Why are there Alien Worlds?

[Lilandra]

That's an interesting question.

After poking around on the net, I'm not satisfied that any of their answers are specific enough.

So here's my guess on why God created the planets.

Science is in the Bible in extremely simplistic terms. I believe that's because God's Word was written so that even a little child can understand It.

Just like starting out at one end of a long hallway, and walking forward, you first see a picture of a "stick house", then a simple drawing of a house, then more and more detail of the house until you reach the end of the hallway and see it in great detail; the Bible is the same way.

How do you explain the geocentrism of the Bible then? Clearly the Earth is not anywhere close to the center of the universe.

Tell a 5-year-old child that God stretched the heavens, and she'll say, 'Ooooh, neat!'

Later, when she grows up, she learns that the universe is expanding, she thinks, 'I heard that somewhere before'.

I think you are stretching that verse out of context.

Anyway, to answer your question, I believe as we eventually learned to view the cosmology of each of the planets, they each individually tell us the same story:

• God works on the anthropic principal.

Frankly the universe could care less if an asteroid destroyed all life on this planet. If God created the universe centered on man then why has the Earth and universe existed billions of years before our arrival?

Mercury, for instance, shows us what earth would be like if the temperature was too high.

Venus shows us what would happen if we kept the same side toward the Sun.

Mars shows us what the earth would be like if it was just a "tad" further out in space.

Jupiter shows us what the earth would be like if gravity was greater than 1G.

Et cetera.

Scientifically speaking, the other planets do provide information about our own planet. However, they exist in their own right.

 

[AV1611VET]

Didn't you say in the OP you are CONSIDERINGLILLY?

I thought we've discussed this in the past before? Or at least you were around when we did?

Oh well --- to answer your questions:

How do you explain the geocentrism of the Bible then? Clearly the Earth is not anywhere close to the center of the universe.

The Bible nowhere teaches geocentrism. It uses what's called the language of the observer when dealing with passages about the sun rising, and the sun and moon standing still.

A literary device that is still in use.

I think you are stretching that verse out of context.

Pun intended --- I take it!

Frankly the universe could care less if an asteroid destroyed all life on this planet.

The Bible says differently. The universe is waiting for a divine restoration to its former state.

[bible]Romans 8:20-22[/bible]

Note: 'creature' is the same as 'creation'.

[bible]Genesis 8:22[/bible]

If God created the universe centered on man then why has the Earth and universe existed billions of years before our arrival?

It hasn't --- it has only been here for 6100 years; and man was on the Earth the first week it showed up.

 

[Lilandra]

Didn't you say in the OP you are CONSIDERINGLILLY?

Yes. Your point?

I thought we've discussed this in the past before? Or at least you were around when we did?

That is quite possible as this is a discussion board about Creation/Evolution.

Oh well --- to answer your questions:

The Bible nowhere teaches geocentrism. It uses what's called the language of the observer when dealing with passages about the sun rising, and the sun and moon standing still.

A literary device that is still in use.

48"However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:
49" 'Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord.
Or where will my resting place be?
50Has not my hand made all these things?'[a]

Why would the creator of the entire universe choose one planet of billions in a solar system of billions in a galaxy of billions to rest his feet? A god of that scale would render Earth insignificant. Plainly the text reads as though the Earth is the center of the universe.

The Bible says differently. The universe is waiting for a divine restoration to its former state.

A dust cloud forming around the sun?

It hasn't --- it has only been here for 6100 years; and man was on the Earth the first week it showed up.

This assertion was dead long before we were born.

If you are truelly interested in discussing the age of the Earth I can show you why.

 

[spblat]

Here's an interesting and relevant reflection from NPR this morning on the largest explosion yet recorded (by us anyway) in the universe.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10150784

 

[moogoob]

• God works on the anthropic principal.

Mercury, for instance, shows us what earth would be like if the temperature was too high.

Venus shows us what would happen if we kept the same side toward the Sun.

Mars shows us what the earth would be like if it was just a "tad" further out in space.

Jupiter shows us what the earth would be like if gravity was greater than 1G.

