When people who don't know what science is will admit that the TOE absent everything else is science, that will make all the difference. Perhaps you've missed the scientific explanations in places like books, magazines, and monographs, or maybe the billion or so posts to this forum that point out that the origin of life has nothing to do with the origin of species, and that the Theory of Evolution is about the origin of species. However, if you insist that all theories fail because they doesn't address matters outside their own scope, please name a scientific theory that doesn't fail.
Until then, begging to introduce immense spans of time as the deus ex machina of a materialist theory is the same thing as saying "The gods did it!"
As long as you ignore, say, all the evidence.
The inadequacies of TOE as an explanation of origins of life, which seem to be forgotten when it is taught, must be mentioned even as the truths of TOE are explained. Otherwise, education is incomplete and limited by secularist and materialist prejudices and opinion.
Glad to know that your objections to the TOE are entirely scientific, and have nothing whatever to do with your religion. Please go back, aaaaaaall the way to the beginning of this post, to read how the TOE does not address the origins of life.
I understand your frustrations, gentlemen, since I am sure all of you have repeatedly dealt with many who disagree with you and who will not be dissuaded of their positions. I do you an injustice, since my approach, fueled by coffee and a beautiful Fall morning, was not scholarly but jocular. When encountering those whose approach to evolution is purely materialistic, and I think many who are most vocal about the theory are indeed adamant materialists, one makes assumptions that may not be valid.
I assumed that you all are materialists. Forgive me.
When Darwin published Origin of the Species, his theory removed from many great minds a necessity for God in the cosmos, unleashing a cynical reassessment of metaphysics that resulted, I think, in the disasters of Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, contemporary liberalism, etc., etc. ad nauseum. While the USSR officially embraced Lysenko instead of Darwin, resulting in wheat crop failures and other human tragedies, the concept was the same: without a divine hand to guide the species, origins of life itself became philosophically divorced from God and were consolidated into the concept of evolution.
Like it or not, that is where the academy took the theory. Implicit to TOE is the "science" of denial of design. Teaching TOE as the only truth teaches implicitly, for many, secular materialism as the only truth (in the USSR, of course, Lysenkoism somehow more closely united the "scientific" principles of dialectical materialism with biology and genetics, which fascinates me and mystifies me). To say I do not understand the definition of "theory", so I therefore cannot critique TOE, or that I keep trying to link TOE to origins of life, which TOE indeed does not do, is to misunderstand my assertions. But that is my fault, due to time limits (note my late response to all your posts) and haste. I apologize for wasting your time.
What I believe ID proponents desire is to be able at least to express their disagreement with the implicit, exclusionary materialism of TOE. Without an ability to do so, TOE exclusivists, if I may coin a term of classification that I know will not fit adequately, become like Lysenko's political allies. To impose what Lysenko adamantly believed to be the only truth, they suppressed Darwinism. And they did more, with the aid of Stalin, persecuting, prosecuting, and in some instances, murdering, his Darwinist critics. I do not suggest anti-ID critics will do that, of course. But the insults and condescension most academics level at ID proponents suggest an unwillingness to allow freedom of speech in the academy, as if competing ideas are a bad thing. For example, I am not really an ID proponent, and I have collected my share of insults for the week. Oh well, humility is a fine virtue!
That's all. Good luck to you all in your efforts. Regards.