[mangonc2]

Another related fallacy is the idea that evolution is something that “happened by chance”. Since it is a natural process, it is NOT by chance, any more than the growth of a human or of a tree happens by chance. A dropped object always falls earthward; is that “by chance”? Not at all.

There seems to be an erroneous belief that any phenomenon is either brought about by a single intelligent being who controls and directs it, OR it “happens by chance”. This is not true. Think about it.

[VaeVictis]

Your assuming that evolution is a natural process that occurs. Sadly, there is no evidence or observed proof that anything has every turned from one animal into another.

The ‘by chance part’ applies to the idea of the very first organism that formed from primordial stew. Also, never has happened or never observed happening.

[noiseman]

Your response is a dodge in the same vein as the "panspermia" nonsense. Just as the panspermia advocates try to solve the difficulty with abiogenesis by removing it one step to "aliens brought life here", you seem to be trying to use certain physical laws, like gravity, to support evolution. Yet, just as with panspermia, the clever avoidance doesn't answer the original question. If your assertion is true, and physical laws somehow are hard-wired (i.e. designed) to produce life and to push it upward toward greater and greater complexity, then doesn't that just again beg the question of the existence of a designer?

Of course, reality is quite the opposite of your gravity analogy. Everything we know about the physical universe is that it is running down, not upward, via entropy. Energy throughout the universe is approaching eventual equilibrium, and every biological system moves inexorably toward degradation and death. Everything we observe in nature and the cosmos aligns with the Biblical account of creation, followed by the fall.

And then there is the fact that evolution, far from being truly scientific, is merely rank speculation dressed up in scientific trappings. Just read or listen to evolutionists, and about every other phrase they utter is something along the lines of, "it must have happened this way", or "this probably happened." The language of evolution is nothing more than the language of wild guesses. For example, just look at how the late Stephen J. Gould suddenly just dreamed up a whole new theory ("punctuated equilibrium") out of whole cloth simply because he was tired of the facts not aligning with the previous theory. No fossil evidence of gradual change?...Presto change-o, and Poof!....a whole new theory in which he just speculates that evolution "must have" happened in spurts and so fast that it left few if any fossils. Not only was this nonsense based upon no evidence, it was actually the LACK OF EVIDENCE that he tried to use as the basis for it. That's not science....It's nothing more than materialistic dogma driven by an intense desire to explain everything that exists without a need for God.

And then we could go into the absolute impossibility of creating information from inanimate materials with no intelligent guidance. Putting aside the difficulty of explaining the origin of the biological substrate the information rides upon, just try to explain how an unimaginably complex genetic code (which involves FAR more than DNA, by the way) could just appear on its own, including the appearance contemporaneously of sophisticated biological machinery for encoding, decoding, and repairing this information. It is the very definition of impossibility to assert that a code, any code, could arise on its own. A code only conveys information because an intelligent being, human or divine, has assigned MEANING to what would otherwise be nothing more than arbitrary arrangements of acids, proteins, lipids, etc., in the biological case, or ink blots on paper in the case of the infinitely simpler English alphabet.

Every time this subject comes up I can't help but be reminded of the verse that states, "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." The evidence for creation is all around us. This isn't really difficult. To believe that everything you observe just happened via natural processes takes a powerfully strong desire to avoid the truth.

[PigRigger]

Why are the natural laws ruling our universe what they are and unchanging?

Just change one ever so slightly... and it is likely humankind would not exist...

[BroJoeK]

mangonc2: "It seems impossible based on your everyday experiences, but that’s because your everyday experience does not encompass processes that span millions or billions of years."

Correct. Remember first, we're talking about Abiogenesis here, not Darwin's basic evolution theory.
Abiogenesis is just one hypothesis covering origin of life and includes many ideas, some more strongly confirmed than others.
And a key point to grasp about Abiogenesis is that under the right conditions, some chemical reactions become not improbable, but inevitable.
So scientific work in this area includes identifying both the necessary conditions and the chemical responses.
Where chemistry can be shown to "complexify" there scientists think may lie a path from chemistry to biology.

But it's all still hypothesis, some weakly confirmed theory and very little observed facts.
That's how science works.