On February 18th, NASA’s Perseverance Rover officially set down on Mars, the conclusion of an eight month, $2.7 billion dollar journey. Perseverance’s primary mission? To find signs of ancient life on Mars.
NASA selected an ideal location to hunt for ancient life, landing in the Jezero Crater, a location strongly suspected to have once been home to a lake the size of Lake Tahoe.
Perseverance will hunt for sediment samples, but the rover lacks the capabilities to confirm signs of life remotely. A future voyage will have to collect the samples and return back to Earth, where they can be tested for signs of life.
Scientists say it’s our best shot at finding signs of life on the red planet ever. And should life actually be confirmed on our nearest neighbor, there would have major philosophical and theological implications.
Life on Mars
Should we discover that we’re not the sole inhabitants of the universe, many scientists agree that the discovery of Martian life would come to be known as a scientific turning point in human history - a genuine “before” and “after”, similar to how the paradigm shift of the Copernican Revolution is viewed now.
There’s also the question of how billions of religious people on Earth might take the news that our place in the cosmos isn’t quite so privileged. Would they embrace it? Would they even believe the news?
How would institutional religion handle such a discovery?
The BBC laid out the case that the world’s major faiths would actually respond positively to the news that we’re not alone.
“The Psalms, sacred to both Jews and Christians, claim that God has given names to all the stars,” the report argues. “According to the Talmud, God spends his night flying throughout 18,000 worlds. And Islam insists that “all things in the heavens and on the Earth” are Allah’s, as the Koran says, implying that his rule extends well beyond one tiny planet.”
After all, scientific discoveries like heliocentrism and the theory of evolution are, on their face, incompatible with certain theological doctrines, and that certainly didn’t eradicate religious belief.
In fact, many of the world’s faiths are ready to embrace extraterrestrials – and perhaps even convert them. In 2014, Pope Francis said he’d be happy to baptize aliens and would welcome them into the Catholic faith, acknowledging that they are “part of creation”.
Well, that certainly is an image.
What Happens Next?
Should Perseverance find life on Mars, it would likely blow the door wide open on our own perspective of our place in the universe. After all, if there once was life on our nearest neighbor, even if it’s miscrospic and long dead, then surely there must be life, potentially far more advanced, on the potentially billions of planets out there?
Many scientists believe that the news that we aren’t alone is inevitable, not a question of if, but when.
And while news of little green men from beyond the moon might be a long time away, confirmation of microscopic life once existing on Mars might just be imminent.
Should we get that confirmation, what do you think would happen? How would you react to the news of life on Mars?
50 comments
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James Riggle-Johnson
Yes, I believe there is life out there, but I do not think some religious folk would accept that. If the proof was right in front of them, I believe they would think it is evil—just my thoughts.
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John Norris Campbell
If there was life 'Out there' I'd assume they would be looking for another inteligent life form....Yea...they'd take one look at this rock and say.....yea....NO....bad neighborhood....maybe something at the next rest stop.
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CB Cuff
Made my day! Especially the "intelligent life form" & "bad neighbour" bit. Ken Ham may already already be constructing a Space Ark.
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Daniel Gray
Of course there are other life forms out there besides us. I mean for crying out loud they have found a gas on mars that can only come from decaying life forms. They have proved that we have life forms here on the earth that can live in the vacuum of space and the US Military has shown videos from attack planes that have ships that are going far faster then anything we have. Meaning that either there is a government somewhere on this planet that is as advanced above us as we are of the stone age, or they are from another planet.
And why would God say there are many mansions in his home unless he was referring to aliens and again why would he use the term "make them in OUR image" unless he had done this before?
The ONLY stupid idea in this is that some people think that everything in the universe was squashed down to the size of a head of a pin. Seems that violates newtons bedrock law of physics that says "an object in motion will stay in motion or an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside source" So tell me children, what was the outside source that supposedly caused your "big bang?"
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William Waugh
After years of earnest learning and observation, I have decided that what most closely would describe our universe's reality is that: the universe itself is "God". And, I can appreciate her being feminine, without being Pagan. My own life I live mostly like a monk.
