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Post by Ginnie on Aug 13, 2007 22:23:38 GMT -4
Hebrews 1:2 "Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds." Hebrews 11:3 "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."
Just an amateurs comment on the word 'worlds' in the above.
Heb. 1:2: King James: worlds New American Standard: world New English Bible: all orders of the universe Jerusalem Bible: everything there is
Heb. 11:3: King James: worlds New American Standard: worlds New English Bible: universe Jerusalem Bible: world
From my Greek Linear New Testament: Heb 1:2 : "at the end of these days be spoke to us by the son whom he appointed heir of all things. Through whom also he made the ages."
Heb 11:3 : "by faith we understand to have been created the worlds by the word of God."
'worlds' is used for the Greek word for 'ages' From Thayers Greek English lexicon: (specifically referring to Hebrews 1:2 and 11:3) 'denotes the worlds, the universe, i.e. the aggregate of things contained in time' also referring to 1 Timothy 1:17: "now to the King of all worlds" (NEB) but in King James Version is 'now unto the King eternal"
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Post by Data Cable on Aug 14, 2007 0:50:10 GMT -4
So why are we talking about the Bible in this discussion thread? Because DH seemed to think it was relevant. Yes, that is the question. But you seem to have answered the question based on an absence of data, and ridicule all further attempts to collect more. And if they're not?
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Aug 14, 2007 2:05:21 GMT -4
Lunar Orbit
It means I read the Bible and found no evidence to support a theory of intelligent life on other planets and I posted my conclusion. It does not mean that you will anywhere in the Bible find the words "there is no life on other planets." Since all of God's revelation concerns planet Earth, and this is where He will live forever with us, it stands to reason that there's nothing else out there. Get it?
But I'm not talking about everything in the universe that the Bible doesn't refer to, am I? I'm writing about what IS in there--God's eternal plan. He doesn't mention life anywhere else.
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Aug 14, 2007 2:14:47 GMT -4
Jason, "worlds" = "universe." See ginnie's post or a concordance.
Everyone else, my post was for Bible believers who are interested in the subject.
There's nobody out there. It's just us.
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Post by Bill Thompson on Aug 14, 2007 3:05:19 GMT -4
So why are we talking about the Bible in this discussion thread? Because DH seemed to think it was relevant. Yes, that is the question. But you seem to have answered the question based on an absence of data, and ridicule all further attempts to collect more. And if they're not? We have all the data we need all around us. The question "is there human-like life in space?" is answered. We are here. So there is one. That is answered. The next question is this. Is the occurrence of intelligent life frequent or very very rare. That is answered too my Fermi. If it occurred often like we instinctively believe then aliens would be walking down our street. The question really isn't if we are alone or not. That is a meaningless question. There could be life on some distant galaxy. So what? Communication and travel to another galaxy is beyond hope. For all practical purposes they are just as good as not being there. The size and age of the galaxy suggest that if intelligent life in addition to Earth life were common evidence would have overwhelmingly been here and would continue to be here on Earth. The only logical conclusion is that it is a very rare thing. And since we now know that there is a very small habitual zone in our galaxy, it makes even more sense This reminds me very much of the fact that people avoid and want to find a way to talk down evolution simply because they do not like what it implies or could mean. Lots of kids are home schooled because of this. The fact that human beings can be thought of as basically apes is distasteful to people and they refuse to believe it. It is the same thing with this. The Universe is not life-friendly at all. This is distasteful to people and they refuse to believe it.
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Post by Data Cable on Aug 14, 2007 4:49:35 GMT -4
Is the occurrence of intelligent life frequent or very very rare. False dilemma. There is a continuum of possibilities between those two (even if they are vague and undefined)... and on either side, for that matter, ranging between the values of "absolutely none" and "absolute saturation." The so-called Fermi paradox is a question, not an answer. "We," paleface? This is where you'll have to at least ballpark "common" for us, because you seem to be, once again, presenting two, and only two, possible possibilities: A) Life is "common" in this galaxy, which apparently isn't true because aliens aren't "walking down the street" 2) We Earthlings are the only intelligent life in the galaxy. If there is intelligent life in this galaxy, other than us, but it's not "common," is it permissible for them to not quite have reached my street yet? Which makes it all the more worth searching for, doesn't it. ...where all the habitual offenders are sent.
