Is Evolution a Radical Idea?

I agree that some people might see God as an optional extra if they accept evolution and chemical abiogenesis to be true. But I disagree that this is necessarily the only course of action that a theist can take; personally, I think it would be a mistake. I don't think the existence of God becomes any less likely if we decide that life arose from natural processes at some point rather than god reaching down and shuffling carbon and hydrogen atoms like a magic trick. An omnipotent God who sets everything up and lets it roll is just as hands on as an interventionist god, because everything goes exactly according to plan.Those who didn't want to admit that the earth wasn't the centre of the universe saw heliocentrism as a challenge to their notion of the Almighty. Now as our notion of God has adapted, heliocentrism is largely an irrelevance.I'd argue that its similar with evolution and abiogenesis. These concepts challege people's notion of what God is and does, but there is still plenty of room for a pretty coherent notion of God that takes into account that life didn't necessarily originate with a Kazzam! one day when some omnipotent being felt like doing something a bit different.As I mentioned in the previous message, my hunch is that that if you play up the "preplanned" nature of the universe, God is made no more of an irrelevance than when earth just became the third rock from the sun.

My own view is that evolution leads quite naturally to evolutionism and is devastating to religious belief.

Billy Graham on Creation Science writes: "I don't think that there's any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God."

Evolution suggests abiogenesis

It has nothing to do with God.

The problem with both is the they remove humans from the center of the universe and from special attention. It is pure hubris that underlies some people problems with our increasing understanding of how the universe actually unfolds.

It has nothing to do with God. The problem for them isn't that they make it easier or harder to believe in God. Heliocentrism doesn't move God out of the center of the universe. Evolution says nothing about how God became to be.

I cannot see this either. Evolution relies on being evidentially based, abiogenesis not. Even if someone managed to concoct some basic form of self-replicating life in a lab it says nothing at all about it ever having happened in fact. Concluding abiogenesis happened (whether due to evolution or anything else) is total leap of faith.

science can never address issues such as the existence or non-existence of GOD. Reality is.

The scientific theory doesn't have anything to do with God, but the ideas suggested by it do.evolution
abiogenesis
formation of planets

I don't see why you left these off your list:earthquakes
the sun
volcanoes
lightning
wind storms

It has nothing to do with God. The problem for them isn't that they make it easier or harder to believe in God. Heliocentrism doesn't move God out of the center of the universe. Evolution says nothing about how God became to be.The problem with both is the they remove humans from the center of the universe and from special attention. It is pure hubris that underlies some people problems with our increasing understanding of how the universe actually unfolds.

Consider the history of life as we know it while remaining agnostic on evolution. Either it is the sort of thing God would produce or it is not. If it is then there is no problem with God permitting evolution to bring it about. If it is not then assuming that God directly intervened in that history only makes the problem worse.

BTW, good to see that you do distinguish between evolution and "evolutionism". It seems that most "creation science" rhetorics and misleading arguments is based on confusing the two terms.