Life in another planet

[losh14]

Couple thoughts:

I got into a lengthy discussion a few years back with another forum member, because at the time I was writing a novel (now finished) that dealt with interaction between humans and a race of intelligent aliens that had never sinned and fallen.

DaveBj can you PM me a link to your book? Is it published as an ebook? If you’re looking for a publisher, I can suggest a friend of mine who runs a small press that really focuses on Catholic literature.

In one of the Marian apparitions a child asked St. Mary if there was life on other worlds.St. Mary’s reply was “that is not for you to know”.

One says yes, one says no, I’m thinking this is more “Ummm… I’m talking to you about something that’s actually relevant, let’s not go there”. Consider how Joshua bade the sun stand still (Jo 10:12). This is one of those truly fascinating points in Scripture (partly because it’s one of the few times that an apocryphal text is directly referenced - The Book of Jashar in Jo 10:13) because when we consider what happened that was chronicled;

1. The Lord suspended the laws of the universe, briefly, to press the point that His support was on Israel OR
2. Joshua demonstrated the Lord’s support (which he knew he had) by taking advantage of an apparant optical illusion caused by the hailstorm

In either case, no effort is made to explain the complexities of astrophysics or meterology. It’s simply presented in the way the primary audience (those present with Joshua) would understand: I told the LORD to make the sun stand still, and He did so. That’s the relevant point, anyway.

It is possible that there is non-intelligent life on other planets.

I’ll be snarky and note I’m not always sure we have intelligent life on this planet. Okay, I’ll stop being snarky. It’s not impossible, and another element I want to toss out there is this: does intelligent life necessarily mean life that has a spiritual acuity? In other words, we (humans) define “intelligent life” in a way that includes self-awareness and a spiritual focus - indeed we are spiritual beings having a human experience rather than the other way around, and I don’t mean in some Lronhubbard-buy-my-book-Xenu-istic-use-a-coffee-can-to-remove-your-engrams sense but rather that we were created by the Divine Trinity for the purpose of love and ultimately Unity with the Lord. Our origin and destination are spiritual, rather than merely biological, so our definition of “intelligent life” includes that spiritual nature. Is it possible for there to be life this is intelligent but not spiritual? In other words life that is self-aware but not aware of God?

As in, would it be possible for other species other than humans to have souls as well?

I’m glad to see others have already discussed the difference between human and animal souls. I should also add (and maybe I missed it) that the angels have their own souls, which are neither human nor animal but their own.

Everything that concerns us in this life or the next has been revealed by God.

Agreed. The contrapositive (viz “God has not revealed everything we need”) would indicate that God is capricious or uncaring, which He is not.

But there is no mention of intelligent aliens, which we would interact with at least in the next life when we will know everything in God.

Agreed that there is no mention of intelligent aliens, but that doesn’t mean we won’t interact with them. We have from Scripture, for example, 9 orders of angels. But there may be more that never interact with humans, only serve the Divine, perhaps in some menial function such that those prophets who’ve been blessed beyond blessing with the Beatific Vision (ie, Isaiah, who saw a Seraph touch his tongue with flame) wouldn’t see them. Similarly, there are portions of knowledge in Scripture that are there because they’ve been observed (the Nephilim and the Grigori, for example) but are otherwise unexplained. They likely don’t really concern us.

Therefore intelligent aliens do not exist.

I think from your logic, Justin, we can only conclude that they don’t concern us. Perhaps they are too far away to ever make contact. Perhaps we will be advised of contact through another apparition or some other form of revelation. One of the Deuterocanonicals (perhaps Sirach?) describes a vision of 72 (maybe 74) scrolls being shown in the sky as the End of Days approaches, such that all will know of God. It’s not impossible that more knowledge will be revealed to us as we need it.

 

[billcu1]

Gnostic scribblings (they are NOT “Scripture”!! ) are not just “fishy” they are total BS the earliest of them invented in the mid 2nd century and most much later. Any resemblance to the real histiorical life and teachings of Christ is unoriginal, copied from the Gospels or elsewhere. The whole purpose of writing them was to invent lies to justify the perverted doctrines of a pagan-inspired heresy.

What I’ve read makes sense to me. I personally think they had some contact with Jesus and or his followers. I know they were around before but what I’ve read makes perfect sense though not in the catholic church’s terms. There’s been doubt cast over the dead sea scrolls and the essene link too. “Pagan” or everybody else as defined by the catholic church doesn’t mean alot in my vocabulary.

