[MD] Dawkins quotes RMP on religion.

[craigerb at comcast.net]

[Platt]
> Cyrstals are formed by self-replicating inorganic patterns, but I don't know of anyone
> who claims we evolved from crystals.

Then see Cairns-Smith in "Seven Clues to the Origin of Life".  Richard Dawkins in
"The  Blind Watchmaker" summarizes:  clay-crystal replicators combine with acids
to form replicating RNA.
What is the mystery?
a) minerals can replicate
b) acids (RNA or DNA) can replicate
c) life is carbon-based.   

"What the Dynamic force had to invent in order to move up the molecular level 
and stay there was a carbon molecule that would preserve its limited Dynamic 
freedom from inorganic laws and at the same time resist deterioration back to 
simple compounds of carbon again. A study of nature shows the Dynamic force was 
not able to do this but got around the problem by inventing two molecules: a 
static molecule able to resist abrasion, heat, chemical attack and the like; and 
a Dynamic one, able to preserve the subatomic indeterminacy at a molecular level 
and “try everything” in the ways of chemical combination.
The static molecule, an enormous, chemically “dead,” plasticlike molecule called 
protein, surrounds the Dynamic one and prevents attack by forces of light, heat 
and other chemicals that would prey on its sensitivity and destroy it. The 
Dynamic one, called DNA, reciprocates by telling the static one what to do, 
replacing the static one when it wears out, replacing itself even when it hasn’t 
worn out, and changing its own nature to overcome adverse conditions. These two 
kinds of molecules, working together, are all there is in some viruses, which 
are the simplest forms of life.
This division of all biological evolutionary patterns into a Dynamic function 
and a static function continues on up through higher levels of evolution. The 
formation of semipermeable cell walls to let food in and keep poisons out is a 
static latch. So are bones, shells, hide, fur, burrows, clothes, houses, 
villages, castles, rituals, symbols, laws and libraries. All of these prevent 
evolutionary degeneration."
(Lila, p. 169)