NASA looks to religious scholars for answers

[Irkle Berserkle]

Some of what we see here on this thread is exactly why NASA is looking for input (not answers) from theologians. The discovery of extraterrestrial intelligent life would indeed be devastating to many peoples' religious beliefs.

Whether extraterrestrial life exists is a purely scientific question. It either does or it doesn't. What I think the Bible says is irrelevant. If extraterrestrial life exists, I'll be curious to see what notions of God they may have. It won't threaten my Christianity.

Much of the recent discussion of fine-tuning for human-like life in the universe and on earth has caused most scientists to radically downgrade their previous estimates of the likelihood of such life elsewhere. Few still speak of potentially billions of inhabitable planets with potentially millions of advanced civilizations. Humans may well be the only such life - or we may well not be.

I happen to have been a serious student of the UFO phenomenon for upwards of 60 years. FWIW (not much), I recall one account where an individual asked the "aliens" (whatever that may mean) if they believed in God. The response was "Of course, we all believe in the One" (whatever that may mean).

 

[Larniavc]

Okay, maybe that was a stupid statement; y'all two seem to think it was. What should the expectation for finding life be?

With the limited sample size we have access to we can only say that we don’t know yet.

 

[d taylor]

*​

Threads like this just show how sad a state christianity is in, especially in the areas concerning God's creation.

The only positive aspect to this is, this is at least not a issue affecting a person and their receiving God's free gift of Eternal Life salvation.

 

[Carl Emerson]

How can lies, that speak directly against God's creation really be appreciated by a christian. Name one area of creation that scientist say is reality, that agrees with The Bible's descriptive accounts given in The Tanakh or even the New Testament.

This thread is a perfect example, it has christians entertaining the absurd idea there may be alien life somewhere. Why because the large majority believe in sciences creation not the creation in The Bible.

NASA is asking questions.

The frontiers of science grapple with the true and the false all the time - there is no ethical issue with that.

Science is on a journey - there is NO evidence of life elsewhere.

 

[power1]

It deals with "the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence". This is the first sentence from the Philosophy Forum Statement of Purpose. Any how..


This a topic that has a long recorded history. There is documentation that goes as far back as the 12th century iirc. It's when the very similar question about, can an omnipotent God create other worlds than our own? was being discussed.

It's nothing new but also not something the average Christian is going to hear from the pulpit.

And no, it doesn't discredit the the Bible, it only reinforces the message that can be found within its' pages. After all, God could not only create different planets with intelligent life but also it is an assumption to believe that other worlds He created need salvation. It does not follow that they must have chosen the wrong tree in the midst of their garden and sinned.

Good point on the philosophy issue.

As for other worlds yes, He can do that. The problem with this temporary universe we see is that it will roll up and vanich one day. Why would He create worlds of beings in such a place? I would think this universe was just a few day's work. There could be a trillion the universe we don't know about that we can't see. There also can be more in the future! I assume we will never run out of places to travel to and explore and maybe populate!

 

[power1]

Well...if it's a fossil and fossils are by definition the remains of life preserved in a petrified form, then yeah, it kinda proves life had been there.

Not if water ejected from earth that maybe took the form of ice, ended up in other planets. There would be no way to know the actual origin.

 

[power1]

My apologies. I incorrectly believed this thread would be a science bashing conspiracy style thread.

OK

 

[power1]

Yeah, those are the people to worry about their reaction. I think the government is in the process of doing it now. They are doing it in little pieces. We have government officials saying that we have exotic materials that are not from us. They are slowly doing it precisely because they are afraid of the religious reaction. But I don't find anywhere in the Bible where it says that we are the only planet with life.

I've thought for a long time that there must be life on other planets because the universe does not make just one of any kind of thing. It would be like there only being one cloud, or one grain of sand, star, planet, rainbow, windstorm, or galaxy. It would be an exception to what appears to be a general rule of the universe. That's an argument but in no way proof. We'll just have to wait for that but it will not be a big deal for me and it will be just one more thing to identify and integrate into the sum of knowledge.

This universe is temporary and will vanish one day. Why would God populate it with people or other creatures?

 

[power1]

I belive earth is the only planet with all elements perfectly aligned to create life. Everything else is only in part. If one day an ET lands then I would obviously be wrong. All the accounts I read and watch ( only because I'm a huge sci-fi fan) still remain very, very obscure. Kind of getting bored with them.

