Posted on 03/02/2016 9:37:50 AM PST by LibWhacker
With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 2 Pe 3:8
Note that Peter is carefully using a simile here (’like a’), not that it literally is.
No it absolutely DOES have to do with aliens being able to detect us. Just because they could have gotten here doesn’t mean they have a reason to. The biggest reason to is because they found out about us. Since they would have to have some part of their civilization within 100 light years of us AND they would have to use communication technology that would detect our radio waves (extremely weakened) OR have a telescope aimed AT US that could detect man made lighting. Without being able to detect us we’re just another rock, one they might or might not find any interest in. And since we have no ability to detect them we have no idea if they’re right next door and just aren’t interested in us. Think about those tribes we occasionally find in the middle of nowhere Amazon or Congo, most of them tend to be just a week or two away from “civilization” and yet they manage to avoid detection for decades. If we can manage to not find other human beings living within a few hundred miles of us, thinking that we would detect aliens in space, even ones “next door” on a galactic scale is just a bad assumption.
The only real paradox in Fermi’s Paradox is that he was so bad at math and comprehending just how big space is. Also how big time is. We’ve got no real way to know if they were around before us and left. Again look at our own experience with ourselves, we have an entire school of science dedicated to finding previous installments of our own civilization and figuring out how they lived because we lost track of them. We lost TROY of all things, and Fermi thought we’d just KNOW if aliens had been hanging around here.
Our own history on our own planet shows aliens could be living in our own solar system and we could miss it. While I don’t think that’s the case, to think that our inability to detect them means we’re alone in the universe (note, Fermi only postulated the galaxy) is frankly stupid. On the galactic scale humans are the American Indians of the 1200s, Europe could be 2 stars over and we’ve got no way knowing.
Imagine how many planets you have to campaign on for Super Tuesday there.
BTW, I agree with you. I also believe in Genesis ‘the way God told it’. That was well phrased.
But we need to be careful not to second guess how He did it. “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” 1 Cor 2:16.
Look at IC 1101. Isn’t is amazing? And it’s just a dot compared to the Lord! So just revel in the majesty of His creation and marvel in wonder of His plan for us.
bfl
Thanks!
But we need to be careful not to second guess how He did it. “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” 1 Cor 2:16.
How. He spoke and it was so.
Look at IC 1101. Isn’t is amazing? And it’s just a dot compared to the Lord! So just revel in the majesty of His creation and marvel in wonder of His plan for us.
All created on the 4th day of creation some 6000 years ago.
Psalm 147:4 He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name.
Yeah, there is. What point is there in educating those who already know?
I’m open to learning.
He saved the sinners, not the saints. (Ok, maybe they needed saving too, but they were closer to getting it right.)
I’d like to learn and admit that you might have superior knowledge and faith.
Easy to prove we’re inside a video game: Where do you think all the quarters come from? :D
Hi. You said,
“My bet is that God was being generous with that statement, probably to make it comprehensible for His audience at the time. Our universe is finite. Very VERY big, but finite.”
I say, Yes, agreed amen.
I think a good way to summarize that verse might be:
“It’s a trivial matter for God to measure the universe.”
Thanks!
“PS Why would God waste time creating all this space and everything in it but create life on just this tiny little ball of dirt orbiting a totally unexceptional star in an equally unexceptional galaxy? “
To show us how big He is.....
If there’s intelligent life there, can you imagine they would be even slightly interested in the piece of lint they see from there that we call the Milky Way?
Even if they were curious and pointed a telescope in our direction, it will be a billion years from now before we make any interesting radio noises for them to listen to.
Crazy stuff.
And they’d never hear us anyway. Our radio noise bubble is weak enough that it attenuates to below the background noise floor in less than 100 light years. We’d need to find a way to spell words with whole galactic arms if we want to get the attention of beings in a galaxy a billion light years away.
That’s good.
There are believed to be at least 10,000 stars within 100 light years of Earth. Planets have been found around a decent fraction of those that have been scanned to date. Of those at least 28 have been found around G class (Sol type) stars IIRC.
What’s to say but, HOW GREAT THOU ART?
Well then let me ask why you don't believe in 7 literal days.
I remember the first conversation with my newly Christian sister where she tried to talk me out of the evolution tree. We talked for a couple of hours about all of the evidences that conflict with evolution. Having been through 12 years of religious training also known as a public school I was deep into belief in evolution even after I got saved. But as a new Christian I was in a learning mode. It didn't take many Christians teaching me things for me to abandon evolution, a 15 billion year old universe, and the Democrat party.
The theory of evolution goes directly against what the bible says about the creation of the earth and life on the earth.
I just thought that was the Dolly Parton galaxy...
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