[Dimensio]

True, the theory of evolution does not generally attempt to explain how life first began. Evolutionists just skip over anything that would cause someone to question the theory.

Evolution only deals with existing imperfect self-replicators. Given that it is known generally how those self-replicators operate, how those self-replicators ultimately came into being has no bearing whatsoever on the theory of evolution. Gravitational theory deals with objects that have mass, but it does not try to address how those objects with mass ultimately came into being, yet I see no one trying to use that as a challenge to gravitational theory.

The attempt to link the origins of life with evolution is a creationist diversionary tactic. The creationist claim that the seperation of the two concepts is an evolutionist copout is a blatant lie.

[f.Christian]

To: f.Christian

I've struggled with this for years. First being fully indoctrinated on young earth creationism (before it had that name), then being fully indoctrinated with evolutionary naturalism.

Never have fully sorted it out, but I have reached a few conclusions.

I. The Bible is open to some limited interpretation. Day-age, for starters. Which hebrew words are used for "made"? For that matter, look at what leading Jewish theologians say about it, its vastly different that what they teach in mainstream protestant sunday school.

II. Science itself is not anti-God. It is a study of that which God has made, and can provide a multitude of lessons about the nature of God.

III. Science is limited to naturalistic assumptions. Meaning, being based on repeatable experiments, it [i]a priori[/i] excludes the miraculous. Some misunderstand this and conclude miracles are impossible. No, they are just not subject to investigation by science, because they are by their very nature non-natural, non-repeatable.

IV. The Theory of Evolution is a mixture of good and bad science, and advocated zealously by the naturalists. The naturalists seem to think that the T-of-E removes the need for a God. Ignoring the whole question of where did the universe come from in the first place.

V. The two single biggest problems for the T-of-E are macroevolution and abiogenesis.

A) Abiogenesis, that life arose from inorganic material, is, scientifically, a discipline in shambles. A lot of time and energy spent, a lot of speculations made, and so far, nothing but some impossible speculations to show for it.

Oddly ... the impossibilities are suppressed --- the cleverness of the speculation trumpeted, and in some quarters people think its already proven.

B) Macro-evolution - perhaps a bad term. I mean to say, descent with change is proven - children differ from their parents, over time this can lead to changes in a species.

But, the assumption or speculation that this accounts for the grand diveristy of all life on the planet has not been proven, and in fact, scientifically, is a huge and largely unsupported leap. Put another way: the fossil record supports this theory very poorly.

7 posted on 04/28/2003 8:03 AM PDT by FactQuest

[Dataman]

The attempt to link the origins of life with evolution is a creationist diversionary tactic.

If it is as you say, you must allow for the possibility that God created and even started life. Naaa. Not you.

[FactQuest]

The attempt to link the origins of life with evolution is a creationist diversionary tactic.

You got your dodges, and you got your dodges. True, abiogenesis is not part of the Theory of Evolution. It is, however, usually taught side-by-side with it. It is advanced as good science. They are intrinsically related. I can argue them together, or apart, no big deal either way.