Intelligent life on other planets

[CatholicGeek1]

It would seem to me that it should be harder for atheists to believe that there is intelligent life on other planets than it would be for those that believe in God.

Atheists believe that humans came into being through a random and chance series of mutations and interactions. Whereas, those that believe in God believe that God created man (either directly or through some type of designed evolution). Given the incredible odds of humans being created by chance here on Earth, it seems highly unlikely that the same set of circumstances would have repeated itself somewhere else in the universe. However, it would be easy to think that if God created on human race, he could create another human (or human like) race somewhere else.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Who said a multiplicity of Redeemers in the universe would mean there were more Persons of God than the Trinity? I sure didn’t.

Did the birth of Jesus increase the number of divine Persons? No. Jesus’s personhood was the Son of God.

So it would be with a multiplicity of Redeemers.
God makes the rules. If he says this is ok it’s ok.

I see your thought process now, and do not complain about this. But I still disagree with the possibility of multiple Redeemers. St Peter tells us “Because Christ also died once for our sins,” (1 Peter 3:18) and the author of Hebrews says “but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). The Redemptive Act occurred once for all, not just the Human race.

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Response to post 23.
If there is only one civilization per galaxy, that means there are 100,000,000,000 civilizations! And 1 per galaxy is very conservative .
PS: I agree that the distances involved make physical contact nearly impossible. That is why I said that there is no empirical evidence.(post 19) My point was that the math shows that it is very very unlikely that we are alone, and that a conservative estimate (even less then one per galaxy) means that there are millions of civilisations out there! Suppose, on average obviously, there are only
. 01 civilizations per galaxy. That means that there are 10,000,000 civilizations in our universe!

Your supposition has a major problem: the physical conditions inside each galaxy is different. The amount of radiation, the metal content (to an astronomer, metals are anything heavier than helium), the size & shape of the galaxy, the distribution of matter, and so on are vastly different between galaxies. It would be foolish to suppose that ours is like every other, which is what you are supposing here.

The number I gave was also not per galaxy but for our galaxy. If you wanted to (poorly) estimate the possible intelligent-life-bearing-planets in other galaxies, you would need to add in several other factors (such as the ones I listed above) and modify the ones already in the Drake equation to approximate it. You would likely find a significantly smaller number than what you have written.

 

[empther]

I see your thought process now, and do not complain about this. But I still disagree with the possibility of multiple Redeemers. St Peter tells us “Because Christ also died once for our sins,” (1 Peter 3:18) and the author of Hebrews says “but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). The Redemptive Act occurred once for all, not just the Human race.

Peter and Paul were talking about Earth. Other civilizations were beyond their imagination.

There is no reason to conclude their comments include other civilizations. This would limit what God could do.
Seems like if creating one civilization is good, creating more is better.

The Vatican from time to time has unofficially suggested that other civilizations are conceivable. “for nothing is impossible for God.” Luke 1:37

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Peter and Paul were talking about Earth. Other civilizations were beyond their imagination.

There is no reason to conclude their comments include other civilizations. This would limit what God could do.
Seems like if creating one civilization is good, creating more is better.

The Vatican from time to time has unofficially suggested that other civilizations are conceivable. “for nothing is impossible for God.” Luke 1:37

While clergy working for/at the Vatican have stated this, they also have stated that Jesus’ redemptive act would apply to the aliens as well.

 

[aprilfloyd]

Thanks for the reply but the term god applies to all gods and through history there have been 1,000s of them. It would be much less confusing to other religions and anti-theists if people were clear on which god is which- to me Catholic God make sense, as it clearly distinguishes one god from an other, when speaking to people.

The Catholic Church believes Jesus was the son of god, but other religions believe he was not - fundamental differences like this would be cleared up, if the churches were clearer on which god (or son of god was which).

Other civilisations gave their gods names (e.g. Zeus, Odin, Laksmi, Aphrodite) which makes sense - Modern religions e.g. Catholicism tend to just say ‘god’, which is not as helping when reading, a post for example.

 

[wittgenstein]

Response to post 44
OK, there are not millions of civilizations in our galaxy (I never said there were). However, there are millions of civilizations in the universe. Agreed!
Ummm, so the laws of math and physics are different per each galaxy?

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Response to post 44
OK, there are not millions of civilizations in our galaxy (I never said there were). However, there are millions of civilizations in the universe. Agreed!

First, you took the number I gave for our galaxy and applied it to every other galaxy, this is what I was criticizing. I never made the claim that you said there were millions in our galaxy.

Second, you know for certain that there are indeed other civilizations? What evidence to you have to guarantee this certainty?

Ummm, so the laws of math and physics are different per each galaxy?

Where do you get such an absurd notion from what I wrote? The laws of physics are absolute. What I said was that the physical conditions in each galaxy are different. These difference physical conditions are enough to discount probably 99.999xxx% of the other galaxies in the universe as bearing life (to which the Drake equation might be applicable here and we would find something like maybe 10 civilzations, assuming favorable conditions).

 

[Fomalhaut]

The laws of physics are absolute. What I said was that the physical conditions in each galaxy are different. These difference physical conditions are enough to discount probably 99.999xxx% of the other galaxies in the universe as bearing life (to which the Drake equation might be applicable here and we would find something like maybe 10 civilzations, assuming favorable conditions).

Can you elaborate on that ? What makes the Milky Way so unique for you ?

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Can you elaborate on that ? What makes the Milky Way so unique for you ?

The location of the sun from the galactic center is about 8.5 kpc (1 pc is roughly 3 light-years, so the core is about 25,000 light-years away). If we were closer to the core, we would have too many supernovae and gamma-ray bursts that would destroy our planet, further our and there is too much chemical enrichment. Much like the ‘habitable zone’ around stars, there is a habitable zone inside the galaxies themselves.

Our sun is a yellow dwarf star. If it were more massive, it would live too short (only a few million years, as opposed to the few billion it has lived) and die in a massive explosion. If it were smaller, it would not produce enough radiation and heat for life to develop.

We live in the spiral arms of a spiral-barred galaxy. Since we are in the spiral arms, we are co-rotating with all the other spirals which means we have an extremely stable environment in which to develop.
Elliptical galaxies, on the other hand, have little star formation which means few elements larger than helium. This means life could not possibly develop inside elliptics (which account for roughly half the galaxies in the universe).

Is that enough, or should I go on?