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Post by Data Cable on Aug 14, 2007 5:00:04 GMT -4
It means I read the Bible and found no evidence to support a theory of intelligent life on other planets and I posted my conclusion. I read the Bible, and found no evidence to support a theory of other planets. Time to start slapping disclaimer labels on all those public school astronomy textbooks.
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Post by Waspie_Dwarf on Aug 14, 2007 9:38:50 GMT -4
I read the Bible and found no evidence to support a theory of intelligent life on other planets I read the Bible and found no evidence to support a theory of a creator god. So what?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 14, 2007 11:14:12 GMT -4
Jason, "worlds" = "universe." See ginnie's post or a concordance. So does translating it as "universe" mean there definitely are no other worlds? I admit that there isn't much in the Bible either way, as I said earlier. But, accepting that this Earth has a pre-eminant place in God's plans, it being the planet His Son came to to work the atonement, does that really mean there can be no other inhabited worlds? To use another analogy, for a long time Israel was the chosen people, and the Bible records God speaking almost exclusively to them, but that doesn't mean that they were the only people on the Earth.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 14, 2007 11:17:42 GMT -4
Is the occurrence of intelligent life frequent or very very rare. That is answered too my Fermi. Fermi's Paradox doesn't answer anything. It's a list of assumptions with the summation "if these assumptions are all true then we are alone." That begs the question of whether or not the assumptions are true. You act as if they have already been all unquestionably verified. I hold that we don't have enough data (yet) to determine if they're true or not.
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Post by Ginnie on Aug 14, 2007 22:08:34 GMT -4
So does translating it as "universe" mean there definitely are no other worlds?
When you think of it, using 'universe' instead of 'worlds' seems more appropiate if you were including other planets and so forth. I mean, they could have just used 'heaven and earth' like elsewhere in the Bible, but they didn't: it was expanded so it seems. I'd have to do more research into what 'universe' meant in Koine New Testament Greek I guess.
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Post by Bill Thompson on Aug 15, 2007 2:27:39 GMT -4
Is the occurrence of intelligent life frequent or very very rare. False dilemma. There is a continuum of possibilities between those two (even if they are vague and undefined)... and on either side, for that matter, ranging between the values of "absolutely none" and "absolute saturation." No. Even one planet in our galaxy like us in any reasonable time after the stars were fromed would mean that the entire galaxy would be colonized by now. Our solar system is a very late-comer on the scene. The galaxy is much to old to say that intelligent life is somewhat common. So I think your assumption that there just might be one out in our galaxy now waiting for us does not work in a rational view of probability. It is far to big and far too old. You just have to "see" what that means. You can come up with excuses like "oh, they are intelligent but they do not have interest in space travel" or "oh, they are sea based creatures". All these excuses do not matter. the galaxy is far too old and far too full of chances. One would think that it would have happened buy now regardles of this or that excuse. But I was thinking today of something else to share. Unless you want to believe in magic and the possibility of silicon based life or life floating in cloud form between stars or in a Q being like in star trek, in order for life to exist there has to be lots of stuff all put together. Take one part out, and there is no life. Liquid water is just one of these things and it is much rarer than you might think. In order for liquid water to exist there has to be both the right amount of pressure and temperature. Liquid water will "boil" away at room temperature in a vacuum. But that is just one thing. There also has to be a safe haven from mass bombardment and extinction. We are special by having that too. The massive super giant planets in the outer reaches of our solar system provide this safe haven. There also needs to be a magnetic field to provide safety from radiation. We are special there too. Mars and Venus do not have a heavy metal core that provide those planets with a strong magnetic field. As a consequence, solar wind has stripped away what is believed to have been a larger atmosphere from Mars. This is probably a very rare thing because our solar system was born from an exploded supernova that had