– Eliza, DISCOVER online news editor

I find it amusing that if this was the only planet with life, to some that means biology and by extension consciousness are purely random byproducts of nature, where if there is life elsewhere, that means that the existence of life is no big deal. The opposite could be said in either case, too. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing in conflict with science in the idea that the cosmos is, itself, an immense organism.

Right now it may be impossible for anyone to envision their beginning or their end or an existence without end. We only know that, commpared to an earlier part of our life, each succeeding point in time is a smaller fraction of the whole. Each experience seems to pass more quickly. Then what is this? Are we a smaller fraction of something before. If we define our existence in time and place — accepting a point in infinity — then where do we exist at all? Likewise, no one can imagine a fixed beginning to the universe, an end to the universe or an existence without end. We are hardwired to a perception in between, a relative position. If we begin to accept that our universe is everything ever created we want to know what came before. Perhaps an existence as we know it began with our universe at the end of another. Perhaps the first life as we know it became the first enduring intelligence. Perhaps that first intelligence, 14 billion years ago, evolved and spread to all corners of its realm. Perhaps it created life as we have. Perhaps it observed evolution all around. Perhaps its knowledge and its limits expanded beyond the question of what begins and what never ends, and knows all, knows of us and everyone, and everthing that ever lived and ever will. Perhaps the greatest benefit of knowing is knowing relative to another view. Perhaps what we want and need is empathy for our view in our tiny part of the universe and reassurance that we are important, and not forgotten on our trip. Is that what God is and what we are? Or are we seeking the next best thing, someone like ourselves with whom to empathize on the way, whatever our fate, long or short?

All the stars are but grains of sand, and thence from all the beaches of the world — thus is our universe. However, rarely does a grainy star share so much as a grain’s distance to another, and many are a sea apart.

There can be no proof of life anywhere beyond ours. Nor can there be proof of other intelligence. This is a fact until proved otherwise. But not long from now the day will come when other life or other intelligence shall be the established truth, and one will ask the other about God.

Sadly you are right, faith, belief in something that cannot be proven, cannot be reasoned away. We will still try though, until people stop considering “faith” something to be proud of.

However, science cannot be reasoned away by faith either.

God gave us brains to use them. Thank God.

Why would it undermine that belief?

Even if science proves that there is intelligent life on other planets and they can sustain life in the same way it does on earth.(And I believe that there is more and less intelligent life elsewhere)..It does not mean that earth was not created for humans by “God” just because of proof of extraterrestrial life elsewhere!

Hypothetically speaking; If you built a house according to a standard blueprint and you built others that did not necessarily depict your talent exactly ..You just kept building until one day you say.. I am going to build something extraordinary..Something that really depicts me as a who I am..Then you design and build a specific model of you…A house that when others look at it they say..Yeah that’s him alright! It has your specific signature on it because of the special way that it is built..

You would not be discredited that your work is not special because you have built 100 trillion or so others.. Its just that particular model is you. And that my friend would be pretty special!

As it has been written: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” According to your statement does that mean “God” did not create other intelligent life elsewhere also but just not in his own image.

I believe that by “God” creating a carbon copy of himself or us in his image, the most powerful entity in the universe will remain pretty special to humankind no matter what they find out there.

Faith isn’t something that can be reasoned away by science or anything man can conjure up.

Nice try though.