I do not know html so cannot differentiate my font to make better sense of our discussion by showing you what I am answering to...so, bear with me.
Where I have a problem with atheistic evolution is that they first of all cannot come up with a concrete theory on how life began. I went to the site you linked to..thanks, it was good to read. The best they can come up with is that life evolved...which if one thinks about it...is rather crazy. Specific life forms may evolve, but life did not evolve. There was nothing living before life...so it did not evolve. But, let’s move on a little bit...you state that there is no record of “large animals popping out” and I totally agree with you. Indeed, there has never been any small living new organisms which just popped out on record. There are organisms that have mutated but none that have been newly created on record. Think about that for a while...here we now have an environment very rich in life...very very rich in the “soup” some like to refer to. Yet, life only was created new during the initial stages of it’s own creation.
Next, we are asked to believe that some organism that never flew ‘evolved’ somehow into a being that could fly. Then we are asked to believe that along the evolutionary trail a specific bird (can’t remember the name, but can get it if you like) evolved a ability to fly from what is now the North American continent (Canada I believe) all the way to Hawaii...a trip that has no places to rest, eat, or drink along the way once the bird is over water. The trip is barely makeable, so how did they evolve to that?
How could a single cell organism all of a sudden grow a set of lungs to breathe air? You cannot live with partial lungs, indeed you cannot live with partial livers, brains, etc. Yet, we are to believe that something existed before lungs, etc. and made an evolutionary trip to fully working set of lungs.
I agree that a definition of life does need to exist which is realistic. I would think that consciousness would have to be included. Yes, it has been proven that plants are sentient beings. I don’t know if you have ever seen anything die, but there is a spark, if you will, which leaves the body when we die. Christians understand that it is the soul leaving the body, not sure how atheists make out what it is. But, the spark/soul is energy...what is left is a pile of chemicals...without the energy. So, that energy, that spark is life. The body is almost irrelevant if you really think about it. It is simply mass when death occurs, albeit it is food for other organisms. What atheist evolutionist put forward is that the chemicals and mass are everything and ignore the energy. They miss the boat of what life is and of course do not have a real clue as to how life began because of this. They come up with grand theories of “sub-life” or “pre-life”, but again they are simply talking the physical aspect. The chemical compounds, etc. That is not life, that is simply chemistry. If they really knew how life was created they could create new life...life which has never been on earth before. But, they cannot because they simply do not have a clue. They might be able to make complex compounds of molecules...proteins, amino acids...but come on...who in their right mind would call that life? But, they try to push that idea so that it fits their preconceived idea of creation...
So, maybe ask yourself more carefully...how did life begin before there was life. Life has to include some level of consciousness, pretending a protein or amino acid is life is really changing the logical definition to fit their own concepts.
As you probably noticed, there's kind of a disagreement around here about whether the theory of evolution has to explain how life began. It really doesn't, or rather, it functions fine to explain things after the point where we can all agree there's life. I liked the way someone who used to participate in these threads put it: the origin of life could have been by (a) creation, (b) pure chemistry, (c) seeds from outer space, (d) something else entirely. Take your pick--the answer would make no difference whatsoever to evolution.
Which isn't to say the origin of life isn't related, or "of particular interest" as that Berkeley site puts it. But (here's another analogy I like) it's like the question of whether a biography has to start with the person's conception. Most don't.
So I'd say you may have a problem with atheism but not with evolution.
Specific life forms may evolve, but life did not evolve. There was nothing living before life...so it did not evolve.
I hate to do this, but that all depends on how you define "life" and "evolve." If RNA was capable of self-replication and adaptation, was it alive? How about when it managed to enclose itself inside a protective membrane and became a "cell"--was it alive then? If RNA gave rise to DNA and cells, can one say that "life evolved"? More to the point, can one say for sure that it didn't?
Indeed, there has never been any small living new organisms which just popped out on record.
No small living new organism ever popped out. That's not how evolution works.
Next, we are asked to believe that some organism that never flew ‘evolved’ somehow into a being that could fly.
No, we're asked to believe that over the course of maybe 50 million years, some organisms started to grow fuzz, which developed into feathers, and later some climbing tree-dwellers with feathers developed skin membranes like flying squirrels have, and later some of those developed lighter bones and different muscle arrangements that enabled them to glide further and actually flap their membranes. Now, that's about five stages of development, or about 10 million years per stage. Say it takes 10 years for these organisms to produce a new generation: that's a million generations to get from fuzz to feathers, and then another million to get from feathers to gliding membranes. It all took a very long time--we didn't go from some organism that never flew to one that could in one or even a hundred steps.
Then we are asked to believe that along the evolutionary trail a specific bird (can’t remember the name, but can get it if you like) evolved a ability to fly from what is now the North American continent (Canada I believe) all the way to Hawaii
My guess is that the bird wasn't trying to get from Canada to Hawaii, but rather was trying to get way out over the water from Canada--where it would have exclusive fishing rights--and then back to where it started, but got blown to Hawaii. I don't know. But I did want to point out that what you describe is just "microevolution," or the sort of adaptation within the bird "kind" that creationism permits. Explaining that bird is just as big a problem for creationism as it is for evolution (unless the claim is that the original created bird "kind" was an ocean traveler).
How could a single cell organism all of a sudden grow a set of lungs to breathe air? You cannot live with partial lungs,
Again, none of this happens all of a sudden. And actually, some of the earliest fish had air sacs connected to their esophagus--I think the hypothesis is that they helped the fish gulp air when they couldn't get enough oxygen from the water. So it wasn't the case that organisms living on land had to develop lungs from scratch, they just had to adapt the ones that were already there.
Life has to include some level of consciousness, pretending a protein or amino acid is life is really changing the logical definition to fit their own concepts.
I'm not sure I'm ready to say that bacteria or algae have consciousness. I guess I find it easier to see non-life to life as a continuum than you do.
I answered at length because I probably won't get back to this for a couple of days. I hope you have/had a nice holiday.