a few possibilities, that was a result of the thought I put into it). Also I'm going to make .1% my lowest possibility for simplicity, even though one or two of the options would more realistically be about 10^(-10) or so

4% God - Earth - no evolution
10% God - Earth - initial life forms that then evolve
85% Luck - Earth - initial Life which then evolves
.1% God - ET - no evolution, gets to Earth
.2% God - ET - initial life, gets to earth and evolves
.7% Luck - ET - initial life, gets to earth and evolves

And before I get accused of being a smartass or a dick again, by "ET" I simply mean it in it's literal use Extra Terrestrial i.e. from outside Earth. I'm not talking about aliens in the intellegent sense, I'm including the possibility of the building blocks of life (simple proteins) being formed on an asteroid or something that then crashed into Earth.

flashman: feel free to use evilution all you want, I don't need credit though. While I have been using that for many years in various religious debates in many forums starting from the old days of usenet when tin was my newsreader, I cannot take credit for having thought of it. I'm about 90% sure I first saw someone else use it.

It was a good catch on your part, because I didn't accentuate the "Evil" this time. I have in the past, when I really wanted to make my sarcastic point obvious spelled it either EVILution or evil-ution. so nice job on seeing it in its pure form.

49.5% Mother Nature
49.5% Evolution
.9% Aliens
.1% God (who may be an alien for all we know)

thank you phil and the reason why i was so pissy is bc i didnt want people screwing with this when i was serious about it.

Nature: 100%
God (which I mean to be a 'prime mover', i.e. an intelligent, sentient entity that existed *before* anything else did): 0%

Aliens - 0%
God - .5%
Evolution - 95.5%

I have rethought my position after doing some thinking:
A god alone- 5%
Evolution/big bang- 50%
God w/ evolution- 45%
Aliens (with or without glowing fingers)- 0%
Asteroid carrying essential life elements and compounds- Ties in with evolution (1/2 of Evolution)
God with aliens- 0%

Nobody has a god 100%? I'd say:
Evolution: 95%
Panspermia: 3%
Something else (including God and aliens): 2%