Are bacteria and viruses living things?

Virioids and Viruses are 'psuedo-living' entities, and cannot truly be called 'living creatures'. To be classified as 'alive', an organism needs to meet several criteria, like the ability to respond to stimuli, grow, develop, reproduce, etc.

The only one of these characteristic viruses, viroids and prions share with living creatures, is the ability to repoduce. They are self-replicating pieces of DNA or RNA, sometimes covered with a coat of proteins, and do not show any other characteristics of being a living creature.