Life on other planets?

[BioCatholic]

boy, i get pounded by the religious folks (me being a up and coming scientist) about life on other planets. let’s assume that for the 10 trillion trillion stars out there, 1 in a billion has planets, and 1 in a billion of that can support life, and 1 on a billion of that has life. sheesh, thats like 2-10 billion possible civilizations in the universe. do we really think that this whole universe is “window dressing” for us humans? isnt that a bit of arrogance?

and couldnt jesus and god make a “fly by” of other worlds to teach and care for them as well? why is it that people think of humans as the only possible sentient beings around?

 

[David_Brown]

BioCatholic:

boy, i get pounded by the religious folks (me being a up and coming scientist) about life on other planets. let’s assume that for the 10 trillion trillion stars out there, 1 in a billion has planets, and 1 in a billion of that can support life, and 1 on a billion of that has life. sheesh, thats like 2-10 billion possible civilizations in the universe. do we really think that this whole universe is “window dressing” for us humans? isnt that a bit of arrogance?

and couldnt jesus and god make a “fly by” of other worlds to teach and care for them as well? why is it that people think of humans as the only possible sentient beings around?

Good question. Since you are an “up and coming scientist” perhaps you can explain this. In reading about the anthropic cosmological princple I noticed that one of the implications was that for life to exist (naturally) on this planet the universe would have to be about as big and diverse as it is. If that is true, then the universe would have to be so big just for us to exist.

If there is intelligent life on other planets would they have to be made in the image of God?

David

 

[Vandaler]

Thats not to much of a problem to me. If one day we finally meet Aliens. We will simply evangelize them.

Jesus did not do a “fly by” for the Indians of America did he?

 

[mlchance]

BioCatholic:

do we really think that this whole universe is “window dressing” for us humans? isnt that a bit of arrogance? and couldnt jesus and god make a “fly by” of other worlds to teach and care for them as well? why is it that people think of humans as the only possible sentient beings around?

In order:

No. Yes. Yes, he could. Because there’s no evidence otherwise.

From Home Alone in the Universe?:

"Fermi’s Paradox,a SETI-challenge that was tried and found wanting in the 1950s, has been given a retrial. This time, expert witnesses on propulsion technologies have been called in, claiming that if life sprung up in our galaxy many millions of years ago, then our galaxy should have been entirely colonized by now.

"It all started over a Los Alamos lab lunch in the summer of 1950, when renowned Italian physicist Enrico Fermi had one of those napkin-scribbling epiphanies. His conclusion stemmed from the indisputable premise that there are billions of stars in our galaxy that are older than our sun, and that life routinely develops under favorable conditions.

“Exhausted planet resources and dying stars would provide good motives for exploration and homesteading. Some cultures, like our own, would find other motives for colonizing, and it would only take one enterprising population to begin exponential expansion. Fermi showed that, even assuming modest speeds, every habitable star system in the galaxy should have been colonized within mere millions, not billions, of years. Complete colonization could take place in the relative twinkling of a cosmic eye, many times over, in a ten-billion-year-old galaxy like the Milky Way. ‘So,’ asked Fermi, ‘where are they?’”

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[BioCatholic]

AHAA. fermi was aware of einsteinian reletivity and the speed of light being the upper limit of travel,but he knew NOTHING of dark matter and string theory. it may well have been that other civilizations tried to travel faster than the speed of light and BAAAAM. no more solar system. hence, natural selection in part, would select for civilizations that have not attempted faster then light travel and blow a chunk of their galaxy apart.

 

[briand]

BioCatholic:

boy, i get pounded by the religious folks (me being a up and coming scientist) about life on other planets. let’s assume that for the 10 trillion trillion stars out there, 1 in a billion has planets, and 1 in a billion of that can support life, and 1 on a billion of that has life. sheesh, thats like 2-10 billion possible civilizations in the universe. do we really think that this whole universe is “window dressing” for us humans? isnt that a bit of arrogance?

and couldnt jesus and god make a “fly by” of other worlds to teach and care for them as well? why is it that people think of humans as the only possible sentient beings around?

I often wonder the same thing.

 

[JimG]

Maybe they’re all avoiding us.