Definitive Proof that GOD Exists?

[Mom]

"Life is all over the universe", you state that as if it's a fact yet there is no proof of it.

So my question is how can you make such a claim without any evidence while reserving your position on the existence of God until you see evidence?

The mathematical probability of planets around other suns was almost 100% long before there was any evidence for the existence of those planets. The mathematical probability of life existing elsewhere on at least 1 other planet around the 1022 to 1024 stars in the visible universe is also virtually 100%. It takes a very special kind of arrogance to believe that this is the only planet in the entire universe with life on it.

Are you saying probabilities = evidence?

I'm not saying whether there is or isn't life on other planets. I'm saying we have no evidence that there are.

At least people are looking for life elsewhere because they think it's there. No one is looking for your god because no one expects to find anything, even you.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

The mathematical probability of planets around other suns was almost 100% long before there was any evidence for the existence of those planets. The mathematical probability of life existing elsewhere on at least 1 other planet around the 1022 to 1024 stars in the visible universe is also virtually 100%. It takes a very special kind of arrogance to believe that this is the only planet in the entire universe with life on it.

There is a distinct difference between a statement that "life is all over the universe" and "there is a high mathematical probability life exists elsewhere." Seems to me, until you can find life elsewhere, it is illogical to say life is everywhere. It may indeed be possible, highly probable, almost certain... but until it is proven it isn't proven.

But this does beg the question, if the universe is full of life-enabling elements, why do we not see an abundance of life around us? Why is it we find no other place in our solar system, where life as we know it on Earth, could even survive? The more we look out into our universe, the more we are discovering these conditions on Earth are sort of special. They are not common, as best we can tell. Lots of candidates close enough to their sun, but covered in methane clouds... lots more with no atmosphere to speak of... some so affected by volcanic eruptions and massive electrical storms, life couldn't survive if it ever did exist there. So no, you have NOT proven "life is everywhere in the universe" ...far from it! You have not shown ANY sign of extraterrestrial life. Yet, here you are, claiming it true!

Of course, our solar system is such an infinitesimal speck in the vastness of the universe as we understand it....the idea that life should be found elsewhere in the solar system is pretty silly. Even if there are a million other planets which currently have life of some sort on them (and currently is a big deal - there could have been life on trillions of planets in the past which has since died out, there could be life on countless planets in the future, the universe is likely a very old thing) the odds are pretty small that we can observe that life at this point in our technological advancement. It is, in fact, quite possible that we will never be able to observe life on other worlds; if Einstein was right about the inability of matter to travel at or beyond the speed of light, and we can't find a way around that, we'll never be able to get very far into the universe.

While I agree that stating there definitely is life on other worlds is wrong, I don't think that is how Mom was saying it. By prefacing her statement with 'I agree with Ed' she was echoing the sentiment. Ambiguously worded, perhaps, but what I took from it was that it is her belief, not some statement of irrefutable fact.

She did not say it was "her belief" she stated it as if it were a fact and her statement was not ambiguous at all.

I was merely questioning how she could think that "life was all over the universe" without any evidence and then say she couldn't believe in God unless there was evidence.

It sounded a little hypocritical to me.

 

[Mom]

There is a distinct difference between a statement that "life is all over the universe" and "there is a high mathematical probability life exists elsewhere." Seems to me, until you can find life elsewhere, it is illogical to say life is everywhere. It may indeed be possible, highly probable, almost certain... but until it is proven it isn't proven.

But this does beg the question, if the universe is full of life-enabling elements, why do we not see an abundance of life around us? Why is it we find no other place in our solar system, where life as we know it on Earth, could even survive? The more we look out into our universe, the more we are discovering these conditions on Earth are sort of special. They are not common, as best we can tell. Lots of candidates close enough to their sun, but covered in methane clouds... lots more with no atmosphere to speak of... some so affected by volcanic eruptions and massive electrical storms, life couldn't survive if it ever did exist there. So no, you have NOT proven "life is everywhere in the universe" ...far from it! You have not shown ANY sign of extraterrestrial life. Yet, here you are, claiming it true!

