Anyone who has ever seen the movie or read the book 'Contact' should remember the famous line, That said, I will ask a question: are we alone in the universe? Are there other beings on other worlds in other galaxies with solar systems just like ours? Or are we unique, the only planet with life just like ours? The movie/book brought up some deep and provocative questions, especially originating from quotes like the one above, as well as the quote I must say that I am lead to believe that we are most certainly not alone. That seems to make sense: Earth was created under specific conditions, and can only function as it does at a proper angle to the sun. It is logical that, in the infinite space of the universe, that the conditions that spawned this planet must occur an infinite number of times. It's almost mathemetical: A certain effect, created under x conditions will be repeated an infinite number of times, given an infinite amount of space and am infinite amount of time. One popular argument for the religious side of this matter relates to the 'formula' stated above. According to Christians, because the planet and its its inhabitants can only exist because of conditions that are astronomically small, then it must be the work of a god. I find that to be as factless, petty and ridiculous as much of Christianity's explanations for pretty much everything, including the Creation myth. Even though the conditions under which this planet were created were incredibly minute (degree of planet's tilt, ambient temperature, gases present, etc.), there must be an infinite number of other planets exactly like ours. There might even be planets whose denizens rely on other gases for their processes, such as methane or carbon dioxide, rather than oxygen and nitrogen. It has been proven by the heterotrophic bacteria that can survive in deep-sea vents that they can adapt to adverse conditions and rearrange their internal mechanisms to rely on the current conditions, such as sulfer and high temperatures. So there could be other planets of beings who are like us, or differ only in that their planet's ambient conditions are altered. All that said, what are your opinions?