Are all other worlds deprived of God?

[John21652]

Irrefutable!

Tony, I am appalled!

 

[inocente]

If there were other beings on other planets that didn’t sin, the question is, were they human beings?

If they were were human beings, why didn’t they make the same error as the human beings on Earth?

If they weren’t human beings, then they can’t have been made “in his image”, because we were and we’re human beings!

The Bible doesn’t say that only mankind is created in God’s image, or that only mankind could be created in God’s image. If we ask what the phrase means, it doesn’t seem to be about DNA. If it means we have the capacity to recognize God, there’s no reason why that can’t be true of intelligent aliens. And if it means we are to recognize God in each other, we would also need to recognize God in those aliens. Morally, the aliens are then our neighbor and we must love them as we love ourself.

 

[grannymh]

You have messed up the logical construction of the argument. I did not frame my argument the way you have. You also left out one premise.

The terms are -

A= God’s image
B= Humans (homo sapiens)
C= Aliens (-A)

All A are B
No B are C
Thereore no A are C

A Venn diagram will show you this is correct.

The only way it can be falsified is with a new conception of God’s image which will make B and C equivalent and that denies the premise, made by you, that there are no homo sapiens on other panets.

Bingo! Regarding making B and C equivalent.

Woke up this AM with a strange thought. The history of this planet includes philosophical and other kinds of ideas that God is not an active part of our universe.

Please, please.
I am not thinking about atheism because that is a banned topic. I am thinking about human nature itself being created in the image of God.

From the OP.

*I believe in this vast universe that there is probably another planet that can and has sustained intelligent life. How could they be aware of God’s presence when Jesus was sent to earth?

The answer to this question does not hinge on Jesus being sent to earth. In order to answer the question, one has to delve into human nature and why it is in the image of God. What gives human nature this special privilege?

Or, in words -
Humans are in God’s image.
God has one image
No Humans are Aliens.

Therefore no Aliens are in God’s image.

Unless, of course, God has multiple images!
Or if there is more than one God.

Neither are humans pure animals.

Maybe I should go back to bed.

 

[grannymh]

It also requires a particular interpretation, the one usual offered possibly being either inaccurate, or a lower order intro into the actual meaning of the story

Of course, my post 212 requires a particular interpretation.
In this world, people have both an intellect and free will in order to choose any particular interpretation or make up their own.

I am not living in a box six feet under ground.

 

[Dymphna82]

All the other planets were test planets.

 

[grannymh]

Being God, God could have infinite images.

“Being God, God could have infinite images.” (post 216) is the foundation for wonderful poetry like that of my favorite metaphysical poets. Hope that John21652 doesn’t mind that I prefer poetry over logic when thinking about God and humans.

Nonetheless, to really get at the nub of human nature’s relationship with the image of God, one can consider all avenues of thought. In my humble opinion, serious avenues of thought will lead to the fact each of us has a spiritual soul directly created by God. And it is because our own human nature uniquely unites both the spiritual world and the material world that we are in the image of God.

Blessings,
granny

“The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?”
from the poem “Christmas” by George Herbert

 

[inocente]

All the other planets were test planets.

A cynic might argue that we are the test planet.

 

[StAnastasia]

The Bible doesn’t say that only mankind is created in God’s image, or that only mankind could be created in God’s image. If we ask what the phrase means, it doesn’t seem to be about DNA. If it means we have the capacity to recognize God, there’s no reason why that can’t be true of intelligent aliens. And if it means we are to recognize God in each other, we would also need to recognize God in those aliens. Morally, the aliens are then our neighbor and we must love them as we love ourself.

Inocente, you are correct. DNA was unknown to the writer of the Genesis creation myth, and it is incoherent to argue that only a terrestrial creature could be created in the image of God. However, in addition to your “capacity to recognize God” I would add moral consciousness as a prerequisite for reflecting the divine image.

I work a little with people from SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), and one of the ethical issues raised in the protocol about space exploration is what we should do if and when we encounter intelligent life. As you point out, Christians engaged in space exploration would have to consider Christ’s words, “What you do to the least of these you do to me.” In other words, launching a hostile takeover of an inhabited planet as a resource to be plundered would be a grave matter.

 

[StAnastasia]

All the other planets were test planets.

Test planets for what? Tests conducted by whom?

 

[tonyrey]

Tony, I am appalled!

Then you need to explain why the good lady’s statements are incorrect!

Homo sapiens – like dolphins and redwood trees and cockroaches – is unique to the biological history of this planet. Species filling similar niches may have developed on other planets, but they would not be dolphins and redwood trees and cockroaches and humans.

I have argued that they would. I argue that life that develops on any planet with finite resources will fall into the same temptations of greed, arrogance, pride, and self-destructiveness. They would experience “the Fall” just as humans did.

This does not follow logically. Your argument has the form

If A then B.
Not A, therefore not B.

Your conclusion does not follow from your premises.

 

[StAnastasia]

A cynic might argue that we are the test planet.

Inocente, I understand why you wrote that. However, it seems odd to postulate that intelligent life on any given planet is a “test” before God creates the only morally considerable life on another planet. With a hundred billion starts per galaxy and 100-300 billion galaxies in the known universe, there is likely to be a good number of planets developing life at any one time.

