You bet it will.

People will erroneously conclude that water on Europa means there was or is life on Europa. Maybe … maybe not. They’ll say it invalidates a biblical creator (uh … why?) and all sorts of other points of theology. It wouldn’t.

But let’s stick to the discovery itself for this post. We can reduce this to VERY basic logic:

That the conditions for life exist does not mean life did or does exist. Conditions aren’t outcomes. Conditions also aren’t causes, either, but I don’t want to digress…

As I’ve noted in many interviews (and on my UFO Religions blog), I’m not opposed to there being life beyond earth — even intelligent life. Knowing the answer to that question is on my short list of things I’d like to know or see before I die (right next to a cloned mammoth and genetically reverse engineering a dinosaur from a chicken). Seriously, how neat would those things be? Yes, I know things could go wrong, and scientists without consciences could use the technology to unethical ends, but any technology is subject to abuse (like the internet). I’m just being honest — I’d pay to see chickenosaurus and pet a (baby) mammoth.

If you’re interested in Panspermia and Why it Matters, click on that link for an article I wrote several years ago that is now available on Kindle for next to nothing.