Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Earth 2.0: Bad News for God [View all]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-schweitzer/earth-20-bad-news-for-god_b_7861528.htmlJeff Schweitzer
Scientist and former White House Senior Policy Analyst; Ph.D. in marine biology/neurophysiology
Posted: 07/23/2015 9:27 pm EDT Updated: 07/23/2015 10:59 pm EDT
The discovery of Kepler-452b is not likely to see the public swoon with a collective rendition of Kumbaya. But this Earth 2.0 is a huge if under-appreciated discovery, not because Kepler-452b is unique but for just the opposite reason; there are likely thousands or millions or even billions of such earth-like planets in the universe. The discovery of just one such world is good evidence for many more: after all, we know of 100 billion galaxies each with as many as 300 billion stars (big variation per galaxy). Astronomers estimate that there are about 70 billion trillion stars. Math wizardry is not necessary to conclude we did not by chance find the only other possibly habitable planet among that huge population of stars.
With this discovery, we come ever closer to the idea that life is common in the universe. Perhaps you are not convinced. That is OK; let me speculate what would happen should we ever find evidence of life beyond earth even if you think such discovery unlikely. I would like here to preempt what will certainly be a re-write of history on the part of the world's major religions. I predict with great confidence that all will come out and say such a discovery is completely consistent with religious teachings. My goal here is to declare this as nonsense before it happens. I am not alone in this conclusion that religion will contort to accommodate a new reality of alien life.
Let us be clear that the Bible is unambiguous about creation: the earth is the center of the universe, only humans were made in the image of god, and all life was created in six days. All life in all the heavens. In six days. So when we discover that life exists or existed elsewhere in our solar system or on a planet orbiting another star in the Milky Way, or in a planetary system in another galaxy, we will see a huge effort to square that circle with amazing twists of logic and contorted justifications. But do not buy the inevitable historical edits: life on another planet is completely incompatible with religious tradition. Any other conclusion is nothing but ex-post facto rationalization to preserve the myth. Let us see why more specifically.
From Genesis 1:1, we get:
God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of god he created him; male and female he created them.
more at link
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
70 replies, 5748 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (6)
ReplyReply to this post
70 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Not asking you to defend what you say at all. But just consider the following variation.
trotsky
Jul 2015
#10
not too difficult to imagine a planet or solar system having its own spiritual plane
AlbertCat
Jul 2015
#28
Is there even a single piece of empirical evidence for the existence of any life outside of Earth?
Leontius
Jul 2015
#39
Not yet, but the Scientific Method is being used to try and find that out if that is true...
cleanhippie
Jul 2015
#42
No problem. Absolutely no confirmed empirical evidence for the existence for God that meets
Leontius
Jul 2015
#58
You could really just put a period after the word "God" right there, couldn't you? n/t
trotsky
Jul 2015
#60
I'll be frank and say that it is speculation, but speculation that is based on one fact...
Humanist_Activist
Jul 2015
#50
Schweitzer employs the same "Biblical literalist" thinking that he might deride in others.
guillaumeb
Jul 2015
#29
It is obvious Schweitzer is referring to a particular subset of believers.
Act_of_Reparation
Jul 2015
#41
Of course, it is entirely plausible that there are other inhabitable planets in our universe
struggle4progress
Jul 2015
#37
Even a literal reading of the Bible doesn't necessarily preclude life existing elsewhere...
Humanist_Activist
Jul 2015
#49