Intelligent life on other planets?

[Katzpur]

"Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute."

(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 162)

Really interesting.

"And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.... But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them." (Pearl of Great Price; Moses 1:33)

 

[Booko]

Really interesting.

"And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.... But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them." (Pearl of Great Price; Moses 1:33)

Even more interesting when you consider our faiths began roughly around the same time -- though on opposite sides of the planet.

 

[Katzpur]

Even more interesting when you consider our faiths began roughly around the same time -- though on opposite sides of the planet.

Whoa! I didn't realize that!

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Why would God make the universe which is filled with billions of galaxies, each galaxy containing at least hundreds of billions of stars.

There are actually two reasonable answers to this question.

Perhaps there are intelligent life on other planets pondering the same philosophical questions as we?

And, perhaps not.

 

[JerryL]

Please feel free to demonstrate it whenever you like.

There's no life on Venus.

 

[gnostic]

I believed that there are possibly that the existence of life in another solar system or more, perhaps with intelligence life like our own. Are they humans like us? Possibly. Possibly not. I don't think we will ever know.

What I don't believe is that these other beings had visit us in the past or present. It is good for science fiction and all, but the reality dictate that it is not possible for them to travel in such distance any more than we could. As for us, we are no where near of building a manned vessel approaching the speed of light.

 

[cardero]

... but on what grounds do you declare it "evidence of intelligent intervention" rather than "evidence of intelligent invention"?

One of the reasons I state that it is of intelligent intervention, is that if the extraordinary visitations as explained in the Bible are to be believed, they seem to mirror our current UFO phenomenon. When Moses explains following the cloud by day and the pillar of light by night, he basically is describing what many people have witnessed and photographed in our current society as Unidentified Flying Objects. Ezekiel’s visitation by some sort of craft and the “angels” that he describes are primitive ways of trying to define a phenomenon. The three wise men tracking the star in the sky, even the Virgin Mary’s pregnancy to the baby Jesus can be correlated to current alien abduction stories. I am not about to designate these Biblical accounts as divine and I do understand that these primitive authors probably didn’t have any other way to describe these events other than “holy interventions” but whether these accounts in the Bible are true (and there certainly are many examples) or whether they are made up, there does seem to be an imperative influence (interference) to direct humankind for some purpose or agenda.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

One of the reasons I state that it is of intelligent intervention, is that if the extraordinary visitations as explained in the Bible are to be believed, they seem to mirror our current UFO phenomenon.

Perfectly, much as they mirror Mermaid, Pixie, Yetti, and Nessie sightings.

 

[James the Persian]

Uh, Genna, not all of Christianity does the original sin thing. Ask JamesthePersian about this. It's not part of the Eastern Church.

Actually, with a little bit of re-writing, Genna's question would still make sense from an eastern perspective. While, it is true, we do not accept the Augustinian idea of Original Sin (or very much of Augustine's theology at all for that matter), we do have the belief that the Fall altered our nature such that we all inherit mortality and with it a tendency to sin. There's just absolutely no hint of inherited guilt or being born sinful.

The answer to the question however, would likely not make sense unless she had an understanding of Incarnational soteriology as opposed to the substitutionary atonement she apparently takes to be the Christian norm. For us, Christ's being Incarnate as Man healed the rift between creator and creation that was created in the Fall. In other words, His Crucifixion did not pay for our sins in a juridical way but, rather, His Incarnation healed the effects of the Ancestral Sin. It's quite a different concept. The upshot of this, with respect to the topic in this thread, is that Christ reconciled the whole of creation to God and so, if there are indeed intelligent beings on other planets it stands to reason that they would benefit from the Incarnation just as man does. Of course, we won't know one way or the other about the existence of sentient extraterrestrials until we meet them, but if and when we do the Orthodox faith, at least, is very unlikely to be troubled in the slightest.

James

 

[sandy whitelinger]

I think the Bible is the best evidence of intelligent intervention from life forms from other planets...

Perhaps you can offer some direct evidence of this, from Scripture, and not supposition?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

The Book of Moses includes this verse-

And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten. Pearl of Great Price | Moses 1:33

There are most definatly other planets with life on them...

I'm sorry, was there a conection between the verse and your conclusion? I seem to have missed it.

 

[MdmSzdWhtGuy]

Please feel free to demonstrate it whenever you like.

Well we know of 7 other planets in our solar system and we know none of them have creatures living on them and in addition we know that stars are not fixed. . . they move, some towards us, others away from us, etc. . . . basically your original statement was obviously and demonstrably false in every sense of the word and can be seen within our own solar system and within our own Milky Way.

B.

 

[logician]

I believe that if intelligent life were common on other planets, we would have already found evidence of such. This leads to the conclusion that intelligent life is rather rare in our galaxy, and we may be quite alone.

 

[Super Universe]

I believe that if intelligent life were common on other planets, we would have already found evidence of such. This leads to the conclusion that intelligent life is rather rare in our galaxy, and we may be quite alone.

Or maybe their mom's told them never to talk to strangers? Or maybe because it's a waste of resources? Or any of a hundred other explanations.

 

[Super Universe]

Genna: God does dwell within humans, we call it our soul. His spirit also dwells within a tree, and within animals. Why is it so difficult to believe that all life in the universe hosts God's spirit?

All life was created in God's image means that all life is based upon generally the same thing, DNA and RNA. How else would an all knowing angel explain it to an ignorant human who couldn't understand what caused the wind?

YmirGF: How is anything in the Urantia Book by outside influences?

 

[logician]

"God does dwell within humans, we call it our soul"

What evidence do you have of this?

 

[Random]

"God does dwell within humans, we call it our soul"

Generally, people who assert the above spiritual realization consider it to be self-evident. No hard proofs are required.

 

[Katzpur]

I believe that if intelligent life were common on other planets, we would have already found evidence of such.

That might be the case if we were speaking strictly of our galaxy.

 

[logician]

"That might be the case if we were speaking strictly of our galaxy."

I should have mentioned that I was limiting this statement to our galaxy. The evolution of intelligent life capable of space travel may be quite an uncommon occurrence.

 

[cardero]

Perfectly, much as they mirror Mermaid, Pixie, Yetti, and Nessie sightings.

With the exception of literary and entertainment value, I am not aware of these examples having influential agendas as profound and far-extending as the “visitors” expressed in the Bible although Jaques Vallee, in his book Dimensions: A Casebook Of Alien Contact does explore the mythology of several of those legendary characters you suggested while proposing the theory that the phenomenon may not be extraterrestrial in origin.