Posted on 12/29/2014 5:22:03 PM PST by The Looking Spoon
Someone close to me once said that to believe we are alone would be nothing less than the arrogance of man. Yet this article points out that the math and science behind life on any planet shows that even we shouldn't exist, much less life anywhere else...
At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence created these perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?
There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.
Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense.
Should any of this close one's mind to the possibility of aliens existing, no, of course not. We should, however, take a sober consideration of the facts rather than declaring that we are indisputably not alone. We should caution in saying that believing we might be alone is the height of ignorance, as some "intellectuals" have an affinity for doing...
Indeed, and those four combine into chromosomes (23 different types in human beings).
In short, there are more combinatorial possibilities than the number of atoms in the universe.
It is even more complex than just base 4 system, because we now know that parts of the genome can be turned “on” and “off”, during “runtime”, as a programmer might say.
So imagine you are trying to figured out what a program does by looking at the compiled code, from a programming language that is unknown to you, for the operating system of a machine you barely understand. Then you find out there is a whole different program modifying that compiled code at will, and you haven’t even begun to figure out how that second “control” program works. That’s about the boat we are in now, I think.
yup. it’s the same thing as us having “vestigial” organs.
Someone should tell Stephen Hawking...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zblTCsThDE
Hey Stephen, where did time come from?
God works His miracles in wondrous ways far beyond our ken. All I know for sure is that my job here is real simple, with two main requirements: Love God with all my heart and soul, as I love myself, and to love others and do unto others as I've have them do unto me. The bible makes it clear that love is the main ingredient. "God is love," it says repeatedly.
My job as a Christian is to love. Everything else is just detail.
I agree. It's not called "the greatest commandment" for nothing.
Or as a somewhat more ribald cartoon has Jesus responding to the many questions of His followers: "Did I stutter?"
God derived the function we discovered as mathematics.
Without mathematics there is no ordered placement of events. And all must have it’s origin.
There are more amazing things that had to happen. Our large moon keeps the Earth’s tilt stable. If not for that changes in orientation would be hostile to life. It took a glancing blow from a body nearly the size of the Earth to do that.
Something odd happened 700 million years ago. Oxygen shot up. Iceball Earth unfroze. The diversity of life exploded. The surface of Venus is no older than this. Did Venus have it’s own collision changing Earth’s orbit?
Another odd fact. Life normally tries to minimize energy use yet plants pump out a highly reactive gas that takes energy to release: oxygen. It not only makes fire possible but gives animals the energy to move by using that free oxygen. How did that happen?
Astronomers have been probing for Radio signals that show signs of intelligence behind them. After decades of searching none has been found. We may be alone. By design.
Mathematics are derived following one simple rule: contradictions are not allowed. You start out with simple ideas using this rule then build proofs upon this foundation. If reality itself is objective that means contradictions cannot exist. Things are as they are. Should one be surprised that a system of proofs based on no contradictions maps so successfully upon a reality that has no contradictions?
The mathematical laws are explanatory. They, of course, don’t cause anything.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.