Originally posted by robbie carrobie
the assumption that life has arisen from non living matter, is probably the biggest and most fundamental, but there are others for example, the presumption that life's early atmosphere was 'reducing', i.e. that it contained only the smallest amount of free (chemically uncombined oxygen), which as i am sure you are aware, had the opposite been true th ...[text shortened]... and dismantled the organic molecules as they formed, it being highly reactive. is it not so.
…the assumption that life has arisen from non living matter, is probably the biggest and most fundamental.…
Given the fact that it is not logically credible that life could have got started in any other way, it is no big assumption. -in fact, it is reasonable to consider it to be a fact that the first life came from non-life. It is true that we do not yet know exactly which way and exactly how is the most probable way it could have happened just like once upon a time know one really knew what caused lightning. But, just as it was never rational to interpret lighting as meaning the gods are angry just because we once didn‘t understand it, it is not rational now to interpret the fact we haven’t yet worked out the details of the most probable way of how life got started as meaning some kind of divine intervention must have something to do with it.
…but there are others for example, the presumption that life's early atmosphere was 'reducing', i.e. that it contained only the smallest amount of free (chemically uncombined oxygen)….
It is not a “presumption” that the early atmosphere of the Earth had little or no free oxygen but rather a scientific fact. There couldn’t have been any significant free oxygen then because plants and blue-green algae with the capacity to photosynthesise and create that free oxygen as well as lock away the excess carbon had not yet appeared in the early Earth and didn’t do so for much of the history of life on Earth.
If you want some websites confirming this, try these:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB035_1.html
And
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/08/050811104910.htm
And, just in case you start implying that this is really just about atheism (which it is not), at:
http://www.answersincreation.org/free_oxygen.htm
It concludes:
“An anaerobic atmosphere after the development of the first life form is contrary to the order of creation if one takes the days of creation to mean six twenty-four hour days. However, it is perfectly consistent with a literal reading of Genesis when one considers the days of creation to be long periods of time.”
-this has NOTHING to do with theism verses atheism but rather it is just basic science and which most Christians wouldn't refute.