Sir Fred Hoyle, an English astronomer and mathematician (and atheist, by the way), has calculated the odds of life forming by itself, randomly and unintelligently, by simply having the "right" ingredients bump into each other in the so-called "primordial soup", as 1 in 1040,000 ... and that's assuming that all the basic ingredients are already in the soup. That's 10 with 40,000 zeros after it. Forty thousand.
By way of comparison, there are a few calculations out there that estimate the number of atoms making up the observable universe (that is, counting stars and planets we believe are out there, in addition to earth), and they estimate it as 1080, give or take a power here or there. That's 10 with 80 zeros ... even that's a hard-to-handle number ...
Here's another comparison that puts it in better "human" terms, for me, anyway:
What do you suppose the odds are of a blind person, alone in a room, with no knowledge of rubik's cube, being handed an unsolved cube and solving it? Probably pretty slim, since there are something like 40 quintillion possibilities (that's 40 with 18 zeros following it). The blind person has no idea where the colors are when he starts the process of solving it, and certainly will have a hard time knowing when he's close to solving it. It would be an outrageously random accident. Pretty slim odds, but I suppose one blind person "hitting the jackpot" by unguided random chance could happen someday, if it hasn't already. Wildly impossible odds, but let's assume it is theoretically possible at least.
(I know there are youtube videos of blindfolded people who have solved the cube. The big difference is that they have studied the cube, have figured out various algorithms, and are given the benefit of seeing the starting cube, have practiced it numerous times -- still a great and admirable feat, but not random, unintelligent, and unintended as "spontaneous life forming by chance" would be.)
Now, to make the odds a little more comparable to life forming randomly, take 1050 (that's 10 with 50 zeros after it) such blind people with no knowledge of the cube, put them shoulder to shoulder in the universe, hand each of them an unsolved rubric's cube. What are the odds of them ALL solving the cube AT THE EXACT SAME MOMENT? Not some, not most, not at various times ... but all the very same instant. SNAP! They all fall in place, all 1050 at once, simultaneously. Wow. What a moment!
(Frankly, I can't imagine that happening with even just two blind people, let alone an impossible number like 10 with 50 zeros after it.)
Well, Hoyle notes that those odds approximate the odds of life forming randomly, unintelligently, and without any intent -- the 1 in 1040,000 I spoke of at the top. That's 10 with forty thousand zeros after it.
The point of all this is that natural evolution theorists -- anybody that puts their faith in our origins being the result of a random, accidental, and undirected evolutionary process -- must believe in a theory that defies all possible logic, reason, and probability -- not to mention a few known and irrefutable physical laws of the universe. And this theory must be believed as fact, even if it is man-made fiction. It cannot be questioned. It cannot be subject to debate. It had to happen. Period.
That takes blind faith beyond anything I can imagine.
P.S. This is what 1050 looks like, without the shorthand:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
(The world population at the end of 2010 = 6,852,472,823)
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