Origins of life and Saturn's moon

[wildflower]

I heard today about a probe landing on one of Saturn's moons, and the broadcaster said something about whether life would spring from it. So I looked for an article on this. Here are a couple of snips of what I found:

"This is a grand descent into the unknown," said an elated David Southwood, the European Space Agency's science director. "The atmosphere we're about to analyze is a cooking pot for life, and all the ingredients for life are there — except for water. But on Earth there was water indeed, and Titan's chemicals, duplicated on our planet so long ago, were critical as well for life."

snip

"Now we can examine materials that have been strange for billions of years," he said. "At last we can really examine prebiotic molecules, seeking the bricks of life."

What do you think of this from a spiritual perspective?

For those of you who can be prone to doubt or questioning (like me), what do you feel? (I really want to believe in something more, but I feel unsure again when I hear the conclusions drawn from stories such as the above.)

-wildflower

ON EDIT: Forgot link to article I snipped from:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/archive/2005/01/14/MNhuygens14.TMP

[Maat]

1. Interesting, wildflower.

I'm reading. I'm not sure I have anything remotely intelligent to say here. There has got to be life on other planets.

[wildflower]

4. I guess what I'm trying to say is that...

I heard broadcasters talking about this as if (the way I understood it) we might finally be able to find out how life began, based on looking at these physical elements. Or even to create it ourselves based on these elements.

To me this flies in the face of the idea of a nonphysical basis of life. That makes me feel down, because it makes me begin to doubt the nontangible again.

I wondered how others who are uncertain/agnostic react to stories in the scientific world of this nature.

-wildflower

[Maat]

5. You're very intellectual.

Funny, I did not take it that way. Suppose that we could create life, but also suppose that Spirit created this wonderful system so that we could do so. Suppose furthermore that Neil Walshe's theory is true, and that, at one time, there was only One. Then One divided itself up so that life could be experienced at a whole new level. Some of those segments were individual humans, that Spirit wished to experience its creative power. Would that mean that, because we could use the system, apply a model ('science'), that it was any less wondeful? I just don't think so. There is always Spirit behind the Creation (something above and beyond the sum of the parts). Thoughts?

[wildflower]

6. That's an interesting perspective I hadn't thought of.

As I described in another thread, one of the things that to me signals a life force beyond the physical is the fact that when people die, we can't bring them back to life.

I.e., we could fix up their bodies like we do a car, but can't make them 'go' again. Whereas with a car, we can usually fix or replace parts, then put in the gas and turn on the ignition.

What is the 'ignition' for life? I have no scientific explanation for it.

The idea that we could find that 'ignition,' and apply it ourselves, has heretofore led me to conclude that spirit would therefore not exist.

However, the idea that we could simply do the same thing that spirit does is one I hadn't thought of. Fascinating! Thanks, Ma'at.

-wildflower

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. "I was a hidden treasure who longed to be known"....

I believe All That Is (to borrow the term from Seth) is in a constant state of creation and expansion (the outbreath), which is balanced by a contraction into Unity (the inbreath). As such, it makes sense to me that there would be life, or the start of life, in other places-not just other planets, but in paralllet dimensions as well.

[Ranec]

3. This is something I've thought about too.

Do you remember when they found that asteroid that was supposed to show proof of life from Mars. I guess that was eventual disproved, but I thought at the time what a tremendous thing it would be if we ever find proof of life on another planet.

Certainly we as a society have imagined life on other planets, but I think when we are finally presented with an example it will be a world-changing event.

I don't know why. Maybe because our view of the universe is that we are on top. That at some level, people feel that the whole thing exists for us. To step down and take a secondary role in the solar system would be a deeply humbling experience.