[GourmetDan]

"If life came into being as the result of a more or less complex process of some kind -- probably one occurring over some period of time, and with various stages, sub-processes or parallel processes involved -- then that would not be "spontaneous," neither in terms of the way the term had been previously used in science, nor in terms of the common dictionary definition of the term."

All unknown and merely presumed by faith in naturalism.

The dictionary does not place a time or number of processes limit on 'spontaneous', although I understand why you would need to.

[Stultis]

All unknown and merely presumed by faith in naturalism.

Huh? I don't even understand that assertion, except as some sort of bizarre and extreme intellectual (or anti-intellectual) relativism. How the term "spontaneous generation" has historically been used in science is not an issue of "faith," but rather an issue of examining the actual history, or scholarship regarding that history.

I happen to have read rather beyond the depth of the average layperson in the history of biology and natural history, and have consumed several books covering the spontaneous generation controversies alone.

I know what I'm talking about here. You don't.