created these denser materials. I do not think this happens just right so often. Another thing is that it helps to not be a binary star system. Fitting orbiting planets into a binary star system is difficult and requires a lot of luck. Carbon is required to form life. Without it, there would be no life. Carbon is important because of its ability to form long chain-like molecules. Carbon chains form the backbone of organic molecules. Other required elements and chemicals are nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, manganese, iron, cobalt, copper and zinc are all needed for life as we know it on Earth. And that is just life. That isn't "intelligent" life. That is even more rare to an extreme if we just take our planet as a model of what might be out there. In the entire life span of our solar system, it has taken until our sun is middle aged for us humans to walk upon the scene. The fact that people do not like to hear this does not make it less true. Human beings and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. People do not like to hear it and dream up all sorts of ways to poke holes in the theory of evolution. It does not make it less true. The same holds true here. Saying that since we are here then others might just as well be out there does not change the fact that we are here just barely. We are obviously lucky. Life came about on Earth thanks to a lot of things being just right. The Universe is not so kind.
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Post by Data Cable on Aug 15, 2007 3:13:40 GMT -4
No. Even one planet in our galaxy like us in any reasonable time after the stars were fromed would mean that the entire galaxy would be colonized by now. And if that one other planet formed in an un-reasonable amount of time after the stars were formed, like ours did? We certainly haven't colonized the entire galaxy. So is that your definition of "common?" Two planets with intelligent life in the same galaxy makes intelligent life "common" in that galaxy? If there are only two water buffalo on Earth, does that make them "common"? Good thing I didn't say anything about it being "somewhat common," then. That was not my assumption. I don't recall coming up with any such excuses. Somebody has to be first. Yes, you've said this before, and I've stipulated to it. You still haven't presented any reasons why such a list of factors cannot be satisfied elsewhere in the galaxy, even a great many elsewheres. We have not yet studied anywhere near a representative sample of planetary systems in the galaxy to know the statistics on those individual factors, ergo we do not yet know the probability of an arbitrary stellar system possessing all of those properties. You're leaping to a conclusion that it has only happened here based on ignorance.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 15, 2007 13:18:22 GMT -4
I keep telling Bill that but he keeps ignoring me.
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Post by Bill Thompson on Aug 18, 2007 17:09:55 GMT -4
If you blindly throw a quarter off the top of the Empire State Building, the odds are very slim that that quarter will land inside a shot class placed randomly on the sidewalk below. But if you throw a few tens of billions of quarters off the top of the Empire state building, the odds are one will land inside the shot glass. But it is almost impossible that two will. Such is the case with stars in our galaxy and the prospect that more one harbors intelligent life. In our case the shot glass is the proverbial (for lack of a better term) list of "sweet" conditions where things are just right for Intelligent life to exist. In our case it occurred but it occurred just barely. The proverbial quarter "dinged" on the edge of the shot glass a few times before resting inside. Multiple mass extinctions almost ending it all; the birth of the moon almost resulting in our obliteration; genocide by volcanic eruption pushing our species to only a few dozen mate-able pairs are all things that are dings were the quarter almost fell out of the shot glass. To have faith that we are not alone in the galaxy is a nice dream but a dream nonetheless. I keep telling Bill that but he keeps ignoring me. All mater is born in stars except for a handful of very fundamental ones. The complex materials that we have to support our life is here because our star system was born from a much larger exploded star. and yet in a star system where the star is much large would produce much too much radiation to sustain a condition favorable for life. It is a catch 22 for the vast regions of space. in or galaxy. Too close to the center of the galaxy and the conditions are too violent. Too far to the edge and there is not the condition to produce the right minerals. It is a shot glass on the sidewalk.
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