I caught a very good television show called "Reason to Believe" on a local Christian channel.

Two cosmologists argued that the barriers to intelligent life developing anywhere were so formidable that the existence of intelligent life on Earth could be seen as miraculous, an indication of the existence of a divine intent.

(For the slow people here at HZ, let me emphasize that this was their argument, not mine.)

It was a really good show, and the team ably argued their point. SETI researchers would do well in carefully considering their list of barriers in limiting their searches.

However, the discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe would in no way justify a conclusion that g*d did not exist.

I suppose we'll all of us each recieve final answers to these questions someday all too soon. In the meantime, perhaps it might by possible for everyone to agree on simply enjoying life, and stop trying to insist that others adopt their views on these questions.

Fortunately, since there is little chance of the later, our nation's founders wisely insisted on freedom of religion.