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Brien
700 quintillion, according to scientists, is the number that is used to quantify the number of planets, (that we can detect thru various methods), in the universe. Yes, there is a bit of guesswork on this, but only because our field of view is limited compared to the ENTIRE universe. It is the very definition of clinical denial to believe that we are the only form of life existing in the universe, or that we are the only intelligent life, or even that we have the only microbial life. The odds just do not even support that way of thinking. Now, is it going to be a scene from a sci fi movie? No, probably not. If we discover life elsewhere it will most likely be microbial. That does NOT mean that there is no intelligent life out there, it just means that we do not have the ability to discover it.....yet. peace
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The Gray Minister
I The Gray Pope believe there is not only is on this planet Earth as we humans call it
I read a book a while back by a new faith called Raelians The leader relayed a message from a creator named Yawah the Hebrews call him The Lord as there God The book is called Intelligent Design by rael and it was free to read at rael.org
Wow it opened my eyes to a new way of think Even though i changed my thoughts of a God but to a Higher Power that is in a higher realm and works threw us but ill stop there of what i think
But i believe there are lots of Extraterrestrial’s out there
I think we are mixed with them in ways
I think when it comes to live Like the story says Adam was made from the earth Makes me think the human dna was already here when The Elohim the group Of scientific explorers that came from far away and started this planet be recreating life from there planet
But yes what will people do
Like Jesus Hes to come back some day right?
So if he shows up in a huge UFO what will the people do?
I will bow and say hi but to some people he will be seen as the Anti Christ But if he does show that way and they dont except him then youll see him in death and have to deal with the fact that you rejected him But Yes we are not alone
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Anisahoni
I am amazed about no mention of the ancient Sumerian Clay tablets, Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish texts and the published research of Zecharia Sitchen. Anyone who thinks we are the only species on planet Earth is living in an alternate reality. Ever hear of the Arcturians or Anunnaki? The Anunnaki are in the Christian historical bible. Read the Book of Ezekiel as well as the Book of Enoch. We have never been alone. Ever hear of the Greys? Ever hear of the groundbreaking work of Dr. John Mack, Harvard Psychiatrist and his research? Ever hear of the "Phoenix Lights" or the US Navy's release of the "Tic Tac" encounters or the WWII pilot encounters with the "Foo Fighers"? Wake up people. How old is Earth? Jeeze. We are not alone.
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Ronaldo
Science has postulated that life began and failed on Earth multiple times before it managed to survive and multiply. If we find life on Mars, it will not likely be an advanced space-faring civilization living underground. It could as easily be microscopic life that never advanced beyond that stage, even when Mars had water and an oxygen atmosphere. There could be life on many planets that never got past one-celled organisms. We have primitive life-forms on our own planet that violate our previous rules regarding livable environments. The bacteria and tube worms that live near deep undersea volcanic vents are such examples. Prior to their discovery, our scientific consensus was that no life could tolerate such conditions, and yet, there they were.
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George D Maycott
God is not wasteful, why would he create life on Earth and let the rest of the universe go to waste.
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William Waugh
George, sometimes the comments dont get posted til the next day. Dont know why.
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George D Maycott
God is not wasteful, why would he put man on Earth and let the rest of the universe go to waste,
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Richard James Clay
The existence of 'ET's' is not a matter of belief, it is a matter of fact. How arrogant, and self-important must a person be to 'believe' we are the only creatures in a universe 14-billion years old? Governments of all nations have photographic, cinematic, and first hand testimony of thousands of individuals who have endured one of the 5-'Close Encounters.' One doesn't "believe" in 'ET's' any more than one believes in the Sun...it's THERE. Beliefs are not facts. Beliefs are not reality. Beliefs exist ONLY in the mind of the believer. It is very helpful to be able to distinguish the difference between a belief, and a fact.
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John P Maher
BELIEVE IN GOOD, FAIRNESS, KINDNESS,LOVE,HAPPINESS,and WHATs REALLY THE BEST for YOUR FAMILY and YOUR COUNTRY, NOT THE HYPE that RELIGIOUS FANATICS and POLITICIANS SPAT UPON YOU, DO YOU HAVE a MIND to THINK or ARE YOU SO WEAK YOU ONLY FOLLOW, OFCOURSE I BELIEVE in OTHER LIFE, JUST LOOK UP on A CLEAR NIGHT, FOOLs !
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John P Maher
ALL GOD'S CHILLIN are WE, IS PERSON, A SPIRIT, AN ALIEN LIFE COULD HE, GOD that IS ! is HE a HE ?
