aliens and god. a few questions-

[Hymnz]

it seems to me that plenty of people who don't believe in god believe that there could be aliens. why is this?

evidence for - - -
aliens
i have watched plenty of UFO tv shows and everytime they have examined 'evidence' it has been explained as a prank. some crop circles have weird features, but i have not heard of one that has been unexplained when analysed by a dedicated team of professionals...

god
there are many images of jesus on toast, statues that cry etc but all can be explained.

many people say that "we have no evidence of god, but the universe is so big and there are so many stars and planets that probability favours our stand on aliens. they exist."

we haven't found any life yet.
if aliens existed on planets somewhere out there, how do we know they are super smart and can travel between galaxies and stuff?

i dont understand how someone who says
"there is a god"
is considered so irrational compared with another who says
"aliens exist. they are running the world. they built the pyramids."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

to the atheists - what is your personal view on:
*the exitsence of Jesus
*evolution theory

i would really like to know since many atheists believe in evolution (as do many christians, catholics etc) and some don't, while others do believe in the existence of the historical jesus of nazareth but not god (some atheist historians try to disprove things like: him dying on the cross, some of the miracles etc but recognise him to have been a real person). many atheists also do not believe jesus' existence.

i am very interested in hearing your thoughts :thumb:

 

[Illuminattile]

I believe that there could be life somewhere in the Universe. I don't believe that there are aliens on earth or that they built the Pyramids or Stonehenge or anything. But the Universe is so vast and there are so many planets...it's unlikely that ours is the only capable of forming life. Whether that life would "super smart" is debatable, but considering nobody's contacted us the possibility seems a bit remote.

The difference between God and aliens is that God was created to explain things that we couldn't understand. It was inevitable, once we understood how big the Universe is, that we would begin to wonder whether there is other life out there.

 

[Bhuddahhoodlum]

i've got the same answer for both; no one knows.

there is enough "evidence" to say that both possibilities are real. and even "evidence" to say it ain't.

personally, i'm not gonna say that one exist and the other doesn't. but i'm keepin an open mind and not throwin all my eggs into one basket. not in an attempt to straddle the fence, but to me.... there's just no tellin.

so i say fuck it and go on with my day. besides if i was an alien, i'd be pissed at how earth has represented me and my martian niggas. like why the fuck they gotta have tentacles and big fuckin eye's. the son' bitches might be human lookin as us. shit, i wouldn't even fuck with an earth muthafucka.

 

[FroDawgg]

i believe in God and aliens. like illuminattile said, the universe is too big for us to be the only planet with life. i believe God created them like He created everything else. notice, people, i said I BELIEVE. please don't tell me i'm wrong or stupid. just leave my comment as is.

 

[Jokerman]

if aliens existed on planets somewhere out there, how do we know they are super smart and can travel between galaxies and stuff??

We don't but the probablility of it is greater than there being a God, which has zero probability.

i dont understand how someone who says "there is a god" is considered so irrational compared with another who says
"aliens exist. they are running the world. they built the pyramids."

They both should be considered irrational. Yet even aliens building the pyramids still has more probability than the zero probability of the existence of God.

to the atheists - what is your personal view on:
*the existence of Jesus
*evolution theory

We've had numerous threads on these two topics, even recent ones. Read them. It's not like we have new members here with new viewpoints.

 

[Hymnz]

how can you be so sure god doesnt exist?
i find it the thought of something bigger than us creating us (and the universe as we see it) very plausible.

many scientists believe in some sort of higher being, but mostly it is not a christian god or anything like that.
most scientists say there could be a god, but they do not believe that there is one of course.
string theory which is gaining momentum (i think, im not keeping up to date) leaves room for god since it says there is 11 dimensions (im pretty sure it's 11).
alternate/parallel universes may very well exist. watch the discovery channel once in a while...

theoretically, there are plenty of ways god can exist.
what we see is not the limit.
the possibility of there not being a possibility of god existing is 0.

 

[Hymnz]

and sorry, i will search next time...