Of course, our solar system is such an infinitesimal speck in the vastness of the universe as we understand it....the idea that life should be found elsewhere in the solar system is pretty silly. Even if there are a million other planets which currently have life of some sort on them (and currently is a big deal - there could have been life on trillions of planets in the past which has since died out, there could be life on countless planets in the future, the universe is likely a very old thing) the odds are pretty small that we can observe that life at this point in our technological advancement. It is, in fact, quite possible that we will never be able to observe life on other worlds; if Einstein was right about the inability of matter to travel at or beyond the speed of light, and we can't find a way around that, we'll never be able to get very far into the universe.

While I agree that stating there definitely is life on other worlds is wrong, I don't think that is how Mom was saying it. By prefacing her statement with 'I agree with Ed' she was echoing the sentiment. Ambiguously worded, perhaps, but what I took from it was that it is her belief, not some statement of irrefutable fact.

She did not say it was "her belief" she stated it as if it were a fact and her statement was not ambiguous at all.

I was merely questioning how she could think that "life was all over the universe" without any evidence and then say she couldn't believe in God unless there was evidence.

It sounded a little hypocritical to me.

We're going to find life either on Mars or on a frozen moon of Saturn. I say it's all over the universe because we're going to find it. Then you can burn your bible.

 

[Youwerecreated]

So assuming we find life somewhere else, what's your position then?

That would be a battle of faith because there are many things God has not shared with mankind but it would make me question my faith.

It would be, is it just that God did not tell us life was on other planets or does God exist ? I still would be troubled because there is no evidence for spontaneous generation.

How do we know that God didn't put life on many other planets, each with their own history and circumstances? Why would the discovery of life on another planet mean there is no God? If he created the universe, why would he only put life on one planet?

God singled out this planet for a purpose and went on to say other planets are here for other reasons with no mention of life on the other planets. God did not say he created the heavens and the earth and filled it with life.

I have no doubt life only exists on this planet can I prove it know don't need to,to believe it.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

The mathematical probability of planets around other suns was almost 100% long before there was any evidence for the existence of those planets. The mathematical probability of life existing elsewhere on at least 1 other planet around the 1022 to 1024 stars in the visible universe is also virtually 100%. It takes a very special kind of arrogance to believe that this is the only planet in the entire universe with life on it.

Are you saying probabilities = evidence?

I'm not saying whether there is or isn't life on other planets. I'm saying we have no evidence that there are.

At least people are looking for life elsewhere because they think it's there. No one is looking for your god because no one expects to find anything, even you.

People are finding God everyday. And sadly there are some that loses faith as well.

I'm not looking for God, I know He exist and through Him I am doing great things though I take no credit nor do I ask for any such credit. My reward will be waiting for me in Heaven.

Is there nothing greater than yourself?

 

[Mom]

That would be a battle of faith because there are many things God has not shared with mankind but it would make me question my faith.

It would be, is it just that God did not tell us life was on other planets or does God exist ? I still would be troubled because there is no evidence for spontaneous generation.

How do we know that God didn't put life on many other planets, each with their own history and circumstances? Why would the discovery of life on another planet mean there is no God? If he created the universe, why would he only put life on one planet?

God singled out this planet for a purpose and went on to say other planets are here for other reasons with no mention of life on the other planets. God did not say he created the heavens and the earth and filled it with life.

I have no doubt life only exists on this planet can I prove it know don't need to,to believe it.

Where do you get this gibberish? You just make it up as you go along?

 

[Lonestar_logic]

Of course, our solar system is such an infinitesimal speck in the vastness of the universe as we understand it....the idea that life should be found elsewhere in the solar system is pretty silly. Even if there are a million other planets which currently have life of some sort on them (and currently is a big deal - there could have been life on trillions of planets in the past which has since died out, there could be life on countless planets in the future, the universe is likely a very old thing) the odds are pretty small that we can observe that life at this point in our technological advancement. It is, in fact, quite possible that we will never be able to observe life on other worlds; if Einstein was right about the inability of matter to travel at or beyond the speed of light, and we can't find a way around that, we'll never be able to get very far into the universe.

While I agree that stating there definitely is life on other worlds is wrong, I don't think that is how Mom was saying it. By prefacing her statement with 'I agree with Ed' she was echoing the sentiment. Ambiguously worded, perhaps, but what I took from it was that it is her belief, not some statement of irrefutable fact.

She did not say it was "her belief" she stated it as if it were a fact and her statement was not ambiguous at all.

