So why did God choose earth?

Question

Keeping it on a small scale, we'll just stay inside the solar system.

Why didn't he choose for us to be able to withstand extreme temperatures and put us on Mercury?

make us able to withstand the gases of Venus?

our body structure strong enough to take the gravity of Jupiter?

or could it be that this is the only place that we know of that is actually habitual, because it involved no creation at all?

Answer 1

There is much more to the universe than what has been discovered and I believe there is other life besides that on Earth.

Would you really want to live on Mercury, Venus or Jupiter, even if you could withstand the conditions?

Answer 2

I'm going to make a fool of myself here, I know. You're going to tell me you didn't mean this question seriously. But it's a good question!

There has always been the question of whether God designed the earth as a home for us or designed us to be able to live on earth. This is called the 'anthropic principle'.

Someone gave me a book once that was filled with essays written by different people who had opinions about this. You'd think it was simple, but most of the essays were very difficult to read and understand. I ended up deciding that the question was beyond me.

Remember when the Bible was written, people believed that the earth was at the center of the universe. They believed the earth was unique, not a 'planet' orbiting a star, and that God created not just the earth for people to live in but the entire universe to go around it. And people believed this up until the 17th century, even while scientific evidence mounted up that it wasn't true. When the whole idea finally became completely indefensible, they finally had to give it up.

What finally killed the earth-centric view was Newton's discovery that the planets and stars moved as they did because of gravity. The old view was that everything from the moon outwards was moved by the hand of God, and was even proof that God existed. What Newton really proved was that the same physical laws that rule the earth rule the whole universe. As you might imagine, this came as an enormous shock to a lot of people!

From a scientific point of view, there must be many many planets in the universe capable of supporting life 'as we know it', and perhaps many more capable of supporting some type of life as we -don't - know it. Our version of biology is all based on carbon, but scientists say it's theoretically possible that other life could be based on silicon. So there may be beings in the universe that can live in an environment of molten rock, like Venus, or a gas giant with a methane atmosphere, like Jupiter. Just as there are creatures on earth that can live in a sub-zero, almost oxygen-free environment at the bottom of the ocean, or in the vents of volcanoes heated by superheated steam.

Answer 3

The word “creation” is now so loaded that even R&S fundies in a locked closet can cause it to blow up in their faces. There is a “green” zone around every star. Inside our solar system, we are in the green zone of a G-2 type dwarf star. Astronomers are discovering more and more extra-solar planets around stars. Just recently a planet was discovered orbiting the red star Gliese 581. It appears to be the first terrestrial extrasolar planet discovered in the hypothetical habitable zone surrounding its star, where surface temperatures might maintain liquid water and therefore be suitable for life as we know it on Earth. The planet is astronomically close, at 20.5 light years (120 trillion miles) from Earth in the direction of the constellation of Libra.
Gliese 581c is the first extrasolar planet believed to have a surface temperature similar to that of Earth. It is the smallest extrasolar planet around a main sequence star discovered to date. Exciting, isn’t it?

Astronomers believe this planet, Gliese 581c, is habitable because it has a radius just 50 percent larger than Earth's, a mass five times greater, and orbits its star at a distance of 7 million miles. With many stars, that would be the torrid zone where liquid water, thought to be a requirement for life, could not exist. But this star is a red dwarf, a class that is smaller and 50 times fainter than our Sun. That means that even at 7 million miles (Earth is 93 million miles from our Sun), planetary temperatures likely range from 32 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Just right.

Answer 4

The Donkey is right. When god realized he was a trinity he had to reconsider everything that he had ever done before. It took him some time, but eventually he decided to listen to Copernicus and Galileo and make the earth round and orbit the sun. He then decided to make some of those stars out there planets that also orbited the sun. He also decided to put our sun in the middle of a bunch of other suns that also had planets. Unfortunately, he had already made earth by then and figured it wouldn't make sense to move us to Mars then. I think he figured we'd figure out how to get there eventually and we'd know how to stop our bodies from being killed in the process.

Answer 5

If we were created to live on Mars, your question would be "So why did God choose Mars?" There is no good answer to your question, because there are an infinite number of possible places God could have created us, He just created the earth... because He wanted to. Really now, He could have made a different world instead of the earth, but it's more of a thing of personal flavor, I might say.

In short, "why not?"

Answer 6

I'm glad he picked earth for us and maybe the next group he will consider those things. But this is not the only solar system in the Universe and not even the biggest.
So he didn't have to pick even one here but I guess he liked this place and decided to make it comfortable and beautiful.
Personally I like this planet, and think he did a nice job of fixing it up.

Answer 7

God can do anything that does not imply contradiction. Thus, God cannot make a square circle, dig half a hole, or make a rock so big even He couldn't lift it.

If it is somehow a contradiction for intelligent life to exist in extreme temperatures, then it would have impugned God's honesty to create things in any other way (which would be impossible).

Answer 8

I've asked this before - if an omnipotent being created us, surely he could have created us to live in whatever conditions he wanted us to, therefore making the "fine tuning of the universe" argument utterly useless.

Answer 9

I always thought it a little arrogant for humans to believe that life has to be defined as we know it. who is to say that thier isn't life on Mercury that we just don't understand, they could be at a different vibrational rfequancy then us maybe and we can't see them, or maybe thier don't have bodies like our thierfore we miss them. To think that a god would place this many planets in the universe and ours in the only one with life on it? thats arrogance at its greatest


if you like comic books, superhero's, movies, or music join my new yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/superherosforever/

Answer 10

See, back when Gawddidit, the earth was the center of the entire universe, and all the other things rotated around US for our nighttime enjoyment.

Since evil has entered the world, God changed the universe so that this is no longer the case.