re: #123 stretch

So, where did life come from? Do you believe entirely in naturalism, panspermia, or something else?

The topic was evolution, not origins of life. This is a classic fallback of those who are only opposed to something, without any alternatives beyond mysticism.

Evolution does explain life from a simple starting point, but it does not even attempt to prove that start, even while it can speculate on the possible options based on what is known.

Panspermia is certainly a possibility, for Earth, but proves nothing about the origin before so even if it, panspermia, occurred it is irrelevant to the question of ultimate origin.

As to what I “believe”; I know that the universe is large beyond our imagination. I know that there is life in places on this earth that we would have thought impossible just years ago. I know that much of such life has no relevance to us humans, except perhaps as a seed for the next stage after us, and I see no reason to think that is not common elsewhere, nor that it is not a common, relatively, result of laws of chemistry and physics.

I do know with certainty however that there was no intelligence (other than perhaps a perverse one) in the design of life, human in particular, since we would be able to design much better bodies and lives for ourselves if we could (when we can), than the crippling system failures that some supposed intelligent designer came up with (take your pick, gods or aliens).