On Mar 5, 6:26*am, "Martha Adams" wrote:
"tension_on_the_wire" wrote in message

...
On Mar 4, 7:40 pm, "Jonathan" wrote:



"Apparently with no surprise
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play
In accidental power.

The blond assassin passes on,
The sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another day
For an approving God."

Nope!

Not at all, I believe if there is a god, 'He' would approve.

As the primary driving force for the evolution of all things is
change.
The basic element of life and the universe is found in ...far...from
equilibrium systems, not near equilibrium. Events...random events
are required to fuel the dynamics needed to initiate self organizing
or evolving systems which define our material and living reality.

To the very core, it's randomness that is the source of all Creation.

After all, a totally disordered or random system has as it's future
only one possible direction, towards more order. As is shown in the
study of random boolean networks.

I'm afraid your basic premise is incorrect. *The system to which you
are assigning a random state is one made of atoms. *When it comes to
order and chaos, atoms tend to follow the laws of thermodynamics, not
the behaviour of random boolean networks. *And the laws of
thermodynamics are pretty clear about the fact that order begets chaos
in closed systems, and it is irrelevant whether you are examining very
small molecular systems or those of great big astronomical bodies.
The concept of absolute zero, in heat measurement, describes exactly
what happens in a closed system which is allowed to run down to total
chaos and zero order. *Those systems do not reassemble themselves
spontaneously into ordered systems. *Show me at least one example
where this is not the case and I'll be happy to retract.

--tension

=============================================

This 'God' concept isn't quite nonsense -- it's an adult recall of what
the child guesses before reaching any age of rationality. *Since this
thinking very often reappears in overt mental health issues, it's not
nonsense. *It's pathology.

I can see this topic using up a lot of time and effort. *Terra *will be*
destroyed eventually: so what are we going to do about it? *In my view,
this certainty makes a strong case for developing the off-Terra presence
in our Solar System that we can do now. *If we don't waste our time
foolishly as in intellectualization about some nonexistent 'God.'.

Titeotwawki -- mha *[sci.space.policy *2009 Mar 05]

Since God and the Universe (out to the causal horizon, that is) are
identical (pantheism), no, "God" would not care. The rest of the
Universe would just look at the destroyed earth and say, "Too bad.
Luck of the draw. Like a wildebeest being brought down by a lion.
Better him than me. Darlene, peel me another grape."

Good argument for an asteroid deflection system not operated by that
madman Sagan worried of.