Yep, I'm going there. The question is "How did life begin?" There are tons of theories to answer that questions. Some people maintain that God created the world (including all life) in 6 literal days. Others believe God created the world in 6 non-literal days (often called ages). Some believe God created the world and then created life using the method of evolution. Some people believe the theory of evolution explains everything and God is not needed. Some people believe aliens brought life to the earth (although it doesn't solve the problem of the origin of life, just moves it to a different planet). This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I will limit my discussion to the first 4 (sorry to those who subscribe to the alien theory).
Believe it or not you can find Christians who subscribe to each of these theories (well maybe not the alien one, but you never know). Each of these theories has problems and I will discuss problem, and some supporting facts for them.
Believe it or not there is evidence that supports a young earth. The old earth data is more readily available but there are inconsistencies within all of these theories. For example Carbon-14 dating of objects is often pointed to as proof of the world being millions of years old, but Carbon-14 dating isn't accurate to millions of years. Carbon-14 dating while useful makes assumptions such as the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere has always been consistent. It is a very reasonable assumption to make, and even if its false still allows us to date items to some degree, but because we are basing our testing on unverifiable assumptions there is a possibility our results are skewed.
On the other hand there are many other ways to date things, many of them able to determine dates long before Carbon-14 (although many of them subject to the same assumptions). As a side not proving a young earth pretty much eliminates the theory of evolution since evolution would need longer than the 6,000 or so years this theory proposes.
The Non-Literal 6-Days (ages) theory recognizes that there is sufficient evidence to support an old earth, but still doesn't subscribe to the theory of evolution. Basically people in this camp are still Creationist but don't have to deal with defending a young earth hypothesis as well. There are also people (me included) that fall into this camp because they believe in God and that there is truth in the Bible (although not everything is meant to be taken literally), but don't believe in evolution for scientific reasons. Yep, you heard me right, I don't think evolution holds up scientifically.
One of the problems I run into with evolution is people who say, "Creationism is wrong, because evolution has been scientifically proven." Sometimes they refrain from outright calling me dumb or ignorant but not usually. But what rarely happens is evidence for evolution being presented. I think most people have been taught and told so often that evolution is a fact, and there is as much doubt on this theory as there is on the theory of gravity or the theory that the earth is round, that they haven't actually looked at the evidence themselves. I am in no way implying that I have looked at all the evidence and have all the answers. But I have read books on the subject (including Darwin's Origin of Species), written papers (way back in school), and done some general research. From what I've concluded the theory of evolution has as many holes as Swiss cheese. This in itself isn't really a problem, most theories have holes, but the longer people study them the less holes there are. With evolution not only do I not see the holes disappearing, but I see people denying they exist.
One of the main problems with the theory of evolution is peoples misconceptions about what it is and what its not. First of all the theory of evolution does NOT explain the origins of life. Life can't evolve unless you have life first. The theory of evolution tries to explain how we got from a single celled organism to where we are today. It doesn't try to explain where that single cell organism came from.
Another problem is the difference between the ideas of macroevolution, microevolution, and natural selection. Macroevolution is what we're talking about here, single cell organisms slowly evolving into multi-celled organisms which evolve into reptiles, birds, mammals, etc. Microevolution is more limited to changes within a species. Microevolution is mutations in genes causing small changes in a species, such as color, size, etc. and is well documented (although most mutations are not beneficial). Natural selection basically says that in some habitats different traits help a organism survive and because of this these organisms are going to survive while those that don't have it will die off. This results in organisms of that species eventually all having this trait. The problem is that proving one of these ideas does not prove the others. People will say that there are examples of evolution and point to examples of natural selection or microevolution and then assume that this proves macroevolution or worse explains the origin of life.
Another problem is called irreducible complexity. Basically that many components of living organisms are too complex to be originated from random gene mutations and natural selection. A mutation to make a snakes saliva or venom poisonous to its prey might be beneficial, but only if that snake also has mutations at the same time to provide a way to administer that poison (hollow fangs for example), as well as an immunity to the venom. Any one of these things with out the others is useless (or deadly) to the snake and so natural selection would not favor this organism. This is a fairly simple example, but when you start thinking about complex organs and systems such as they eye, things become more difficult.
The truth is the origin of life can't be scientifically proved. We can study it, figure out what was most likely to happen. We can even create life under a given hypothesis, but we can never prove that is what happened (unless we get a time machine). I'm not saying that none of these theories offer any truth, because they all offer some truth. But unfortunately the arguments have been filled with vicious insults, name calling, and even hoaxes from both sides. This files in the face of both science and religion who both seem to think the other side is ignorant and ignoring the facts. Yes each side has it agenda (yes both sides do), so it will take some digging, but in the search for truth everyone should be willing to examine their beliefs and change them if the evidence suggests they are wrong. In fact not only should everyone be willing to examine their beliefs but in a search for truth should actively seek out to do so.
