If life was to be found on Titan or Europa:

Originally posted by sonhouse
What would the religious implications be? It is thought there are
warm oceans of liquid water under the ice on Europa, the largest
moon in the solar system, almost as big as mars and is theorized
to have the conditions under which life could evolve. What would
that do to world religions, the big three in particular, Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam.

Well, I think it would do different things to different organizations of that faith. I think you would see "Huh, well that's interesting", a long, drawn our explanation ladent with reference to religious texts explaining the significance of it and how it relates/predicts in accordance with scripture, as well as an adament refusal to believe the data supplemented with vehement propaganda espousing it as an "anti-theist" conspiracy from the devil. As well as anything and everything in between.

Depends on the person/organizations perspective and/or desire/need to have their faith explain everything/anything in the universe.

To this end, I would humbly suggest that it would only have direct meaning if their faith made claims specifically in support of it, or made claims which directly contradict. Otherwise, it would simply be a discovery of interest, which could produce some interesting theological theories. But, like usual, thats just me.....😉

I don't think it would do anything to any faith.
Remember who would be doing the discovering....that's right, scientists. Anyone who's belief system would be challenged by finding this life would simply claim that the scientists had made mistakes, that the data wasn't accurate....or whatever.

Originally posted by telerion
I don't know. You're right that we are limited by our ability to conceive other forms of life. If completely different sorts of life were discovered (and we recognized it), scientists of many stripes would be excited as all get out.

What if these different sorts of life forms were undetectible using the 5 senses? After all, we can only use our 5 senses to have something undergo the scientific process. We all know that there are sounds we cannot hear and rays of light that we cannot see. We only know this because we can build devices to detect them and thus anyalyze them with the 5 senses. Why then would it be a stretch to say that there may be life forms all around us that we cannot detect using the 5 senses or devices to detect them? You may see where I am going with this. When people refer to the spiritual world it is somewhat ironic that they never refer to a spirit as an ET. This is because we are spiritual beings as well. It resonates in us as being "one of us" but without a physical body.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Well personally I would hope it would cause such a furor that it would
bring all religions down around its knees. I think religions cause
insanity, especially the higher up in the ranks of the orders you go.
Like you don't see Pat Robertson picking up a gun and killing
Peruvian Presidents, he just calls for it to be done, just like Bin Laden.

Because the devil often presents himself as an angel of light should not entail that we should get rid of the angels of light.

Originally posted by rwingett
Nothing can phase the hard core religious zealots. But I think it might nudge a few more who are hovering in the middle to cast off their religious superstitions. Each new discovery for science makes one less area for god to ply his wares.

Rwingo: "Each new discovery for science makes one less area for god to ply his wares."

You don't understand what true religion is about and you probably never will ..... sorry Rwingo ...

Originally posted by KneverKnight
I doubt whether a few extra-terrestrial bacteria would faze our religiosi, the discovery of a culture thousands of years more advanced than anything we have here might.
Oh what am I saying, it's all Satan's doing.

KK: " .... the discovery of a culture thousands of years more advanced than anything we have here might."

Advanced in what way ? ... and how would it affect religion ?

Originally posted by whodey
What if these different sorts of life forms were undetectible using the 5 senses? After all, we can only use our 5 senses to have something undergo the scientific process. We all know that there are sounds we cannot hear and rays of light that we cannot see. We only know this because we can build devices to detect them and thus anyalyze them with the 5 sen ...[text shortened]... piritual beings as well. It resonates in us as being "one of us" but without a physical body.

Interesting comment. Rec-ed.

Originally posted by ivanhoe
Rwingo: "Each new discovery for science makes one less area for god to ply his wares."

You don't understand what true religion is about and you probably never will ..... sorry Rwingo ...

You also have a serious misunderstanding of what true religion is,
just the same thing can be said for all the rest of humanity.
ESPECIALLY the religious. They assume they know what its all about
and all they can do is read out of a book written by other men and
try to convince others those books were written by a god but children
give up their invisible friends by the time they are ten or so, not
so the religious, they cling to illusion to the day they die with the
deluded notion everything will be fine now. The only thing
for sure is they are dead and only remembered in other humans
memory. The only thing left for the religious is to say, prove there
is no god, they never say, I will prove there IS a god. You have to
park your brain in goo and just take its existance on Faith, a great
thing to have if you feel justified in thinking the rains will come
next year and make the crops come in but to base the entire
thrust of a civilization on such notions and then kill other people who
don't think that way is the opposite of what any true religion should
be about. Killing is not religious, just another word for power.

Originally posted by whodey
What if these different sorts of life forms were undetectible using the 5 senses? After all, we can only use our 5 senses to have something undergo the scientific process. We all know that there are sounds we cannot hear and rays of light that we cannot see. We only know this because we can build devices to detect them and thus anyalyze them with the 5 sen ...[text shortened]... piritual beings as well. It resonates in us as being "one of us" but without a physical body.

Evidence?

Anyhoo, there are 7 (or 6 depending upon your choice of expert) defining principles of life. If something fulfills all seven properties it is alive. Virus' miss just by a smidgeon. If we came across silicon based complex systems which fulfilled all 7 conditions they would be alive. If we came across manganese based complexity that fulfills all 7 conditions then it is alive. Get the picture? It's pretty easy to spot life, our inability rather, is to explore the universe in a meaningful and complete manner in which to find extraterestrial life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Evidence?

