Hi Bex

The indepth studies, mathematically and chemically are not my field.

That makes it really hard then to discuss this stuff with you rationally. Chemistry is a very well understood field that combines random and non random elements in very well defined mathematical ways and this is what underlies the field of abiogenesis. It’s not just random numbers as Russ would have you believe but a very lawful combination of random and non random elements much as ToE is a combination of random and lawful parts that make up the full picture of how life behaves.

My arguments are coming from a layperson's position, but also from observation and faith too.

Fair enough. We each have to work from what we already know. I would suggest that faith is an obstacle to true understanding here, it leads you to write of some really well established science without really understanding it but that’s your choice.

Surely a layperson can also ask questions and argue from a standpoint of design?

Yes you can argue from that standpoint but maybe you have to take people’s words for it a bit when they point out that your position flies in the face of good science. This is the case for Russ’s position on probability as just one example. He fails totally to understand what ToE says or he is purposefully ignoring some of it to make his complaints sound reasonable. They are not even slightly reasonable.

Since your arguments here do not necessarily cancel that either. I simply don't believe or agree that in random chance having a role in this.

Then I have to suggest that you really do need to do some research on how ToE works, on what we actually know about evolution in the wild and in the lab. We know beyond all doubt that random elements play a part in evolution and that they along with natural selection build new information into organisms. No matter how much some here deny it this is beyond all reasonable doubt. Now no one can say that god does not play a part here, maybe he set things going, maybe he gives that randomness a push at times, who knows, but there’s no evidence to support either idea while we directly observe random events in DNA adding information and adding to the design of new features of organisms.

Can any conditions bring forth non existence into existence?

Now this is a fascinating question. Common sense says that this is impossible doesn’t it but common sense says that much of quantum physics is impossible. How, for instance, can a particle travel along one single path once through an apparatus yet know of the state of two or more pathways through the machine? This makes no common sense yet this is how quantum particles behave. Another really counter intuitive prediction of quantum physics was that a true vacuum was impossible. That if you created a space that contained nothing at all it would be filled with vacuum energy and particles. Sounds really weird doesn’t it yet it has been experimentally verified in a series of experiments which explored the cassimere effect. What this shows is that if you were to remove all matter and energy from the universe such as would exist if there were no universe it would immediately be filled with a spontaneously formed foam of random matter and energy. This foam would cool as the universe expanded under the pressure of the foam itself and it would coalesce into something that looks an awful lot like the ancient universe that we can detect with our most powerful instruments.

I too admire the life around me, the complexity, the amazing intricacy of the designs I see there, it is truly awe inspiring but, as one famous person once said, “is it not sufficient to realize that the garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it.”

All the best Bex

Russell