Origin of Life: A Proof of God's Existence

I originally wrote this to a friend who does not believe there is any good evidence for the existence of God. He has many times also questioned various aspects of my faith and stories from the Bible I think it is legitimate for him to send me stories that question biblical stories like the exodus or the flood. I think it is perfectly fine to deal with objections to our understanding of the world, but I think it needs to go both ways. Often those people who think matter and energy are all there is do not honestly face the problems with their own understanding of the world. 

The origin of life is one area where I think the explanation of a creator is so much more reasonable than a natural explanation. The astronomical numbers involved in trying to think how material could organize on its own into such incredible complexity are mind-blowing and they simply defy belief. And it is not just one type of organization, there are many different chemical reactions, compounds, and then interactions between those compounds to get the simplest cell and at each step of the way, the "chance" of it happening naturally is virtually impossible. So impossible in fact that no one can even propose a possible realistic way for many of these steps. It seems impossible for chance or nature alone to "create" the organization needed for even the simplest of cells, and the only other option is that an intelligence was involved. Cells have many compounds and processes that look like engineered machines, and in any other field, we would simply say that intelligence must have been involved to get to this level of complexity. 

For me, the primary reason to deny the possibility of a creator being involved is philosophical and not scientific. The science clearly points to the fact that nature alone cannot and could not create such complexity. 

 Here is a video by Jim Tours, a world-class chemist who makes nanomachines, that explains the incredible/impossible odds of this happening naturally. 

 If you watch through it, you will notice that he never refers to his Christian faith or the Bible, rather he is a hard scientist who knows the field and numbers inside and out. As I listen to these types of numbers and odds the impossibility of a random/ chance/ exclusively natural explanation is evident, his words about needing faith (as you define faith, which is belief without or in spite of the evidence) that somehow science will discover how to overcome these odds through some supposed law, ring true to me. For me, this is one of the many areas where a much more reasonable and rational explanation of the data points to a creator.