 

[Glockmatic]

how can you be so sure god doesnt exist?
i find it the thought of something bigger than us creating us (and the universe as we see it) very plausible.

many scientists believe in some sort of higher being, but mostly it is not a christian god or anything like that.
most scientists say there could be a god, but they do not believe that there is one of course.
string theory which is gaining momentum (i think, im not keeping up to date) leaves room for god since it says there is 11 dimensions (im pretty sure it's 11).
alternate/parallel universes may very well exist. watch the discovery channel once in a while...

theoretically, there are plenty of ways god can exist.
what we see is not the limit.
the possibility of there not being a possibility of god existing is 0.

many scientists say there COULD be a god because theres no way to disprove it. Theres no way to disprove an invisible pink unicorn or the smurfs either, should we also say that there is a possibility they exist as well? Theoretically they could exist in another dimension

 

[Jokerman]

i find it the thought of something bigger than us creating us (and the universe as we see it) very plausible.

Why? Why would it be more plausible to believe in something (God) whose existence would be harder to explain than the very thing you're using the explanation of "God" to explain; namely, the Universe? Any God capable of creating something as complex as the Universe would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. We already have one mystery here: the Universe. How and why would you explain a mystery by coming up with an even greater mystery: God? God is simply another word for "I don't know." Just because we don't have all the answers to the Universe does not make an implausible idea like God more plausible.

Somehow for believers the Universe needs an explanation, but God doesn't. It makes sense to them to say "God" to explain the Universe and then stop there. Why? Because God is an intelligence and the Universe isn't. Somehow it makes sense to them for an intelligence to have come into existence by itself, but not the Universe. Why not? Maybe the Universe is intelligent. Intelligent in a different kind of way from anything we're familiar with. Wouldn't a God be? Yet all religions make him out to be just like us but with greater powers. In fact, they give him all of our worst qualities. Yeah, that's convincing. More intelligent people, seeing beyond that, yet still not wanting to chuck the whole notion of God--either because of social conditioning or they haven't fully thought it out--will still retain the notion but say they believe a higher force created everything, but "we can't really know anything about him/it."

I say that's not good enough. I say break out of your conditioning and think deeply about this. The only way anyone can justify a belief in something bigger than the Universe creating it is through faith or ignorance. However, if some evidence for a God does turn up then it could be justified. So far we have seen no evidence. Faith is not evidence. Billions of people believing it in their hearts is not evidence. Lack of or illogical thinking about it and coming to a conclusion of God is not evidence. Creation stories from 2000 years ago by pre-scientific and pre-historical peoples is not evidence. Wanting it to be true is not evidence. Being a great consolation for us when loved ones die is not evidence. Making mortality less unbearable is not evidence. And so it goes.

And I don't see how other dimensions "leave room" for God. Are you saying there might be a fantasy dimension where every fable and myth man has thought up might be a reality?

 

[Elmira]

Thank God for logic.

The one thing that's clear to me is that God exists nowhere but in our minds. We composed Him in our image. We in essence created our creator. Does not that sound absurd?

If it is understood that there is a Supreme Being, who is responsible for creating the universe and all life within it, who is responsible for all the good and love we know, if the enormity of that is understood, it cannot follow that His image could be so readily accessible to us and our thoughts. Such a power could not then be contained in the space of our minds or within nature. To assume so exposes our greatest arrogance.
To say that because something is complicated, God must have done it, makes the idea of that God himself even more improbable.

We must also understand that God is nothing but a belief, purely a belief structure, that only follows the self serving needs of the believer. Here for our protection, here to help us sleep better at night, here to bring us hope. That on its own should rule out the possibility of His existence.

God is a meaningless answer, one that actually explains nothing, and grants us zero knowledge over what we knew without it. To say that the answer is God--closes off the discussion entirely. It closes off the discussion of our greatest questions, such as "Why are we here?", "What happens after we die?", "How did we get here?", etc.



To conclude, gaps in our understanding don't need to be filled with a God or anything else. Gaps are filled as our knowledge increases only for new ones to open. As our level of intellect rises these gaps will only become greater.
The saying goes: "The more you know, the more you know nothing at all." Well that will always hold true. The sooner we accept this fact the better.

