If extra terrestrial life was discovered

Sin City

Muppet Man wrote: »

Not be adding fuel to the God fearing folk fire, but almost certainly they would claim Ezekial 1:1-28 was speaking about aliens. Its about something coming down out of the sky with 2 wings and wheels turning within wheels and travelling in all four directions without turning. Its all mad sh1te really as far as I can tell, written by a prophet after too many bad figs.

That being said, with all the ascending into heaven carry on, I would have more faith that Jesus was astronaut or time traveller than the son of God.

Muppet Man

Sin City wrote: »

Eziekials wheel

kylith

Sounds like he was wheely out of it.

Solair

Meh, they'd just adapt and then try to convert them. That's the usual approach.

Galvasean

Dades wrote: »

What would be really interesting if the aliens who arrived showed us how they seeded earth a few billion years ago.

I thought I told you to stop watching Prometheus! :mad:

Dades

Never! And I still don't care about the plot holes. Muuhahhaahhhahaa.

Sarky

But... But...

Sin City

The origin of life revealed

robindch

philologos wrote: »

Jesus on the cross takes our sin away and takes God's wrath on Himself.

Given that christians believe that Jesus and god are the same, that means that christians must believe that god will only forget about the anger he feels towards his creations for not respecting his wishes, if the same creations execute him in accordance with his wishes.

Talk about passive-aggressive! Do you really think that this is reasonable?

"God works in mysterious ways" is not an answer

King Mob

Dades wrote: »

Never! And I still don't care about the plot holes. Muuhahhaahhhahaa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0

housetypeb

housetypeb wrote: »

Always with that servile crap.
Daddy is going to be mad,he loves me but he's always judging me in everything I do,he's so good and I'm so bad.
I'm a bad bad boy and know that I deserve to be punished, I try so hard to please him and be good, but I always end up failing as I'm really bad inside-and so on and so forth......

When it's stripped to its basics, it really is an extremely perturbing and incredibly unhealthy outlook to hold, isn't it? If a person held the same views towards another they would do well to be psychologically evaluated, but when such views are held towards a god it's somehow beautiful. Christianity, at its very core, is nothing but deeply disturbing and about as ugly as any imaginable ideology. It makes me shudder.

Sarky

So Christians really are perverts then?

housetypeb

gvn wrote: »

When it's stripped to its basics, it really is an extremely perturbing and incredibly unhealthy outlook to hold, isn't it? If a person held the same views towards another they would do well to be psychologically evaluated, but when such views are held towards a god it's somehow beautiful. Christianity, at its very core, is nothing but deeply disturbing and about as ugly as any imaginable ideology. It makes me shudder.

I posted the following in another thread-but it's worth repeating(imho).

-It always strikes me as odd how Christians say that they have a "personal" relationship with Jesus, and at the same time every Christian will admit,and feel guilt about,the fact that they have fallen short of the ideals set by him even though they're trying their best.
They actually put themselves willingly into an imaginary abusive relationship.

Galvasean

Sin City wrote: »

The origin of life revealed

Actually, if you close your eyes and listen to the audio track alone it sounds like he is doing something else (albeit with the same body part)! :eek:

Undergod

Freiheit wrote: »

What implications would it have for 'people of faith?'....

None, that I can see. How would it? Does the Bible say anywhere that there is no other intelligent life anywhere?

pauldla

Undergod wrote: »

None, that I can see. How would it? Does the Bible say anywhere that there is no other intelligent life anywhere?

As far as I am aware, the Bible says very little about intelligence at all, be it on this world or others. Intelligence isn't much of a priority for the Lord of Creation, it seems.

Peregrinus

pauldla wrote: »

As far as I am aware, the Bible says very little about intelligence at all, be it on this world or others. Intelligence isn't much of a priority for the Lord of Creation, it seems.

Then you need to increase your awareness, or perhaps invest in a thesaurus. Wisdom is a major theme in the Old Testament scriptures.

pauldla

Peregrinus wrote: »

Then you need to increase your awareness, or perhaps invest in a thesaurus. Wisdom is a major theme in the Old Testament scriptures.