God Bless +

 

[wittgenstein]

There are at least 100,000,000,000 stars in each galaxy. There are at least 100,000,000,000 galaxies. (yes it is an interesting coincidence! BTW, I dont think it means anything but there are 100,000,000,000 brain cells). Google" Drake equation". A conservative probability analysis shows that there are probably a thousand civilizations per galaxy. However, lets be extremely conservative and say that there is only one civilization per galaxy. That means that there are 100,000,000,000 civilizations!
However, it is unlikely that they will or have visited us because of the distances. Light travels at 186,282 miles per second (approximately 30 times US east coast to US west coast.) The nearest star to our star (the sun) is 4.5 light years. It takes 4 and a half years for the light to travel from our sun to the nearest star!
I strongly believe that a God behind such a vast creation, by comparison to a God centered around only the earth, is vastly superior and indeed the only true God!

 

[DaveBj]

Couple thoughts:

DaveBj can you PM me a link to your book? Is it published as an ebook? If you’re looking for a publisher, I can suggest a friend of mine who runs a small press that really focuses on Catholic literature.

It hasn’t been published yet, altho I am thinking about going straight to Kindle. If you feel brave enough to PM me your email addy, I’d be glad to send you a .pdf version, if you wouldn’t mind feeding back any criticisms you might have.

 

[Petergee]

What I’ve read makes sense to me. I personally think they had some contact with Jesus and or his followers.

Personal contact with Jesus or His contemporary followers would have been impossible, they were all dead long before Gnosticism was invented.

I know they were around before but what I’ve read makes perfect sense though not in the catholic church’s terms.

WTH is that supposed to mean? Something either makes sense or it dioesn’t. The Church doesn’t use a different form of logic to anybody else.

There’s been doubt cast over the dead sea scrolls

Not by any reputable scholar. And if there were doubt about their authenticity that would be totally irrelevant to your preposterous claims that the Gnostic writings are “Scripture” or even historically authentic, reliable, or even make any logical sense.

and the essene link too. “Pagan” or everybody else as defined by the catholic church doesn’t mean alot in my vocabulary.

God Bless +

“Pagan” as defined by any standard dictionary means “belonging to a religion other than Judaism or Christianity, especially a pantheist religion and especially those who are unaware or only dimly aware of the claims of Judaism and Christianity.”

 

[Agnostic_Batman]

Well, I think life on another planet would be a very very interesting concept. I do believe there is life on other planets, I even believe there is intelligent life.

However, what are the ramifications of this belief. First of all, just because life is intelligent does that mean that that life needs to accept Jesus or go to heaven? For example, if there was some freak mutation that made an ape, lets call him Caesar, have the ability to reason and think like a human, perhaps even speak, would that mean that Caesar could be saved and go to heaven? Does that mean that Jesus died for Caesar too? Or, was salvation meant for humans irrespective of ability to think and reason. The Bible says that creatures were made for the benefit of man/ that man had dominion over all the beasts, so I suppose that Ceasar’s intelligence would make no difference.

Also, if we are to save them and tell them about the gospel, it would seem odd. Odd in the sense that presumably these intelligent life forms have existed for thousands upon thousands of years. So, firstly, if they aren’t offspring of Adam and Eve, then why should they need to hear about the good news because there was no original sin as to them. Secondly, if sin does apply to them, its taken thousands upon thousands of years for them to receive some kind of redemption. In those thousands of years, countless have probably died without having any kind of chance.

I guess another way of looking at it is that God made another people whom he loved just like he loved us humans. This would seem odd. Genesis talks about how much emphasis was placed on the creation of the earth, the rest of the universe seems like an afterthought in comparison (Of course, just because it was an afterthought does not mean that it wasn’t possible). Also, would there still be Lucifer trying to thwart the society? Would God directly talk to these people? Would these people look like Adam and Eve/ God’s image? Further, to me, it would just seem odd, if the intelligent life was made after the creation of humans on earth, in part because it would seem as though God were starting over.

 

[losh14]

Google" Drake equation". A conservative probability analysis shows that there are probably a thousand civilizations per galaxy. However, lets be extremely conservative and say that there is only one civilization per galaxy. That means that there are 100,000,000,000 civilizations!

