Soup to Nuts

Where to start.

The idea that life sprang out of a primordial soup 3.5 billion years ago and evolved into the majestic world we have today with no help from a god (let alone, my God!) seems nuts to me. I guess the science of it makes some sense ... if that's what happened, but the logic of it is, well, I just don't see it. The only way evolution makes any sense to me is if a god guided it. But if a god guided it, then why would that god need, or want to take 3.5 billion years?

Anyway, I'm not so much interested in arguing against evolution, as I am in learning about it, and how a godless evolution (pure science and chance, no "guidance") could possibly have worked. I can't fathom it but I'm open to the idea if someone can lead me by the hand down the path.

Here are a few examples of the logical leaps I don't know how to make. I admit this is a bit clumsy - uneducated even - and that's why I am willing to accept it if someone can help me see it. But it won't be easy; my bias is that I believe there is a God and that evolution would have been a complete waste of His time. So I'm hoping someone can help me see past my bias to how a godless evolution could actually have worked.

At the same time, if enough of my questions remain unanswerable, I hope you will be able to see past your bias to how maybe a godless evolution doesn't work at all.

With that said ... here are just a few of my questions:

1. The first life form - was there one or were there many that all started at the same time.

   1. If there was one, how did the first thing survive with nothing to consume? Reproduction takes energy. How did it not just "peter out?"

   2. If there were many, did they form, not only a chain of life (I eat you, and you ate something else, and so on), but a circle of life? And if not a circle, how did it not just "peter out?"

   3. Was consumption somehow not needed for reproduction and propagation?

   4. There's a whole science around how the 1st life form came about (abiogenesis). When and how did the 2nd life form come about and what was its relationship to the 1st? Was it competitive? Symbiotic? Parasitic? Now there are two things competing for the limited resources of the 1st.

2. If evolution happened by chance, we should be able to do it on purpose. If we know that a evolved into b, and we know how it happened, then let's do it on purpose.

3. How did male and female come about? Something spawned the first male thing, and something else spawned the first female thing. Or the same thing spawned them both somehow? However it worked, did they happen at the same time? In the same place? Were they immediately compatible? If not, how did they become compatible? And why was this evolutionarily beneficial to either?

4. Is there any evidence of humans evolving into something else in the past 2-300,000 years?

5. What was the first "animal" and what did it eat? Did it have all systems (digestive, reproductive, circulatory, etc.)

   1. Which came first, the stomach or the butt?

   2. Which came first, the heart or the blood?

   3. Which came first, the brain or the nerves?

   4. Which came first, the skin or the meat?

   5. What was the first thing that could "think?" What did it think about and how did it even know what an "idea" was?

6. The Big Bang - If another Big Bang happened today in the vicinity of Earth, what would happen to life on Earth? I'm convinced it would destroy life as we know it. Yet we're saying the Big Bang caused life as we know it. I just don't see how such a powerful destructive force could cause the same life that it would destroy if it happened again. What am I missing?

These are just some of the kinds of questions I have and I welcome the opportunity to learn.