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William Waugh
Send me some of whatever you are smokin dude.
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Alexander Clarke
I think it is against the law to send it through the mails. You can probably get it on a nearby street corner.
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Ty Ford
Are There Other Life Forms in the Universe?
Sure. The people we call "the dead" are right here on earth and VERY close to us. We just have great difficulty perceiving them because we are only able to handle four dimensions and science has let us know that there are at least 10 dimensions. The dead are mostly in those other six dimensions. Occasionally they break through, but it's rare and not for very long due to the amount if energy it takes.
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Dennis Wayne Starr
Yes and if you draw a pentagram on the floor and shake chicken bones and chant while naked under a full moon smoking a large reefer then you too can see and talk with them.
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Ty Ford
Comment removed by user.
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Ty Ford
Meow! And thanks for helping me make my point flatlander!
https://www.schaetter.com/obituary/dennis-starr
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Dennis Wayne Starr
Not me dunce. Amazing that you have so much time on your hand that you would search the net for any similar name and try and use that as justification for your gobbledygook. Mr Ford please seek some mental health evaluation. According to this branch of theoretical physics (NO Proof), ("some" physicists who subscribe to string theory ( an unproven unifying theory) there are at least 10 dimensions of space, most of which are impossible for humans to perceive. Gee this was fun.
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Ty Ford
Thanks, Reverend. Keep at it!!
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Douglas Robert Spindler
Christians aren’t going to like it if signs of life are found anywhere else but on Earth. It will be just one more piece of evidence proving the the word of God, the Bible, is wrong. The Belgium priest who is responsible for the Big Bank proved the story of Genesis in the Bible is all wrong.
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Rev. Forrrest
Some Christians do interpret the Bible as literally true. Others view it through a contextualist lens. They understand that the writings were humans' efforts to explain their world. They used historical accounts, metaphor, irony, similies, accounts of visions and dreams, and allegories. Those literary forms, coupled with limitations of human knowledge must be considered when analyzing the Bible. Assuming the Big Bang Theory were accurate, it wouldn't prove that God isn't real. It would, however, underscore humanity's inability to fully understand and describe God's essence.
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Douglas Robert Spindler
If the Bible is the word of God. And the Bible gives us an account of how God made everything, and everything was good. Why was God wrong? Seems to me God should know how God made things.
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John Norris Campbell
What a fun and thought provoking idea!...BUT!! First we must all pretend that the technolgy available in the 1960's ACTUALLY carried men to the moon, not once but 6 round trips! I know it happened "because I saw it on T.V"....LOL!!...NOW NASA (Hebrew for "to decieve") tells us that they somehow 'lost' all the telemetry data and every single copy of ANY EVIDENCE of this thing ever happining...NOW they all tell us that humans can only achieve "low earth orbit" because there is a radition belt one needs to move through that would kill not only humans but also electronics...AND THEN...LOL!!! they tell us that because they did'nt 'know' about this dangerous radition belt back in the 60's it did't effect any of the Apollo missions!...Can't make this stuff up!! So for the last 50 years, NASA has been RIPPING off the American Tax Payer to the tune of 54 BILLION dollars a year....What do we actually have to show for it??? Supposedly 'velcrow' and a pen that writes upside down....Totally worth it!!...Not one "astro-NOT' was willing to swear on a bible that what they said happened actually happened...ONLY because they were/are all military men sworn to secrecy by our government....Soooo yea ,Ya'll believe (purely, and absolutly BY FAITH ALONE) Ya'll's "other life forms" must exist...due mainly to comic books written back in the 50's and ANYTHING George Lucas Made....IDIOTS
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William Waugh
I sincerely hope you are not serious(?!) My keyboard dous not have an interabang.
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Tom
Someone's been reading too many pseudoscience conspiracy theories...
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Dennis Wayne Starr
I sure hope that your sterile.