Wisdom is not the same as intelligence. You may be intelligent enough to understand all stages of the rain cycle, for example, but still lack the wisdom to carry an umbrella.

Thank you for your recommendation of a thesaurus, though. Have you, in turn, ever considered a dictionary? Should you not own one, www.dictionary.com is a fine site, many say. Some relevant entries, for your reference:

in·tel·li·gence
noun 1. capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.
2.manifestation of a high mental capacity: He writes with intelligence and wit.

wis·dom
noun 1. the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.
2. scholarly knowledge or learning: the wisdom of the schools.

Sin City

Galvasean wrote: »

Actually, if you close your eyes and listen to the audio track alone it sounds like he is doing something else (albeit with the same body part)! :eek:

He is an alien, maybe it "cums" out green

Peregrinus

I think you missed my smiley, Pauldla. :-)

OK, it wasn’t that funny, but what led me to my little crack was that your post reminded me of a previous exchange in which a conservative Christian assured me that the bible had nothing to say that was relevant to the treatment of refugees because the word “refugee” did not occur anywhere in it.

I’m aware that intelligence and wisdom are not the same thing, but they’re not wholly unconnected. To continue your own example, my having the wisdom to carry an umbrella when it threatens rain is rather dependent on my having the intelligence to be aware that it threatens rain. Some degree of intelligence doesn’t amount to wisdom, but it is a necessary precursor to wisdom. Consequently the chances that a set of texts which deal extensively with wisdom have nothing to say which is remotely pertinent to intelligence are not very high.

philologos

housetypeb wrote: »

Always with that servile crap.
Daddy is going to be mad,he loves me but he's always judging me in everything I do,he's so good and I'm so bad.
I'm a bad bad boy and know that I deserve to be punished, I try so hard to please him and be good, but I always end up failing as I'm really bad inside-and so on and so forth......

Not at all. That's not what I'm arguing.

What I am arguing is that God as Creator of the world is the rightful Lord over it, and that God gave us standards by which we can live as best as we can in this creation. We rejected them, and as a result we are liable to God's rightful punishment, God's wrath. God being a just God will punish for sin. Christians believe in a God who is just, and who is merciful. God forgives, but God shows how costly our sin is by Jesus' death on the cross and His subsequent resurrection. Jesus rescues us because although He was blameless and knew no sin He took God's wrath on our behalf (1 Peter 1:18, 2 Corinthians 5:21).

Why does that show this to be costly? - Simply put, if God's rightful punishment was due to us we would be there instead. Thankfully God in His loving mercy has made a way for us to repent and to come back to Him.

This isn't servile crap. In reality, each one of us knows deep down that we've done what is evil when we should have done good instead, and often we've neglected to do the right thing when we could.

If we face God, and He judges us unfairly, then you're right. However, if we have violated God's standards and if we do fall short of them, and God still in His kindness has sent His Son Jesus to stand in our place, what excuse do we have?

robindch wrote: »

Given that christians believe that Jesus and god are the same, that means that christians must believe that god will only forget about the anger he feels towards his creations for not respecting his wishes, if the same creations execute him in accordance with his wishes.

Talk about passive-aggressive! Do you really think that this is reasonable?

"God works in mysterious ways" is not an answer

It's entirely reasonable. It's more reasonable than the atheistic view concerning ethics and morality as I've pointed out on many occasions on this forum.

The Gospel actually provides a clear solution to wrongdoing and sin. The atheist view of ethics is built on a shifting sand of good is whatever the heck I want it to be, and evil is whatever the heck I decide it to be. It's a resignation to saying anything meaningful about good and evil, right and wrong because if these terms are not situated in an objective reality they are utterly meaningless.

gvn wrote: »

When it's stripped to its basics, it really is an extremely perturbing and incredibly unhealthy outlook to hold, isn't it? If a person held the same views towards another they would do well to be psychologically evaluated, but when such views are held towards a god it's somehow beautiful. Christianity, at its very core, is nothing but deeply disturbing and about as ugly as any imaginable ideology. It makes me shudder.

