What if we discover (even simple) life on Mars?

[jAZ]

What would this mean to you?

Does it impact organized religion? Christianity, Judisim, Islam?

Evolution?

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/pdf/fact_sheet.pdf

The Phoenix Mars Lander seeks to verify the presence of water and habitable conditions in the martian arctic.


1) Study the history of water by examining water-ice below the martian surface. Liquid water does not currently exist on the surface of Mars, but evidence from Mars Global Surveyor, Odyssey, and Exploration Rover missions suggest that water once flowed in canyons and persisted in shallow lakes billions of years ago. However, Phoenix will probe the history of liquid water that may have existed in the arctic as recently as 100,000 years ago. By digging into the soil and water-ice just below the surface and analyzing the chemistry of the soil and ice with robust instruments, scientists will better understand the history of the martian arctic.

2) Determine if the martian arctic soil could support life. Recent discoveries show that life can exist in the most extreme conditions. Certain bacterial spores lie dormant in bitterly cold, dry, and airless conditions for millions of years and become activated once conditions become favorable. Such dormant microbial colonies may exist in the martian arctic, where during brief periods about every 100,000 years the soil environment is believed to be favorable for life. Phoenix will explore the habitability of the martian environment by using sophisticated chemical experiments to assess the soil’s composition of life-giving elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and hydrogen. Phoenix will also dig into the soil protected from harmful solar radiation, looking for organic life signatures.

[Phobia]

My entire life will have been a lie.

Seriously, who actually cares? It has zero impact on my life now, before, or at any point in the future.

[Bob Dole]

It would just verify Bob Dole's belief that we're all a pack of ****ing idiots.

[crazycoffey]

Have you heard of collateral damages in war? Well consider this just part of the Muzzle Flash during the Big Bang, or the residual splash from creation, depending on your religious affilitation.....

you can't have us without a little cum dripping down the cosmic leg of our solar system and landing on Mars.

[TinyEvel]

ALright, alright, now, let's not get this thing all twisted. There is still going to be an open competition for life on Mars. All the life on Mars, including the new life on Mars, will compete for the top of the food chain.
That's how you get better as a planet. By opening up the competition.
Haven't you guys read Darwin? I mean, even my wife has read Darwin....Well, you go read Darwin and when we get back in here next week then you can ask me questions about life on Mars.

[Silock]

Simple life on Mars?

If that's the next destination for Paris and Nicole, then I'm 100% for it!

[Bob Dole]

ALright, alright, now, let's not get this thing all twisted. There is still going to be an open competition for life on Mars. All the life on Mars, including the new life on Mars, will compete for the top of the food chain.
That's how you get better as a planet. By opening up the competition.
Haven't you guys read Darwin? I mean, even my wife has read Darwin....Well, you go read Darwin and when we get back in here next week then you can ask me questions about life on Mars.

So you're saying we're going to find giant ****ing turtles on Mars?

[crazycoffey]

ALright, alright, now, let's not get this thing all twisted. There is still going to be an open competition for life on Mars. All the life on Mars, including the new life on Mars, will compete for the top of the food chain.
That's how you get better as a planet. By opening up the competition.
Haven't you guys read Darwin? I mean, even my wife has read Darwin....Well, you go read Darwin and when we get back in here next week then you can ask me questions about life on Mars.


as I read this OP, I see that "they" (I don't know who they are, so don't ask me, we can save that question for a related thread on Pavlov and his puppy) mention a speck of life, not the evalution of life forms....

[Fishpicker]

I had already assumed that microbial organisms inhabit Mars. I bet somewhere out there, there is life that can sustain itself in space.

[listopencil]

St. Augustine already has it covered.

[TinyEvel]

So you're saying we're going to find giant ****ing turtles on Mars?

Maybe. I may have said that. But I know the other planets have television, too. And if I sit in here nad give you my evolutionary "life on Mars" plan then they have it too, right? You'll all see what our evolutionary plan is on Sunday.

