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Is there life on other planets?
Hans Bodlaender
There are many science fiction movies, television series
and books about creatures from other planets. In most of these
books and movies, aliens have spaceships that allow them to
travel between different star systems, and on planets in these
other systems, intelligent creatures live and look like people,
but are different. We all know that reality is different from
books. Physics tells us that strange things happen when we
travel with a speed somewhat close to the speed of light – and,
if modern physics is correct, it is impossible for humans to travel
between star systems. If other creatures live on other planets,
then they have to face the same type of problems, so it seems
impossible for them to travel from their planets to ours. If there
are intelligent creatures living on planets in other star systems, it
seems, according to modern science, that we won’t meet them.
If there is life on other planets, how did it originate? I see
three hypotheses:
1. On the other planet, life started in the same way as the
evolution theory says that it started here. Apart from the fact
that the evolution theory is not the well-rounded and totally
scientifically proven theory that people want us to believe,
in general, followers of the theory tell that the chance of life
starting on a planet is rather small. A term sometimes used
is: A magnificent accident. I believe the probability is even
smaller than they say, too small to assume that it actually can
have happened by accident, but even if you believe life on
earth was such a magnificent accident, the chances that this
has happened more than once are too small to assume that it
may have happened.
2. Life on different planets has a common origin. Say, some very
primitive form of life originated somewhere travels to another
planet, developing there into an intelligent form of life. There
are quite a lot of questions to be asked of such a theory, and,
again, calculating the probabilities seems to make it unlikely.
3. Life on earth has been created by God. Possibly, God has
also created life on other planets. If God has created life on
earth, he may have created life on other planets too. As far
as I can tell, the Bible does not say anything about this, so
this remains possible. If there are intelligent beings on other
planets, I would assume they would know God. Would they
also have a fall to sin, like the humans? Would we meet
them in heaven? Would there be atheists and religious extraterrestrials?
We cannot know.
So, if there are extra-terrestrial intelligent beings, or, even,
other types of life on planets outside our solar system, then to
me, that would be a new proof of the existence of God. But
I cannot understand atheists that sincerely state they follow
standard evolution theory and are at the same moment on a
search for intelligent life on other planets.
Finally, is there life on other planets in our solar system?
Well, I guess, yes: probably on Mars, there now will be bacteria
brought to the planet from earth by one of the Mars-expeditions
that were recently carried out.
(http://people.cs.uu.nl/hansb/religion. Adaptado.)