How is it unhealthy? Perhaps you could point me to how believing and trusting in Jesus is negative in comparison to being a slave to the mere utterances of man?

If you asked me what is the most powerful image that the world has ever seen, it is Barabbas walking free while Jesus is nailed to the cross in His place. Although Barabbas had done what is evil, and although Barabbas had deserved to be on the cross instead of Jesus who was nailed there, he walked away free.

Nonetheless, God's justice and God's mercy both met there. The wrath that had been due to him, and to all of us in turn was taken away.

Is it ugly that God cares for us so much that He sent His Son although knowing we did wrong before Him so that we could know Him? - I think it's amazingly beautiful, and the most powerful image of forgiveness that the world has ever seen. I know no other worldview that truly and inherently encourages genuine forgiveness in this world.

Would it be less ugly if God had cast us straight to hell for ignoring Him, for treating Him and His standards with contempt?

Sarky

Still hoping reality will go away if you ignore it hard enough? You go girl!

endacl

pauldla wrote: »

Intelligence isn't much of a priority for the Lord of Creation, it seems.

That certainly ties in nicely with the fact that holygod revealed his teachings to mankind through the wholly babble.

swampgas

philologos wrote: »

What I am arguing is that God as Creator of the world is the rightful Lord over it, and that God gave us standards by which we can live as best as we can in this creation. We rejected them, and as a result we are liable to God's rightful punishment, God's wrath. God being a just God will punish for sin.

Yet the fact that this hypothetical God you describe created the world this way doesn't make you wonder if maybe God couldn't have found a way to create a world without sin? Where punishment and wrath weren't required? Surely God must have wanted there to be sin, wrath and punishment?

Sorry, it's a complete crock, I don't know how you keep convincing yourself otherwise.

Sarky

swampgas wrote: »

Sorry, it's a complete crock, I don't know how you keep convincing yourself otherwise.

I think it has something to do with fear. He's said in the past that he really doesn't like the idea that things like moral relativism are how the world works.

Dades

Utter bananas. It makes Scientology sound reasonable.

Sin City

philologos wrote: »

Not at all. That's not what I'm arguing.

What I am arguing is that God as Creator of the world is the rightful Lord over it, and that God gave us standards by which we can live as best as we can in this creation. We rejected them, and as a result we are liable to God's rightful punishment, God's wrath. God being a just God will punish for sin. Christians believe in a God who is just, and who is merciful. God forgives, but God shows how costly our sin is by Jesus' death on the cross and His subsequent resurrection. Jesus rescues us because although He was blameless and knew no sin He took God's wrath on our behalf (1 Peter 1:18, 2 Corinthians 5:21).

How does Jesus know no sin
If he was human, then surely he was born with original sin like the rest of us. If he wasnt, then he wasnt fully human, so his death is meaningless.

philologos wrote: »

This isn't servile crap. In reality, each one of us knows deep down that we've done what is evil when we should have done good instead, and often we've neglected to do the right thing when we could.

Define evil? I have never done anything evil iv done wrong but nothing evil

philologos wrote: »

If we face God, and He judges us unfairly, then you're right. However, if we have violated God's standards and if we do fall short of them, and God still in His kindness has sent His Son Jesus to stand in our place, what excuse do we have?

God doesnt have to have had Jesus take our place, its his rules, and he could change them if he wanted.

philologos wrote: »

It's entirely reasonable. It's more reasonable than the atheistic view concerning ethics and morality as I've pointed out on many occasions on this forum.

Bollix, atheists can have morals and not becuase an imaginary deity demands it

philologos wrote: »

How is it unhealthy? Perhaps you could point me to how believing and trusting in Jesus is negative in comparison to being a slave to the mere utterances of man?

