We all know how time seems to catch up with religion. As things that were once mysterious are explained, religion has had to adapt. Facts like the world isn't flat once rocked the world when discovered. But now it seems religion isn't the only one who has to cope: even Science needs some catching up to do as it tries to define the meaning of life.

Defining life is supposed to be easy if you think about it. Eat, sleep, reproduce; that's basically the sum of life. However, Science has advanced so much it's not so clear cut anymore.

Scientists have managed to manipulate genes of bacterium to create all new strains that do completely different things. Is it still considered life if its initial DNA has been changed beyond its initial purpose? Scientists have also developed stem cell research so far that they believe they can create "wet" artificial life (think Frankenstein Amoeba).

And of course there's everyone's favorite quandary when it comes to defining life: robots. The question has inspired numerous movies like Terminator, AI, and I, Robot. Robots may not be carbon based as us humans, but their silicon chips hold all the processes of human thought. If we're all just computer simulations ourselves (or brains in a jar), can we consider ourselves alive?

Ray Kurzweil, a futurist who has advised even Bill Gates, theorizes that it's possible. He believes that by 2029, Artificial Intelligence would have advanced so much as to be human. Does that make them, in essence, alive? "The key issue as to whether or not a non-biological entity deserves rights really comes down to whether or not it's conscious. Does it have feelings?"

Francis Collins, a Christian Scientist and Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, offers what is probably the only answer humankind is capable of right now: "[Defining life is] an important but ultimately frustrating question, if one expects to come up with a nice clean shiny answer; it ain't going to happen."