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I'm kind of tired of these sorts of calculations that essentially boil down to "The universe is big and old". The idea that maybe millions of years ago another

by neaden 10y ago

I'm kind of tired of these sorts of calculations that essentially boil down to "The universe is big and old". The idea that maybe millions of years ago another civilization existed in another galaxy just doesn't seem that important. And while actually encountering an alien species, especially a technology using one, would have a huge impact on our culture, philosophy, and religion one existing in theory doesn't. If you think the only reason that humans exist is because God created us then it doesn't matter how many stars are out there because the probability of life evolving on any of them is 0.

ewzimm 10y ago
There's the possibility that God created life on Earth but it has evolved naturally elsewhere through the same processes by which our created version of life mutates. I haven't seen this argument much, but I could imagine it becoming more popular with the discovery of alien life. This is just a report on our most recent astronomical data, but the existence in life in theory could have a large effect on how much effort we put into searching for it.
- woofyman 10y ago
  >There's the possibility that God created life on Earth but it has evolved naturally elsewhere through the same processes by which our created version of life mutates. That's a religious argument. It's unprovable and unknowable.
  - ewzimm 10y ago
    I'm not making any kind of argument for proof of this idea, just stating that the idea of creationism on Earth doesn't reduce the probability of evolution to 0. Some religions even make the claim that God is an alien.
    - VLM 10y ago
      Given the language issues of the time, perhaps it is Biblical that life was created elsewhere and our ancestors arrived on this particular lump of dirt as spores on a meteor. Perhaps the same on the aliens planet. That would make aliens cousins rather than ... independent test tube creations or whatever. I suspect that given proof of alien civilization this would be a fairly popular outlook among existing believers.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  If one must attempt to salvage the idea of divine creation in such desultory fashion, why not assume that the aliens are the intentional created creatures of the divine, and we are just the random evolutionary accidents?
  - danbruc 10y ago
    That seems as weird as the other way round. Wouldn't it be the simplest explanation to just say God created life on various planets but didn't tell anyone about each other?
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      Haha I wasn't seriously advocating such a bizarre aition. Rather I was encouraging a reconsideration of parent's proposal, which as you say is "as weird". Perhaps my encouragement was too obliquely ironical, as is often the case.
      - gknoy 10y ago
        Today I learned that "aition" was not merely a typo, but rather a new (to me) word! (cool!) Aition: a tale devised to explain the origin of a religious observance
- jerf 10y ago
  If the universe has an intelligent creator of any kind, there's no particular reason to believe that there wouldn't be more than one species in here with us. Even from the perspective of fundamentalist Christianity, which I'd hazard a guess many people would tend to assume to be the most hostile to the idea, there's no reason to believe there aren't aliens somewhere out there. It gets more complicated if fallen humanity is allowed to interact with those other species, but even then you can argue either way within that axiom set. Really, I'd say the reason that most of us, religious or otherwise, believe "we are the only life in the universe" (or "observable universe") is because that's the simplest explanation that fits the facts. It may well be wrong, but at the moment, there's not even a whiff of convincing evidence that we are not alone, even as we must also all acknowledge there's plenty of room in the "gaps" for alien life, even intelligent alien life, even intelligent alien life that spans several star systems. It depends on how far away we're talking, but even fairly close to home it could take a Kardashev level 2.3-ish at a minimum for us to be sure. No matter what your ideological disposition may be, there's just a huge "NO DATA" out there right now.