I was merely questioning how she could think that "life was all over the universe" without any evidence and then say she couldn't believe in God unless there was evidence.

It sounded a little hypocritical to me.

We're going to find life either on Mars or on a frozen moon of Saturn. I say it's all over the universe because we're going to find it. Then you can burn your bible.

I would never burn my Bible no matter if there is life on other planets are not.

You seem to have a lot of faith in your belief.

 

[Mom]

She did not say it was "her belief" she stated it as if it were a fact and her statement was not ambiguous at all.

I was merely questioning how she could think that "life was all over the universe" without any evidence and then say she couldn't believe in God unless there was evidence.

It sounded a little hypocritical to me.

We're going to find life either on Mars or on a frozen moon of Saturn. I say it's all over the universe because we're going to find it. Then you can burn your bible.

I would never burn my Bible no matter if there is life on other planets are not.

You seem to have a lot of faith in your belief.

I'm just showing you how absurd it is to believe in something with zero proof. Do you get it now?

So there's PROBABLY/POSSIBLY life elsewhere, until proven for sure.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Why do some think I wasted my life believing in the creator ? trying my best to live by his laws and passing that on to my 8 children ?

I assure you I have had a great life and I give thanks to the Almighty for this life even though it is no comparison to the life that is coming in my view.

Do you know that 1 out of every 5 Americans believe that we are on the edge of the end for this civilization whether it be natural causes or the predictions of the bible ?

 

[Youwerecreated]

How do we know that God didn't put life on many other planets, each with their own history and circumstances? Why would the discovery of life on another planet mean there is no God? If he created the universe, why would he only put life on one planet?

God singled out this planet for a purpose and went on to say other planets are here for other reasons with no mention of life on the other planets. God did not say he created the heavens and the earth and filled it with life.

I have no doubt life only exists on this planet can I prove it know don't need to,to believe it.

Where do you get this gibberish? You just make it up as you go along?

No Like my textbooks in college I read the bible.

 

[Youwerecreated]

We're going to find life either on Mars or on a frozen moon of Saturn. I say it's all over the universe because we're going to find it. Then you can burn your bible.

I would never burn my Bible no matter if there is life on other planets are not.

You seem to have a lot of faith in your belief.

I'm just showing you how absurd it is to believe in something with zero proof. Do you get it now?

So there's PROBABLY/POSSIBLY life elsewhere, until proven for sure.

Pot meet kettle

 

[Mom]

Why do some think I wasted my life believing in the creator ? trying my best to live by his laws and passing that on to my 8 children ?

I assure you I have had a great life and I give thanks to the Almighty for this life even though it is no comparison to the life that is coming in my view.

Do you know that 1 out of every 5 Americans believe that we are on the edge of the end for this civilization whether it be natural causes or the predictions of the bible ?

2 out of 5 people think Obama was born in Africa. So what?

You didn't really waste your life, it was just a harmless delusion that you were living. Well, harmless unless you're a jihadist or a crusader...

 

[Youwerecreated]

Why do some think I wasted my life believing in the creator ? trying my best to live by his laws and passing that on to my 8 children ?

I assure you I have had a great life and I give thanks to the Almighty for this life even though it is no comparison to the life that is coming in my view.

Do you know that 1 out of every 5 Americans believe that we are on the edge of the end for this civilization whether it be natural causes or the predictions of the bible ?

2 out of 5 people think Obama was born in Africa. So what?

You didn't really waste your life, it was just a harmless delusion that you were living. Well, harmless unless you're a jihadist or a crusader...

We will see.

 

[Boss]

The mathematical probability of planets around other suns was almost 100% long before there was any evidence for the existence of those planets. The mathematical probability of life existing elsewhere on at least 1 other planet around the 1022 to 1024 stars in the visible universe is also virtually 100%. It takes a very special kind of arrogance to believe that this is the only planet in the entire universe with life on it.

There is a distinct difference between a statement that "life is all over the universe" and "there is a high mathematical probability life exists elsewhere." Seems to me, until you can find life elsewhere, it is illogical to say life is everywhere. It may indeed be possible, highly probable, almost certain... but until it is proven it isn't proven.