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Doc Michael Pepper
Sometimes the answer to a "mystery" is actually very simple. Usually you just need to follow the money. NASA did not actually "lose" the moon tapes. An investigation determined they simply reused the tapes and wrote over the moon mission footage. We're often accused of "RIPPING off the American Tax Payer" so we do our best to save money where we can, even if years later it sure appears we were a penny wise and a pound foolish. Also, not "all" has been lost. There was a back up recording base in Australia with a set of tapes. However reading the tapes was a different story. An engineer was sent to an Australian museum to recover an old tape reader which he managed to repair. The nice footage you see on the documentarys today is from the Australian tapes. Now the radiation belt was a "danger" in the Apollo days, and remains a danger today. The "danger" is a function of "time". A quick pass through the belt might fry some electronics (or might not) but lingering in the belt greatly increases the risk. The "radiation time" of any astronaut in space is monitored (with a special badge) and when they hit a certain amount they are grounded. Even so, they have increased their risk of dying of cancer. Sally Ride, our first American woman astronaut died of cancer. Heroines like her are spending their lives to help improve our lives. I just kind of think Jesus would have approved.
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Clifford
I’m more worried about those Alien to God here on Earth.
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Pamela Kay Waters
I believe there is and or was life out there like us and humans ended up killing that world just as the humans are killing this world.
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William Waugh
All the answers are out there. You just have to string together otherwise separate stories. The pebble theory of planet creation says the ingredients for life, especially water is likely quite abundant everywhere.
The shear distances involved between worlds makes migration quite difficult and time-consuming, if possible at all.
Life as we know it exists by consuming other life. Survival of the fittest. For every long life, hundreds if not thousands perish. Most without acquiring a real growth of awareness.
Same with planets. Some are warm and moist. Probly very many if not most. But they are no match to random and routine stellar events that doom that planets unique biodiversity to spacedust.
A fraction of the worlds will develope a self aware species that will look to the stars and wonder if they are alone.
A few may make it to other worlds.
Many believe that "god" was an astronaut.
Do you believe the human race is currently hurtling toward a bright and optomistic future? Everything anyone has ever loved or owned, is worthless as spacedust.
IF. If its possible to cheat physics and travel at relativistic speeds. Would you let yourself be caught dead in a world like ours?
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Mark Christopher High
The Sumerian clay tablets tell of interactions with Anu, Ea, Enki, from another world. The stories of Enoch, and Egyptian god, Ra, and many others tell similar encounters. Isaiah declared the head of the gods sits upon the circle of the earth (orbit). We have been trying to reclaim knowledge we have lost. We have only been conscious of our position in the cosmos for a moment. But, tribes around the globe have astronomical knowledge that they, themselves could not have aquired. Such as the Aboriginees of Australia. It is easy for contemporary people to think they are superior, but one day, “That which they had not considered will be told them.”
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Marquita Phyllis Greig
Hello, I believe God has created life through out the universe. It is arrogant to think that we are it. Who said we were the only ones. We are probably not the first nor the last. God creates.
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John Casillo
FOR POSITIVE PEOPLE....IT IS A NICE THOUGHT TO IMAGINE.....IN THE END....IT REALLY DOES NOT MATTER....SPEND ONE'S TIME MENDING ONES OWN FENCES....CAUSE LOOKING OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE YOU CANNOT CHANGE....IT IS NOT YOURS.......REV JOHN
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Marius Gabriel Burja
Come to Suspicious 0bservers channel on YouTube. I will see you in the clouds. The sooner the better.
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Richard Lee Cornell
Life is out there and if it comes to earth it will not be friendly. Two things could happen, our germs kills it right off or its germs kill us. If it lands and sees 8 billion humans it might come to gather us up and bring us to their world. Not as sight seekers, but as food. We would do the same to find new worlds that have a lot of wealth and sources of food. If something does land on this planet that makes our religions worthless. Were not made in the God's image, nor the only life in the universe and everything so told us in Holy Scriptures is rubbish. When it comes to Mars, water has not been seen on that rock for billions of years let alone micros.
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William Waugh
Negative on the dry Mars.thingie. South Pole has very large icy saline lake and at least three less salty lakes under it and the actions of its two largest moons, wait for it, keeps Mars' core hot.
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Alexander Clarke
How arrogant can someone be to think that we are the only intelligent life form in the universe.
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Daniel J. Trebas
I would agree to an extent. I believe every "thing" and every "one" is a microcosmic fractal of the one source, or "God". However, the ultimate macrocosmic of the One extends beyond the limits of 4th dimensional time; which is dependent on the experiential foundation of "duality". Whether the manifest duality is at the magnetic levels or in the more complex structures identified as male/female, light/darkness, and even the multiple definitions of good/evil. As such, the totality of the One God could not be labeled as being limited to only one of the two polarities needed to manifest a timely experience. So, I would have to say that the One God is neither male nor female while, in time based "reality", is manifest as both; oh- and the same for "good" and "evil" (to believe the popular lie that "good" will ultimately destroy all "evil" would be the same as thinking that a time based experience could somehow continue without the polarities needed to manifest it AND that God would destroy all the fractal pieces needed for God to manifest within the 4th dimension. Namaste.
