This is really your biggest fear? Or is that just a figure of speech. I'm genuinely curious, as while I think this "answer" might be intellectually satisfying to some degree, I see it as making little difference in practical matters.
I also think it's an answer that will never come. I don't see any inconsistency between a universe created by God and any scientific observations we make within that creation.
> I don't see any inconsistency between a universe created by God and any scientific observations we make within that creation.
I don't know if there's a name for this argument, but it would seem to imply that a god or gods are not necessary (whether or not it or they exist). When you combine that with Occam's Razor (the hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions is likely the correct one), my interpretation is that there is likely not a god or gods.
To be strict, a completely successful theory of the origin of life would mean that God was not necessary to explain that. He could still be necessary to explain other things.
what will it mean to the world if religion was "proven" to be man-made
A successful and complete theory of the origin of life wouldn't do that. Not every religion claims seriously that God directly created life. To my knowledge, it's really only a serious problem for people who live in the Religion:Christian/Protestant/Evangelical/Fundamentalist folder, which is really not a big fraction of the people on the drive.
For example, I am Evangelical, and I wouldn't be bothered by either the success or failure of a scientific theory of the origin of life. Miracles are a part of my worldview, as are machines. I know that God created life, but whether he used a miracle or a machine, I don't know. I have seen him use one or the other at different times, so I would consider either an acceptable explanation. Now, I'm kind of interested as to what happened, but it doesn't affect my doctrine much either way.
We seem to be reaching good enough models (arguably some of them will be thoroughly reproducible in laboratories soon enough). But I don't think we'll arrive at a definite answer here. My guess is that we'll come up with multiple ways it could've happened, along with their respective degrees of likelihood.
I think this is probably directly or indirectly responsible for the recent health and longevity kick people have been on in the Bay area. Many people in their 20s-40s are right at the age where we can see some of the amazing things on the horizon, but it's uncertain whether we'll live long enough to see them. If I could live to 120 instead of 80-90, it greatly increases the odds that I'll live to see things like neural interfaces and things like that.
We are. The genetic advances that we'll make will probably allow us to extend our life considerably in the not very far future. Like next century if not earlier. Damn!