I would think that earth is the only planet with life in this temporary universe. It will roll up and disappear in a day. However, just because we can't see other possible universes does not mean there are not millions of them! On those God probably has lots of life! I hope to visit these in our coming life when we can travel instantly like angels.

 

[Estrid]

I would think that earth is the only planet with life in this temporary universe. It will roll up and disappear in a day. However, just because we can't see other possible universes does not mean there are not millions of them! On those God probably has lots of life! I hope to visit these in our coming life when we can travel instantly like angels.

Well there's one person who would be discombobulated by
contact with aliens.

 

[Bradskii]

Okay, maybe that was a stupid statement; y'all two seem to think it was. What should the expectation for finding life be?

50:50. We either find it, or we don't.

 

[Bradskii]

Now suppose we do find microbes. Suddenly the idea that life is not rare is not silly. The universe could be absolutely teeming with life, sentient or not. Suddenly, the effort to move our species to someplace habitable or to a place that can be made habitable a bit more than hopeless.

With apologies to all my religious chums, but life is a natural process. It may require specific conditions but even our own nondescript galaxy has more than enough experiments going on (for over billions of years). So it's inevitable. And evolution is as part of the natural order of things as the formation of stars and planetary accretion. So once you have life, it cannot do other than evolve. So sentient life exists out there.

As to the degree of intelligence...I don't know.

 

[The happy Objectivist]

This universe is temporary and will vanish one day. Why would God populate it with people or other creatures?

Okay.

 

[The happy Objectivist]

I thought of them. But I dont know myself whether they were killed off or simply diminished through interbreeding. Or some of each.

Would be interesting if there was, say, a feline intelligence for us to contend with. We'd make great pets?

Or snacks.

I think the current hypothesis is that they were sort of on their way out and got absorbed by Homo Sapiens. They say Europeans and Asians have somewhere between one and three percent Neandertal genes.

 

[public hermit]

I agree with Desk trauma, public hermit

This did help, thank you.

the likelihood of life in the universe,

It seems the likelihood of life in the universe is considerable (.5 on a scale from 0 to 1? h/t Bradskii); it's certainly not 0 given that stars having planets is the norm. 10 billion planets that are somewhat like earth is not an insignificant number of possibilities for just our galaxy. And, as you mentioned, we don't have to assume a planet must be like ours to support life. Perhaps there are forms of life that flourish in environments which would not support life as we find it on earth.

2) the likelihood of finding it.

I guess I wasn't thinking about this in the right way. I wasn't really considering how little we know about the planets in our own solar system. I take it we're fairly confident no other intelligent life forms exist in our solar system, perhaps not even on earth. But the possibility of finding microscopic life, or signs of microscopic life on the other planets is still wide open? I guess it is since we're looking for signs on Mars.

Maybe I'm just disappointed lol.

 

[Desk trauma]

But the possibility of finding microscopic life, or signs of microscopic life on the other planets is still wide open?

We may have already found some during one of the Viking landers investigations. The results are questioned but not officially retracted.

What looks to be the most promising for extra terrestrial life to me is Europa hopefully a few years from now we will have data from a new probe.

 

[power1]

We may have already found some during one of the Viking landers investigations. The results are questioned but not officially retracted.

What looks to be the most promising for extra terrestrial life to me is Europa hopefully a few years from now we will have data from a new probe.

Not new life, remnants of life as microfossils

 

[Occams Barber]

Not new life, remnants of life as microfossils

But perhaps 'new' in the sense that it hasn't been previously encountered.

OB

 

[power1]

But perhaps 'new' in the sense that it hasn't been previously encountered.

OB

Well I heard Nasa was looking around years ago for various life on earth that could survive on another planet perhaps. example:
https://www.nasa.gov/analogs/plrp

When they 'find' some similar lifeform remains out there, sorry, I would still have questions.

 

[Occams Barber]

Well I heard Nasa was looking around years ago for various life on earth that could survive on another planet perhaps. example:
https://www.nasa.gov/analogs/plrp

When they 'find' some similar lifeform remains out there, sorry, I would still have questions.

Do you seriously believe that NASA is sending unusual terrestrial life forms to Mars so that they can be "discovered".

If this is what you think - why would NASA do this?

OB