Anyhoo, there are 7 (or 6 depending upon your choice of expert) defining principles of life. If something fulfills all seven properties it is alive. Virus' miss just by a smidgeon. If we came across silicon based complex systems which fulfilled all 7 conditions they would be alive. If we came across manganese based complexity that fulfi ...[text shortened]... nd complete manner in which to find extraterestrial life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

Yes this is true as far as it goes but one of the things being discussed
by scientists these days is the issue of dark matter. Now it seems
we are getting closer to defining it, if you see the latest results,
dark matter has had its tempurature taken and it is called 'Tepid'
in cosmic terms, about 10,000 degrees C somewhat warmer than
the surface of the sun but a lot colder than its center. Now this is
of course only speculation but what I think he is talking about here
may be something like life appearing in dark matter. Dark matter
hardly interacts with what we think of as the normal universe, the
two types live independently. So it doesn't take a rocket scientist
to speculate about what that matter is capable of. For instance, if
such stuff can organize itself into more complex units of whatever
the heck it is, then maybe complexity can build on complexity in
that realm just like ours and lead to dark matter planets,
dark matter suns, dark matter beings. So if there were such beings,
as far as we are concerned, they would be as insubstantial as angels
and could be considered to be one and the same. This dark matter
stuff is all around us right now but we can't feel them with any
instrument, unlike neutrino's which we can't feel directly but know
them through our neutrino detectors which decade by decade get more
and more detailed information about just what makes neutrino's
tick. Neutrino's are far more interacting to what we consider ordinary
matter than dark matter ever will be. Neutrino's are thought to
cause some form of cancer and some mutations among life forms
here on earth. There will be no such thing happening with dark
energy, we run our fingers through the stuff like we run our fingers
through empty space (if we could do that). We only know about
dark matter because it has one tie to our kind of matter:
it produces gravity so it has some kind of mass, we just can't
detect it directly, only infer its properties by how galaxies
alter their paths under its influence. So there could be life forms
in that kind of stuff and we would not be able to detect it directly
unless there was some way that life form could make stuff like
light like laser beams or radio waves or gravity waves or even
neutrino message beams. So it is not an impossible thing to have
life that would not respond to our senses, even though it satisfies
all the criteria for life if we could but see it fully.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Yes this is true as far as it goes but one of the things being discussed
by scientists these days is the issue of dark matter. Now it seems
we are getting closer to defining it, if you see the latest results,
dark matter has had its tempurature taken and it is called 'Tepid'
in cosmic terms, about 10,000 degrees C somewhat warmer than
the surface of th ...[text shortened]... ses, even though it satisfies
all the criteria for life if we could but see it fully.

hmm, yes, I wasn't thinking along that line. It is plausible. However, both Dark matter and Dark energy, whilst tantalising ideas are both just that, ideas. Other plausible ideas also exist, such as our understanding of gravitation not being complete, likewise a huge amount of mass could be accounted for within black holes (again not something that can be optically identified, except when they interact with other things) etc. The truth may even be something stranger, or a mix of any or all the plausible options - we just don't know. I think that whilst black matter life may be theoretically plausible, it is kind of stretching a little (or alot), and has to be pigeon-holed with god in the 'nice idea, but (currently?) untestable' box.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
hmm, yes, I wasn't thinking along that line. It is plausible. However, both Dark matter and Dark energy, whilst tantalising ideas are both just that, ideas. Other plausible ideas also exist, such as our understanding of gravitation not being complete, likewise a huge amount of mass could be accounted for within black holes (again not something that c ...[text shortened]... t), and has to be pigeon-holed with god in the 'nice idea, but (currently?) untestable' box.

Untestable speculation on my part, thats for sure, but was pointing
out there could be life we could not detect. Thats not even throwing
in speculation about other dimensions. I am wondering if this
dark matter is another dimension semi-intruding on ours anyway.
Theory has it that gravity is the glue that connects between
dimensions and there is currently a lot of experiments to test that
idea, the main thrust being violations of newtons inverse square law
of gravitational strength. In this case testing that law against smaller
and smaller separations of mass. Right now they have pretty much
verified there to be no variation from Newtonian gravity at distances
of one hundred microns (one tenth of a millimeter) and they are
pushing to test it at even shorter distances. If at some point they
find verifiable results in variance with Newton, chances are good it is
a signal of the interferance of other dimensions, on theory being
other dimensions are somehow rolled up like some cosmic rug with
the dimensions of the roll up down towards the planck length but
whose effects would be felt at much greater distances, maybe
measured in microns or nanometers, a small distance to be sure
from our standpoint but huge compared to the size of the rolled up
dimension. So that work is ongoing so far with no trace of other
dimensions but they will not stop till they get to nanometer distances
I am sure. However, the Dark Matter thing is testable and new data
has shown some of its properites, just released a few days ago, look
at BBC science or New Scientist. Stuff is getting more testable all the
time.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I don't think the origin of life on earth is outside the realm of the
theory of evolution. That is a separate study. The theory of
evolution is about what happened after life already started, how
did it evolve. They don't even TRY to figure out where life came from.

I don't think the origin of life on earth is outside the realm of the
theory of evolution.
No of course it isn't.

They don't even TRY to figure out where life came from.

No thats the abiogenetiscists job.