I guess I shouldn't leave such a curt reply. You are farther ahead in understanding why it is inevitable because you have been able to wrap your head around a four billion year dynamic - or at least I think you accept evolutionary theory but I wonder if you haven't really tried to conceive how big that number is. Yes, you know it is a really big number but have you internalised how big it really is? Maybe you have. Regardless, you believe that God provided the spark of life that set evolution in motion and everything that was done over the past four billion years was done so that Christ could come to Earth to save us. That is your explanation for life occuring on earth, the meaning of life on earth. My explanation is that life did indeed evolve, because the evidence for it is so overwhelmingly convincing. It's convinced you, after all. But my take is God didn't do it because as much as the evidence is mounting to support evolution there is no evidence that I can perceive that God exists, none. So for me something else had to have happened. And, in support of the anthropic principle, if it happened here, it will have happened and will continue to happen elsewhere simply because the popluation of probabilities is so very large. The number is far, far more incomprehensible than even 4 billion years.
The Hubble, Yahweh, the Bible, and faith.
by Nickolas 269 Replies latest jw friends
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PSacramento
My point Nick is that what you see as a statistical inevitability is the same reason some propose "inteligent design" or at least a "inteligent creator".
You see the act we exist is ineviteable and they see it as inevitable too, based on the same evidence, but preceived in different ways.
Yes, I believe in evolution.
you believe that God provided the spark of life that set evolution in motion and everything that was done over the past four billion years was done so that Christ could come to Earth to save us.
When did you ever read me saying that?
I believe God is the first cause, if you prefer to call God a singularity that's fine too.
I do NOt believe that ALL that has happened over the last 4 billion years or before that since got caused what we know as the universe into being, was so that Christ could save us.
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unshackled
you believe that God provided the spark of life that set evolution in motion and everything that was done over the past four billion years was done so that Christ could come to Earth to save us.
in support of the anthropic principle, if it happened here, it will have happened and will continue to happen elsewhere simply because the popluation of probabilities is so very large
Agreed it likely has happened elsewhere. Billions and billions of galaxies, stars, and planets...inevitably some planets will be in the goldilocks zone. Asteroids flying around the universe with the building blocks of life on them, smashing into these goldilock planets. Life, odds are, has happened elsewhere.
Question is, assuming God sent Christ to Earth to save us....did God also send his son to these other planets? Did he send another son to each different planet? IF not, why just earth - this speck of a speck of dust in this vast cosmic arena? Either scenario does not make any sense to me.
(Sorry if this may seem like another 'fly-by' post...but have been following the thread. Just too busy lately to interact more. Good discussion) -
PSacramento
Question is, assuming God sent Christ to Earth to save us....did God also send his son to these other planets? Did he send another son to each different planet? IF not, why just earth - this speck of a speck of dust in this vast cosmic arena? Either scenario does not make sense to me.
There is almost a Kal-El moment in there ;)
Agreed it likely has happened elsewhere. Billions and billions of galaxies, stars, and planets...inevitably some planets will be in the goldilocks zone. Asteroids flying around the universe with the building blocks of life on them, smashing into these goldilock planets. Life, odds are, has happened elsewhere.
If no life as we KNOW it here, some sort of life, yes.
Why not?
It may be feasible to believe that life as WE KNOW it took as long as it did HERE because that is exactly what happened, but another type of life may YET be waiting to happen elsewhere and yet another type my already have happened elsewhere.
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unshackled
It may be feasible to believe that life as WE KNOW it took as long as it did HERE because that is exactly what happened, but another type of life may YET be waiting to happen elsewhere and yet another type my already have happened elsewhere.
An intriguing possiblity isn't it? Think it was in Cosmos (?) that Carl Sagan talked about the chances of other life in the universe, and that we tend to think it would be just like us. He surmised it could (perhaps likely) be quite different from what we know, based on its own evolutionary path in its own unique environment. Neat. -
Nickolas
I do NOt believe that ALL that has happened over the last 4 billion years or before that since got caused what we know as the universe into being, was so that Christ could save us.
I must have been extrapolating. That is what I understood and I stand corrected. I now perceive that you believe that God created the universe, set evolution in motion that led to the appearance of humankind and but sometime within this dynamic something else happened that required God to send down to Earth his Son Jesus to save us. Am I closer?
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AGuest
If the big bang happened roughly 13.7 billion years ago (for the sake of argument, whether or not an intelligent being set it off and ignoring that it begs a different layer of the question) and the Earth formed and cooled sufficiently about 10 billion years later, how many similar environments formed and cooled a billion years earlier?How many others formed and cooled in between and how many others are forming and cooling still?
I don't know if this will make sense to you, dear Nick (as always, peace to you!), but the bolded statement is interesting to me because it implies that any life form that would have resulted in such "similar environments" (and there would be life forms, wouldn't there, because if such environments ARE similar... and life formed HERE... it should, for all intents and purposes... and math and logic... form THERE, as well, right?)... such life forms wouldn't have advanced to locate any other "similar" life forms... in the same, similar, or even a distant galaxy... in even a billion years! Because they obviously haven't "found" us.