- dmichulke 10y ago
  "God's own planet" - no one in his right mind would ever ...
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Actually, it seems like a perfectly logical and totally reasonable idea, given empirical evidence back in the day (e.g. earth seems to be the center of some vast empty expanse of stars, humans seem to be the only intelligent creatures around, etc), and the prior that they already believed in a creator (which makes sense too -- about as much as believing things were there since forever).
acqq 10y ago
I don't think the religious people would blink even if there were a proof that some other civilization lives somewhere (that is, the probability you mention to be provably not 0). "Only God knows why he does what he does." Etc. Edit: other response here hints at the possible reaction.
- neaden 10y ago
  I disagree. From the Christian perspective there would be lots of questions to be asked, like if the aliens have original sin and if there is a duty to teach them the Gospel. These questions have already been debated in theory so I would imagine encountering an actual alien civilization would popularize them.
  - acqq 10y ago
    > From the Christian perspective there would be lots of questions to be asked, like if the aliens have original sin and if there is a duty to teach them the Gospel. So? Why would these Christians be shaken in their belief, when there were already written considerations about the "original sin" and "Gospel" for the aliens? I don't understand what your disagreement is. Note: the "World" of the Bible is just a piece of the Mediterranean Sea and the piece of the Near East. Ditto for Quran. Even the whole continent (America) is not known among the people of these books, so these apparently "eternal" books don't know about that fruitful continent either. But these faiths survived the discovery of the America. And interestingly, the more "fundamentalist" believers actually left Europe and kept their fundamentalism in America and the effects of that we feel even now. At least the result was that the modern science (trust what is, not what's in the "eternal" books) progressed in the lands that used the "new" resources.
    - neaden 10y ago
      Sorry for not being clear. I don't think it would necessarily shake people in their beliefs, just that the discovery of alien life would have a big impact on theology, in a way that the theoretical idea that it probably exists can't. For instance right now people can debate about whether alien life would have original sin or not. Depending on your understanding of the Bible some people argue that original sin, and thus the tendency to sin and the necessity of Jesus is unique to Earth. If we meet aliens this wouldn't just be theoretical anymore, instead how the aliens acted could be used as evidence one way or the other.
Zikes 10y ago
> If you think the only reason that humans exist is because God created us then it doesn't matter how many stars are out there because the probability of life evolving on any of them is 0. Well, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Right?
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Did you ever get bored with a game of Spore, and start a new game on a different planet? We have to assume that any creation-capable deity has to be patient enough to try the cosmic life-evolving minigame at least twice before quitting forever, right? "This game sucks. I never should have programmed it. After a couple billion years, I always get the atheist bad ending, no matter what I try. One star."