Oh giggity! I gotta share this one, since we’re talking Drake equation specifics. Two scientists at Princeton used a Bayesian approach (rather than empiricist, which is often how the Drake equation is phrased) to argue that, essentially, we are alone. I’m a statistician (hence the giggity, I get excited about this stuff), so I apologize that the document is pretty heavy:

Spiegel and Turner. “Bayesian analysis of the astrobiological implications of life’s early emergence on Earth” submission to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
arxiv.org/pdf/1107.3835v4.pdf

The main point is: whether we conclude that we’re alone or not alone in the universe depends heavily on what information we gather into the equation. Bayesian approaches start with a “prior” - a data set to inform the model - and use the observed data called “posterior” to test how likely the posterior data set came from the prior.

That was a lot of dense talk. Put it this way - one way to look at it is:
Empiricist
1 to observe what we know
2 impute a likelihood for what we can’t yet observe
3 and put that forth as a model of what we can’t see.

Hence we talk about number of galaxies, stars, civilizations arising, etc. and use that to figure out how many alien civilizations have emerged.

Another way is to look at everything we have now is kinda backwards of that:
Bayesian
1 start with an assumption of how often life arises
2 test how well that model explains the universe we observe today
3 Then change that assumption, test, repeat, etc.

So what comes from this paper is:

• abiogenesis is exceedingly rare, therefore life in the universe is very rare
• if we had evidence of life arising independently of earth - or even independently of the way in which all life related to us on earth emerged (ie, silicon-based lifeforms instead of carbon-based) - that would drastically increase the estimate of the number of civilizations

Note that the Bayesian conclusion (life is rare) is opposite the empiricist (life is common), despite using the same observed data. This is like when A-Rod is in a hitting slump and you have two announcers, who disagree over whether he’ll continue the slump or whether he’s due for a hit.

I strongly believe that a God behind such a vast creation, by comparison to a God centered around only the earth, is vastly superior and indeed the only true God!

Agreed. We hail Him as Lord of All Creation. I suppose that this is like Naaman, who, having been healed by God’s mercy, ordered two cartloads of Israeli soil to be taken back with him to his pagan homeland that he may enjoy the power of God there as well. This underlies a common ancient Semitic belief that deities only had power in their homelands. Similarly, Paul took commission from the God of Israel to be apostle to the Gentiles, something unthinkable in the Jewish community. Likewise, our thinking needs to be that God is Lord of All Creation, not only of this precious, though exceedingly rare, planet we have found ourselves on for our brief sojourn.

 

[Snowball7]

First of all, to a previous poster, the Catholic Church never held
the position that the Earth is flat, never. It was known that the Earth
was a sphere since ancient Greece, maybe even before that.
The Church did however, hold the position that the Earth was the center
of God’s creation, a point which has not been disproven. Copernicus
was a Catholic priest.
Concerning alien life, and to go further, intelligent alien life, we have no
reason to believe it exists, outside of “sightings” and such, most of which
is not reliable, and that which is reliable may be explained by the fact that
our government, and others, and secret socities have technologies and
craft, advanced far beyond the public admittance and explanation thereof.

In my opinion, it is no less logical to suppose that there may not be any
intelligent physical life in the universe, that universe which is part of our
space-time continuum as it exists, because until it is proven there is,
there is not.

Could there be ? yes. Could there be another race created in the image of God,
which may or may have not fallen from complete union with the Creator, who
may have or may not have needed a Redeemer ? yes.
There may also be deceptions in the future, put on by the Devil. If God allows
the veil separating this world from the spirit world to be penetrated in that fashion.
In any event, be skeptical of and do not allow fanciful suppositions to take hold
of your mind concerning this. For example, if NASA or some other group of scientists
soon “observe” what they purport to be “another Earth”, realize that they do not
currently have the ability to ascertain this. What they actually “observe” is only
a gravitational effect, they extrapolate the size and mass of a planet, which they
cannot even “see”, its proximity to a star, and other conditions, and would
take the giant leap to PR another Earth. Such claims are strong policy objectives
of various societies which operate within powerful groups in the media and government.

 

[Petergee]

First of all, to a previous poster, the Catholic Church never held
the position that the Earth is flat, never. It was known that the Earth
was a sphere since ancient Greece, maybe even before that.
The Church did however, hold the position that the Earth was the center
of God’s creation

Cite??

The Church has always and will always hold that Man is the highest physical creature. Don’t confuse man with the earth.

