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Human beings are so important!

Dragonfly said:
Because you KNOW what's happening on planets hundreds of light-years away.
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Yes. The truth of the Catholic faith compels us to believe that all intelligent beings are descended from Adam and Eve.
 
I don't see why us being tiny compared to the universe is a problem. We deal with the scale in which we exist. We matter to each other, and our existence doesn't deal with the universe. We do stupid things when we start believing that the universe can be subordinated to our scale, though.
 
Paleocon said:
Yes. The truth of the Catholic faith compels us to believe that all intelligent beings are descended from Adam and Eve.
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That is an odd use of the word "truth".
 
chromium said:
Sounds like a deist point of view. Well, fair enough, but belief in a creator/afterlife, when there is in my view total lack of evidence of either, would still fall under a coping mechanism
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There really is a plenty enough evidence for the Creator-God, but not for any after life as that is all faith or belief and that is unknown.

You say coping mechanism as if that is a negative reality, but human beings do need coping mechanism and that is a different subject.

chromium said:
I have a few honest questions.

Why would any creator go about things in this way, yet still hold a special connection to humans?
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There are some very interesting reasons given in the Bible and in other scriptures, but there really does not have to be any reason.

The Bible tells that there was a huge war in the heavens and on earth, and humanity was some how an after product of that warfare.

No one really needs to know the reasons, but humans are very curious and inquisitive and the deeper that we dig into the old revelations then the more compelling the ancient stories become.

My understanding is that the special connection to humans is that all people are the children of God, and that is a powerful connection indeed.

chromium said:
How would you reconcile this value with evidence of intelligent or even far superior life elsewhere? The recent MIT experiment rather compellingly suggests microbial life is widespread and from there, we would assume evolution would take off similarly. The difference of course is earth is a young planet, so alien intelligent life has had far more time to develop, where it can be sustained at least.
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I reconcile that with the fact that intelligent or even far superior life being elsewhere is what religions have been telling us from the beginning of humanity.

When we refer to God then that is a reference to there being far superior intelligent life out there in the heavens.

So I am agreeing that YES there is far superior intelligent life out there and it has made contact with us and we give it the name of God.

It was Jesus who said that He was NOT of this world, "I am not of the world" John 17:14-16, and THAT is a peculiar thing for anyone to say especially in the 1st century.

Also Elijah took off in what sounds like a space ship, link here = 2 Kings 2:11, they called it horses and chariots because they had no other words to describe it.

To apply science to God then we have to reject all of the supernatural and deal with whatever is left in reality, and that is where I find God to be.

chromium said:
If there is not life elsewhere, why create such a vast universe of empty space and barren planets? For that matter, why make an earth that had no life for a billion years, then no intelligent life for a few billion more? It just doesn't make sense to me, sorry
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I agree THAT does not make sense, and as such THAT can not be true.

There is life elsewhere, and God is a form of life which has contacted us.

Also it is best to view Ghosts and Demons and the spirit world as different and distinct from God, and those are other life forms too.

Why are there other planets and a vast universe? - There are reasons given in the Bible but those are based on faith or belief or more correctly just on hope.

The Bible tells stories of war in the heavens, and it tells of a reconciliation going on where humanity is to spread out into the universe - but as yet that is just a story.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Given that the Earth and humanity are both the product of a long series of very lucky chance events, especially the evolution of humanity, we could easily be the only intelligence in this galaxy. We could be the first to appear in this galaxy. The numbers are sufficiently unlikely for that to be the case.

Obviously there must be other intelligences out there in other galaxies. The numbers of them mean that that is inevitable but we will never be able to communicate with them so they may as well not exist.
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https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life/

perhaps its more common than you think.
 
Dragonfly said:
A fact huh?

So............supported by science and indisputable evidence?

When did the words "fact" and "faith" become synonyms?
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I agree that faith is not a fact, but the existence of the real God is not a matter of faith.

Some people of course view God only in terms of faith, and maybe that is better than nothing, but maybe not?

And people will dispute anything so nothing is indisputable, and so you or anyone can dispute the facts but the truth remain real regardless of those who dispute.


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Tim the plumber said:
You do understand that all that is utter gibberish don't you???
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No, it is not gibberish.

I suppose that every person must want to know more before we can learn to know more.

