How Darwin caused atheism

Bluejay writes:But, I'm having trouble visualizing how the process of development from basic molecules to the first replicator could have taken a path that didn't involve mutations and selection.Surely that first replicator descended from a system of molecules that had been changing slowly over time and passing through a selective filter, conceptually similar to evolution, right?

In this self ordering stack, the separation between rings is 0.34 nm. This is the same separation found in RNA and DNA. Smaller molecules will naturally attach themselves to the PAH rings. However PAH rings, while forming, tend to swivel around on one another, which will tend to dislodge attached compounds that would collide with those attached to those above and below. Therefore it encourages preferential attachment of flat molecules such as pyrimidine and purine bases. These bases are similarly amphiphilic and so also tend to line up in similar stacks. This ends up making an effective scaffold for a nucleic acid backbone to form along the bases.
A small change in acidity would then allow the bases to break off from the original stack of PAHs and so form molecules like RNA.