The Bible (Planet Earth Version).

wolfsbane

strobe wrote: »

Hey, so I was watching that film Contact staring Jodie Foster (it gets slated everywhere but I think it's pretty good) with a freind of mine a couple of weeks ago. If you aren't familiar with it, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/plotsummary .

She's a Christian, and after the movie we got talking about wether or not we thought there was life outside of Earth. My stance was that surely there must be some life somewhere given the scale of the universe and the adaptablility of life, extremophiles surviving in enviroments previously thought incapable of sustaining life ect.

Her stance was that life only existed on earth because that's what the bible teaches.

So we were having a couple of bottles of wine and after a bit of banter back and forth, we reached a compromise. If we assume the bible is the truth (she knows I'm an atheist and was only accepting the assumption for the sake of the argument) then maybe it only applies to Earth, and perhaps on other planets there is alien life and maybe civilisations who were also created by God and have their own entirely different versions of the Bible that relates to them, their creation and their history, which may or may not include a Messiah coming to the planet, or maybe there was no need for one because God didn't put a fruit tree in their garden of Eden and so the entire civilisation is free of sin ect.

Well anyway I thought it was an interesting idea and would make a good discussion so I just wanted to get your thoughts on the concept if you have any?

She was right about the Bible limiting physical life to earth. At least by the strongest implication - all it tells us leads us to regard the earth as the sole object of God's creation of life.

Could it be that there are lifeforms elsewhere and God did not reveal it to us? It would be in the same ball-park as God having an only begotten Daughter as well as the Son He told us of. In other words, it would make the whole message of the Bible disjointed.

Of course, if one believes in a materialistic origin of life on earth, what is to hinder it on any other planet?

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

As we don't yet know how life got started on earth that is a bit if leap to make don't you agree? Earth becoming able to support life and life appearing on the earth are - as far know - completely different events and as far as we know totally unrelated.

Again that is mere conjecture.

It is a bit more than mere conjecture. You are correct that we don't know how life took hold but we know the Earth moved into a phase there life could take hold, through the forming of the first oceans.

It may just be a coincidence that life just happened to appear then, but it seems unlikely.

Soul Winner wrote: »

But assuming that is how it happened then life as we know it should have evolved on many other earth like planets orbiting sun like stars all over the universe and considering the age of the universe and the number of such earth like environments in it, life evolving in this way would have happened trillions of times.

Yup

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yes. If it all happened the way you say then it seems that the whole point of earth's development was to support life. Apart from that, what else does it do?

What a delightfully egotistic view point

Soul Winner wrote: »

But that's the thing, if life is so robust and its appearing on earth-like-planets so natural, then why does all life we see on planet earth today have the same common origin in the very first simplest arrangement of molecules that luckily happened to take place long enough ago to have enough time to have evolved into us today? Why don't we have many many many different springs of life producing molecule arrangements like this all over the planet if what you say about life appearing is as natural as mold on a stale cup of tea is true? Why is it only once that this just happened to occur?

Most likely because the form we are descended from become dominant across the globe in a short period of time, quicker than any other form of life could develop.

Soul Winner wrote: »

And just at the time in earth's history when the earth just happened to get to the stage where it had the potential to become a life supporting planet? It has been a life supporting planet for the last 3 billion years and yet this ever so natural process only ever happened once. Is it just me or does this seem a bit odd?

We don't know it only happened once. We know it only happened with great success once, but that makes sense given what great success means.

Its the same reason you don't have have hundreds of different species of mold in your tea, because one species takes over.

great_pretender

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I don't dismiss simple lifeforms existing on other planets but it is then a huge leap to suggest that any of these would have intelligence levels similar or greater to our own (when I've played around with the Drake equation it seems unlikely).

But Mrs. Cradock, you must remember that the Universe is infinite... and in a universe of infinite possibilities, you and I both exisit (not identically but close) , having this very conversation, an infinite number of times.... so life forms of greater intelligence and of lesser intelligence exist on other planets an infinite number of times in the universe. Someone almost identical to you is now reading this message an infinite number of times, the difference being in one of the instances, the writer of this message hasn't included this dot here . and because this is infinity, and the human mind cannot comprehend infinity, we just have to accept it.

Fanny Cradock

great_pretender wrote: »

But Mrs. Cradock, you must remember that the Universe is infinite... and in a universe of infinite possibilities, you and I both exisit (not identically but close) , having this very conversation, an infinite number of times.... so life forms of greater intelligence and of lesser intelligence exist on other planets an infinite number of times in the universe. Someone almost identical to you is now reading this message an infinite number of times, the difference being in one of the instances, the writer of this message hasn't included this dot here . and because this is infinity, and the human mind cannot comprehend infinity, we just have to accept it.

While I don't claim to be an expert, I humbly suggest that you need to go back to the basics. Science hasn't yet been able to answer if the universe is infinite of finite. That you happen to believe it is the former is a faith statement and one not entirely supported by the data. You also seem to be confusing something like the many worlds hypothesis with our single universe. ASFAIK, there is much discussion about the validity of such hypothesis - all of which may be futile because it is believed that we can never observe the other hypothetical universes even if they did exist. In short, I believe that observations of these hypothetical universes are made impossible because they would lie beyond the cosmological horizon. Even if they did exist they are not open to experiment or observation. Further, you seem to be confusing possibilities with certainty. In our universe I don't believe there is any evidence to suggest that all things are possible - everything marches to laws after all.

great_pretender

then is there such a thing as time in the after life? Essentially what is the difference between infinity in scientific terms, and eternity in biblical terms?

Fanny Cradock

great_pretender wrote: »

then is there such a thing as time in the after life? Essentially what is the difference between infinity in scientific terms, and eternity in biblical terms?

Short answer, I don't know. I don't even know if there will be time in the after life (which I happen to believe is a physical existence in a new heavens and a new earth). It could be that there is time but not as we know it.

strobe

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Short answer, I don't know. I don't even know if there will be time in the after life (which I happen to believe is a physical existence in a new heavens and a new earth). It could be that there is time but not as we know it.

This is going quickly to the limits of my (and probably most of our) understanding of this area of physics but I'm fairly certain a physical existance (space containing matter) can not exist without time, and visa versa. Time and space and hence matter being part of the space-time continuum and therefore inseperable from one another. So if there is a physical existance in a new heavens and a new earth then time is a prerequisite of that set-up.

Fanny Cradock

strobe wrote: »

This is going quickly to the limits of my (and probably most of our) understanding of this area of physics but I'm fairly certain a physical existance (matter) can not exist without time, and visa versa. Time and space and hence matter being part of the space-time continuum and inseperable from one another. So if there is a physical existance in a new heavens and a new earth then time is a prerequisite of that set-up.

But of course this is assuming that any future physical existence must be as it is now, which I would contend the bible hints that it wont.

strobe

But for something to be physical by definition it must be consisting of matter. Matter, time, space all being in a co-dependant relationship. So if we except that a future existance won't be as it is now then it is fair to presume that it won't be physical in the sense of the word that we understand? But if it is physicality by our understanding of the term then time must also be present?

Edit: Of course God being omnipotent means that in an alternate realm of existance then space could quite easily exist without time if that's what he wants to be the case, aswell as any other fundamental law of physics being altered in any possible way........so I guess it is a little futile to try and apply anything that is considered a constant or consistant rule to anything beyond our current observable environment as it exists free form his intervention.