M
mchale
Guest
Why the only life? I can certainly understand the only sentient life, but I can’t see a reason to believe that non-intelligent or at least non sentient life shouldn’t exist elsewhere in the Universe.
–
Bill
- Status
–
Bill
M
mchale
Guest
Actually the test is more subtle than that. You have to accept the new ruling that Pluto is a dwarf planet, but not a planet
. Its a mystery how a body can be a dwarf planet but not a planet; but we are expected to accept it .–
Bill
M
mchale
Guest
Well the question is complicated because we don’t necessarily know if Earth like worlds are the only place that life or intelligence can develop. Its possible that life can arise in many different types of worlds.
That being said, I will assume you were asking for more Earth like worlds. In that case, the current answer is we don’t know. The current techniques used for detecting extra-solar planets tend to favor finding planets that are bot significantly larger and significantly closer to their star than Earth is to the Earth. While the techniques can find large planets in orbits similar to Earth’s, so far they have not been able to find Earth Sized bodies (well except for a few orbiting a Neutron star… but those are a special case).
–
Bill
B
Brian_Millar
Guest
Perhaps Earth is indeed the very first planet to produce intellegent life, and if that is the case, we only need one Christ to have existed.
M
mchale
Guest
V
Volodymyr_988
Guest
I read that Jupiter and Saturn provide gravity so that comets could bring water to the primordial parched earth, otherwise they would have sped past. This is also why there are doubts that Alpha-Centauri could have life-sustaining planets since it is a binary star system.
D
Della
Guest
As to the planets in our own solar system, all of them are necessary to our Earth being a “Minshara” Class planet–one habitable for human life.
When I think of how we are situated in just the right place in our orbit, how our moon is in just the right place for total eclipses, how it keeps our Earth from wobbling more than 23.5 degrees (any more we wouldn’t have 4 seasons and hence reliable growing seasons) and that we are able to understand all this and make plans regarding the future of our species, I am in awe of the God who made all this possible.
When I think of how we are situated in just the right place in our orbit, how our moon is in just the right place for total eclipses, how it keeps our Earth from wobbling more than 23.5 degrees (any more we wouldn’t have 4 seasons and hence reliable growing seasons) and that we are able to understand all this and make plans regarding the future of our species, I am in awe of the God who made all this possible.
S
SoCalRC
Guest
I’m sorry, I do not follow this either, as someone else asked, why must we be the only life? I see no reason for us to be the only sentient life.
We see tremendous variety within our species, but the New Testament appears to tell us, specifically, that all are our “neighbors”. That is, the intense xenophobia of Pharisees was/is incorrect.
If God elected to fill his entire creation with sentient life in his image, who would be to say otherwise? Although, as a Catholic, I am not compelled to struggle with the inconsistancies of a literal interpretation of Genesis (the moon does not glow of its own light, populating the earth without immediately resorting to incest, etc.) But even if someone where so inclined, why does our story have to be a complete expose on God’s larger plans?
Taking the Bible literally, that would even see presumptous. Christ warns us repeatedly that we cannot presume to know the mind of God. Our best guess at present is that there are hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of planets capable of sustaining life in just our own galaxy. And the Milky Way is just one of an estimated one hundred billion galaxies.
What we can no see of God’s creation is already beyond the limits of what we can fully comprehend. How can we possibly suppose that we can fully understand the heart and mind of the creator from collection of documents focussed primarily on ourselves?
L
LRThunder
Guest
It got voted off the solar system island.Actually the test is more subtle than that. You have to accept the new ruling that Pluto is a dwarf planet, but not a planet
–
Bill
B
Brian_Millar
Guest
The reason they classified it as a dwarf planet is becuse there are hundreds, if not thousands of bodies in that classification, if we were to let it remain a planet, we’d have to do the same to the rest of them, and I don’t know about you, I’m not about to name every rock that’s floating around the astroid belt.It got voted off the solar system island.
N
Nan_S
Guest
"Nan S:
If I had to stand on any argument, I think I would try the argument that Paul might have missed the mark because he couldn’t imagine that other planets existed, much less possibly have intelligent life. It’s rather like the ancients saying the Great Flood covered the entire world, and now we say that it covered the entire world “known” to the ancients - which probably didn’t include places like Australia or South America.
I considered that one. But I think a good argument could be made for the simultaneous existence of planets at all life-stages, given that we can readily observe the simultaneous existence of dying stars, mature stars, young stars, and stars-in-formation.
If I had to stand on any argument, I think I would try the argument that Paul might have missed the mark because he couldn’t imagine that other planets existed, much less possibly have intelligent life. It’s rather like the ancients saying the Great Flood covered the entire world, and now we say that it covered the entire world “known” to the ancients - which probably didn’t include places like Australia or South America.