Yet, we (homo sapiens)... who've been around (according to science, for the sake of argument) less than half a million years... can find the answers they CAN'T? "We" can design a vehicle that can travel light years away... but they CAN'T? After being in existence at least a billion years... and in a similar environment?? Considering what humans have learned, discovered, found out, etc., in the last 100 years, let alone 1,000, 10,000... or 100,000 years... doesn't your comment suggests that we are even more advanced than those who, perhaps, came a billion years before we did?
On the other hand... and from a different point of view:
Is it POSSIBLE that there ARE beings that DID form... a billion or even many billions of years ago... perhaps even BEFORE the "bang" (possibly even being responsible for "it" occurring - even some "experiment" gone wrong/project gone right) and so not as some believe we did (as purely physical beings as some believe but actually much more advanced beings currently restricted to the limitations of our physical body, which is merely a kind of "vestament" of sorts that is restricted to the world IT came from)... and ARE so advanced... that they don't rely on... or adhere to... the "laws" of the physical universe TO communicate? With one another... OR others?
If what you theorize here is true (and I do not deny it)... is 2,000 years really all that long to wait for something to occur in the "process"? Should we truly dismiss certain records because they were written by ancient (according to our own lifespan) people in the language(s) at that time? Is it possible that because science has relatively "speeded up" in the past 200 or years... we believe the answer to "everything" is just within reach... when the reality is that it's bit farther off... say, even thousands of years... and/or out of reach due to the current tools, methods, and "tests" science is currently using... because it is all science is currently AWARE of?
I'm just saying that, in MY mind... what you're suggesting, if true... tends to lend itself to mean that we AREN'T going to figure the universe out or find anyone else... even in a billion years! Or, alternatively, we really are the only ones existing in the entire physical universe. Yes, one could say that perhaps the other life forms haven't advanced as far/fast as we have - however, that would negate the similarities of the environments, would it not?
Just where all your comment took ME, dear one, and so anything you can say to clarify would be greatly appreciated!
Again, peace to you!
YOUR servant and a slave of Christ,
SA
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AGuest
God created the universe... but something else happened that required God to send down to Earth his Son [Jesus] to save us. Am I closer?
That's closer to what I understand, dear Nick (again, peace to you!). I think I shared elsewhere in this thread about the seed (how it was "thrown down"* so as to be hidden; how the physical universe was created as a place to hide such seed... and how that seed was betrayed even in its hidiving place by one entrusted with it), and so yes... the Most Holy One of Israel sent His Son "down"** to save that SEED (which is not "us" because it is not necessarily all of mankind, but rather, only those exercising faith IN that Son... or, by nature, do good to that seed).
But the Most Holy One of Israel did not create the physical universe do that His Son could come and save "us", no. That act wasn't part of the initial "plan", but a result of other's deviation from that plan.
I hope that helps clarify, at least as to me, and again, peace to you!
YOUR servant and a slave of Christ,
SA
*Where various Bibles reference "founding of the world", the Greek translation is "throwing down of [the] seed"... or "sowing of [the] seed".
**My Lord did not come "down" as if the spirit realm is literally above us - he came "down" in that the spirit realm is dimensionally "higher"... than the physical realm. As JAH is higher than Christ (as Pharaoh was higher than Joseph, but also as a being - the highest form of life and energy), Christ higher than angels (as a son versus servant, as well as a higher form of life and energy), angels higher than humans (as direct servants AND full spirit beings, versus limited by the physical body, as well as a higher form of life... and energy). Which is why it is said that, when sending him as an adham (earthling man), God made my Lord... "a littler lower than the angels." The "down" is with regard to spiritual status, in a sense. I hope this helps... peace!
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Nickolas
Because they obviously haven't "found" us.
What if they have found us? Why would we know? How would we know? We look through the Hubble telescope at galaxies that are billions of light years away and can't possibly imagine how those galaxies have changed in the time it has taken for the light to reach this part of the universe. Radio waves have been exiting the earth for about a century. If there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe they would have to be closer than 100 light years away to have received them and closer than 50 light years away to have received them and responded. For life to have begun someplace else and evolved to a similar level of intelligence a billion years ago and for us to know about it, they would have had to start transmitting signals (which cannot by relativity theory travel faster than c) and we would have to be within a billion light years from them. But the universe is estimated to be 93 billion light years wide. It is far, far more probable that we would not be aware of a civilisation a billion years more advanced than we are and just as improbable that they'd be aware of us.
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Nickolas
Is it POSSIBLE that there ARE beings that DID form... a billion or even many billions of years ago... perhaps even BEFORE the "bang" (possibly even being responsible for "it" occurring - even some "experiment" gone wrong/project gone right)
Of course. But the original problem redoubles over onto itself. This is much the same sentiment as expressed in the quote mining video of Richard Dawkins provided several pages back. Yes, maybe life on earth was seeded by some advanced civilisation. I don't think so, but it is still theoretically possible. But where did they come from? Did God create them and they created us? Where did God come from? Who created God?
I'm just saying that, in MY mind... what you're suggesting, if true... tends to lend itself to mean that we AREN'T going to figure the universe out or find anyone else... even in a billion years!
Probably not. Then again, we won't be around in even a million years. Probably not in another 10 thousand years, or even a thousand. Does that thought disturb you?