'cause we have Giant turtles, yes. And those turtles are tough, physical blockers. They open up the run game for the swimming lizards. Which in turn opens up the air game for the dodo bird. You know what we got. You'll see for yourself....but you guys do a fine job of predicting how we're going to do it, so you just write that and we'll compare notes in here on Sunday evening.

[007]

Simple life on Mars?

If that's the next destination for Paris and Nicole, then I'm 100% for it!
Hey, I think he is on (to) something.

[Bob Dole]

Maybe. I may have said that. But I know the other planets have television, too. And if I sit in here nad give you my evolutionary "life on Mars" plan then they have it too, right? You'll all see what our evolutionary plan is on Sunday.

'cause we have Giant turtles, yes. And those turtles are tough, physical blockers. They open up the run game for the swimming lizards. Which in turn opens up the air game for the dodo bird. You know what we got. You'll see for yourself....but you guys do a fine job of predicting how we're going to do it, so you just write that and we'll compare notes in here on Sunday evening.

You left off "Thus spaketh the Herm.".

[jAZ]

as I read this OP, I see that "they" ... mention a speck of life, not the evalution of life forms....
Why do you draw attention to this point? Is this meaningful?

[crazycoffey]

Why do you draw attention to this point? Is this meaningful?


Well, yes. IMHO anyway. My first post was;

Posted by crazycoffey - Today at 12:54 AMHave you heard of collateral damages in war? Well consider this just part of the Muzzle Flash during the Big Bang, or the residual splash from creation, depending on your religious affilitation.....

you can't have us without a little cum dripping down the cosmic leg of our solar system and landing on Mars.


which is so different from;

Posted by TinyEvel - Today at 12:55 AMALright, alright, now, let's not get this thing all twisted. There is still going to be an open competition for life on Mars. All the life on Mars, including the new life on Mars, will compete for the top of the food chain.
That's how you get better as a planet. By opening up the competition.
Haven't you guys read Darwin? I mean, even my wife has read Darwin....Well, you go read Darwin and when we get back in here next week then you can ask me questions about life on Mars.


Wasn't Darwin a advocate of evolution, or primarly an evolutionist? I don't discount evolution as a princepal, just not a default. Anyway that is why I drew attention to that point AND why I thought it meaniful...

[jAZ]

Well, yes. IMHO anyway. My first post was;

Posted by crazycoffey - Today at 12:54 AMHave you heard of collateral damages in war? Well consider this just part of the Muzzle Flash during the Big Bang, or the residual splash from creation, depending on your religious affilitation.....

you can't have us without a little cum dripping down the cosmic leg of our solar system and landing on Mars.


which is so different from;

Posted by TinyEvel - Today at 12:55 AMALright, alright, now, let's not get this thing all twisted. There is still going to be an open competition for life on Mars. All the life on Mars, including the new life on Mars, will compete for the top of the food chain.
That's how you get better as a planet. By opening up the competition.
Haven't you guys read Darwin? I mean, even my wife has read Darwin....Well, you go read Darwin and when we get back in here next week then you can ask me questions about life on Mars.


Wasn't Darwin a advocate of evolution, or primarly an evolutionist? I don't discount evolution as a princepal, just not a default. Anyway that is why I drew attention to that point AND why I thought it meaniful...
I guess my thought here is that if life exists ANYWHERE else (other than Earth)... it's a game changer.

That life might exist in even a microbial form on on a baren wasteland like Mars and in the widely diverse forms on a watery planet like earth suggest that life is nothing magical... but a function of statistics.

At that point... and combined with the notion that we are one planet around one star among billions and billions...

... suddenly Evolution (diversity, adaptation, natural selection, etc) becomes a cosmic model to be applied across billions of planets... not merely an earthly model.

[ChiefFan31]

My entire life will have been a lie.

Seriously, who actually cares? It has zero impact on my life now, before, or at any point in the future.


