ICANT'S position in the creation debate

Nonsense.This is an assertion, not a documented fact.If one discounts the hundreds of thousands (or more) purported deities, for which there is no empirical evidence, then life is not required to produce life.Rather than arguing that "life produces life" and using this as evidence for one or more of these purported deities, perhaps you could come up with empirical evidence for these deities?Document that they exist and then we can argue about their purported characteristics, inclinations, and table manners, and whether one or more of them created life somewhere.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Sorry, that doesn't cut it as empirical evidence.What human parents do now has no relation to the question of origins. What human parents do now doesn't prove anything about origins several billion years ago! You should be ashamed for even suggesting such a thing! Freshmen in science courses have been failed for less than that.As to whether "non life produces life" -- unless you can produce empirical evidence for one or more deities who could handle the job of producing life, what is left as an alternative?And as for empirical evidence for deities, so far there is none. Belief doesn't constitute empirical evidence, so beyond that what've you got?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Still nonsense.I suppose the fact that Edison failed to make a workable filament for his first light bulb--producing thousands of failures--is proof positive that such a filament can't be made, eh? That's the analogy you are making.But you are left with one simple problem: There is no empirical evidence for deities, yours or any other. There is only your religious belief, the details of which are contradicted by tens of thousands of other religious beliefs from around the world. And none are supported by empirical evidence. Not very much to go on there, eh?But from this mish-mash of unsupported beliefs you pull an absolute proof that only life begets life?Sorry, that's just another belief, and its not proof of anything.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

I don't think I'll be continuing this conversation with you.Not having arrived at your conclusions by means of evidence, no amount of evidence will serve to alter those conclusions.

A religion is sometime a source of happiness, and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong. The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak certainty of reason- but one cannot have both.

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Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.