Believing That the Vastness of the Cosmos Points to Life on Other Planets Misses the Point Rome, September 03, 2014 (Zenit.org) Father Dwight Longenecker | 262 hits

I dont know if anyone else has noticed a seemingly profound, but ultimately silly discussion which is prevalent within popular culture.

Its called the Fermi Paradox and it goes like this: There are billions of stars out there like the sun. Therefore, statistically there must be billions of planets like earth where intelligent life has developed. Given the vast amount of time and the vast number of possible other earths there must be other intelligent life forms who have invented space travel. So where are they?

This argument sounds interesting at first sight, but on examination it is as faulty as the basic assumptions on which it is built. There are several problems with the underlying discussion:

First there is the problem of what I call size-ism. The materialist is awe struck by the vast size of the universe and the vast amounts of time he believes in. His awe before these vast quantities of time and space is rather like a religion. We all want something big to worship and the materialist, who doesnt have a God to worship, is in awesome wonder at the bigness of time and space.

However, why should we be impressed simply by size? We do not think an elephant is better than an infant just because it is bigger. The Sahara is big, but it is full of sand and nobody lives there. Antarctica is bigger than Austria, but it is not better because it is bigger.

The cosmos is vast, so what? There may be other intelligent life forms out there, but there is no evidence so far. Furthermore, vast size and statistical musings based on that size dont necessarily amount to much. A supposition based on statistics is still a supposition. The space and time may be vast, but the evidence so far would suggest that the earth is like a puddle of water in the Sahara. Just because the Sahara is vast and features one puddle doesnt mean there must be another puddle in the Sahara. In fact, the vast, dry emptiness of the Sahara might be good reason to suppose that there is not another puddle.

There are other assumptions in this way of thinking which are astoundingly small minded, and they are compounded by the fact that those discussing these things invariably think they are being open minded and thinking outside the box. Their suppositions are based on the assumption that space and time are fixed according to the material perceptions of our own space and time. They are working according to the now outdated scientific assumptions that nature is like a fixed machine that always works according to the same fixed principles.

Thinkers like Stratford Caldecott began to apply the discoveries of modern physics to ponderings on spirituality, space and time. It may be that reality is rubbery. What seems solid turns out to be unpredictable. The fundamentals go all funny. Perhaps the cosmic is comic and what we thought was so solid and sure will turn out to be shaky and uncertain.

Too many materialists assume that the rest of the cosmos functions according to the rules of space and time which operate in our own dimension of physicality. This may not be true at all. Their perception of the vastness of the cosmos is determined by their own mortality. For mortals time is limited because their lives are limited. In other words time is limited for mortals because they are mortal.

See the article here:
Elephants, Angels and Aliens