:clap: :clap:

[crazycoffey]

I guess my thought here is that if life exists ANYWHERE else (other than Earth)... it's a game changer.


As I asked Logical, first - define "life"

second, how does that possibility effect the idea of creation. I've never read that the bible considers this confinement.

[CHENZ A!]

Are we talking like something with the brainpower of a chimpanzee, or like a house cat? I think it would be sweet to have a pet from Mars, but not if it was going to throw poop, or yack on my couch.

[Miles]

It's a God awful small affair
To the girl with the mousey hair,
But her mummy is yelling, "No!"
And her daddy has told her to go,
But her friend is no where to be seen.
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seats with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen,
But the film is sadd'ning bore
For she's lived it ten times or more.
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on

Sailors
Fighting in the dance hall.
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go.
It's the freakiest show.
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy.
Oh man!
Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show.
Is there life on Mars?

[Pushead2]

:clap: :clap:

:bravo:

[patteeu]

Does it impact organized religion? Christianity, Judisim, Islam?

Generally speaking, I don't see why it would. There may be specific denominations who preach that life is only found on Earth, but I don't think that is a key pillar of any of the major religions.

[el borracho]

I wouldn't think it would affect the spiritual beliefs of many people at all. I assume most would find some new way of interpreting old beliefs (such as the 'god created earth in 6 days' story which had to be re-interpreted to account for new knowledge but was never completely discarded). Even though religious persons view the bible as the "word of god" the bible needs to be read figuratively at points to fit within the constrain of our new knowledge and believers do not generally view this as problematic.

[Warrior5]

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j114/jetfire_2006/Spaced%20Invaders/PDVD_010.jpg

[Kylo Ren]

What would this mean to you?

Does it impact organized religion? Christianity, Judisim, Islam?

Evolution?

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/pdf/fact_sheet.pdf

The Phoenix Mars Lander seeks to verify the presence of water and habitable conditions in the martian arctic.


1) Study the history of water by examining water-ice below the martian surface. Liquid water does not currently exist on the surface of Mars, but evidence from Mars Global Surveyor, Odyssey, and Exploration Rover missions suggest that water once flowed in canyons and persisted in shallow lakes billions of years ago. However, Phoenix will probe the history of liquid water that may have existed in the arctic as recently as 100,000 years ago. By digging into the soil and water-ice just below the surface and analyzing the chemistry of the soil and ice with robust instruments, scientists will better understand the history of the martian arctic.

2) Determine if the martian arctic soil could support life. Recent discoveries show that life can exist in the most extreme conditions. Certain bacterial spores lie dormant in bitterly cold, dry, and airless conditions for millions of years and become activated once conditions become favorable. Such dormant microbial colonies may exist in the martian arctic, where during brief periods about every 100,000 years the soil environment is believed to be favorable for life. Phoenix will explore the habitability of the martian environment by using sophisticated chemical experiments to assess the soil’s composition of life-giving elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and hydrogen. Phoenix will also dig into the soil protected from harmful solar radiation, looking for organic life signatures. If no life on Mars is found, will you then believe in God?

[scorpio]

Nuke it from orbit

[oldandslow]

Actually, (Phobia's rant aside) it could change many things - not the least being a horrific pandemic. Historically, what happens when alien cultures (i.e., Native Americans and Europeans) meet? The one that has the most immunity wins. (Native Americans had evolved in such a way that many types of worms did not bother them. Those worms plagued European colonists for a century. On the other hand, Europeans had some immunity to smallpox - and were also carriers - the results are obvious.)

Seriously, if those "microbes" found on Mars exist, they could be quite dangerous. We need to think seriously before bringing them back - purposely or not.

[Direckshun]

As one of the few theists here on this board, let me say it wouldn't affect my religion at all.

The Bible was intended as a message for man from God, more or less Earth specific. It never precluded the possibility of life on other planets and it never precluded the possibility that we're not the only intelligent life forms in the universe.

