Posted on 12/11/2009 2:38:04 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
The originators of it imagine(d) themselves as posting police, and did not want any even remotely religious content posted outside the Religion forum, despite the clear statements of FR's founder and owner. So, "belongs in Religion" as a sort of keyword "protest" was born, along with a lot of negative stuff in keywords, mocking terms, rudeness, etcetera, that came to be known as keyword spamming.
I'd think you would want to disassociate yourself from that, and remove that keyword from your list of appropriate ones to use, as a result.
The Drake Equation of some years ago was an attempt to calculate the number of advanced civilizations in our galaxy that might be able to communicate at radio frequencies. No one knew those variables either, so he just plugged-in what he thought were very conservative values. My own feeling is that he overestimated them, but clearly, he - and I - thought it was plausible to do this.
It’s not necessary to assign a specific value to ascertain a “feeling” for the sense of probabilities overall, in the sense that we would use the word “probably” to assign a wide range of possibilities to as wide a range of considerations in general without having any definite idea of the actual odds determining their outcomes.
With this in mind just consider our place in the universe. We’re just out from the middle of a spiral galaxy where in it’s outer reaches metals would be very poor given the paucity of middle generation stars. Wherein too were we closer in toward the galactic center we wouldn’t be able to see outside it and the danger of cosmic collisions would be higher given the greater density.
We’re in a solar system with a large outer planet like Jupiter that sweeps up a lot of debris that we otherwise might have to be faced with.
We’re on a planet with plate tectonics which recycles and conversely reproduces oceanic crust without which chemical processes we likely wouldn’t be around to discuss them to begin with.
We have a Moon much larger than average size for our planet which stabilizes our precession yielding us seasons, allows us test relativity during solar eclipses….
There are myriad features all about us from the sub-microscopic to the universe at large that can be viewed in terms of probabilities, many of them fantastic.
And I’ll bet that God is behind them all.
Thoughtful, but you completely missed the point. And intentionally, at that.
Or, you didn’t make your point succinctly enough.
There are at least about 10 sextillion stars at a conservative estimate in the universe. About a hundred billion galaxies each containing from a low of 10 million to a high of 10 trillion stars with a average of 100 to 400 billion stars. In the Milky Way the best guess is that maybe 30 billion stars out of about 200 billion have some sort of planet orbiting them. If say only one planet in one to ten thousand can support life in any form that still leaves lots of potential for life. The rub comes in when you consider what are the odds of any planet developing complex life beyond simple organisms. Even on our planet it has taken a whole series of fortunate events to provide stability long enough for complex life to form. How much rarer yet would the occurrence of intelligent life be? You are right a argument using unknowable numbers is questionable but the numbers only need to be a approximation to make a person realize how blessed we are to be here having this discussion at all. No matter how a person interprets God, even if you wish to consider God as mere random chance as a skeptic, at least pause and give thanks to the quirky universe. If a person wishes to approach the universe with spirituality, the Christian Bible is a brilliant place to start for as the original poster pointed out it does not really contradict science.
Yep. It was apparently only bacteria for a BILLION years. Even after relatively complex cells with nuclei's and organelles came along, it was still (IIRC) another BILLION years or more, close to 2 BILLION actually, before multicellular creatures developed.
The fact that these events took so long does tend to suggest they were highly unlikely. We do indeed seem to be lucky.
It's worth remembering, btw, that even we complex animals are, basically, only one half of an "alternation of generations." I mean that you can think, for instance, of the human zygotes, eggs and sperm, as being a distinct (single-celled) generation of human creatures. They have to exist so that we -- the multicellular types -- can exist.
Thanks, zygotes!
Only Woody Allen ever gave enough tribute to the heroic zygotes.
I distinctly remember, however, reading up on protists (single celled eukaryotes) and learning that they typically have a life cycle that alternates haploid and diploid generations. I hadn't been fully aware of that before, and it flabbergasted me when I suddenly realized that plants and animals are "merely" a special case where the diploid generation happens to go multicellular. Although of course there's a whole lot to that "merely," it was still the most stunned I recall ever being by a scientific revelation. Very "circle of life" and "unity of nature" type stuff. And I didn't even inhale.
I heard the most amazing Paul Harvey clip where he talked about a man who was unsure of his belief in God at Christmas. His family went to church while he stayed home.
Then he encountered a bunch of birds that he tried to herd into his bard since the weather was below frigid cold. The birds distrusted him and he opined that if he could only speak to them in their own language he could convince them that he was only trying to save them. At that point he understood why God sent Jesus to us.
Paul Harvey told it much better than I did. But it illustrates the fact that God does indeed make himself understood through Christ.
It illustrates the fact that God does indeed make himself understood through Christ.
I don’t think Paul told it any better, because I remember hearing him tell it! Good for you to retell it!
Sometimes I’m not sure what is love. We know God must be very big if He created the universe, the world, and everything in it. To demonstrate His love, He made Himself small enough to grow in Mary’s womb and be one of us. That’s sure contrary to our nature! No wonder the angels came singing, “Glory to God in The Highest, and On Earth, Peace and Goodwill to Men!” What a miracle it is when He makes this real in our hearts!
Happy, Happy Christmas!
Just that, ends any sense of reliability in any formula you can come up with.
Never mind the wild assumption that life, as we know it - is life, as it is known. Given we haven't even reached the bow shock of the Sun, it's a tad presumptuous to assume you have any idea what might be normal circumstances for life in the universe.
And even that is assuming there's only one universe in one dimension....or that that something like chaotic inflation didn't occur, giving rise to non-symmetrical fundamental forces in who-knows how many bubble-universes.
No matter what, your calculation and conclusion are absurd.
The place where knowledge finds it’s limitations is where faith begins.
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