 

[Preach]

I believe that there could be life somewhere in the Universe. I don't believe that there are aliens on earth or that they built the Pyramids or Stonehenge or anything. But the Universe is so vast and there are so many planets...it's unlikely that ours is the only capable of forming life. Whether that life would "super smart" is debatable, but considering nobody's contacted us the possibility seems a bit remote.

if a race of aliens existed on another planet, that had come just as far as the human race when it comes to technology and society, it's very possible they could still exist without us knowing it. and without either part recieving any comminicative signals from one another.

another point that i want to make is that while technology research progress has skyrocketed in the last fifty years, i don't think it's wise to assume it's gonna keep skyrocketing by the same proportion infinitely. people just assume that in a thousand years we're living on the moon and travelling with the speed of light throughout the universe. but i don't think that's gonna happen. we're sort of imprisoned by the limitations of the human body and mind, and the limitations of physics themselves. i'm pretty sure the human race is gonna come to the point where we're at our peak. maybe development of even smaller cellphones and even larger tvs will continue, but i think it's foolish to assume that just because we can travel ten times as fast as we could fifty years ago, that means we'll be able to travel another ten times faster in another fifty years.

keeping that in mind, it's quite possible we will never experience alien life anyhow. the only possible way i see that happening, is travelling with a vast spaceship sort of like in independence day, for billions of years.

 

[Hymnz]

many scientists say there COULD be a god because theres no way to disprove it. Theres no way to disprove an invisible pink unicorn or the smurfs either, should we also say that there is a possibility they exist as well? Theoretically they could exist in another dimension

imo, the invisible pink unicorn can be disproven as it does not have an apparent purpose. i believe everything has a purpose.

i'm no scientician, but you can disprove god - by disproving the possibility of something creating this universe.
you don't know much about god, but there is a whole lot of stuff on the universe and its creation. if you prove beyond reasonable doubt that nothing external was involved in creating the universe or its fundamental starting blocks, then i guess you have made god irrelevant.

i view the universe as a big computer. you need someone outside of the computer to build it. im not sure if i believe the miracles in the bible to be literally true, but the builder of the computer would probably possess the knowledge and ability to circumvent the laws and rules he set out initially.

to Jokerman - i love your posts! i enjoy hearing both sides of the argument. you seem like a smart guy. :thumb:

to Preach - i like your view on aliens.
if they do exist, we wont see them for a while - actually, with the way we are fucking up the Earth, humans wont be around to make contact anyway.

 

[TecK NeeX]

To say that the answer is God--closes off the discussion entirely. It closes off the discussion of our greatest questions, such as "Why are we here?", "What happens after we die?", "How did we get here?", etc.

How does religion and God close off discussion when only religion can provide an answer to questions such as 'why are we here' and 'what happens after we die'? That doesn't make sense

If you were to sit with 2 non-religious people, your discussion on such questions would be based purely on guesses as to why we are here and what happens after we die. If you were to sit with 2 religious persons explaining to you these mentioned questions according to their religion, it is you that would end up closing off the discussion, dismissing them simply as non-sense. Infact, Discussions on such questions without religion are useless because like it or not we will never know what happens after we die and why we are here.

We must also understand that God is nothing but a belief, purely a belief structure, that only follows the self serving needs of the believer. Here for our protection, here to help us sleep better at night, here to bring us hope. That on its own should rule out the possibility of His existence.

We? it is you that needs to understand what God is. God is not here to serve our needs in this life, sleep better at night and to protect us. If thats the case, there would not be a single believer that suffers.

To conclude, gaps in our understanding don't need to be filled with a God or anything else. Gaps are filled as our knowledge increases only for new ones to open. As our level of intellect rises these gaps will only become greater.
The saying goes: "The more you know, the more you know nothing at all." Well that will always hold true. The sooner we accept this fact the better.

Religion encourages that, so what exactly is your point? Religion encourages knowledge and understanding of everything around us and the not so near us. You make it sound as if Believers are not open to the understanding of this world and the universe. Thats far from true. We'd all like to gain knowledge on Gods artistry on everything he has created

 

[Jokerman]

to Jokerman - you seem like a smart guy.

Then why do I never backup my hard drive?

 

[TecK NeeX]

I say that's not good enough. I say break out of your conditioning and think deeply about this. The only way anyone can justify a belief in something bigger than the Universe creating it is through faith or ignorance.

Thats what belief in God is, faith and faith does not require evidence. You of all people on this board should know that.

So i dont see the point in you mentioning all of this below.