Tim the plumber said:
If you have free will, and if you ar Christian then you presumably do, you are independent of God.
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I am NOT an orthodox Christians as I am more of a heretic and a Lone-Ranger as I am more likely a Christian who is liberal and new age.

So I have become more convinced that we have very little free-will and we are not so independent.

Some says they have free will to believe in God or not to believe - and that makes no difference at all, because God is real regardless of whatever anyone believes.

The only free-will that I find to be credible is when we buck the evil system that we live in, and even that is very limited and a superficial kind of free will.

Tim the plumber said:
I see humans as significant to humans.
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Yes of course, but I am trying to get you to expand the perspective to include every person and NOT just your own selfish circle of family and friends.

As in how do you view other people as in the entire humanity of individuals?

Is every person significant? or are we all just small and insignificant? as implied in the OP.
 
JP Cusick said:
I agree that faith is not a fact, but the existence of the real God is not a matter of faith.
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Er, no. It is purely a matter of faith until somebody proves the existence of this hypothetical god.
 
zyzygy said:
Er, no. It is purely a matter of faith until somebody proves the existence of this hypothetical god.
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When it comes for people producing evidence for this 'Creator God', I never see anything but personal testimonies, logical fallacies, word games, dogma and supernatural ism.
 
tacomancer said:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life/

perhaps its more common than you think.
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Life I expect to be extremely common. The tricky bits are the development of photosynthesis. It's only happened once on Earth we think. The needed double planet situation. Without the Moon we would have too much climatic instability. The correct range of stability vs instability in climate. These glacial periods are very much a good generator of evolutionary advances. Stable vulcanism, this might be the product of the big moon but we need the continuous CO2 input into the bio-sphere. Then the really fluky bit; the evolution of an upright walking, tool using, hairless animal with vastly complex social structures. All have to be in the one package. That package was for most of hominid history very much on the edge of extinction. Not exactly a highly successful species like dogs or horses. Them this species needs to get out of all the static periods where hominid evolution remained the same for long periods.

Once these intelligent animals get to a point where they begin to advance technologically they need to not die due to the diseases that cross over from there domesticated animals into the high populations which the clever species has newly created. Cows have evolved alongside TB but it was new to us. Any of the cross over diseases could have killed all of us.

There are lots of ways we could have died out before we got to the present situation where we are on the cusp of being able, as a species, to survive any realistic threat that nature can throw at us unless there are a couple of neutron stars about to collide which we don't know about.

As I said life may well be almost everywhere. Intelligence may be limited to just us in this galaxy.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Life I expect to be extremely common. The tricky bits are the development of photosynthesis. It's only happened once on Earth we think. The needed double planet situation. Without the Moon we would have too much climatic instability. The correct range of stability vs instability in climate. These glacial periods are very much a good generator of evolutionary advances. Stable vulcanism, this might be the product of the big moon but we need the continuous CO2 input into the bio-sphere. Then the really fluky bit; the evolution of an upright walking, tool using, hairless animal with vastly complex social structures. All have to be in the one package. That package was for most of hominid history very much on the edge of extinction. Not exactly a highly successful species like dogs or horses. Them this species needs to get out of all the static periods where hominid evolution remained the same for long periods.

Once these intelligent animals get to a point where they begin to advance technologically they need to not die due to the diseases that cross over from there domesticated animals into the high populations which the clever species has newly created. Cows have evolved alongside TB but it was new to us. Any of the cross over diseases could have killed all of us.

There are lots of ways we could have died out before we got to the present situation where we are on the cusp of being able, as a species, to survive any realistic threat that nature can throw at us unless there are a couple of neutron stars about to collide which we don't know about.

As I said life may well be almost everywhere. Intelligence may be limited to just us in this galaxy.
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Maybe.

And, maybe life has evolved on other planets, life perfectly adapted to those planets that perhaps couldn't even survive here on Earth.

Maybe there are methane based salmon swimming up those methane rivers on Titan. We just don't know.

Maybe there are other intelligent species that have evolved another couple of million years beyond what we have on Earth. We don't know that, either. Imagine what mankind could become, should we live that long. Maybe one of those species seeded Earth with life and guided the process of evolution a bit here and there.

And maybe, just maybe, the four space/time dimensions with which we're familiar really aren't all there are. There could be innumerable mulitiverses yet to be discovered.

