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The Religion of Aliens

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    #302
    Seachmall
    Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    mickrock wrote: »
    I assumed you believed abiogenesis could explain the origin of life.

    I do, but the assumption that I take it as a "fact" threw me off.

    And the "chance" thing is an odd way of phrasing it.


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    #303
    conor.hogan.2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,246 ✭✭✭conor.hogan.2


    http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/p67.htm - a "theory" is not what you think it is.


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    #304
    Cú Giobach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    We have been knocking god back consistently for centuries, our knowledge of how things come about, from the pollination and growth of plants, to the formation of stars and planets has been slowly edging a god off his pedestal, everything we see around us has a perfectly rational explanation, so why should the things we don't yet understand be any different?


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    #305
    conor.hogan.2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,246 ✭✭✭conor.hogan.2


    Because religion has got a stronger stranglehold than Ted Nugent.


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    #306
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Cú Giobach wrote: »
    We have been knocking god back consistently for centuries, our knowledge of how things come about, from the pollination and growth of plants, to the formation of stars and planets has been slowly edging a god off his pedestal, everything we see around us has a perfectly rational explanation, so why should the things we don't yet understand be any different?

    the fear of death promotes wishful thinking...


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    #307
    mickrock
    Registered Users Posts: 1,021 ✭✭✭mickrock


    Seachmall wrote: »
    I do, but the assumption that I take it as a "fact" threw me off.

    And the "chance" thing is an odd way of phrasing it.

    Well, if it's not happening purely by chance what's moving the process in a certain direction?


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    #308
    conor.hogan.2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,246 ✭✭✭conor.hogan.2


    mickrock wrote: »
    Well, if it's not happening purely by chance what's moving the process in a certain direction?

    Natural selection?


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    #309
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    hes trolling...has to be.


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    #310
    Seachmall
    Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    mickrock wrote: »
    Well, if it's not happening purely by chance what's moving the process in a certain direction?

    What's "happening" and what direction is it moving in?

    Are we still talking about abiogenisis?


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    #311
    mickrock
    Registered Users Posts: 1,021 ✭✭✭mickrock


    conor.hogan.2 wrote: »
    Natural selection?

    I'm talking about the origin of life.

    Pay attention.


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    #312
    dyer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 598 ✭✭✭dyer


    Originally Posted by HavingCrack

    This isn't directly related to the title of the thread but it's something I have been wondering about for a while. Why is so much emphasis placed on looking for water and Earth-like planets? Surely it could be just as possible for alien lifeforms to exist on planets that are nothing like Earth at all. While water may be the basis of life on this planet there is no reason to suppose it would be the same elsewhere, as far as I know anyway.

    It is quite possible that life exists in ways and in places that are nothing like earth, but since we have nothing else comparable, that's what we search for, so our understanding of how life evolved here is a litmus for discovering life on other planets... and when you consider the size of the universe, you might as well make a safe bet. in fact what SETI listens for is based on the fundamental principle of life evolving on planets with an abudance of hydrogen. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line. they have also recently discovered water being created in the formation of stars.. so it might not be as scarce as we once thought it was.

    the problem with all these notions about our radio signals travelling light years off into space is that they are actually quite flawed.. since these signals were never designed for direct interstellar communication and therefore, were never concentrated or amplified in any specific direction. radio and television signals leaving earth propogate out into space in a wave form which can be demonstrated by the inverse square law. so just a few light years from earth, our signals are probably indistinguishable from background noise and radiation.

    the concept of how 'intelligent' life came to be is not something any scientist, or human being for that matter can ignore, and no, obviously there is no answer yet to the question of what the driving force behind the essential essence of life actually is... but what might be more perplexing is, that perhaps it just came to be and simply happened by accident.. but that doesnt sit well with us, because we need answers to everything. even if we make them up...


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    #313
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    mickrock wrote: »
    conor.hogan.2 wrote: »
    Natural selection?

    I'm talking about the origin of life.

    Pay attention.

    they have generated amino acids in test tubes in labs so we are on the right course.

    long way to go, though


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    #314
    mickrock
    Registered Users Posts: 1,021 ✭✭✭mickrock


    Seachmall wrote: »
    What's "happening" and what direction is it moving in?

    Are we still talking about abiogenisis?

    Yes, abiogenesis.

    You said that it happening by "chance" was an odd way of phrasing it. Why?


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    #315
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 1,427 ✭ [Deleted User]


    mickrock wrote: »
    Yes, abiogenesis.

    You said that it happening by "chance" was an odd way of phrasing it. Why?

    You should watch this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U49i8HYMp2k


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    #316
    Seachmall
    Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    mickrock wrote: »
    You said that it happening by "chance" was an odd way of phrasing it. Why?
    The odds of you existing are roughly 1 in 400 trillion, but I wouldn't say you exist by chance. A series of logical events resulted in your existence.

    The same with life itself.


    Maybe it's just the determinist in me but it seems an odd way of phrasing it.


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    #317
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Ive recomended this series before but wont hurt posting it again even though i doubt the sincerity of certain posters

    http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=/watch?v=gfLGb1uOSHQ&v=gfLGb1uOSHQ&gl=IE


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    #318
    Kanoe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,522 ✭✭✭Kanoe


    aliens


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    #319
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,079 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    telecaster wrote: »
    The universe is infinite.
    All things must exist or occur at some point in infinity.
    God and aliens both exist, and simultaneously don't.
    Aliens are arguing 'elsewhen' both about the existence of god and the existence of other life forms.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox

    since the night sky is dark the universe is not infinite.