D
didymus
Guest
The real question is why should He create anything at all? The standard answer is for “His own greater glory”:
Or, He created everything because creativity is an attribute of Divinity.
Or, He created the whole shebang because He felt like it – an explanation we shouldn’t discard just because we’d prefer something deeper.
To me it sounds like He created the Universe to express (manifest, communicate, &c) Himself, and then us to appreciate it and thru it, Him.[293](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/293.htm’)
Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: "The world was made for the glory of God."134 St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things “not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it”,135 for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: "Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand."136 The First Vatican Council explains:
This one, true God, of his own goodness and “almighty power”, not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel "and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . ."137
Or, He created everything because creativity is an attribute of Divinity.
Or, He created the whole shebang because He felt like it – an explanation we shouldn’t discard just because we’d prefer something deeper.
M
mchale
Guest
Actually, the situation was not that desperate… There are at the moment, three bodies that definitively qualify as dwarf planets; Ceres (Which is also the largest Asteroid), Pluto and Eris. There are a handful of other objects that might qualify as dwarf planets. While it is possible that there might be hundreds, I expect that in the near term maybe 20 or so might be discoverd. Remember, the object has to be large enough that self gravitation pulls it into a spherical shape. Generally objects will have to be approaching 1000 Km across for that to happen.
–
Bill
S
SpiritMeadow
Guest
Except that the bombardment of the Earth did occur for millions of years as it did to all planets. The reduction is in part due to the fact that these rogue asteroids have been destroyed by hitting things and the rest have pretty much remained in orbits in the Oort cloud and between Mars and Jupiter I believe. We will in all likelihood be hit some day, so say the astronomers. There has been at least one near miss in recent years.
The number of planets in this solar system and others is a product simply of the amount of matter at hand vs the size of the sun and the various gravitational fields involved. A mathematician and astronomer can no doubt give you a more complete answer.
S
SpiritMeadow
Guest
WHAT? Seriously are you saying that belief in pluto as a planet is a requirement of the faith? How very novel.
S
SpiritMeadow
Guest
You must have learned then that the Catholic church does not support a fundamentalist approach. On what in the bible do you base this assertion that there can only be life on this planet?
J
Joe_5859
Guest
I think he was just making a joke (at least, I certainly hope so!
).
M
mchale
Guest
Well said bombardment did occur, but it was part of the actual formation of the planets. They weren’t rogue asteroids then, they were the standard make-up of the solar system for several tens of millions of years before the planets formed. The major planets did perform valuable function. You are correct in stating that most of the material was ejected into the Oort Cloud. That in itself was a service. Most of the material so ejected will probably never make it back into the inner solar system. Imagine life developing on an Earth where asteroid collisions occur at a much higher frequency. Its hard to see advanced life developing on a world that is hit by a multi-mile wide body every 100 thousand years or so as opposed to the 50-100 million years or that currently happens.
Now mind you, there is still plenty of left overs in the nearer regions of the Solar System; the Asteroid Belt, the Trojans of Jupiter, the Kuiper belt and the scattered disk. Fortunately, most of these are held in relatively stable gravitational arrangements with one of the Major planets (most prominently Jupiter and Neptune.)
–
Bill
N
Neildown
Guest
My own geeky hypothesis
-What if the vast array of planets we have orbiting in the universe are essential for our planet’s survival? You see, there is a theory which proclaims that mass distorts both time and space - I believe this was one of Albert Einsteins theories. Now, depending on how big or small a planet is, there is more or less distortion. As these planets orbit in the universe they are essentially bending the space and time around them, creating a vacuum effect on everything nearby, as this picture illustrates.
Now realize that there are hundreds and thousands and millions and billions of these (allegedly) space-distorting spheres orbiting all over the universe. Seeing as almost everything stays on a very consistent path, one could assume that the universe works much like a three-dimensional Swiss clock. Or maybe an even better analogy would be the Great Clock from Ratchet and Clank.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Now, looking at the real universe, you can assume all of those planets act like gears in a clock. Only they don’t necessarily keep things moving - they just keep things on track. True, we all know that some celestial bodies can get knocked off balance, or at least it seems that way, but perhaps that’s an explanation for the sheer number of planets out there.
Almost like when, in a video-game, you come to a certain point on a map and it triggers something. Likewise, when a planet hits into another or is knocked out of orbit in some manner, something else is triggered which keeps the balance. So, perhaps, our universe is just a giant, complex clock.
Another thing I find interesting about this is that it is mass which supposedly distorts space and time. Our earthly dimension has a lot of mass and we have time. Heaven, which is obviously a purely spiritual place, has no mass, and… quite frankly… no time!
- Status