But this does beg the question, if the universe is full of life-enabling elements, why do we not see an abundance of life around us? Why is it we find no other place in our solar system, where life as we know it on Earth, could even survive? The more we look out into our universe, the more we are discovering these conditions on Earth are sort of special. They are not common, as best we can tell. Lots of candidates close enough to their sun, but covered in methane clouds... lots more with no atmosphere to speak of... some so affected by volcanic eruptions and massive electrical storms, life couldn't survive if it ever did exist there. So no, you have NOT proven "life is everywhere in the universe" ...far from it! You have not shown ANY sign of extraterrestrial life. Yet, here you are, claiming it true!

Of course, our solar system is such an infinitesimal speck in the vastness of the universe as we understand it....the idea that life should be found elsewhere in the solar system is pretty silly.

REALLY? WHY? Because, according to you, life on Earth came about as a result of primordial soup, all the elements of life from the universe, and over billions of years, evolved with nothing more than natural selection guiding the way. If this is such an easy read, why is the story not the same elsewhere? Life, if it were as easy to explain the origin of as you've made it out to be, should be all around us... on the moon, on Mars... the moons of Jupiter... etc. All the same natural elements that propagated life on Earth, are available everywhere else in the universe, so why is it silly to expect to see the same results?

It's only "silly" because we don't find it. Before we were capable of looking, there were quite a few scientists who speculated life existed on other planets in our solar system. We're still convinced that we'll find microbial life on Mars!

Even if there are a million other planets which currently have life of some sort on them (and currently is a big deal - there could have been life on trillions of planets in the past which has since died out, there could be life on countless planets in the future, the universe is likely a very old thing) the odds are pretty small that we can observe that life at this point in our technological advancement. It is, in fact, quite possible that we will never be able to observe life on other worlds; if Einstein was right about the inability of matter to travel at or beyond the speed of light, and we can't find a way around that, we'll never be able to get very far into the universe.

Yet the universe contains all of the essential elements to form life, and on our particular planet in the universe, this life formed in great abundance, and evolved into a completely self-sustaining ecosystem, working in harmony with natural forces, generating new species and varieties of living things, by the billions, all interdependent on each other for survival and existence, and at the technological pinnacle, is a species who happens to curiously possess profound spiritual connection to something greater than self. Weird man!

While I agree that stating there definitely is life on other worlds is wrong, I don't think that is how Mom was saying it. By prefacing her statement with 'I agree with Ed' she was echoing the sentiment. Ambiguously worded, perhaps, but what I took from it was that it is her belief, not some statement of irrefutable fact.

The irrefutable fact is, we've not discovered life elsewhere in our vast huge universe. Despite the fact that our vast huge universe is chock-full of life-enabling elements, and the supposed origin process is such a piece of cake. Meanwhile, back on Earth, we have a distinct wobble in our rotation, caused by the moon careening into the planet early on, and we have tides created by the presence of that same moon, which isn't too big or too small, and provides a gravitational pull on the oceans. The seasons and ocean tides are what enable almost every variety of life to exist, it is the key to most life cycles, reproduction, function, purpose. We have a layered atmosphere, one that blocks out radiation and ultraviolet rays, and one that maintains the perfect atmospheric pressure to enable life to exist. Because of the seasons and tides, and the atmosphere, we have a climate system which operates in a fairly stable manner, yes we have disasters, but we don't have hurricanes that consume large areas of our planet for thousands of years, like Jupiter.

The further down the road of knowledge we go, the more we see that life is special, and it takes a lot of very special things to make it possible. You can only say "it just so happens" so many times, then it gets to be ridiculous. And when we couple all of this, with the indisputable fact that life's most advanced species is intrinsically tied to spirituality, it becomes almost impossible to believe ALL these things are coincidental.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

We're going to find life either on Mars or on a frozen moon of Saturn. I say it's all over the universe because we're going to find it. Then you can burn your bible.

I would never burn my Bible no matter if there is life on other planets are not.

You seem to have a lot of faith in your belief.

I'm just showing you how absurd it is to believe in something with zero proof. Do you get it now?

So there's PROBABLY/POSSIBLY life elsewhere, until proven for sure.

God has proven Himself to me in more ways that I can count.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Why do some think I wasted my life believing in the creator ? trying my best to live by his laws and passing that on to my 8 children ?