In other words, bring out the martians.

[morphius]

It wouldn't matter, the Chinese would just find a way to grind it into a power and try to use it as a aphrodisiac.

morphius
inappropriate post of the day...

[jAZ]

If no life on Mars is found, will you then believe in God?
Not finding life on the next trip isn't the same as finding "no life on Mars". Similarly if one were ever to be able to prove the negative of "no life on Mars (now or ever)"... that wouldn't be the same as "no life anywhere".

Finding life on Mars breaks the mold we've held for 1000's of years...

From a religion standpoint, it's the Aristotle-v-Copernicus effect all over again. Our earth-centric view of God and creation is fundamentally challenged... at least within our existing Religous frameworks that speak to "XYZ human" is the "only begottan Son".

The statistics of the scale of the universe, the number of likely identical planets around identical stars makes advanced human-like beings elsewhere almost a given. The trigger to this statistical set of dominos is finding the first planet that shows that life did or does exist elsewhere.

[jAZ]

To be clear, it doesn't break the mold on "God" being the ultimate creator. It just breaks the mold on just about all existing organized views of what "God" means.

[KC Kings]

From a religous aspect, it doesn't change anything. If there are microbes on Mars, they are there because God created them.

I believe that God created man by giving him a soul. Whether he added this soul 6,000 to a being he allowed to evolve, (which is an unprovable arguement that will be made IF all of the holes in the evolution theory are filled), or whether he merely planted the seeds to get everything started then litterally created man, doesn't matter to me.

Unless any bible says that God did not create life on Mars, then finding microbes there doesn't affect anything.

[jAZ]

As I asked Logical, first - define "life"

second, how does that possibility effect the idea of creation. I've never read that the bible considers this confinement.
If you are asking me, I'd say Logical's answer is fine. Again, it's an odd question given that it's a well defined concept, both from a cultural perspective and more importantly from a scientific perspective.

If you want a deeper answer, Wikipedia has a nice summary.

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

Life is a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects, i.e. non-life, and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally. In physical terms, life is an organism that feeds on negative entropy.[1][2] In more detail, according to physicists such as John Bernal, Erwin Schrodinger, Wigner, and John Avery, life is a member of the class of phenomena which are open or continuous systems able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of substances or free energy taken in from the environment and subsequently rejected in a degraded form (see: entropy and life).[3][4]

As to your latter point, our existing relgions have the assumption that Earth is special, because God's only Son was in fact on Earth and was human.

Life on another planet challenges Christianity's Aristotile-like view that Earth is the center of the Religious universe and pushes for a more Coperician view that Earth is just a statistic in the cosmic evolution of the universe.

What's important to understand is that none of the challenges the notion that "God" (and an important question I'd ask in return is how do you define "God") created the universe.

That idea would remain open to investigation.

[jAZ]

From a religous aspect, it doesn't change anything. If there are microbes on Mars, they are there because God created them.

I believe that God created man by giving him a soul. Whether he added this soul 6,000 to a being he allowed to evolve, (which is an unprovable arguement that will be made IF all of the holes in the evolution theory are filled), or whether he merely planted the seeds to get everything started then litterally created man, doesn't matter to me.

Unless any bible says that God did not create life on Mars, then finding microbes there doesn't affect anything.
It draws a distinction between the existing beliefs of most organized religion of today and "God".

It doesn't impact the more generally defined notion of an ultimate creator of humans, Mars, the universe, the microbes in question, etc.

[crazycoffey]

Jaz, I was only trying to say, I still would see earth special, the human race has done more than just evolved as animals, comunication, automobiles, etc. A simple life form on another planet doesn't detract the uniqueness of earth.... IMO

Sometimes I think we are an alien experiment, and they are just laughing at us as they pull our strings all because they are tired of their own TV progaming.