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Daniel J. Trebas
The "terrible twos" is the stage of adjustment when a little child is realizing that everything is not all about them and that sometimes they have to have their needs put on hold for the good of the larger group the child is part of. It seems much of humanity hasn't made it past the Terrible Twos when it comes to acknowledging, accepting, and then further learning from the more advanced "parental" life forms beyond this planet.
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Christian
Yes of course. We can look at our own world and every possible place life can exist, is covered and coated in all forms of life... The rest of the universes wet planets will behave in a similar way. Milkyway Galaxy is only one galaxy of billi9ns of galaxies, filled with trillions of stars, orbited by even more countless worlds.
SPACE IS BIG.
Really, really Big !
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Richard Albert Heyse
The forces of the universe has created many life forms on different planets. Who knows, maybe life on other worlds may be in spiritual form which cannot be seen with our physical eye.
Rev. Richard
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Pastor Charlene, Ph.D
Yes, there is life on other planets. God would not only make us. There is already proof of specific type of life, albeit not human as we've not found yet, but organisms, past river beds etc. God is wise and good and knew what he was doing when he created everything.
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Lionheart
It's interesting that you like quoting there is "proof of life" in other places in our universe, yet you believe in a god where there is no proof any exists, let alone your particular god exists. In reality, we have no idea if any deity exists, even though that might be a concept you might struggle to understand. No one knows how the universe came to be in existence, this doesn't mean that because we don't understand that, a god must be involved. That logical fallacy is called the God Of The Gaps fallacy. It's been used for centuries when mankind doesn't understand something they instantly say "God did it" or "God must have been involved with it" until, as in many cases, science eventually proved otherwise.
If you have any evidence that any god has ever done anything, and even exists, please let me know.....with demonstrable evidence.
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Pastor Charlene, Ph.D
There is definite life, in many was on other planets. It has been proven. May we not be so self centered to think we are the only life forms that God created.
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John D. Partin
You are always asking people for proof that God exists, but never come up with any proof for your assertion that the universe, without any mind behind it, is making its own laws and interconnection of them for its operation, which is just contradictory on the face of it and gets increasingly more contradictory and illogical the more that you look into it. But we are willing to be convinced, if you can come up with the evidence that a mindless universe does all that, instead of asking other people all the time for evidence for their beliefs, while never coming up with any evidence at all for your atheist faith, which is very one-sided on your part! I have asked you repeatedly and other people have asked you for evidence of your assertion and you keep dodging the issue and refusing to come up with the proof! We are all waiting to read your just overwhelming evidence that the "mindless universe is doing all of that for itself", which is certain to "blow all belief in God right out the water"!! So, please, enlighten us all, Oh Enlightened One, because the world is waiting anxiously on your words of "wisdom" to "liberate us all from our dark night of faith and 'unscientific' belief that something couldn't have come out of nothing"!! Until you graciously deign to "shine your light into our minds", we will have to go on believing that our universe couldn't have come out of nothing and can't make its own laws and interconnection of them, without a Mind behind it, and saying that that isn't the "God of the Gaps", but just obvious common sense and logic. If you want all that to change, get a move on and stop dragging your feet and show us all that astounding evidence that you have of a mindless universe creating its own laws and interconnection of them, which would actually be a far bigger miracle than all the partings of the Red Sea, walking on water, talking mules (except Francis the Talking Mule on TV), multiplication of loaves and fishes, talking snakes, and any other miracles that you or anyone else could come up with and believers in all of them still more reasonable and realistic than you are!!! We will be sitting on pins and needles waiting for your evidence of that!!
As my very wise physics professor once said, about 3 decades ago, when I asked if he believed in exterrestrial life: "There are more things under heaven than are dreamt of in our philosophy." I've always believed, having been a very early member of the Planetary Society. I see no disagreements between science and what was then my Christian faith. And I see even fewer disagreement now that I'm of the more pagan persuasion.
A physics professor who can quote Shakespeare is a wise man, indeed.