[biblewonk]

Let's turn this around, for the sake of argument. What if we do find life on other planets. It doesn't even have to be anything advanced- something no more complex than an amoeba. What does that do to one's religious beliefs?

That's a good thing to ask. The bible says that God created life on earth, then made the stars and planets. Finding an amoeba on another planet would be quite a big problem to fundamentalists. In other words, it destroys our whole world view.

[Chris Talk]

Much more than amoebas, already found on Mars, to say nothing of the Moon.

[Modernman]

The bible says that God created life on earth, then made the stars and planets. Finding an amoeba on another planet would be quite a big problem to fundamentalists. In other words, it destroys our whole world view.

Hmm.... If we say that everything the Bible says is literally true (leaving aside the whole "created in God's image" problem), I'm not sure the existence of microbes necesarily is a problem. After all, the Bible can be literally true, but at the same time it can be incomplete. I don't think the Bible ever claims to be a complete description of everything in reality.

[Quix]

Finding an amoeba on another planet would be quite a big problem to fundamentalists. In other words, it destroys our whole world view.

NO! It does NOT destroy "our" whole world view. It certainly does NOT destroy my EXCEEDINGLY FUNDAMENTAL BIBLICAL WORLD VIEW.

God REALLY does NOT fit in your tiny little box.

Actually, neither does The Bible.

You may have an emotional or some other need for The Bible to follow your own very rigid, predictable, narrow lines of reasoning and construction on reality. That's no reason to assume God's needs parallel your own.

We are to TRUST HIM, abandon ourselves to HIM, NOT to narrow, rigid, constructions on reality--even those derived from personal interpretations of His written Word.