Why do christians tie together abiogenesis and evolution?

Question

Is it that they don't know the difference between the two or is it just intellectual dishonesty?

@aristotle - agreed but even if abiogenesis were disproved, it would have no impact on the status of evolution.

Answer 1

It's because they've been misled by people they trust. They don't know much about either abiogenesis or evolution, but they've been told that it's all wrong. They're too lazy to find out more, and too scared that their beliefs will be shown to be the sham that they're always really afraid they are.

So overall, they're not looking for proof to dispute these theories. They're just looking for a rationalization to allow them to ignore the theories all together. Even the more "intellectual" Christians are just looking for any argument possible for them to share with their peeps, and they really don't care what it is. If they could, they'd do away with it all in a puff of smoke; but short of that, they'll stick with confusing everything together and making a mess of it. They don't want to understand. They just want to feel comfortable in their faith.

Oh, and to answer your second question: It's both. They're intellectually dishonest, so they don't care to learn the difference between them. They just want it all to go away. And they'll believe almost anything to make that happen. But I think you already knew that.

Answer 2

It is certainly a big leap, but I hesitate to call it intellectual dishonesty, although they are missing some valuable contextual information when they make their comparisons. The fact is that originally there was only non-living matter, and now there is both living and non-living matter. The only natural way this could happen is if non-living matter at some point became living. This happened at some point several hundred millions of years ago, perhaps over a billion years ago, in a completely, radically different planetary environment than what we know now. The original abiogenesis was into very, very simple things-things that barely qualify as life. Proteins, maybe some RNA, but simple. Bacteria as we know it is far more complex than the origins of life. Self-replication was the key; once you have self-replication, you can have evolution, which *EVENTUALLY* led to life today.

So in conclusion, abiogenesis is not actually the completely wrong idea people seem to want it to be. It did happen, and ultimately life did emerge from non-life. This is not as heretical and illogical as it sounds for 3 reasons:
1) What abiogenesis that did happen was exceedingly simple, creating things simpler than bacteria (and maybe even viruses?),
2) The original abiogenesis happened under much different conditions than those the Earth is currently under, and
3) Life has had a very, very long time to develop from the original products of abiogenesis to what we have today. The process by which this development has taken place is evolution via natural selection.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Primordial_Soup for historical information on the "primordial soup."

Answer 3

My question is, if I live long enough to wait long enough will my rock come alive?

G.B.
(but the computer DID build itself! Just kidding.)

God bless all atheists!

God bless all Christians!

God bless all Jews!

God bless all Muslims!

God bless you all!

I don't care if you are offended by my use of the word "God." I really don't care, but God bless you all, one more time!

Answer 4

I really don't think they know the difference.

Answer 5

I did not come from slime!