[jAZ]

Jaz, I was only trying to say, I still would see earth special, the human race has done more than just evolved as animals, comunication, automobiles, etc. A simple life form on another planet doesn't detract the uniqueness of earth.... IMO

Sometimes I think we are an alien experiment, and they are just laughing at us as they pull our strings all because they are tired of their own TV progaming.
If you only consider the two in isolation... then I can understand that.

But if you consider the fact that the ONLY other place we are capable of looking closely for life, we found it... and the fact that the place we looked is completely inhospitable to advanced life... yet life in some form was able to exist.

Add to that, the sheer scale of the universe... the high degree of likelihood that out of the trillions of stars, there are millions of Sun-like stars and Earth-like planets where life can exist in advanced forms.

Finding life of anykind on another planet completely destroys the historical belief by many that life only exists on earth. And pushes aside most of our cultural assumptions about life on earth as we have known it. Much of which is embedded in our current religous dogma.

[crazycoffey]

Finding life of anykind on another planet completely destroys the historical belief by many that life only exists on earth. And pushes aside most of our cultural assumptions about life on earth as we have known it. Much of which is embedded in our current religous dogma.


I just don't get how it would "destroy the historical belief", I never historically believed we are the only life form to inhabit a planet. I didn't know that someone on this planet had all the answers and we were trying to disprove that person (or those people).

I was trying to be funny and still make my point (but I learned today that I'm not funny), you know with the alien comments and all. I really believe I understand your perspective, I'm not sure you understood mine. But it doesn't matter.

oh, wait, another analogy for it. Jackson Pollock, the painter who just splashed paint around and art collectors went googoo for it. While he was making his "masterpieces" I would imagine he got paint on the floor and other areas surrounding his canvas. If there is a God and he created Earth, is it hard to imagine that he got some "paint" on Mars?

I don't see how anything scientists "find", educated men "say", or astrologists "discover" can ever fully prove or disprove the possibility of a "creator". We will only really know what happens on the day of our last breath. The screen will either go black or we will transfer to another existance, or reincarnate (as a Dinosaur, maybe?)

[jAZ]

I just don't get how it would "destroy the historical belief", I never historically believed we are the only life form to inhabit a planet. I didn't know that someone on this planet had all the answers and we were trying to disprove that person (or those people).

I was trying to be funny and still make my point (but I learned today that I'm not funny), you know with the alien comments and all. I really believe I understand your perspective, I'm not sure you understood mine. But it doesn't matter.

oh, wait, another analogy for it. Jackson Pollock, the painter who just splashed paint around and art collectors went googoo for it. While he was making his "masterpieces" I would imagine he got paint on the floor and other areas surrounding his canvas. If there is a God and he created Earth, is it hard to imagine that he got some "paint" on Mars?

I don't see how anything scientists "find", educated men "say", or astrologists "discover" can ever fully prove or disprove the possibility of a "creator". We will only really know what happens on the day of our last breath. The screen will either go black or we will transfer to another existance, or reincarnate (as a Dinosaur, maybe?)
I think the problem is that you are mixing serious comments that lead to further serious discussion in with the ha-ha... no need for more discussion comments. That's why we keep going back an forth I guess.

And for the record... and to prove my point...

I guess I now understand your belief more now. You didn't come in thinking your view is "all the answers". There are many like you. But there are many who's Religon tells them that their religous text indeed is in fact "all the answers".

[crazycoffey]

I think the problem is that you are mixing serious comments that lead to further serious discussion in with the ha-ha... no need for more discussion comments. That's why we keep going back an forth I guess.

And for the record... and to prove my point...

I guess I now understand your belief more now. You didn't come in thinking your view is "all the answers". There are many like you. But there are many who's Religon tells them that their religous text indeed is in fact "all the answers".




Yup, what I believe and know are two different things. Those people have blinded themselves from seeing knowledge in others.
It all made for a good thread and good discussions, no doubt.

Have a good day, I actually have some work to get done....