Well, there are 2 options as I see it:

1. God created us

2. God didn’t create us, random happenstance did

If you go with #1, it seems rather self centered of us to say that “we are enough for an infinite being and we are his favorite and only children” when at the same time, none of his motives or actions are in any way comprehensible to limited being such as ourselves. God may have decided to make a seemingly infinite universe and throw life in one single spot just for ****s and giggles, but that seems a little odd to me and in the end nobody but God could possibly know either what he did or why so it’s kind of impossible to use as an argument either way.

As far as option #2 is concerned, given either an infinite universe OR infinite time the probability of anything becomes 1 for all intents and purposes. So if we ignore the argument that God created everything in the last 6000 years (or whatever time frame people want to give) since we have already decided that he didn’t create everything, theoretically with infinite time or space life would have spontaneously generated an infinite number of times and the odds that we happen to be the first become infinitely small.

And as for the argument that life could only occur on a planet such as earth, that’s very faulty given the fact that in every corner of the planet we find life which has adapted to it. You find bacteria in lava, creatures in the deepest trenches, bacteria that can survive in an absolute void only to return to life when the proper environment is reached.

Just because we do not know of any creatures that are silicon based and could live on Venus (silicon based life having to live in far higher temperatures than would normally be found on Earth) that drink mercury as opposed to water and breathe Nitrogen doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible. We don’t have absolute knowledge of everything going on on Earth so to make claims concerning certainty of how life would exist elsewhere would be logically unsound.

But like Aldo said, it is very fascinating.

Shii Posted:

Life is far, far more staggeringly complex.

No, no it isn’t.

Some viruses have less than 4,000 base pairs.

If you don’t consider viruses life, here’s a bacterium for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carsonella_ruddii

580,000 base pairs. That’s a STAGGERINGLY small number for the size of the universe and the time elapsed.

Life evolved from simple to complex. Why couldn’t life emerge in the same way?

Adapt Posted:

bacteria make fine galactic neighbors, but i would be disappointed if they were all i had to talk to.

Evolution Log in to see images!

Taking Bio in college we were shown the exact experiments scientists did to replicate every single stage that would have been required to go from pure minerals at the formation of earth (And it had to be that environment) all the way up to life. We know it’s possible and nobody is arguing that, just the odds of it occurring.

Of course it was an interesting set of experiments and I certainly wouldn’t mind another look at them.

It’s more than possible, it’s something we should make plans for. I’m not talking about an invasion, space faring species will need or want nothing from us. I’m talking about getting them over here.