Too Big For God?
That’s Mister E’s latest argument, but let’s go through this as we have for the past few days:
Our planet is a large place. Think about it. It takes 4 to 6 hours to fly from the east coast of the United States to the west coast (depending on tail winds). In a standard airplane, you’re traveling around 500 mph ground speed. Thats pretty damn fast.
The whole globe is roughly 40 thousand KM in circumference, or 24854 miles. At 500 miles an hour, it would take you 50 hours to fly around the entire circumference of the globe. That is a day and a half of flying. Imagine how much space you are covering in that flight, how many places to live, to grow, to build houses and cities.
It is 93 million miles to the Earth’s sun. It would take 186,000 hours or 7750 days in that same plane to fly to the sun. We are already into numbers that we can’t comprehend. Earth is situated in the boondocks of the milkyway galaxy. We’re talking way the hell out on an insignificant spiral arm, on one edge. To travel the diameter of the milkyway, it would take 80,000 to 100,000 years at light speed to reach the edge… at 500 mph hour it would take 11,758,000,000,000,000 hours or 48,991,666,666,666 days, or 134,223,744,292 years. Seeing as the Earth is only 4.5 billion years old, a plane flight to the other edge of the galaxy is quite a ways.
In the VISIBLE universe, we have about one hundred billion galaxies. I know it is impossible, but imagine all that space, most of which is actually empty. But if you were to look at one of the beautiful photographs of other galaxies or the Hubble deep space photos of portions of galaxy clusters, you can get a great sense of just how magnificent our known universe is. But above all things, its big beyond reason.
Let us say that out of the 10 trillion theoretical planets in our Milky Way, let us assume that one is capable of sustaining intelligent life, and that is our basis for statistical analysis. One in ten trillion is a pretty conservative ratio. Since there are about one hundred billion galaxies in the KNOWN universe, that makes one hundred billion planets capable of sustaining life.
So you can make your own assumptions, but it is important for you to understand just how immense of a place we are talking about.
Earth is extremely insignificant, let alone individual life on Earth. We live so far out on one of the arms of the Milky Way, so far away from the center of anything at all, it is silly to assume that we are the center of all intelligent life in the universe.
The argument of the vastness of the Universe as proof that life on Earth is somehow common is silly. Also, given the prior statement of 100 billion solar systems in the Galaxy, I find the estimate of 10 Trillion planets (average Solar system size: 100 planets) to be absurd and the odds are not 1 in 10 trillion but one in a 1000 Trilion, which if we assume other life is in the Universe, they are at best 1000 Galaxies away from us, a distance that is almost certainly unable to be bridged. To give you an idea (since no one travels in space at airplane speed), travelling at the speed of light, it would take 2.2 million years to reach the Andromeda Galaxy. If you got lucky and found life after travelling through 100 galaxies, it would take around 220 million years. to get there.
In addition, if evolutionary theory is correct than the SETI project should have received some intelligible sound waves from an alien culture in our galaxy and several other galaxies. But we’ve not.
There is simply no evidence. for what’s being proposed other than supposition.
So where does God fit in I wonder? Adam wishes to argue about science, but then defers to religion, which amounts to a wishy washy argument at best.
God is the creator of it all wherever and whatever it all is.
This is getting at the core of this whole argument, which I appreciate. It is this kind of scrutiny I wish people like Adam would apply to everything. But they don’t. They get frustrated when people suggest things that threaten their faiths, so they try and use scientific tactics against those same people. But it is a contradiction, for if they would just turn that same scientific scrutiny inwards towards their own mystic belief, they’d see that it can’t hold up to any principles of physics or reality. When there is hard core proof of Jahweh, Jesus, Moses, a burning bush, the resurrection and so on, let me know, otherwise, its just plain silly.
You’re dealing in two different areas. You see, I can’t prove God (Jesus or Moses, there’s quite a bit of evidence) to an nth degree of certainty but faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith doesn’t need establish beyond reasonable doubt, because at that level of establishing faith, it’s no longer faith but proven fact.
The evidence we have had handed down to us is good. The amazing occurances that surround the resurrection, the strong manuscript evidence on the New Testament, the witness of men and women throughout history, those living today. Then we add onto that, the evidence of how Christianity has advanced society from the depths of paganism and human sacrifice. Some of us from personal experience know there’s a God, even though our evidence can’t be tested in a laboratory.
However, in comparing to them, what you’re saying is that your faith is in the existence of aliens, like my faith is in Christ. Seems to prove my point.
My suggestions that there should be intelligent life on other planets are based on the only evidence we can gather, which is statistics and a better understanding of our own origins.
In essence, merely a postulate.
Indeed, there is no evidence that aliens exist, or that God exists. None. Not a shred. Only stories, feelings, and fancy guessing. But I have shown it is much more plausible to imagine extra terrestrial life than an all powerful super being that doesn’t adhere to the laws of physics. My belief in aliens COULD be a substitute for God, and an equally if not more valid one, and there is no way that it could be proven otherwise, and that is my point.
Well, that does leave us with something though, doesn’ t it? Something far more profound than you realize. What it suggests is that in man is a knowledge that Earth is not the end of all things. When we talk about Vulcans coming and saving us from our destructive tendencies, doesn’t it say something about our need for a savior from above?
These are fundamental questions. And where I would postulate is that every person on some level sees the world for what it is: a mess that teeters on the brink, full of corruption and cruelty. We’re not blind to these facts and we’re all searching for the answer. Some see it in a garantuan state that fixes our problems. Some see the answer in building a giant marketplace where people can have the unfettered right to sell their goods and services, and take control of their own destiny. Some see the answer in Aliens coming from outerspace, a distant world not touched by humanity’s evil side, and leading us to a new enlightment. And some lay their trust in the Lord God.
We’ve been made with a nature that seeks help from something higher than ourselves. I would suggest that the reason for that is that it’s a spiritual hunger given to us by God, and will be satified by nothing but him. Sure, we may try other things, but none will completely fill that which the Almighty is meant to.
Western religions do not take any of this into account. None of it. Its all about Earth. If Yaweh were real, why does he have no history of operating outsides the confines of our insignificant neighborhood in the greater scheme of things.
If there were intelligent life on other planets, He would operate there, but why would he give us a history of it? Various parts of the Bible have been confirmed by archaeological evidence. Were the Bible itself to contain stories of another planet, what would most Atheists say, particularly in the 19th Century when most believed there were only a few hundred stars? God has always been concerned with "need to know" and how then we should live rather than explaining the entire ball of wax (which we won’t understand if it were all explained.)
In the third example, Adam says that if we were to find a planet exactly like Earth with DNA and all that, it would suggest that God just simply made two Earths. But this of course does not align with a Christian god, since Jahweh exists only for Earth.
Actually, scripture doesn’t say that. In Hebrews 11:3 says:
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
A pretty good first Century understanding of the Atomic structure of life if you ask me. God is Universal and can be where he wants and do what he wants in the Universe, but I need far more than postulation to believe he’s created intelligent life elsewhere, given how hard it’s existence is here.
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