CREATIONISM? EVOLUTION? How did life begin?

Very good! Evolution is the change of organisms over generations. Evolution does not say anything about the start of life. You are already way ahead of a lot of your peers here.

The process where non-living matter eventually got rearranged to simple replicators and from there on to single-celled organisms and beyond is still somewhat of a mystery to science. It is called 'abiogenesis' and there are several interesting ideas about it, but no definite theory.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

for several of them, and some background information.

Some of the problems we encounter when trying to understand the what and how are that

a) it happened a VERY long time ago

b) early life would have been exceedingly simple and thus would have left little trace

c) the earth's environment has changed drastically since then, so reproducing those exact same circumstances are very hard.

The biggest give-away for a natural origin of life is the fact that we're made of carbon chemistry - BIOchemicals.

Biochemicals have a strange affinity for each other, and with minimal or no external influence will join together into more complex molecules. Even out in interstellar space such chemistry has been observed going on in gas clouds.

The Murchison meteor, which fell in Australia, was found to contain rich quantities of amino acids and other complex biochemicals that are the 'building blocks of life'.

In the '50s, Miller and Urey performed an experiment using a gas mixture that was the best guess at the early earth atmosphere, a little water, and an electric arc to represent lightning. There flask filled up with biochemical gunk that contained amino acids, peptides and similar biological blocks.

Their gas mixture was discredited for a while until new evidence emerged that there was no oxygen around at the time. The experiment was recently repeated with a new, more accurate mixture, and some other elements that would have been around at the time. The results were even more spectacular.

Read about the experiment at the URL below.

With this mixture of biological soup existing on Earth is sea-sized quantities, all manner of reactions could take place, over millions of years. At some stage, a replicator - a molecule that could reproduce itself - arose. This was probably very simple to begin with, but the copies would have started 'competing' for component molecules.

That's enough for evolution to start, and the rest is prehistory.

To study more, look up Abiogenesis in places like talkOrigins.com

I think you're asking this in the wrong place ~ if you want a serious answer from the right people then it should be asked under science & maths, preferably under the Biology subcategory.

Anyway, for the most part people are going with abiogenesis as the beginning of life. At some point in time when the world was void of life and all that existed was a lifeless see of chemicals, some of those chemicals bonded together to form amino acids and eventually proteins and DNA/RNA precursors. Eventually this proto-life formed a membrane around itself and became the proto-type for the cell.

Of course this is only the dominant view among scientists. There are other views such as panspermia that suggests that life on Earth derived from extra-terrestrial sources. This of course doesn't answer how it came about, just where it came from though.

Evolution has nothing to do with how life began. How life began is called Abiogenesis. There are many ideas but remember it was a microscopic event which happened well over 3 billion years ago. The evidence has long since vanished.

The first life form was likely very simple. Perhaps a self replicating strand of RNA. The sad fact is we will likely never know exactly, even if we reproduce it, we can never say if that is how it must have happened.

I used to be an Evolutionist. I then really started to study science and found that the data can be read into anything you want it to be.

It depends on your world view.

When you use real SCIENCE, the numbers don't add up. An honest evolutionist will admit it is not the best theory, but the BEST THEY HAVE.

Wait a minute, Creation IS a good alternate theory.

Facts:

*We KNOW the Earth is at least 6,500 years old

*We THINK the Earth COULD BE APPROXIMATELY 4.5 billion years old.

Honestly, which of these statements is more accurate (to the UNBIASED observer)?

The Earth is 85% covered by water. There are subterranean rivers and lakes, yet it is impossible that the Earth was once universally flooded with water.

* Dinosaurs were supposed to have died out millions of years ago, but we have them in our back yards.

They are called frogs and alligators. Lets not forget Whales, sharks, horseshoe crabs, just about the entire insect world.

There are descriptions of possible dinosaurs in the book of Job in the Bible, and no, they are not descriptions of elephants or crocodiles, this is a cop-out to defend the dinos died out millions of years ago hoax.

The truth is SOME of them are extinct. They are still alive and well on planet Earth.

I believe in the literal six day creation. Theistic evolution is a compromise with the devil.

If I HAD to make a choice other than creation (since most REFUSE to accept it no matter how much evidence there is), I would still have to opt out of evolution and go with space aliens.

For more info if you REALLY want to expand your knowledge, go to: answersingenesis.org . They will answer your questions honestly, and will answer it in layman's terms, or with scientific data (yes, they DO have scientists there).

evolution does indeed only describe how we got to what we are today, it doesnt even speculate on how it began. there are several ideas on how life could have started.

the scientific community seems to agree that it happened in the water, and this makes sense because it would make substaces interact. it is the asumtpion that complexer carbon molecules formed out of simpeler ones by stimulation of heat, and possibly electricity or maybe even lightning. these complexer molecules eventually formed amino acids (lifes building blocks that are still around in every living creature today. The aminoacids started reacting together, on a wiral like scale, eventually forming single celled organisms, wihch banded together to form multi cellular organisms.

this would have happened so long ago that there is absolutely no way of proving any of this. therefor making it hard for the scientific community forming a theory. (i would like to stress that evolution has been proven)

We may never know the real answer. So anything we say is personal belief. I have spent years studying Christianity, Paganism, Kabbalah, the Mystery religions, and Buddhism. Personally, I believe Life is a force in its own right, and it has driven matter to organize in a way that will support its ability to experience the physical world. Our "souls" are all pieces of the force of Life, individually experiencing the physical world. These "pieces" of Life merge back into the force upon the death of the physical body to become one again, taking its experiences and individuality with it. Inside this force exists a new, non-physical world where the individualities interact. We have come to know this as "Heaven" in our religious writings.

It gets very complicated, over my head, but I think you need to look into black holes and theories like M Theory and String Theory. Or watch Discovery Science channel occasionally. You can catch some very good shows with Stephen Hawking.

The very beginning I think was the Gods. Whether it was a single organism or an apelike creature. Life itself began with the Gods. Everything else (evolution) is just how the Gods did it. :)

God is THE original source of life. Therefore, he could 'create' life in the beginning anywhere by giving of himself.