The Multiplicity of Planets

[Dicentra spectabilis]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Silverthorne"
<silverthorne.dragon at v...> wrote:

> Hell, we're only NOW coming to grips with the idea that life can and 
> DOES exist on some other planet than ours--and doesn't that just
> blow the centuries old, 'mainstream' ideas of our place in the 
> universe VIA the various holy texts (you know, where this is the 
> 'only' world, created by God...and we are the only intelligent
> beings, made in his image, the chosen ones etc)...?

I don't remember reading that particular doctrine in the Bible.  (Is
it in the Koran?)  The concept of the uniqueness of Earth is something
that got added at some point during Christianity's long history.  Or
maybe it was present in Judaism prior to the Christian era.  Sheez, I
don't know...  (If I were in the mood, I might try to track down the
era in which it was introduced.)

My own religious tradition (the same as Sci-Fi writer Orson Scott
Card) holds that God has numerous planets, all in different stages of
development and all of them ultimately populated by his offspring, and
that creating and populating planets is What God Does All Day.

Which means, at least to me, that the idea of life on other planets
doesn't challenge the Bible at all -- just a particular doctrine that
was inferred from it.

I don't know for sure, but this doctrine might derive from a peculiar
notion we humans hold: rarity = value.  Sand is common, so it's almost
devoid of monetary value, but pink diamonds are rare, so we pay big
bank for them.  It's a purely market-driven value system.  

I would contend, on the other hand, that from the universe's point of
view (assuming it has one :D), valuable or needed things exist in
abundance, and less-valuable things are rare, because they aren't
needed as much.  

It always boggles my mind when people say that they contemplate the
universe on a starry night and feel insignificant.  Why insignificant?
   I usually get totally psyched on occasions like that, because I
sense that I'm a part of a really cool system of existence, most of
which I don't comprehend but am eager to learn about.

And then there's the vertigo that comes from sitting in a campground
in Canyonlands Natl. Park and noticing that without the light and air
pollution of the city, the stars are just as clear at the horizon as
at the top of the sky, which reminds you that the earth is an orb
that's just hanging there in the sky -- naked and unashamed -- with no
fishing line holding it in place.

--Dicentra, who screams "terraform! terraform!" each time news of
water comes from Mars