The true origin of viruses?

Question

I was thinking, and perhaps viruses aren't naturally occurring. After all they can't technically be classified as "living." So where did they come from in your opinion? Are they the wrath of God or perhaps a sort of alien population control. (they might be trying to save their project)

Answer 1

They're an early offshoot from the evolutionary chain. Remember, there's got to be something between the amino acids floating around in between the primordial soup and functional bacteria. Viruses are simply very, very smart chemicals that broke off of the evolutionary tree just as it was getting started.

Answer 2

If you are correct the Ebola virus is an Alien or holy population control mechanism.Conjunctivitis must be for making us uncomfortable.

   I believe they came naturally.In a way that's much more interesting and wondrous then the paranormal.

Answer 3

I think viruses are analogous to crystals.  Both are molecular structures that replicate themselves in the right environment.

I don't believe in gods or aliens as a source.  One doesn't exist and the other can't get here.

The mundane causes are so much more interesting and sublime than the supernatural.

Answer 4

When I'm ignorant of a subject, I run to Wiki.

"The origin of modern viruses is not entirely clear. It may be that no single mechanism can account for their origin. They do not fossilize well, so molecular techniques have been the most useful means of hypothesising how they arose. Research in microfossil identification and molecular biology may yet discern fossil evidence dating to the Archean or Proterozoic eons. Two main hypotheses currently exist.

Small viruses with only a few genes may be runaway stretches of nucleic acid originating from the genome of a living organism. Their genetic material could have been derived from transferable genetic elements such as plasmids or transposons, that move within, leave, and enter genomes. New viruses are emerging de novo and therefore, it is not always the case that viruses have ancestors.

Viruses with larger genomes, such as poxviruses, may have once been small cells that parasitized larger host cells. Over time, genes not required by their parasitic lifestyle would have been lost in a streamlining process known as retrograde-evolution or reverse-evolution. The bacteria Rickettsia and Chlamydia are living cells that, like viruses, can only reproduce inside host cells. They lend credence to the streamlining hypothesis, as their parasitic lifestyle is likely to have led to the loss of genes that enabled them to survive outside a host cell.

It is possible that viruses represent a primitive form of self replicating DNA and are a precursor to life as it is currently defined. Other infectious particles which are even simpler in structure than viruses include viroids, satellites, and prions."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus#Origi...

After reading this it's still beyond my level of understanding.