[Elsie]

I always find it interesting that people could actually believe there was a tree of life, or that a book could accurately tell you what the very first humans on earth did and talked about.

---

Ha! I can top THAT!

MILLIONS of people actually believe that all life came from rocks and water and lightning! (and lots and lots of time)

[stuartcr]

OK, I give. Since I have no idea how life originated, then I guess snakes could talk, and maybe there was an apple. Just too bad all this happened so long ago that there's no way to validate it. Ya gotta believe something.

[stuartcr]

OK, I give. Since I have no idea how life originated, then I guess snakes could talk, and maybe there was an apple. Just too bad all this happened so long ago that there's no way to validate it. Ya gotta believe something.

[BMCDA]

MILLIONS of people actually believe that all life came from rocks and water and lightning! (and lots and lots of time)

Why not? At least complex molecules can form under certain conditions. Of course no "life" has been produced this way but it has been demonstrated that the spontaneous generation of rather complex molecules is not as improbable as most people believed.
IMO it is also necessary to define what "life" is because it is a somewhat fuzzy term. One can say with a high certainty that animals are alive and rocks not but whether a virus is alive or not is somewhat controversial as far as I know. If a virus is alive then what is a rather simple self-replicating molecule?