So far we have seen no evidence. Faith is not evidence. Billions of people believing it in their hearts is not evidence. Lack of or illogical thinking about it and coming to a conclusion of God is not evidence. Creation stories from 2000 years ago by pre-scientific and pre-historical peoples is not evidence. Wanting it to be true is not evidence. Being a great consolation for us when loved ones die is not evidence. Making mortality less unbearable is not evidence. And so it goes.

?

Dont expect any. At least not in this life time. Belief in him would have to be based on freewill. Evidence of him existing would not. we would not have much of a choice if this evidence did exist. We'd believe in him wether we like it or not knowing the consequences of not believing in him. That would contradict God, Heaven and Hell, The purpose of life and Judgement Day

 

[TecK NeeX]

Jokerman

When you talk about evidence of God, what sort of evidence would you like? I dont see you accepting anything as evidence of his existence other than God himself appearing before you. Am I correct?

 

[Jokerman]

Thats what belief in God is, faith and faith does not require evidence. You of all people on this board should know that. So i dont see the point in you mentioning all of this below.

Because Hymnz said he found it plausible that a god created everything, not that he had faith.

We would not have much of a choice if this evidence did exist. We'd believe in him wether we like it or not knowing the consequences of not believing in him. That would contradict God, Heaven and Hell, The purpose of life and Judgement Day

Do you even realize what you just wrote is your particular brand of belief in God? We're only discussing here the existence or not of a designer of the Universe. Not someone who will punish us if we don't believe or has a purpose of life and judgement. wtf! :angry:

How does religion and God close off discussion when only religion can provide an answer to questions such as 'why are we here' and 'what happens after we die'? That doesn't make sense.

How is providing the answer to these questions a discussion? That doesn't make sense.

Questioner- "What are the answers to these questions?"
You- "God."
Discussion closed.

When you talk about evidence of God, what sort of evidence would you like? I dont see you accepting anything as evidence of his existence other than God himself appearing before you. Am I correct?

No, I'll accept as evidence science finding some trace of him in anything. Something that can be confirmed independently. Because him appearing before me could be a trick, an illusion, how do i know it's God, where's the angels, a burning bush, the incredible Hulk?

Religion is anti-science. It subverts science. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. Fuck that and fuck it good, is what I say.

 

[Hymnz]

religion and science go hand in hand for some! the pope made a speech about it, and the vatican has a team of scientists.
there are many christian scientists, too.
my physics teacher in high school was a jehova's witness! he reads a more directly-translated version of the bible that has some different things like jesus dying on a stake, not a cross. in class we had very interesting discussions.
religion is not anti-science... believers should seek as much knowledge as possible since, if god created the universe, he also created the laws by which all things in it must operate.
einstein was christian (or catholic?), and he said that we should try to find out as much as possible, and that god would delight in seeing this.

 

[Glockmatic]

imo, the invisible pink unicorn can be disproven as it does not have an apparent purpose. i believe everything has a purpose.

Then i guess the auriculares muscles in our ears can be disproven since they have no purpose for us

i'm no scientician, but you can disprove god - by disproving the possibility of something creating this universe.
you don't know much about god, but there is a whole lot of stuff on the universe and its creation. if you prove beyond reasonable doubt that nothing external was involved in creating the universe or its fundamental starting blocks, then i guess you have made god irrelevant.

It is impossible. We will probably never know how the universe was created. It doesn't take a "scientician" to figure that out

i view the universe as a big computer. you need someone outside of the computer to build it. im not sure if i believe the miracles in the bible to be literally true, but the builder of the computer would probably possess the knowledge and ability to circumvent the laws and rules he set out initially.

And the person outside the computer needs to be created as well, who created him?

 

[Glockmatic]

religion and science go hand in hand for some! the pope made a speech about it, and the vatican has a team of scientists.
there are many christian scientists, too.

For others science and religion clash. How can dinosaur bones be millions of years old when they believe that the earth is 6000 years old?

religion is not anti-science... believers should seek as much knowledge as possible since, if god created the universe, he also created the laws by which all things in it must operate.

Like i said before, science is anti-religion for some, since they believe that their dogma should be the only answer to questions about our universe.

einstein was christian (or catholic?), and he said that we should try to find out as much as possible, and that god would delight in seeing this.

wrong, Einstein did not believe in a personal god.

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God any I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”