by neaden 10y ago

ewzimm 10y ago

There's the possibility that God created life on Earth but it has evolved naturally elsewhere through the same processes by which our created version of life mutates. I haven't seen this argument much, but I could imagine it becoming more popular with the discovery of alien life. This is just a report on our most recent astronomical data, but the existence in life in theory could have a large effect on how much effort we put into searching for it.

woofyman 10y ago
>There's the possibility that God created life on Earth but it has evolved naturally elsewhere through the same processes by which our created version of life mutates. That's a religious argument. It's unprovable and unknowable.
- ewzimm 10y ago
  I'm not making any kind of argument for proof of this idea, just stating that the idea of creationism on Earth doesn't reduce the probability of evolution to 0. Some religions even make the claim that God is an alien.
  - VLM 10y ago
    Given the language issues of the time, perhaps it is Biblical that life was created elsewhere and our ancestors arrived on this particular lump of dirt as spores on a meteor. Perhaps the same on the aliens planet. That would make aliens cousins rather than ... independent test tube creations or whatever. I suspect that given proof of alien civilization this would be a fairly popular outlook among existing believers.
jessaustin 10y ago
If one must attempt to salvage the idea of divine creation in such desultory fashion, why not assume that the aliens are the intentional created creatures of the divine, and we are just the random evolutionary accidents?
- danbruc 10y ago
  That seems as weird as the other way round. Wouldn't it be the simplest explanation to just say God created life on various planets but didn't tell anyone about each other?
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    Haha I wasn't seriously advocating such a bizarre aition. Rather I was encouraging a reconsideration of parent's proposal, which as you say is "as weird". Perhaps my encouragement was too obliquely ironical, as is often the case.
    - gknoy 10y ago
      Today I learned that "aition" was not merely a typo, but rather a new (to me) word! (cool!) Aition: a tale devised to explain the origin of a religious observance
jerf 10y ago
If the universe has an intelligent creator of any kind, there's no particular reason to believe that there wouldn't be more than one species in here with us. Even from the perspective of fundamentalist Christianity, which I'd hazard a guess many people would tend to assume to be the most hostile to the idea, there's no reason to believe there aren't aliens somewhere out there. It gets more complicated if fallen humanity is allowed to interact with those other species, but even then you can argue either way within that axiom set. Really, I'd say the reason that most of us, religious or otherwise, believe "we are the only life in the universe" (or "observable universe") is because that's the simplest explanation that fits the facts. It may well be wrong, but at the moment, there's not even a whiff of convincing evidence that we are not alone, even as we must also all acknowledge there's plenty of room in the "gaps" for alien life, even intelligent alien life, even intelligent alien life that spans several star systems. It depends on how far away we're talking, but even fairly close to home it could take a Kardashev level 2.3-ish at a minimum for us to be sure. No matter what your ideological disposition may be, there's just a huge "NO DATA" out there right now.
dmichulke 10y ago
"God's own planet" - no one in his right mind would ever ...
- coldtea 10y ago
  Actually, it seems like a perfectly logical and totally reasonable idea, given empirical evidence back in the day (e.g. earth seems to be the center of some vast empty expanse of stars, humans seem to be the only intelligent creatures around, etc), and the prior that they already believed in a creator (which makes sense too -- about as much as believing things were there since forever).

acqq 10y ago

I don't think the religious people would blink even if there were a proof that some other civilization lives somewhere (that is, the probability you mention to be provably not 0). "Only God knows why he does what he does." Etc. Edit: other response here hints at the possible reaction.

neaden 10y ago
I disagree. From the Christian perspective there would be lots of questions to be asked, like if the aliens have original sin and if there is a duty to teach them the Gospel. These questions have already been debated in theory so I would imagine encountering an actual alien civilization would popularize them.
- acqq 10y ago
  > From the Christian perspective there would be lots of questions to be asked, like if the aliens have original sin and if there is a duty to teach them the Gospel. So? Why would these Christians be shaken in their belief, when there were already written considerations about the "original sin" and "Gospel" for the aliens? I don't understand what your disagreement is. Note: the "World" of the Bible is just a piece of the Mediterranean Sea and the piece of the Near East. Ditto for Quran. Even the whole continent (America) is not known among the people of these books, so these apparently "eternal" books don't know about that fruitful continent either. But these faiths survived the discovery of the America. And interestingly, the more "fundamentalist" believers actually left Europe and kept their fundamentalism in America and the effects of that we feel even now. At least the result was that the modern science (trust what is, not what's in the "eternal" books) progressed in the lands that used the "new" resources.
  - neaden 10y ago
    Sorry for not being clear. I don't think it would necessarily shake people in their beliefs, just that the discovery of alien life would have a big impact on theology, in a way that the theoretical idea that it probably exists can't. For instance right now people can debate about whether alien life would have original sin or not. Depending on your understanding of the Bible some people argue that original sin, and thus the tendency to sin and the necessity of Jesus is unique to Earth. If we meet aliens this wouldn't just be theoretical anymore, instead how the aliens acted could be used as evidence one way or the other.

Zikes 10y ago

> If you think the only reason that humans exist is because God created us then it doesn't matter how many stars are out there because the probability of life evolving on any of them is 0. Well, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Right?

logfromblammo 10y ago
Did you ever get bored with a game of Spore, and start a new game on a different planet? We have to assume that any creation-capable deity has to be patient enough to try the cosmic life-evolving minigame at least twice before quitting forever, right? "This game sucks. I never should have programmed it. After a couple billion years, I always get the atheist bad ending, no matter what I try. One star."