I assure you I have had a great life and I give thanks to the Almighty for this life even though it is no comparison to the life that is coming in my view.

Do you know that 1 out of every 5 Americans believe that we are on the edge of the end for this civilization whether it be natural causes or the predictions of the bible ?

2 out of 5 people think Obama was born in Africa. So what?

You didn't really waste your life, it was just a harmless delusion that you were living. Well, harmless unless you're a jihadist or a crusader...

Read up on the prophecies of Nostradamus and compare it to the bible interesting.

 

[numan]

Give it up Bossy Man and YouWereBornYesterday !!

For thousands of years deep thinkers with far more subtle minds than you two characters have tried to prove the existence of God, and there have always turned out to be flaws in their arguments.

The only flaw in my argument is the assumption everybody can read and comprehend it. I have proved god's existence definitively...

Oh, hubris !!

...you just don't accept spiritual evidence, and thus, have no concept of spiritual existence....

You are on the other side of this coin, you reject the spiritual evidence required to understand spiritual existence, the terms are greek to you, because you reject spiritual nature altogether.

For someone who wants to prove something, you make a lot of unsupported assumptions.

I have my own private, subjective epiphanies of the wondrous Heart of Existence, where unity and diversity meld indescribably together -- but I would never dream of offering my subjective experience to others as "proof"!!

I accept the reality of Spiritual Existence, but I am sure we have different views of what it is.

I see, from a public point of view, spiritual existence revealed most clearly -- certainly not in religion!! -- but in mathematics -- a concrete, infinite, miraculously detailed and harmonious reality from beyond the boundaries of the physical universe -- though it is, to some degree, manifested in the way physical reality is structured.

What you think Spiritual Reality is, i don't really know, since you have never written clearly about it.
.

 

[Derideo_Te]

The only flaw in my argument is the assumption everybody can read and comprehend it. I have proved god's existence definitively, you just don't accept spiritual evidence, and thus, have no concept of spiritual existence. As my argument correctly states, god can never be proven to you. In order to meet your criteria, god would have to become a physical entity, because that is the only "evidence" you will acknowledge.

In order to drive home this point, I have juxtaposed what you believe, with someone who rejects scientific evidence in favor of "spiritual enlightenment," and rejects any argument you may present based in science. If you are trying to scientifically explain how rain happens, the evaporation process, etc., and they just look at you with a dumb stare, and say... but god didn't tell me that, so it's not true! What can you do? How can you ever convince that person? They've closed their minds to physical science, they reject any belief in it whatsoever.... so how can you prove anything to them, using science?

You are on the other side of this coin, you reject the spiritual evidence required to understand spiritual existence, the terms are greek to you, because you reject spiritual nature altogether. I can explain it until I am blue in the face, you are still not going to accept spiritual evidence, therefore, I can never prove god exists to you.

Too bad you have utterly failed to get past the FACT that spiritualism is a nothing more than a state of mind of a PHYSICAL BRAIN. All that you have "proved" is that you BELIEVE in fairies, ghosts, goblins and unicorns. No one is disputing your right to believe in nonsense however pretending that fairies, ghosts, et al are real does not make them exist.

That's not a fact, that is your opinion and it's defies logic.

Once again your kneejerk reaction is to deny scientific facts. MRI studies of people undergoing "spiritual" experience show that it is most definitely a physical change occurring in the brain.

PLOS ONE: Neuroimaging during Trance State: A Contribution to the Study of Dissociation

Although aware of problems in conceptualizing trance, for the purpose of this study we used a more consensual and phenomenological definition of trance proposed by Cardeña [66]: a temporary alteration of consciousness, identity, and/or behavior evidenced by at least two of the following: (1) marked alteration of consciousness; (2) narrowed awareness of immediate surroundings; (3) movements experienced as being beyond one's control. In qualitative terms, since there is no one single expression of mediumship but rather important differences between people and occasions, our subjects reported varying types of “spiritual contact”. The less expert mediums were emotionally affected and reported feeling inspired during psychography, and being in a semi-conscious state – phrases came to them as if dictated – in relation to the written content, whereas the experienced mediums said that they were “out of their bodies” and had no control over the content “elaborated by the spirit”. The superior temporal gyrus, which contains the auditory cortex, was activated during psycography for less expert mediums, who heard phrases as if they were being dictated, but deactivated in the experienced subjects, who had no conscious control over the psychographed content. The superior temporal gyrus is also involved in linguistic comprehension and is a key area related to auditory hallucination in psychotic patients [49].

