These issues cut right across traditional religious dogma.* Many people
cling to the belief that the origin of life required a unique divine act. But
if life on Earth is not unique, the case for a miraculous origin would be weakened. The discovery of even a humble bacterium on Mars, if it could be
shown to have arisen independently from Earth life, would support the view that
life emerges naturally.
第5パラグラフ他の星に生命体がいたら、naturally だそうです。何が自然かというと、 life emergesなので、生命が出現するのが自然なのでしょうね。
第6パラグラフ
Historically, the Rowan Catholic Church regarded any discussion of alien lifeas a sin. Speculating about other inhabited worlds was one reason
philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600. Belief that mankind
has a special relationship with God is central to the monotheistic* religions. The existence of alien beings, especially if they were further advanced than
humans intellectually and spiritually, would endanger this view.
Weighed against these threatening factors is the uplifting picture of the
universe that the ubiquity* of life and consciousness implies. A cosmos that
starts out in a Big Bang and gradually progresses through complex chemistry
to life, intelligence and culture is profoundly inspiring. The fact that this
advance can take place entirely naturally, without an act of God, adds to the
wonder.
Bertrand Russell argued that a universe under a death sentence* from the second law of thermodynamics rendered hunan life ultimately worthless.All our achievements, all our struggles, all the noonday brightness of human genius,”
as he put it, would, in the final analysis, count for nothing if the very
cosmos itself is doomed.