Et cetera.

Just a correction:
-Mercury isn't so much a case of being "too hot", it's a case of "being too close to the sun". This leads to a high surface temp, and the atmosphere being blasted away.
-Venus rotates. The only celestial body that I'm aware of that syncs its rotation and orbit is our own moon. Venus is hot due to its thick, dense atmosphere and HCL cloud cover that traps in heat.
-Mars... it's much smaller than earth (lower gravity has trouble holding onto the atmosphere) and its significantly cooler core has only a feeble magnetic feild.
-Jupiter isn't large because of its high gravity, it has high gravity because it's large. It's thought that jupiter could have been a second star if it had been larger, due to its hydrogen content.

Yes, I'm a bit of an amateur astronomy buff.

 

[AV1611VET]

Why would the creator of the entire universe choose one planet of billions in a solar system of billions in a galaxy of billions to rest his feet?

He didn't --- He created the Earth first --- the universe came later.

[bible]Genesis 1:1[/bible]

A god of that scale would render Earth insignificant.

Indeed ---

[bible]Psalm 8:3-4[/bible]

[bible]Luke 12:27[/bible]

Plainly the text reads as though the Earth is the center of the universe.

Re-read it with emphasis on the observer, and not as merely a reader.

[bible]Ecclesiastes 1:5[/bible]

If you are truelly interested in discussing the age of the Earth I can show you why.

Like I've said many times: whoever I'm talking to, I adjust my thinking to however old they think the universe is.

I have no problem with thinking it's 6100 years old, or 6100[sup]6100[/sup] years old. The point to me is moot, since we're dealing with embedded age, and not passage of time.

 

[MrGoodBytes]

I have no problem with thinking it's 6100 years old, or 6100[sup]6100[/sup] years old. The point to me is moot, since we're dealing with embedded age, and not passage of time.

Oh no, AV, not again. Even you should have spotted the logical impossibility of this idea already.

 

[HumanisticJones]

The Bible nowhere teaches geocentrism. It uses what's called the language of the observer when dealing with passages about the sun rising, and the sun and moon standing still.

A literary device that is still in use.

If we're dealing with literary devices here, then how can we be expected to take Genisis as the literal account of what happened? In a bit of a question realated to this, Genisis 1:16 says that god just kinda magiced the entirity of the rest of the universe into existance after he spent 3 days getting a barren earth right? All the other planets, stars, nebulae, galaxies, quazars, pulsars, comets and asteroids all just click in one day?

 

[Lilandra]

He didn't --- He created the Earth first --- the universe came later.

This is not the story the evidence on Earth and the Solar System tells.

Like I've said many times: whoever I'm talking to, I adjust my thinking to however old they think the universe is.

I have no problem with thinking it's 6100 years old, or 6100[sup]6100[/sup] years old. The point to me is moot, since we're dealing with embedded age, and not passage of time.

So the universe was created to appear old?

Well it sure is a convincing job. It is not like your designer antiqued furniture to appear old.

It went to the trouble to create millions of years worth of coral fossils that apparently were never alive but created to look as though they were once inhabited millions of years ago.

That is some designer you got there.

Fossil bivalves and coral:

One well known indicator of an old earth are the daily and yearly growth rings on rugose coral fossils. One group of fossils had been dated as 370 million years old, using radiometric analysis. Analysis of their growth rings indicated that there were about 425 days in each year when the coral was alive. This means that each day was only about 20.6 hours long when the coral was alive. As we go back in time, if we assume that the deceleration rate was constant

at its present rate, a day would have shortened by about 11 microseconds each year. This would be 1.1 hours over 370 million years. One would have expected a 23 hour day if the corals were 370 million years old. Thus, we can conclude that the two unrelated methods of estimating the age of the corals gave values that were reasonably close.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/oldearth1.htm

 

[Morcova]

Ha! Nerd!


Of course, I know what you're talking about, so...

Haha!

Nerds need to stick together!

 

[Morcova]

My sons are named Logan and Xavier if that gives you an idea of what a closet nerd I am.