Even your own Darwinist theory says that if the behavior was superficial, it would have been discarded long ago. Species do not retain unnecessary attributes of behavior, for novelty sake. This simply does not happen in nature, and defies Darwin's theories. It's humankind's intrinsic connection to spirituality, that makes the most profound argument for the case, but you dismiss this as a meaningless anomaly, because you reject the spiritual evidence.

According to your inane misunderstanding of Darwin behaviors such as drinking alcohol, writing fiction and day dreaming should all have disappeared too. Unfortunately for you they are all still very much around and do serve a purpose even if it is way beyond your meager comprehension. The ability to deceive oneself (as you are doing now) should also have disappeared. Obviously it serves a useful purpose. Too bad you won't ever understand that either.

 

[Boss]

Give it up Bossy Man and YouWereBornYesterday !!

For thousands of years deep thinkers with far more subtle minds than you two characters have tried to prove the existence of God, and there have always turned out to be flaws in their arguments.

The only flaw in my argument is the assumption everybody can read and comprehend it. I have proved god's existence definitively...

Oh, hubris !!

...you just don't accept spiritual evidence, and thus, have no concept of spiritual existence....

You are on the other side of this coin, you reject the spiritual evidence required to understand spiritual existence, the terms are greek to you, because you reject spiritual nature altogether.

For someone who wants to prove something, you make a lot of unsupported assumptions.

I have my own private, subjective epiphanies of the wondrous Heart of Existence, where unity and diversity meld indescribably together -- but I would never dream of offering my subjective experience to others as "proof"!!

I accept the reality of Spiritual Existence, but I am sure we have different views of what it is.

I see, from a public point of view, spiritual existence revealed most clearly -- certainly not in religion!! -- but in mathematics -- a concrete, infinite, miraculously detailed and harmonious reality from beyond the boundaries of the physical universe -- though it is, to some degree, manifested in the way physical reality is structured.

What you think Spiritual Reality is, i don't really know, since you have never written clearly about it.
.

Now this is funny stuff... so NOW you accept spiritual nature and existence? I thought it was all in our heads? Imaginations run wild? Mass delusions? Something we invented to explain the unexplained? Now you come along and say, it's real, you believe in it... just not the 'incarnation' that I believe. Rich! Very rich!

What you have proven is, most humans are intrinsically tied to spiritual connection, whether they admit it or not. I have often said; Atheists are sometimes bigger believers in god than some Christians. I believe they KNOW god exists, and their whole shtick is based on inner-anger toward the god they KNOW exists. It's why they spend so much time in these threads, trying to disavow god.

 

[Montrovant]

There is a distinct difference between a statement that "life is all over the universe" and "there is a high mathematical probability life exists elsewhere." Seems to me, until you can find life elsewhere, it is illogical to say life is everywhere. It may indeed be possible, highly probable, almost certain... but until it is proven it isn't proven.

But this does beg the question, if the universe is full of life-enabling elements, why do we not see an abundance of life around us? Why is it we find no other place in our solar system, where life as we know it on Earth, could even survive? The more we look out into our universe, the more we are discovering these conditions on Earth are sort of special. They are not common, as best we can tell. Lots of candidates close enough to their sun, but covered in methane clouds... lots more with no atmosphere to speak of... some so affected by volcanic eruptions and massive electrical storms, life couldn't survive if it ever did exist there. So no, you have NOT proven "life is everywhere in the universe" ...far from it! You have not shown ANY sign of extraterrestrial life. Yet, here you are, claiming it true!

Of course, our solar system is such an infinitesimal speck in the vastness of the universe as we understand it....the idea that life should be found elsewhere in the solar system is pretty silly.

REALLY? WHY? Because, according to you, life on Earth came about as a result of primordial soup, all the elements of life from the universe, and over billions of years, evolved with nothing more than natural selection guiding the way. If this is such an easy read, why is the story not the same elsewhere? Life, if it were as easy to explain the origin of as you've made it out to be, should be all around us... on the moon, on Mars... the moons of Jupiter... etc. All the same natural elements that propagated life on Earth, are available everywhere else in the universe, so why is it silly to expect to see the same results?