It took the first five billion years of stellar development – with the explosion and nebular seeding of heavier elements – to create the material out of which the second generation of stars and their planets could develop from accretion discs. Life as we understand it can only develop on rocky, chemically rich planets within the habitable zone of their parent stars, and this can only have happened with the second-generation stars such as our sun.

Of course, we have only our own single instance to judge by, but on Earth it took 3.5 billion years for rational, morally aware, and spiritually responsive sensitive life to develop. This process could be being repeated on billions of other planets, possibly into the third generation of stars, e.g., the stars that will develop from the supernova remnants of our own sun. Eventually, there will be less stellar development, as the universe goes through the “metallization” of the elemental pool, and the amount of hydrogen for stellar formation dwindles. Probably in five or ten billion years there will be far fewer stars with chemical rick rocky planets on which life can develop. Accretion discs from supernova explosions will be increasingly metal-heavy and hydrogen-poor, meaning that suns will not ignite at the center of the accretion discs. The universe will get darker and colder

The upshot of this is that it would be unconvincing to say that any one planet is a “test” or “experiment” for any other, future planets, since we don’t know the past or future trajectory of the cosmos beyond these generalities.

StAnastasia

 

[JDaniel]

They would live in their Eden until they died.

StAnastasia:

How do you explain the biblically-traced ages of Adam and his progeny? Some were reputed to have achieved nearly a thousand years in age.

(Until about a year ago, I spent considerable time in and around thousands of fossils, in the Green River area of southern Wyoming. I worked directly for a fossil gallery in Jackson Hole. So, this was a typical question, among others.)

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

If they didn’t sin, then they wouldn’t need the punishment of sin which is death. They would live forever. But this universe is temporal, not eternal, so they couldn’t live forever here.
Additionally, if they had to die in order to then go to heaven - then there’d be no reason for them to live in this universe.

Reggie:

But then, we surmise that any (original-) sinless universe entails human death. I can understand animal and plant death, but, not human death. Especially if God controls life and death and anthropic fine-tuning.

God bless,
jd

 

[StAnastasia]

=JDaniel;8790995]StAnastasia: How do you explain the biblically-traced ages of Adam and his progeny? Some were reputed to have achieved nearly a thousand years in age.

JDaniel the great ages ascribed to Adam and his progeny indicate their importance in Hebrew theology.

 

[JDaniel]

“Being God, God could have infinite images.” (post 216) is the foundation for wonderful poetry like that of my favorite metaphysical poets. Hope that John21652 doesn’t mind that I prefer poetry over logic when thinking about God and humans.

Nonetheless, to really get at the nub of human nature’s relationship with the image of God, one can consider all avenues of thought. In my humble opinion, serious avenues of thought will lead to the fact each of us has a spiritual soul directly created by God. And it is because our own human nature uniquely unites both the spiritual world and the material world that we are in the image of God.

Blessings,
granny

Granny:

And, interestingly, so does the appearance of Christ on this planet. Now, unless He is alien, or part alien, then we are the epitome of the image and likeness of God. Our image is like His; our likeness is to be in supernatural likeness, and, thus, united to Him. In saying this, I recognize that this likeness is real and physical, not a material, likeness, and is that which is attained by the justified soul, among other things.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

JDaniel the great ages ascribed to Adam and his progeny indicate their importance in Hebrew theology.

StAnastasia:

Period?

Is that why you think Genesis, and perhaps the entire Old Testament, is mythical?

God bless,
jd

 

[StAnastasia]

StAnastasia:
Is that why you think Genesis, and perhaps the entire Old Testament, is mythical?

I don’t recall having suggested this.

 

[tonyrey]

Inocente, you are correct. DNA was unknown to the writer of the Genesis creation myth, and it is incoherent to argue that only a terrestrial creature could be created in the image of God. However, in addition to your “capacity to recognize God” I would add moral consciousness as a prerequisite for reflecting the divine image.

I work a little with people from SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), and one of the ethical issues raised in the protocol about space exploration is what we should do if and when we encounter intelligent life. As you point out, Christians engaged in space exploration would have to consider Christ’s words, “What you do to the least of these you do to me.” In other words, launching a hostile takeover of an inhabited planet as a resource to be plundered would be a grave matter.

It would also be a grave matter if they did the same to us! This fact reveals the universality and objective truth of Christ’s teaching which applies to **all intelligent beings **wherever they exist - and the absurdity of the allegation that Christianity is anthropomorphic…

 

[John21652]

Then you need to explain why the good lady’s statements are incorrect!

See post #218.

Your shout. (Cold and not Guinness!)

 

[tonyrey]

And, interestingly, so does the appearance of Christ on this planet. Now, unless He is alien, or part alien, then we are the epitome of the image and likeness of God. Our image is like His; our likeness is to be in supernatural likeness, and, thus, united to Him. In saying this, I recognize that this likeness is real and physical, not a material, likeness, and is that which is attained by the justified soul, among other things.

I think it is difficult to regard Jesus as the eternal physical model on which we have been created - given that physical nature didn’t exist (as far as we know) before the universe was created. But perhaps you mean His glorified body?