A great piece by a great man

[Khairan]

Hazam -

was there a specific reason you posted the article, or was it just an FYI? Just curious...

And, for the sake of discussion:

Here then is a wonderful example of how science is increasingly informing theological debate. The question of whether life formed by law or chance can, and I believe will, be settled by observation and experiment. If life is finally made in a test tube, or discovered on Mars and shown to be completely independent of earthlife, then the meaningless fluke theory will be disproved. Life and mind will be revealed as part of the grand cosmic scheme, embedded in the nature of things at the deepest level of reality. Our own existence will be seen as linked to this deep level in an intimate and purposeful way. Instead of us playing a trivial role as incidental cosmic extras, with life on Earth an insignificant accident in a pointless universe, our place in the cosmos will be far more inspiring. True, it wouldn't return us to the centre of the universe or to the pinnacle of creation - our place is far more humble - but nor will it relegate us to the status of mere moving mounds of atoms. In my view, the discovery that life and mind have emerged as part of the natural outworking of the laws of the universe will be strong evidence for a deeper purpose in physical existence. Since it is easy to imagine other universes and other sets of physical laws that would prohibit life, the fact that our universe is so ingeniously bio-friendly would surely be a fact of the utmost significance. I hope you see the drift of my thinking. Invoking a miracle to explain life is exactly what is not needed to see evidence of divine purpose in the universe.

I think he's really overstating his case here. I'm in agreement with his overall message, but it's pretty arbitrary for him to decide that extraterrestrial life somehow "proves" that life didn't begin by chance. Seen another way, one could use the evidence to say that life DID begin by chance and that life beginning independently shows that it is not so unlikely an occurrence, thereby weakening the popular religionist argument that life is so unlikely that God HAD to have made it. Point being that the implications aren't as earth-shatteringly obvious as he is claiming here.