Lestat   10 #25 Posted August 24, 2005 Planet Earth, my home, my place A capricious anomaly in the sea of space Planet Earth are you just Floating by, a cloud of dust A minor globe, about to bust A piece of metal bound to rust A speck of matter in a mindless void A lonely spacship, a large asteroid  Cold as a rock without a hue Held together with a bit of glue Something tells me this isn't true You are my sweetheart soft and blue Do you care, have you a part In the deepest emotions of my own heart Tender with breezes caressing and whole Alive with music, haunting my soul.  In my veins I've felt the mystery Of corridors of time, books of hisotry Life songs of ages throbbing in my blood Have danced the rhythm of the tide and flood Your misty clouds, your electric storm Were turbulent tempests in my own form I've licked the salt, the bitter, the sweet Of every encounter, of passion, of heat Your riotous color, your fragrance, your taste Have thrilled my senses beyond all haste In your beuaty, I've known the how Of timeless bliss, this moment of now  Planet Earth are you just Floating by, a cloud of dust A minor globe, about to bust A piece of metal bound to rust A speck of matter in a mindless void A lonely spacship, a large asteroid Cold as a rock without a hue Held together with a bit of glue Something tells me this isn't true You are my sweetheart gentle and blue Do you care, have you a part In the deepest emotions of my own heart Tender with breezes caressing and whole Alive with music, haunting my soul. Planet Earth, gentle and blue With all my heart, I love you Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
spiffymonkey   10 #26 Posted August 24, 2005 Originally posted by Deavon Instead the 'rock' is life. We are the Earth, it's elements and atoms alive and dancing... and trying to figure itself out.  Our consciousness is that of the Earth's. I know it's hard to conceive but every thought we have is the planet thinking.   If the thoughts we have are the planet thinking, then the actions we perform are actually the planet acting. In that case it appears that the Earth has a problem with self-harm, and ought to seek a planetary counsellor at the earliest opportunity. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
bassplayer   10 #27 Posted August 24, 2005 Originally posted by StarSparkle I believe our current life on earth is one step on our soul's journey towards spiritual enlightenment and ultimate return to God.  StarSparkle  Amen to that Starsparkle, going to church does give a sense of belonging but not everyone is going to believe. One verse of the Bible says that "We must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling" but how many do? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
Guest   #28 Posted August 24, 2005 our purpose in life is to destroy each other and the planet until we are all destroyed.  We are given religion as a purpose and as soon as this purpose dies we will all die.  We are all the pawns in a game/experiment at a higher level.  There is no afterlife. There is no reincarnation.  this is it Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
Draggletail   41 #29 Posted August 24, 2005 Originally posted by Deavon I like the Gaia idea.  Don't think of us as humans living on a rock.  Instead the 'rock' is life. We are the Earth, it's elements and atoms alive and dancing... and trying to figure itself out.  Our consciousness is that of the Earth's. I know it's hard to conceive but every thought we have is the planet thinking.  Here we are, spinning in the void, wondering about it.  WOW.   (Just going to lie down in a dark room for half an hour).  I like James Lovelock's Gaia Theory too Deavon. I tend to think that way naturally........  There is loads of stuff on the web about it. This was the first thing that came up when I googled....  http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/what_is_Gaia.html Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
Greybeard   10 #30 Posted August 24, 2005 Originally posted by spiffymonkey If the thoughts we have are the planet thinking, then the actions we perform are actually the planet acting. In that case it appears that the Earth has a problem with self-harm, and ought to seek a planetary counsellor at the earliest opportunity.  We're travelling on a time bomb, - and we call it home  Life on Earth is very precarious. Scientists estimate that a supervolcano will erupt somewhere at least once eevry 100,000 years and possibly more frequently. They reckon the last one, in Sumatra 74,000 ago, wiped out all but a few thousand people over the entire planet.  The next one could blow tomorrow, - but probably not.  Maybe sometime next year ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
tslogf74 Â Â 10 #31 Posted August 24, 2005 My problem with "god" or whatever you want to call it, is that it doesn't solve any of the mysteries at all. The argument seems to be that life on Earth is too complicated to have evolved by chance so it must have been created by some intelligence. OK, so how did this interlligence (which is presumably even more complex) come to be. What is its purpose? Â Is faith what happens when people stop asking difficult questions? I understand the need to part of something meaningful, but for me this isn't it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
Cayenne   10 #32 Posted August 24, 2005 Originally posted by Greybeard We're travelling on a time bomb, - and we call it home  Life on Earth is very precarious. Scientists estimate that a supervolcano will erupt somewhere at least once eevry 100,000 years and possibly more frequently. They reckon the last one, in Sumatra 74,000 ago, wiped out all but a few thousand people over the entire planet.  The next one could blow tomorrow, - but probably not.  Maybe sometime next year ?  Think this topic is going over the same ground but from a slightly different angle to http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55437. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
depoix   11 #33 Posted August 24, 2005 there are more questions than answers Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
spartacus   10 #34 Posted August 25, 2005 Originally posted by redrobbo I do not think we are on this earth for a purpose, or that our mere existence has a purpose. We are just here.  I'm with Redrobbo and tslog on this one. I think we came about by luck. A quick trawl through the internet reveals that modern astrophysics and related sciences suggest that an incredible number and variety of coincidences came together to enable intelligent life to exist on Earth. Indeed, it seems we overcame odds that would make winning the Euromillions several times on the trot a cinch.  Today's thinking suggests there are between 10 to the power of 22 and 10 to the power of 24 stars in the universe. Check this out using a scientific calculator and there seems a lot of twinklies out there. Multiply that figure by ten and we have a somewhat inaccurate but workable estimate of the number of the planets in the universe. But first consider what it took for life to exist on Earth at all.  Well, first we needed a source of energy, a sun. And a single sun at that. A binary system would not have done because the deviations in orbit, temperatures and gravity would have been too imprecise. And that sun had to be the correct mass and at the correct stage of its life cycle. Too old and Supernova might happen before life evolves.  Next, our planet needed the correct mass and to have a molten iron core so that its magnetic field could reflect harmful radiation.  Next, the Earth must be within a fixed window of distances from its energy source, the sun. Too close or too far away and it's curtains for us.  Next, there must be a sufficient source of water. Life is mostly water and water is required to make an atmosphere.  Of course, I could go on and on and on for eternity and include other scientific coincidences: chemistry, biology, evolution. And what about other mass extinctions allowing our species to multiply and evolve. You get the idea.  Multiply the chances of all these coincidences coming together and divide that total into the number of planets in the universe and we see that the odds of intelligent life occurring anywhere else in this particular universe is slim indeed.  And what do we do with this miraculous oasis that we are so privileged to exist upon? Well that's a subject for another post.  By the why, Lestat; great poem. Is it yours? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...