BEST.
MOTHER.
EVER.

 

[RichardT]

Because they look awesome, that's why God created them.

 

[truth above all else]

What alien worlds? you can't position yourself in some hypothetical place in another galaxy and then look back on earth and criticise its existence, how bizarre is that, in fact it appears as though there have been deliberate indications to show us that earth is the only place where life is.

 

[truth above all else]

If we're dealing with literary devices here, then how can we be expected to take Genisis as the literal account of what happened? In a bit of a question realated to this, Genisis 1:16 says that god just kinda magiced the entirity of the rest of the universe into existance after he spent 3 days getting a barren earth right? All the other planets, stars, nebulae, galaxies, quazars, pulsars, comets and asteroids all just click in one day?

That is to say that everything was made for man

 

[Vainglorious]

I am starting to wonder with all of the new astronomical discoveries of the nature of planets and moons in our own solar system and recent discoveries of planets beyond our solar system, exactly why from a Biblical perspective they are there.

What I want to know is why are they there? What explanation in the Biblical mythos would account for their existence?​

Biblical astronomy has been saying "yeah, and that planet is included too" for centuries.

The only planets that are mentioned in the Bible (someone can correct me here) are Earth (geocentric?), Mars, Venus, and Saturn.[source]

I would assume the arguments integrating extrasolar planets into a Biblical framework would the same that were used for Mercury, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto (RIP)

 

[AV1611VET]

This is not the story the evidence on Earth and the Solar System tells.

Au contraire! The universe cries one word out loudly: DEATH.

The Bible says she "groans".

[bible]Romans 8:22[/bible]

The universe however, also tells the Gospel story, written in the stars.

If you start from Virgo, the Virgin; you end up at Leo, the Lion (q.v. the Egyptian Sphinx).

Genesis' protevangelium portrays Jesus as the seed of the woman (virgin), and Revelation portrays Him as the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

[bible]Genesis 3:15[/bible][bible]Revelation 5:5[/bible]

Remember when Jesus was crucified, and the Sun went dark for three hours?

If you looked up into the sky, guess what you would have seen?

Aries --- the Lamb of God.

[bible]Revelation 5:6[/bible]

So the universe was created to appear old?

No --- it was created to be old.

 

[truth above all else]

So the universe was created to appear old?

Well it sure is a convincing job. It is not like your designer antiqued furniture to appear old.

It went to the trouble to create millions of years worth of coral fossils that apparently were never alive but created to look as though they were once inhabited millions of years ago.

That is some designer you got therehttp://

Oh dear not another closet paleontologist, you appear unnecessarily burdened by the question of age; it all depends on what kind of evidence you're using. It is a very hypothetical question, not nearly as definite as the book of Genesis.With the exception of dendrochronology,dating systems rely on a myriad of unproven uniformatarian assumptions that have been debated to death .

 

[Lilandra]

What alien worlds? you can't position yourself in some hypothetical place in another galaxy and then look back on earth and criticise its existence, how bizarre is that, in fact it appears as though there have been deliberate indications to show us that earth is the only place where life is.

Not sure what you mean by Earth being the only place that is inhabited.

By alien worlds, I mean worlds other than our own, not necessarily inhabited.

In fact, it would be a huge waste of a creator's times to make only one inhabited world out of billions.

 

[Vainglorious]

Not sure what you mean by Earth being the only place that is inhabited.

By alien worlds, I mean worlds other than our own, not necessarily inhabited.

In fact, it would be a huge waste of a creator's times to make only one inhabited world out of billions.

Not only would it be the proverbial "waste of space" but would be a waste of organic chemistry if the full potential of that section of the periodic table was expressed on only one piece of rock within the entire Universe.

 

[Linux98]

What I want to know is why are they there? What explanation in the Biblical mythos would account for their existence?

Sounds like you want a bible quote.

And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe.
Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. "Text edition"--Spine. (2nd ed.) (Heb 1:2). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
​

There, now you can enjoy the wonders of the universe without worrying about how the bible deals with it.