It's only "silly" because we don't find it. Before we were capable of looking, there were quite a few scientists who speculated life existed on other planets in our solar system. We're still convinced that we'll find microbial life on Mars!

Even if there are a million other planets which currently have life of some sort on them (and currently is a big deal - there could have been life on trillions of planets in the past which has since died out, there could be life on countless planets in the future, the universe is likely a very old thing) the odds are pretty small that we can observe that life at this point in our technological advancement. It is, in fact, quite possible that we will never be able to observe life on other worlds; if Einstein was right about the inability of matter to travel at or beyond the speed of light, and we can't find a way around that, we'll never be able to get very far into the universe.

Yet the universe contains all of the essential elements to form life, and on our particular planet in the universe, this life formed in great abundance, and evolved into a completely self-sustaining ecosystem, working in harmony with natural forces, generating new species and varieties of living things, by the billions, all interdependent on each other for survival and existence, and at the technological pinnacle, is a species who happens to curiously possess profound spiritual connection to something greater than self. Weird man!

While I agree that stating there definitely is life on other worlds is wrong, I don't think that is how Mom was saying it. By prefacing her statement with 'I agree with Ed' she was echoing the sentiment. Ambiguously worded, perhaps, but what I took from it was that it is her belief, not some statement of irrefutable fact.

The irrefutable fact is, we've not discovered life elsewhere in our vast huge universe. Despite the fact that our vast huge universe is chock-full of life-enabling elements, and the supposed origin process is such a piece of cake. Meanwhile, back on Earth, we have a distinct wobble in our rotation, caused by the moon careening into the planet early on, and we have tides created by the presence of that same moon, which isn't too big or too small, and provides a gravitational pull on the oceans. The seasons and ocean tides are what enable almost every variety of life to exist, it is the key to most life cycles, reproduction, function, purpose. We have a layered atmosphere, one that blocks out radiation and ultraviolet rays, and one that maintains the perfect atmospheric pressure to enable life to exist. Because of the seasons and tides, and the atmosphere, we have a climate system which operates in a fairly stable manner, yes we have disasters, but we don't have hurricanes that consume large areas of our planet for thousands of years, like Jupiter.

The further down the road of knowledge we go, the more we see that life is special, and it takes a lot of very special things to make it possible. You can only say "it just so happens" so many times, then it gets to be ridiculous. And when we couple all of this, with the indisputable fact that life's most advanced species is intrinsically tied to spirituality, it becomes almost impossible to believe ALL these things are coincidental.

You say according to me....have I opined to you about the origins of life on Earth?

Anyway, your description of the difficulties involved in life arising on this planet only highlights why any assumption that there should be an abundance of life in this solar system seems silly to me. There are numerous conditions necessary for life on Earth that are not present on other planets/moons in our solar system. Are they present on other planets in the universe? It seems probable based on the astronomically (pun intended) large number of planets we've observed, and the further number we extrapolate from those observations.

Life arising, at any time in the billions of years the universe is believed to exist, may be an exceedingly rare event. Still, even if only 1 in every trillion planets or moons in the universe has life on it, there would be multiple places with life. However, the odds of our seeing it would be appropriately small.

You say we have not found life elsewhere in our vast universe, and you are correct. What you fail to mention, and in fact seem to imply isn't true, is that we have barely seen the tiniest portion of what the universe contains. Our study of other planets is almost entirely done without enough detail to know if life might or might not exist on them.

So again, the thought that because we have not found life on other worlds, it does not exist or even is unlikely to exist, is nothing but egocentric foolishness. Considering how often the monotheistic religions of the world seem to try and push humility and man's insignificance in the grand scheme of things, I find that ironic. Despite the wondrous advances mankind has made in recent history, our ability to find life elsewhere in the universe is still incredibly limited.

As to your claim that humanity is indisputably intrinsically tied to spirituality, that is and has been disputed. Your inability to accept that doesn't change that it is in dispute, especially when the spiritual has been ill-defined at best. In fact, I still await a definition from you for spiritual evidence, as do others in this thread. Without proper definitions, the only conclusion I have been able to draw is that you consider spirituality something that you must believe in before you can explain it. That kind of circular logic is worthless.