Evolution is quite obvious, it's happening right now.

"Intelligent design" is a very loaded phrase because it implies intelligence, which alone appears to be a product of evolution.

I don't know about purpose of life. Purpose is a human concept. But there sure seems to be a reason. Otherwise why would anyone bother living :)

@Zaro, reproduction could not possibly be the purpose or goal of life, at least because it's a goal that's been achieved already. 3 bn years ago! Reproduction is a feature, it's the means of survival, not a goal. A means to sustain life does not prove that life has meaning.

@Zaro, I don't believe life itself has a purpose. The things you enumerated - reproduction, perpetuation, etc are not done on purpose and intentionally. They are simply the only thing that survives and lasts.
It's more like that humans with their intelligence find purpose in these activities. Humans are different than other animals. They think about the future, so don't drink all you can drink in order to keep yourself healthy.

The theory of evolution is not supposed to explain the origin of life. So, the appearance of the first cell is irrelevant when it comes to evolution.

"Intelligent design" is just an euphemism for religious dogma. It's a completely discredited phrase.

What truly disturbs me is that life seems to have a purpose - reproduction, perpetuation, passing on genetic info, and organisms go to great lengths to ensure it. The very instant I feel tempted to use words like Purpose, Goal, Intent etc. it already makes me think of a purpose-determiner, something other and beyond the natural laws and evolition. Then again, I must admit that the idea of chance and coincidence is very appealing to me, it sets me free to drink all I can drink, eat all I can eat, and maybe f. all I can f., and with no supreme judge at life's end it will all go neatly away. No sins committed, no regrets. If nothing other than some chemical and physical law of attraction and combination gave rise to Living, why then should we give a damn? Make a child or two and die like a Roman.

@Zaro, I believe I do understand your point. Obviously we had the right conditions for life to develop. We are not sure what these conditions are, but they were here. Life appeared, it happened. No matter how and why, earth now is swarmed with life. There could be other planets too in the universe to support life, we are not sure yet...
So the question is why it happened? Why life formed? Was it a chance or it was in the broadest sense meant to happen this way or if you like
predetermined? Was it inevitable that life arose? Could the universe appear and later die without the formation of life to appreciate it?
I believe these are the important questions here and I still believe it was chance and it was not predetermined to happen. There could be billions and billions of other universes or if you like rebirths of our own who lack life at all. As dead as can be. They just don't have the right conditions - the cosmic constants are different from ours, or smth else.
I cannot believe we are designed. To be designed is more tempting than to appear by chance. Suddenly you have more meaning in the world. As in religion.

@Steliyan_Petkov_Georgiev I'm not saying that evolution has stopped working. I never rejected its presence. The talk is about how the first one appeared. And don't you have much hope that a laboratory will create life during your lifespan, forget it. Scientific pessimism. Second, when I say "God" I mean an intelligent agent, not the father of Jesus Christ Superstar. I believe you two oversimplify things - a happy chemical evolutionary coincidence. You really sound like you've got it all right.

I agree with @mipmip. We do not have the right conditions now for spontaneous life generation. Strangely enough one of these bad factors is currently the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere. Free oxygen was initially not present and when it first appeared it was deadly for lots of species. It took time for species to adapt and take advantage of its presence. But if life is to appear out from non-living matter, as I insist is possible, then we should be able to simulate these early conditions in labs and produce artificial life. Abiogenesis in home conditions. This has not happened yet but I expect to it happen during my lifespan.

@Zaro, The conditions now are really favourable for the existing life, but not for abiogenesis as I already stated. Life really flourishes on Earth now, but this does not meat that evolution has stopped working. Wolves still eat deer and the week fall prey, but the stronger survive. Nothing has changed for the last couple of billion years in this direction. Or did it?

In my opinion life began as a lucky chemical coincidence. You got the ingredients, you got the setting - voila! And, @Zaro, yes "chance has conveniently resigned" indeed, or as I would put it, the conditions now are waaaaay different than 3-4 billion years ago.
For me it's astonishing how "God" has turned into a label that people tend to put on anything and everything they can't fully understand.

@Steliyan_Petkov_Georgiev Do you believe then, that new forms constantly emerge by chance, given the now very favourable conditions? Or Chance has conveniently resigned as life now works pretty well by itself. Have you watched animated cell division, DNA replication process? Nothing like chance and/or evolution. I'm not necessarily proponent of the Intelligent design theory, but evolution simply does not suffice. Neither kind. So - cheers, and god bless the first cell.

I am in favour of the evolution theory. We can talk about chemistry and biological evolution. The chemistry evolution is what brought the scattered bunch of molecules into being a cell. The biological evolution is what Darwin talks about. It start right after the first living organism appeared.
About the chemistry evolution I don't believe you need the molecules to have a will to live in order to form primordial life. You just need the right material and conditions and some time. The first life didn't start multiplying because it wanted to do so, but because it was made that away, it was designed that way BY CHANCE. All the billions and billions prior attempts which chance created were unable of multiplying and that is why we don't talk about them right now. But still one managed...
Having a personified god is ridiculous. You can always ask the question from where he/she/it came from.
You can look for the divine here in the fact that there were the right conditions and material to form life, i.e. that life emerging was inevitable in these circumstances, but again you can give credit for this to chance.

How did the first cell (and the first living organism) come to being? Darwin's breakthrough theory works well only if there is something to build on. The natural law of survival and perpetuation applies to already existing organisms. And even if we presume that a randomly emerging stable system of complex molecules might somehow want to continue being, and eventually multiply/reproduce, it still does not do it by simply dividing itself, but also by passing on information, in a rather spectacular way. There's a sophisticated machinery in play, either evolving from nothing, or placed there designedly. Smells like God?