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=== The Bible and Extraterrestrial Microbes ===

=== The Bible and Extraterrestrial Microbes ===

The finding of extraterrestrial ''microbes'' need ''not'' militate against the Bible. The Bible tells of the most serious natural disaster ever to befall the earth, known as the [[Great Flood]]. At least one theorist [[Hydroplate Theory|suggests]] that this Flood resulted from the rupture of a fifty- or sixty-mile-thick crust that once formed the surface of the earth and held half of what today we call the [[ocean]]s in a sealed chamber. The seam of this rupture persists today as the [[Mid-oceanic ridge]] system. The salient point is that this rupture released billions of [[liter]]s of water, all of it supercritically hot, and under tremendous [[pressure]]. Much of this water shot high into the atmosphere and fell as rain--and much of the water so propelled, was ejected into space, along with a vast quantity of mud and rock--as much as ''four percent of the mass the earth then had.'' This water, rock, and mud now persists as [[comet]]s, [[asteroid]]s, and [[meteor]]oids--and even [[trans-Neptunian object]]s!--all of which might well have been laden with microbes at the moment of the initial ejection. Thus, if these microbes were to be found again, whether in a comet's tail, or in a meteorite, or even on the surface of another celestial body, then they might be "extraterrestrial" ''only'' in the sense of being descended by several generations from other microbes that originally came ''from'' the earth.

The finding of extraterrestrial ''microbes'' need ''not'' militate against the Bible. The Bible tells of the most serious natural disaster ever to befall the earth, known as the [[Great Flood]]. At least one theorist [[Hydroplate Theory|suggests]] that this Flood resulted from the rupture of a fifty- or sixty-mile-thick crust that once formed the surface of the earth and held half of what today we call the [[ocean]]s in a sealed chamber. The seam of this rupture persists today as the [[Mid-oceanic ridge]] system. The salient point is that this rupture released billions of [[liter]]s of water, all of it supercritically hot, and under tremendous [[pressure]]. Much of this water shot high into the atmosphere and fell as rain--and much of the water so propelled, was ejected into space, along with a vast quantity of mud and rock--as much as ''four percent of the mass the earth then had.'' This water, rock, and mud now persists as [[comet]]s, [[asteroid]]s, and [[meteor]]oids--and even [[Trans-Neptunian Object|trans-Neptunian objects]]!--all of which might well have been laden with microbes at the moment of the initial ejection. Thus, if these microbes were to be found again, whether in a comet's tail, or in a meteorite, or even on the surface of another celestial body, then they might be "extraterrestrial" ''only'' in the sense of being descended by several generations from other microbes that originally came ''from'' the earth.

== Conclusion ==

== Conclusion ==