Does GOD Exist?
October 27th, 2009 by Grandpa OddballCopyright © GetOddNews and Grandpa Oddball October 27, 2009. All rights reserved.
Does GOD exist and are we unique? Interesting questions, both of them. I don’t know of any scientific proof of GOD’s existence but there is an intriguing hypothesis on life’s origins that may bear on these questions. If life arose as a result of self-organizing molecular systems then the hypothesis is that this process would be repeatable under the appropriate conditions. This immediately raises the following questions:
- Does life exist elsewhere in the universe? If the hypothesis is correct then of course the answer must be yes. If the answer were no then would this be an indication in support of GOD’s existence? It wouldn’t be a proof but it is an intriguing speculation. I doubt if we will ever be able to answer this question.
- Closer to home, if conditions on Earth are favorable to the creation of life then presumably life could be created more than once. It would probably be done repeatedly. In fact, it should still be happening! And the question is, is this prediction testable?
- Can life only exist when the replicating system is based on the double helix DNA structure or can other forms of life exist?
- As the previous question implies there is no good definition that I know of “life”. In fact to answer any of the previous bullets scientifically we’d first have to settle on a common definition of life. I don’t have a good explicit definition for life so for the rest of this post I’ll just assume the implicit definition that we recognize life when we see it (notwithstanding the existence of viruses).
- Finally, if life on Earth is the result of evolutionary process selecting out favorable mutations (as appears to be the case) then was all life on Earth derived from a single creation event? That is, was life only created once and was this a unique event? Or perhaps life is constantly arising but the DNA form is the most successful. In short, if life is continually created does it almost immediately go extinct because the new life forms cannot compete with the existing forms?
Okay, these aren’t the questions that are seen ordinarily in the discussions about GOD or for that matter evolution but they are a few of the random odd questions that occur to me (yes, they don’t call me Grandpa Oddball for no reason). The problem is that even if you could devise an experiment that would test the hypothesis the outcome (no matter what the answer) it would shed no light on the ultimate question of GOD’s existence. That appears to still be a matter of unscientific faith but personally I’d like to know a few answers.
I also personally think that life does probably exist elsewhere in the universe but as mentioned above I doubt if we can ever find out for sure. Of course if our understanding of the universe’s physics is wrong and we are able to travel the universe and find life elsewhere or are contacted by alien sentient beings that would answer the question in the affirmative but even an affirmative answer would not answer the question of GOD’s existence. However, I think it would be exciting to find such an answer.
It would be interesting to see if one could figure out the conditions that gave birth to life (yes, I know this has been attempted for decades) but again, whatever the answer, it sheds no light on the question of GOD’s existence although I, personally, would be very fascinated by a definitive answer.
That’s enough philosophy for now except to say leave a comment if you’re interested in this stuff. I find it interesting to speculate.
Tags: aliens, Evolution, religion, Science
this article with others.
Good topic…the eternal question reflected on alot!
Our book group just read a book that you might find of interest:
“God Without Religion” by Sankara Saranam
Now we are reading another even better one (in my opinion).
“The Evolution of God” by Robert Wright
But . . . my favorite is a children’s book. I like simple.
“What Is God” by Etan Boritzer
Love, Selma
It is a good topic – and something I’ve been thinking about from another direction lately. – and thanks, Selma, for the book suggestions! The “God Without Religion” title intrigues me.
Love,
Ginny