 

[wittgenstein]

Response to post 47
In the paper today was a statement from NASA that there are at least 17,000,000,000 planets in our galaxy the same size as earth. Remember that that is only planets our earth’s size! There are many more larger and smaller. Combine that with the fact that there are 100,000,000,000 galaxies actualy makes the Drake equation more profound.
True! We are talking about probabilities and not empirical evidence. However, math can help us understand reality. For example, I do not have empirical evidence that if I toss a coin 30 times it will not be 30 heads. However, it is logical to assume so.
With total respect, I am praising God by showing the majesty of his creation. You seem to be more concerned with how significant we hominids are.
I suppose the grandeur of creation can make one feel insignificant. Ask yourself, would I prefer that the universe be the size of my living room? Of course not! But you would be more significant!
Agreed! Life is Very rare! However, ( just a metaphor,not exact math) if life is one in a million and there are 100,000,000,000 chances, then there are a lot of planets with life! In this example (which is very conservative ) 100,000. planets with life!

 

[wittgenstein]

A VERY conservative estimate because I am saying one planet with life per galaxy!

 

[migueltojose]

A VERY conservative estimate because I am saying one planet with life per galaxy!

ask and you shall receive - when you go to sleep at night - ask. . .

let us know what you come up with . . .

what i come up with is . . . highly unlikely . . . but . . . we perceive reality though our lenses. the bible says what we see is like looking through a broken and dirty mirror . . .

there’s so much we don’t know. . . and can’t know. . . (although we’re obliged to try)

what we don’t know, i think, is so much greater and radically amazing (see the book ‘radical amazement’ by judy cannato) than this question . . .

amazon.com/gp/product/1893732991/ref=s9_simh_bw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-4&pf_rd_r=54C69CD0A9464F1D94F3&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1401488422&pf_rd_i=283155#_

i remain very skeptical. whatever we think we know about ufo’s/aliens is more about us . . .

i think it’s more likely that time is elastic and our universe is one of as many stars and galaxies there are . . . we may all live in our own universe or billions of universes that have multiple times . . . billions of times . . . much more likely to me than more intelligent life in our universe . . . besides whatever God’s got going on . . . which I’m sure is also real/physical . . .

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Response to post 47
In the paper today was a statement from NASA that there are at least 17,000,000,000 planets in our galaxy the same size as earth. Remember that that is only planets our earth’s size! There are many more larger and smaller. Combine that with the fact that there are 100,000,000,000 galaxies actualy makes the Drake equation more profound.
True! We are talking about probabilities and not empirical evidence. However, math can help us understand reality. For example, I do not have empirical evidence that if I toss a coin 30 times it will not be 30 heads. However, it is logical to assume so.
With total respect, I am praising God by showing the majesty of his creation. You seem to be more concerned with how significant we hominids are.
I suppose the grandeur of creation can make one feel insignificant. Ask yourself, would I prefer that the universe be the size of my living room? Of course not! But you would be more significant!
Agreed! Life is Very rare! However, ( just a metaphor,not exact math) if life is one in a million and there are 100,000,000,000 chances, then there are a lot of planets with life! In this example (which is very conservative ) 100,000. planets with life!

The problem with the Drake Equation is that we are basing the numbers off complete guesses. We have no idea the actual fraction of planets that could support or that would support life. It is a reasonable start to thinking about the “Is there life in the universe outside ours” question, but any deeper inspection into the Drake equation itself leads to either 0 or “need more (name removed by moderator)ut.”

 

[Snowball7]

Cite??

The Church has always and will always hold that Man is the highest physical creature. Don’t confuse man with the earth.

I did not say that the Earth was higher than Man at all. I said that the Church
believed in a geocentric universe. I don’t like to link to wikipedia, but for brevity
sake, here is the entry there which has some facts:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_geocentrism#Religious_and_contemporary_adherence_to_geocentrism

by the way, geocentrism is not a dead concept by any means.
geocentrism.com/
digitaljournal.com/article/310901

 

[Petergee]

I did not say that the Earth was higher than Man at all. I said that the Church
believed in a geocentric universe.

Members of the Church assumed a geocentric universe because that was the scientific consensus of the time. The Church as such has never “believed” in a geocentric universe.

The scientific theory that the earth and the planets orbit around the Sun was first publicised centuries before Christ founded the Church, and there surely have always been continually since the first century at least a minority of perfectly good practising orthodox Catholcis who subscribed to that theory.