What we do know is that human beings are still in our infancy. Our species has been around barely a fifth of a million years so far, and just started experimenting with civilization a few short millennia ago.

We also know that evolution hasn't stopped. We don't know that humans are the end result.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Maybe.

And, maybe life has evolved on other planets, life perfectly adapted to those planets that perhaps couldn't even survive here on Earth.

Maybe there are methane based salmon swimming up those methane rivers on Titan. We just don't know.

Maybe there are other intelligent species that have evolved another couple of million years beyond what we have on Earth. We don't know that, either. Imagine what mankind could become, should we live that long. Maybe one of those species seeded Earth with life and guided the process of evolution a bit here and there.

And maybe, just maybe, the four space/time dimensions with which we're familiar really aren't all there are. There could be innumerable mulitiverses yet to be discovered.

What we do know is that human beings are still in our infancy. Our species has been around barely a fifth of a million years so far, and just started experimenting with civilization a few short millennia ago.

We also know that evolution hasn't stopped. We don't know that humans are the end result.
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Obviously even if there were other intelligent species out there the chances of them being able to live on Earth is very remote. There may be not enough CO2, or too much or not enough air pressure or whatever.

Evolution has no end result. That is like asking what is the end result of the weather?
 
Tim the plumber said:
Obviously even if there were other intelligent species out there the chances of them being able to live on Earth is very remote. There may be not enough CO2, or too much or not enough air pressure or whatever.

Evolution has no end result. That is like asking what is the end result of the weather?
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Humans, then, may one day go extinct just like the Australopithecus has done, to be replaced by creatures as much more advanced than us as we are than them.

and, other worlds may have beings that have evolved a few hundred million years beyond what we have. It's an interesting idea, anyway.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Obviously even if there were other intelligent species out there the chances of them being able to live on Earth is very remote. There may be not enough CO2, or too much or not enough air pressure or whatever.

Evolution has no end result. That is like asking what is the end result of the weather?
Click to expand...

Humans, then, may one day go extinct just like the Australopithecus has done, to be replaced by creatures as much more advanced than us as we are than them.

and, other worlds may have beings that have evolved a few hundred million years beyond what we have. It's an interesting idea, anyway.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Humans, then, may one day go extinct just like the Australopithecus has done, to be replaced by creatures as much more advanced than us as we are than them.

and, other worlds may have beings that have evolved a few hundred million years beyond what we have. It's an interesting idea, anyway.
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No requirement that any being more advanced than us or not will come after us.

We may just die.
 
Tim the plumber said:
No requirement that any being more advanced than us or not will come after us.

We may just die.
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We may.
And we may be the only life in the universe, or at least the only intelligent life.

After that, the little blue dust mote will still keep spinning, and no one will care about anything humans did or didn't do. No one will know, or even be capable of knowing.
 
Dittohead not! said:
We may.
And we may be the only life in the universe, or at least the only intelligent life.

After that, the little blue dust mote will still keep spinning, and no one will care about anything humans did or didn't do. No one will know, or even be capable of knowing.
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Or, at least, the only one we ever find out about.
 
We are so small and insignificant we could destroy a planet. We can cause global warming.
 
Dittohead not! said:
We may.
And we may be the only life in the universe, or at least the only intelligent life.

After that, the little blue dust mote will still keep spinning, and no one will care about anything humans did or didn't do. No one will know, or even be capable of knowing.
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If life isn't important, nothing is.
 
Dittohead not! said:
That's true.

So, what is the importance of life?
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Honestly I think it may have to do with what governs our actions. With a star or any other massive celestial body we know...gravity. Blah blah blah science mumbo AND jumbo. But for a human? Can we truly predict it? We aren't logical. We are random. We are alive. We aren't rocks. Idk. Something like that.
 
Up until humans can fix the Sun going Nova problem, we are of no importance to anyone but ourselves.
 
FreedomFromAll said:
Up until humans can fix the Sun going Nova problem, we are of no importance to anyone but ourselves.
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Can you name any other beings able to do that? We are important because we are the only ones capable of reaching that. Besides...we can leave the solar system.
 
stonewall50 said:
Can you name any other beings able to do that? We are important because we are the only ones capable of reaching that. Besides...we can leave the solar system.
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Eventually, perhaps.

Unless, of course, we render this pale blue dot incapable of supporting higher forms of life before we develop that technology.
 
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