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    #320
    professore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,857 ✭✭✭professore


    tigger123 wrote: »
    Although it's not proven, science and statistical probability leans strongly in favour of some sort of life existing elsewhere in the universe.

    However, a belief in God(s) is a leap of faith with little or nothing to back it up.

    While neither is proven, logic, and the universe as we currently understand it, leans heavily in one direction only. :D

    You can't determine anything statistically from a sample size of 1. There's nothing in statistics at all that would allow you to work out the probability of alien life existing. Having said that, it would seem highly unlikely that life only evolved here. Unlikely but not impossible. This is a gut feeling though and not based on any statistics.


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    #321
    Cú Giobach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox

    since the night sky is dark the universe is not infinite.
    No matter how large the universe is we can't see anything beyond around 13.7 billion light years away. Any further away than that and we'd be trying to see things before they were around, and that might be a bit tricky. ;)


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    #322
    Socialist_Pig
    Closed Accounts Posts: 321 ✭✭Socialist_Pig


    i hedge my bets.

    there might be a God but i think he's probably a cu*t cos he causes war and sh1t.

    on the other hand there might also be aliens.they are cool cos they havent sent us famine's or genocides....

    so i'd like to think aliens are more likely:D


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    #323
    DaveDaRave
    Registered Users Posts: 387 ✭✭DaveDaRave


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox

    since the night sky is dark the universe is not infinite.

    wouldnt that only work if an infinite amount of time had passed.


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    #324
    Seachmall
    Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    DaveDaRave wrote: »
    wouldnt that only work if an infinite amount of time had passed.

    No because the distance between us and any origin of light (star) would be finite and so the light would only need a finite amount of time to travel.

    Me thinks anyway, I'm not very good at this stuff.


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    #325
    Spunge
    Registered Users Posts: 2,779 ✭✭✭Spunge


    Seachmall wrote: »
    No because the distance between us and any origin of light (star) would be finite and so the light would only need a finite amount of time to travel.

    Me thinks anyway, I'm not very good at this stuff.

    Well it says if the universe is infinite, whereever you look from earth you should always be looking at a star, but any stars that are further than like 13 billion light years are impossible to see yet.


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    #326
    ScumLord
    Registered Users Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    Cú Giobach wrote: »
    We have been knocking god back consistently for centuries, our knowledge of how things come about, from the pollination and growth of plants, to the formation of stars and planets has been slowly edging a god off his pedestal, everything we see around us has a perfectly rational explanation, so why should the things we don't yet understand be any different?
    To be fair I don't think we can dismiss the possibility that something intentionally created this universe to act as it does completely. The likes of the Christian god or the Muslim god are completely redundant. They're storeys made up by people trying to explain the world around them as best they could.


    Spunge wrote: »
    Well it says if the universe is infinite,
    Is it though? I thought the current thinking was that it's not. It might as well be from our perspective but not technically infinite.


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    #327
    dyer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 598 ✭✭✭dyer


    what really amuses me.. is how science can theorise about the existence of life outside of planet earth.. and that anyone with half a mind can fathom that.. but..

    why doesnt science even bother to ascertain or look at all the emperical evidence that stongly suggests that life outside of earth is already here?

    for most people.. its just a subjective, theoretical, philosophical question.. but for people who have experienced these things.. how the hell can you begin to tell the world about it? when even science itself doesnt understand? because.. people look to science when they dont know the answer because its a safe place to be.


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    #328
    Cú Giobach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    ScumLord wrote: »
    To be fair I don't think we can dismiss the possibility that something intentionally created this universe to act as it does completely. The likes of the Christian god or the Muslim god are completely redundant. They're storeys made up by people trying to explain the world around them as best they could.
    It just doesn't make sense, we now know an intelligence didn't create the Earth or Sun and have a fairly good idea of galaxy formation with no deities involved.
    There was a time when we thought the Earth was the centre of the universe, then until recently we thought our galaxy was all there was, now we are starting to realise our universe may be only one of many, with better and better theories of how it could have come about, again with no deities involved.
    The next stage is having an understanding of how this universe came about by quite natural processes and pushing a god back to the creation of the Multiverse.

    In all our years of examinations and scientific enquiries we have never come across something happening by "magic" and no matter how odd many things seemed according to the knowledge of the day, we eventually found quite rational and sometimes even simple explanations for them, invoking a deity for things we don't yet understand just goes against this flow.


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    #329
    Seachmall
    Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    dyer wrote: »
    why doesnt science even bother to ascertain or look at all the emperical evidence that stongly suggests that life outside of earth is already here?

    What empirical evidence?

    I'm sure if there is empirical evidence it has been looked at, but I don't know (I've genuinely never heard there was empirical evidence of alien life).


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    #330
    Cú Giobach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    Seachmall wrote: »
    What empirical evidence?

    I'm sure if there is empirical evidence it has been looked at, but I don't know (I've genuinely never heard there was empirical evidence of alien life).
    Maybe he means stuff like this.


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    #331
    Cú Giobach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    dyer wrote: »
    what really amuses me.. is how science can theorise about the existence of life outside of planet earth.. and that anyone with half a mind can fathom that.. but..

    why doesnt science even bother to ascertain or look at all the emperical evidence that stongly suggests that life outside of earth is already here?

    for most people.. its just a subjective, theoretical, philosophical question.. but for people who have experienced these things.. how the hell can you begin to tell the world about it? when even science itself doesnt understand? because.. people look to science when they dont know the answer because its a safe place to be.
    Science isn't a "thing" it's a method, a method of enquiry for things we don't understand. If we knew everything (or as you put it, if science knew everything) then there would be no need for science.


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