system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How did the first single celled organism come into existence?

Had this question thrown at me today in a Religious Studies class (essentially philosophy and ethics) and I couldn't answer it. But I know there has to be someone out there with a good idea of the current theories surrounding this issue. Thanks!
gpt
The name of what you are looking for is abiogenesis. The short answer is: with out a time machine, we would never be able to re-enact that specific historical event. However, we know about half a dozen processes that each could have created initial replicating proteins, and its probable that some combination of these did the trick, as they are not mutually exclusive.