Where did it come from?

[life777]

I have a question that I have been wondering about:

In the Theory of Evolution, where did the "non-living matter" come from?

And, is Evolution an atheistic belief?
Because often Evolutionists say the "Theory" of Evolution. The word "theory" itself comes from the Greek word "Theo" which means God or Heaven.

[bernee51]

Something always has to start from something else,...

And you know this to be a fact because...?

[OnceConvinced]

Something always has to start from something else, unless it's eternal.

God can supposedly conjure amazing things out of nothing, so it's not all that absurd to think that something could come from nothing.

[Goat]

Evolution does however, contradict certain theistic interpretations of the origin of life, such as God created humans from dust on the sixth day, or that plants were created

Evolution couldn't contradict any theistic interpretations of the orgin of life, IF:

The Theory of Evolution only deals with life after it started

Evolution doesn't worry about 'non-living matter' , nor does evolution worry about where life comes from. What evolution does worry about is how life changes over time.

Evolution is 'non theistic'. It does not address the issue if there is a God or not. It specifically address how life changes over time. (I am assuming you are referring to biological evolution). It addresses the subject of God the same way plumbing does, or ditchdigging

Well, it does show that the theistic version of 'adam and eve' is incorrect, since we have evidence that mankind changed over hundreds of thousands of years. Science in general (not just the TOE), contradicts the religious notion God made
the world 6 to 12K years ago, in 6 days.

However, it does not contradict the concept of God, or of God creating life. Theistic evolution will just say 'This is how God created life, and created mankind'.

[Catharsis]

The complexity of the issue is evident by the existence of a large quantity of the most diverse and contradictory opinions. Faithless people who base their views on the theory of evolution tend to see echoes of ancient myths and the product of primitive fantasy in the biblical account in the first chapters of the book of Genesis. "Evolutionists" believe that the origin of life and its development on earth — from simple microbes to modern man — can be explained completely by physical processes. The Creator’s work is ignored, if not directly denied. According to their concepts, all of man’s properties can be completely explained by physical causes, because man is merely the highest rung on the ladder of evolution.

Defendants of the Bible’s Divine inspiration, in turn, suspect the "evolutionists" of maliciously manipulating the facts in order to undermine faith in God. The so-called "creationists" adhere to an extreme position, insisting upon a literal interpretation of every word of the Biblical account of the world’s creation: all plant and animal species were made suddenly in their ultimate form; no evolutionary processes ever took place and no intermediate links ever existed in the animal world. Likewise, according to this perspective, the days of creation were regular days lasting 24 hours. The world has only existed some 7,500 thousand years (the sum of the life-spans of the pre-Flood and post-Flood patriarchs).

Some people think that creation or evolution are rigid, uncompromising alternatives. But is this really the case? The Biblical account of the creation of the world and man's, tells that the primary cause of all that exists rests in the other, non-material world, but purposely shuns the immense complicity of the physical events that followed the creation.

Clearly, the truth lies somewhere between the above-mentioned extreme concepts. However, attempts to reconcile scientific data with religious views often suffer from bias and a lack of real knowledge, and sometimes do more to confuse us than to resolve seeming contradictions.

[McCulloch]

Some people think that creation or evolution are rigid, uncompromising alternatives. But is this really the case? The Biblical account of the creation of the world and man's, tells that the primary cause of all that exists rests in the other, non-material world, but purposely shuns the immense complicity of the physical events that followed the creation.

Clearly, the truth lies somewhere between the above-mentioned extreme concepts. However, attempts to reconcile scientific data with religious views often suffer from bias and a lack of real knowledge, and sometimes do more to confuse us than to resolve seeming contradictions.

Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so.
God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so.
The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens."
God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind"; and it was so.

The Genesis account lays out a sequence of events:

• dry land
• vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees
• the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night;
• the stars also.
• great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed
• every winged bird after its kind
• cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind

A few things are out of sequence. Plant life probably began before dry land appeared. The sun, moon and stars must have existed before plant life. Birds came after land animals. Seed bearing plants and fruit trees came after the first land animals.
Genesis is not even a reasonable approximation of evolution by any stretch of the imagination.

[ShadowRishi]

I have a question that I have been wondering about:

In the Theory of Evolution, where did the "non-living matter" come from?

And, is Evolution an atheistic belief?
Because often Evolutionists say the "Theory" of Evolution.

Evolution does not attempt to answer this question at all. It is typical of people (theist or atheist) to not understand what all these theories are, but here they are:

How life came about:
Abiogenisis --Organisms ('life') came from organic compounds. There was a theoretical "Primordial Soup" that had the right conditions for a lot of complicated organic compounds to form. Then the compounds reacted together, creating prokaryotes (really, really, really uncomplicated organisms with versions of DNA and it is just a single cell).

How life went from basic to complicated:
The Theory of Evolution:
A. DNA changes due to mutations (most mutations happen during the creation of an offpsring) after given periods of time.
B. Different mutations benefit an organisms in different environments.
C. The earth is really, really old, and life began relatively early, so there's been at least 3-4 billion years since organisms existence. (the earth is 4.7 + .3 billion years old)

Given that mutations do occur, mutations occur due to probability, giving the number of times that organisms have had to create offspring, then mutate... It seems most likely that all current traits given to organisms comes from this.

(Given that there's no other explanation, and using Occam's Razor)

The word "theory" itself comes from the Greek word "Theo" which means God or Heaven.

Wrong, it comes from Late Greek/Latin:

[center]Late Latin theōria, from Greek theōriā, from theōros, spectator : probably theā, a viewing + -oros, seeing (from horān, to see).[/center]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theory

[Dionysus]

The theory of evolution is a 'theory' in the same way that, say, gravity or plate tectonics are. We know that it occurs, but we don't have the ability to actively falsify it yet - we can't induce evolution in a creature or species (well, we can, as in, for example, domesticated housepets; but this occurs unintentionally and over many thousands of years).

Clearly, the truth lies somewhere between the above-mentioned extreme concepts. However, attempts to reconcile scientific data with religious views often suffer from bias and a lack of real knowledge, and sometimes do more to confuse us than to resolve seeming contradictions.

Clearly it doesn't. Nothing in existence necessitates any deity, let alone Biblegod.

[Goat]

The theory of evolution is a 'theory' in the same way that, say, gravity or plate tectonics are. We know that it occurs, but we don't have the ability to actively falsify it yet - we can't induce evolution in a creature or species (well, we can, as in, for example, domesticated housepets; but this occurs unintentionally and over many thousands of years).

Clearly, the truth lies somewhere between the above-mentioned extreme concepts. However, attempts to reconcile scientific data with religious views often suffer from bias and a lack of real knowledge, and sometimes do more to confuse us than to resolve seeming contradictions.

Clearly it doesn't. Nothing in existence necessitates any deity, let alone Biblegod.

Actually, we can induce speciation into fruit flys. This has been done several times.