Man can explain his position, you can argue with man and use reason and demand and recieve proof

philologos wrote: »

If you asked me what is the most powerful image that the world has ever seen, it is Barabbas walking free while Jesus is nailed to the cross in His place. Although Barabbas had done what is evil, and although Barabbas had deserved to be on the cross instead of Jesus who was nailed there, he walked away free.

Nonetheless, God's justice and God's mercy both met there. The wrath that had been due to him, and to all of us in turn was taken away.

Is it ugly that God cares for us so much that He sent His Son although knowing we did wrong before Him so that we could know Him? - I think it's amazingly beautiful, and the most powerful image of forgiveness that the world has ever seen. I know no other worldview that truly and inherently encourages genuine forgiveness in this world.

Would it be less ugly if God had cast us straight to hell for ignoring Him, for treating Him and His standards with contempt?

What,??????? Are you serious?

First off what if Jesus had been released? He couldnt have saved mankind for their sin could he? This is absolute bollix of the highest order

robindch

philologos wrote: »

The atheist view of ethics is built on a shifting sand of good is whatever the heck I want it to be, and evil is whatever the heck I decide it to be.

If you took the five minutes to understand what non-religious people say about human behaviour, you'd also understand what a truly dumb comment that is.

philologos wrote: »

Is it ugly that God cares for us so much that He sent His Son although knowing we did wrong before Him so that we could know Him? - I think it's amazingly beautiful, and the most powerful image of forgiveness that the world has ever seen. I know no other worldview that truly and inherently encourages genuine forgiveness in this world.

Ok, phil, I moderate this forum from time to time. Sticking to the preposterous model you propose, you really reckon that whenever somebody breaks the rules, I should nail myself to a tree to restore order?

Are you mad?

Bloodwing

Phil, sorry for taking so long to get back to this, I had a few other things on my plate (no not the souls of unborn babies). I'm going to start with the last point you made in your reply to me.

philologos wrote: »

I have to ask have you read the Bible? Honestly one look at the Gospel of John and many other texts would show you the Gospel was intended for all nations. Heck even read just chapters 2 to 4 where Jesus clearly states the Gospel is for the whole world.

God intended the Bible as His word to us about knowing Him, acknowledging His abundant mercy to us and living and speaking for Him until Christ returns.

No, I haven't read the bible. I have certainly read parts of it and I spent 18 years of my life going to mass every Sunday and day of "obligation" so I've heard a good bit of it but by no means would I pretend to have the same insight into it as you.

There's no doubt in my mind that the writers of the bible intended that it be for "all nations". Of course the aim would be to spread it as far and wide as possible. The point I was making is that it was clearly written by someone with very little knowledge of the world outside the Middle East. All the stories and references they contain are centered around the customs, animals and culture of that part of the world. In a time when one side of the world didn't know the other existed why wasn't god making an effort to spread his word to every corner of the planet in a way that everyone could understand? Whey not let the Chinese in on the act given that they were more advanced in methods of recording the words of god/jesus. The reference to a camel fitting through the eye of a needle would have left a lot of Irish (or whatever name we were going by back then) scratching their heads given that they had never seen or heard of a camel.

So what's your point i hear you say!! Well it's this, the writings of the bible and the gospels in particular (which i believe are supposed to be the word of god?) were not universal and although you and the writers claim they were intended for all nation they are obviously the words of someone with limited knowledge of the world and universe around them.

philologos wrote: »

No I don't largely because the Bible is about the holy and righteous God who created all things and how He relates to us. Now if the Bible was a book intended to describe all life forms in the universe I might agree with you.



The question is what is most important for us to know. Christianity says Jesus, Him crucified and Him resurrected. The Bible doesn't promise to tell us everything about creation. Heck the Bible doesn't even promise to tell us everything about God, but it does tell us enough about our situation and what God has declared and what He has done.



I'm still confused as to why you think God has an obligation to tell us everything about the universe? Or why that is a logical necessity?

