Dear Rabbi Lamm, I want to thank you belatedly for sending me a copy of your paper "The Religious Implications of Extraterrestrial Life." This has lain in my "In" basket for several months now awaiting an opportunity on my part to read it. I have now attempted to do so. I found the first eighteen pages very stimulating reading and I think you have done a fine job of outlining the bases for discrepancies among current beliefs with respect to the probable frequency of incidence of interstellar life. It is perhaps this very lack of unanimity of opinion with respect to this question that makes it seem so desirable to settle the matter through direct observation if possible.Contact with another intelligent species would, in my opinion, be a tremendous boon in helping to accelerate man's thinking in many different ways. A great many questions with respect to the convergence or divergence of biological and sociological evolution would be answered. Probably technological development would be advanced in many areas and we might even receive answers to many questions we have not yet formulated. The knowledge rather than the belief that such races exist might enable us to draw sounder conclusions as to human destiny than we do today.Up until page 19 or 20, your paper displays a critical attitude that does credit to a scientist, let alone a theologian. Beyond that point you apparently accept without criticism the entire body of Jewish faith, a dichotomy also to be observed among Christian theologians. Because of this sudden change of pace, I was unable to read beyond about page 22 or 23 and am unable to offer any constructive comment on the remainder of the paper.Sincerely yours,B. M. Oliver Rabbi Norman LammThe Jewish Center131 West 86th StreetNew York, N.Y. 10024