Well I myself strongly believe that there is indeed life out there. Near Earth? Probably not. I just look around Earth itself and it seems like even in the most inhospitable environments, life finds a way. It is along this train of thought that it only makes sense that there are other inhabitted planets out there. Of course the chances for everything to fall into place to allow life to form is quite slim. With an infinite amount of space (wrap your mind around INFINITE) in the universe even the smallest possibility of life forming becomes quite large in respect to the sheer amount of space there is. Alien life could consist of anything. We tend to think of the typical alien as human like, with saucer shapeships. But in reality there could be plenty of more elements and environments beyond our own comprehension. Humans are smart but I dont think that we could ever accuratly percieve what these creatures will look like, be made of, what dimension they will live in ect. The whole life in space debate brings a lot of abstract ideas into play. Here is another one. Many things have been proved to survive in the vaccum of space. Certain mushroom spores for example, bacteria, viruses and other forms of fungi. It would not be too far fetched in my opinion, for some of these tiny life forms to hitch a ride. How they would go about doing that is open to interpretation. On our own space stations they find tons of bacteria and fungi that have just come along for the journey. Here are two interesting articles about life in space:
http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8297http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/news/2001/news-stationmicrobes.aspAs for the religious debate, I am not a religious man. Looking back at some ancient civilzations, their beliefs and some of the writings, depictions, artwork ect, it would not be too outrageous (in my crazy mind anyhow) for God to be an alien. He may or may not exist, but did anyone ever see the Simpsons episode where Lisa accidently creates a miniature universe in a petri dish? Perhaps, much like our own quest for knowledge, an alien race decided to impregnant our planet with life. An experiment perhaps, or even an accident. Over the course of time they either dissapeared, died out, or remained to influence small things here and there. I saw a show on the discovery channel once about deciphering ancient cave artwork. They showed artwork in a cave that dated back thousands of years and the drawing showed people and animals below massive objects in the sky. What this meant again, we will proably never know (maybe they just sucked at drawing the moon and sun). It is something to think about anyway. I know you hardcore religious folks might take offense at that, hopefuly not. I have always been one to end up with the wildest ideas about stuff. I do not like to limit my mind to the "norm". Am I the only one crazy enough to think God is an alien? Probably....
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