I wouldn't say I consider god to be obliged to tell us anything, all i said is that i find it peculiar that he would choose not to at least mention some of the fairly massive things about the world in which he created. We're told all about how he created everything around us and it even goes into the detail about what order he created all these things in. In my mind it's a fairly major omission that he didn't say "on days 5 and 6 i created life on earth, but just so you know a few million years before that i created Dinosaurs but it didn't work out so I had to kill most of them off". That to me is a glaring omission that makes me think that "god" (by god i mean the people whos words we're really referring to) didn't know anything about dinosaurs and therefore couldn't write about them.

It would be the same if ET life arrived on Earth or was discovered, I'd be asking the question why was this left out, why is there another major omission in the list of things god did?.

You say "the Bible is about the holy and righteous God who created all things and how He relates to us", I'll accept that is the interpretation of some people and yourself but what gets me is if the bible is about how god relates to us then why is so much of it centered around us worshiping him and carrying out acts in his name. Why isn't it a book about all he has done for us and all the amazing acts he himself has done. It would make so much more sense and be infinitely more logical if it discussed things or at least referred to things in some small way that weren't common knowledge at the time of writing such as dinosaurs, the truth about the shape and age of the planet or the truth about the orbit of the Earth or who knows what other discoveries are yet to be made, and when we discover these things we can look to the bible and say wow thanks god for that little hint about what you had done you truly are an impressive god.

I suppose you'll tell me that belief is all about faith and god shouldn't need to be offering any hint of evidence towards his existence, but lets be honest here if the lads who wrote the bible were given a do-over and were allowed to use all the knowledge we have today the bible and the great works of god would read very differently to how it does now.

Bloodwing

robindch wrote: »

If you took the five minutes to understand what non-religious people say about human behaviour, you'd also understand what a truly dumb comment that is.Ok, phil, I moderate this forum from time to time. Sticking to the preposterous model you propose, you really reckon that whenever somebody breaks the rules, I should nail myself to a tree to restore order?

Are you mad?

Don't be silly Robin it's not that simple. First you need to impregnate a virgin without actually sleeping with her, It also must be yourself that you impregnate her with. Then once the new you is old enough to talk you have to spend your life telling everyone how great the older you is. You have to keep doing this until you really annoy Enda Kenny, at which point he'll sentence you to die. Now here's where things get tricky, you need to plead with old you to save new you from death, this will need to be done in a garden of some sort. Eventually you'll realize that new you must accept death so then you'll nail new you to a cross. Wait three days and old you will bring new you back from the dead (so it's not really a sacrifice given that the all knowing old you knew he would be doing this all along), then new you and old you can hang out in a really cool place and have great craic with earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. It's so much easier than handing out infractions or bans.

EDIT: I almost forgot the most important part. You're going to have to provide the rest of us Boardsies with a steady supply of your flesh and blood which will be fed to us by other Mods. It's all part of the process of keeping us from offending again.

pauldla

Peregrinus wrote: »

I think you missed my smiley, Pauldla. :-)

OK, it wasn’t that funny, but what led me to my little crack was that your post reminded me of a previous exchange in which a conservative Christian assured me that the bible had nothing to say that was relevant to the treatment of refugees because the word “refugee” did not occur anywhere in it.

I’m aware that intelligence and wisdom are not the same thing, but they’re not wholly unconnected. To continue your own example, my having the wisdom to carry an umbrella when it threatens rain is rather dependent on my having the intelligence to be aware that it threatens rain. Some degree of intelligence doesn’t amount to wisdom, but it is a necessary precursor to wisdom. Consequently the chances that a set of texts which deal extensively with wisdom have nothing to say which is remotely pertinent to intelligence are not very high.

Such wisdom as is in the Bible is usually described as 'the Wisdom of the Lord', or similiar, and is thus comparable to any other wisdom derived from the fables, parables and superstitions of Bronze Age Man. Aesop's work is much admired too, in this regard.

And the Good Book does say very little about intelligence itself, does it not?