"Actually, the theory of common descent says exactly the opposite, that all extant populations evolved from earlier populations."
This is what happens when ignorance tries to lay an ambush with bait and switch bombs. The theory of common descent itself must begin out of nothing, (or from the Big Bang, which itself was created out of nothing according to Darwinist theology). You claim nothing existed before the "Big Bang", but that the "big Bang" created life and everything else; (in other words, 'nothing' created the "Big Bang", which in turn created everything else. So silly.
Darwinists claim that all of creation came out of nothing, the universe emerging for the first time from the, ahem, "big bang". Ask any good Darwinist what existed before their "big bang", and the answer is 'nothing'. So we have 'nothing' causing a "big bang", which caused life in all of its forms, and the entire, ever-expanding universe as well. So once again I will say: "Darwinists claim that life came from non-life, and that everything proceeded from nothing". Which is, of course, rubbish. Old, rotting rubbish at that.
"Creationists, on the other hand, actively promote the idea that life came from non-life, witness Genesis 2:7"
More nonsense from the uninformed. Genesis clearly reveals that life came from God, "Who Am". God indeed created everything out of nothing, for before His creation there was nothing but Himself. When God fashioned man's body from the clay of the earth, man was still made from 'nothing', because God then "breathed into his (man's) nostrils the breath of life", which is the spirit and soul, (the image and likeness of God).
No, the theory of common descent doesn't specify where the first life came from. Some scientists believe that it arose through natural procecesses affecting complex organic molecules, my own personal belief is that it was created by the Almighty. But that's not a question that evolution even pretends to be able to answer.
(or from the Big Bang, which itself was created out of nothing according to Darwinist theology)
Canard. The Theory of Evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with the Big Bang, except for the fact that both are scientific theories. They're not related in any way, except in your mind. And I'm not sure why you believe that God could not have been responsible for the Big Bang -- to me, it is the greatest evidence for His existence yet known.
"Darwinists claim that life came from non-life, and that everything proceeded from nothing". Which is, of course, rubbish.
Yes it is rubbish, because I'm a "Darwinist" and I do not believe that -- you're tilting at strawmen.