17 Billion "Earth sized" planets

So, it seems the Kepler telescope has detected enough stars that the likelihood is that there is an estimated 17 billion earth sized planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone, which, in turn substantially increases the possibility of these being in solar system habitable zones and capable of sustaining life.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20942440

I think it's now getting to the stage that the suggestion that we are alone in the universe is pretty absurd. Statistically you'd have to conclude that there is life elsewhere in the universe, whether it be intelligent or not, and whether it be capable of space travel.

So, with this is mind, did God still create the world in his image, in a few thousand years?

No one I know of says God created the world in his image, and nothing in the Bible that I know of states or implies that there is no life on other planets.

Conclusion: failed troll is a failure.

So far an interesting post worthy of Techforge.

Ah there's the Red Room hook.

Still, what does the likelihood of extraterrestrial life have to do with faith?

Ohhhhhh, so the bible doesn't say anything that is in direct contradiction of the natural course of evolution, which in turn would contradict the idea of life evolving elsewhere in the universe?

Also, wasn't there something said about man being made in God's image?

So if we ever find intelligent life that looks completely different from us - their God created them in His image? Meaning there's more than one? The squirming of all the religious with the possession of the absolute truth (tm) alone would be worth it.

Hm.

Impressive number btw, 17 billion. Makes one wonder about the Fermi Paradox which, in short, says: Where are they?

Why are you assuming "make make man in our image" refers to physical image?

See my response to Async. What we now know about the universe is in direct contradiction of what the bible tells us of the evolution of the planet and of man. In fact, it's fantastical.

Or is this another case of just choosing the bits that still make sense and junking the rest?

According to Genesis, God withheld the creation of the Sun, Moon and stars until the fourth day. That means Earth came first, ergo it is the centre of the universe. Also, the book of Peter also talks of the final redemption of man will bring about the destruction of the known universe, which will take place when Christ returns to Earth. This support the idea that Earth, and man, are at the centre of the universe.

The argument against this would be that all planets with life would have free will, could be sinners and could be capable of redemption of Jesus. But then Jesus would, potentially, have to be resurrected on billions of planets to offer this redemption. It would also be rather puzzling, would it not, to all these other life forms as to why Jesus is a man, rather than one of them? Furthermore, how come humanity would have inside knowledge of who Jesus was, but these poor bastards wouldn't have a clue?

Lets face it, it's incompatible because it's cloud cuckoo stuff.

I don't get it.

Everyone, even the most ardent Bible literalist that I know of knows that the Bible uses figurative language in a number of places. Revelations notably.

If the end of the New Testament uses figurative language (hope I'm using the correct term), then why wouldn't the beginning of the Old Testament?

Why should God talk about other planets and alien life in the Bible? The Bible was not written for them obviously.

I'm also amused that so many atheists seem to look forward to the discovery of intelligent life in the universe because they see it as "disproving" the Bible.

What will their reaction be if alien life

1) Looks remarkably like human life.

2) Have nearly identical beliefs about there being a God and that he created them and the universe.

In portions of the Bible, where detailed moral laws are given, it is obviously NOT open to interpretation.

Mormon doctrine states that God created worlds without number, so there's at least one [Christian] religion that isn't bothered by this

(Yes, there are Mormon creationists. No, I don't get them)

I always wondered why the creationists never grabbed hold of this theory.

Personally I think the answer lies in things we do not yet understand. Fermi's theory is very much rooted in the notion that other intelligent life is, on some level, similar to us, evolves at a similar rate and will, at some point, discover the secret to things like faster than light travel, the ability to physyically withstand it as a method of travel and the possibility of maintaining life over vast distances and times. What we currently know of sciences teaches us that while some of these things may be theoretically possible, they may eventually turn out to be practically prohibitive.

Why are you assuming he didn't

Faith dependent upon the lack of extraterrestrial life? Yeah I don't think that's a religion.

Hardly a first.

Bullshit. That notion is fundementally flawed because you do not know the author of those words and therefore do not know their intention. Why is to say that to the author phrases that you consider figurative were, in fact, literal, and vice versa?

Yet this is nothing more than conjecture. How do you know the same author who wrote Genesis, also wrote Revelation and that his intentions were the same throughout?

Who was the bible written for? Since you don't know who wrote it, how can you say that it was only written for man?

Well, I, for one, am not an atheiest per se, nor do I see the discovery of intelligent life being paramount to discrediting religion.

There is a fundemental mistake that you bible lemmings make, and that is that you think athiests and the non-religious are obessessed with disproving your cult. While soime may be, the vast majority are not. The reality is that they see it all as a silly concept and are often amused and incredulous and the sheer lengths the indoctrinated will go to prove that their man made fantasy is, in reality, a true state of affairs.

What is the point of a "what if"? That is no more a valid statement of argument that saying "what if they all look like balls of pizza dough and speak Cantonese?". At least base it on reasonable conjecture.

[YT="What God meant to say"]2rs_8O2Q47c[/YT]

Interesting that they don't discover that it's figurative until after it's shown to be inaccurate.

Anyway, going back to the OP and the Fermi Paradox, this doesn't necessarily change the statistics. A habitable planet is just one factor in the emergence of life, and we don't have enough data as regards the other factors to make a judgement.

SETI has done a fairly extensive scan of the sky at this stage and found nothing. That would seem to me to suggest that either intelligent life is very rare, or that it is very different to us. My personal view is that any life that would emerge elsewhere would be so different from us that meaningful "communication" wouldn't apply. We shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that they (if that pronoun is even appropriate) would think or act like us.

Why should they even be interested in communicating? If natural selection applies elsewhere then there are innumerable other survival strategies that could work. It is not remotely clear that having big brains like we do is the best - in all likelihood it will lead to our species becoming self-limiting because of the dangerous and/or unsustainable technologies we develop.

This was what I always liked about Star Trek IV and the line "human arrogance assumes the message must be meant for man".

For all we know, other life may see as us noithing more than slightly more evolved animals and not worthy of consideration any more than we would try and strike up a meaningful communication with an ant city. Conversely, forms of like that some might interpret as god-like or mystical may just be other forms and expressions of life.

One criticism I think must be applied to theories in this field is that they are very linear and proceed on the basis of human-like evolution (as I mentioned a few posts back).

Why?

Define "special".

Why does this matter? I'm not a Christian, but why would it make sense for God to send a message to Earth that it wasn't ready to receive?

As for the question of life elsewhere in the galaxy, it almost certainly exists, and quite likely some of it is intelligent. I'm not even convinced that Earth is the only living planet in our own Solar System.

Why not? Well, unless you agree with the notion that the Earth, and man, is the centre of the universe. Or is this a subject to avoid?

Which has what to do with what?

Yeah, so? What does that have to do with the existence of life, even of intelligent life, elsewhere?

It seems like, hard as you try, you can't find any relationship between Biblical teaching and life on other planets.

Surely that could be said about so many elements of the bible. Why tell man of the universe's eventual fate for instance, but leave out the bit about other life?