Has NASA found (potentially) extraterrestrial life?

[Kryst51]

So, is the God one of the supernaturals that you mentioned above? Are there a bunch of supernaturals with capabilities beyond our own, some of them having inspired various religions here on Earth based on human's interactions with them?

This always makes me think of the Stargate TV show....possibly
Goa'ulds?

 

[Mike375]

But I don't believe you would be quick to defend Muslims. That's my take, my inference based on your posts. Your actions place you in the Christian camp, even if only slightly.

I think you wll find I commonly refer to the Abrahamic religions. But obviously Christianity would feature the most and for the same reason Christianity is featured most on the atheist hit list.

But again, show me some examples where I jump to the defence of Christianity.

I don't use that label, but others may of me. I don't believe that there is an all powerful deity. I don't believe in magic or divine miracle, etc. I don't believe the bible is accurate.

That sounds like atheist. What would you call yourself?

I believe that religion is generally divisionary, and causes a lot more problems than the ones it tries to remedy. I believe religion is contrary to education, in that it teaches people to be illogical. I believe that if we, as a society, minimize the impact of religion, especially on our laws, then we will be better off for it.

If that makes others call me an atheist, then they may. I don't call myself one because people have different definitions of the word; different perceptions.

The above does not relate to atheism or being agnostic. Just a case of not liking religion.

However, I suspect you might not be a true atheist but more an anti religious person or non believer in religions and that is perhaps why so many of your posts are directed at Kryst and so many of your posts to me swing back to religion.

Off the top of my head, you compared a religious poster with a rocket scientist who was a born again evangelical when that person's beliefs were called into question. Essentially saying that if a rocket scientist believed in Christianity, then why not someone else? I'm sure there are other examples as well.

That was Werner von Braun. That was not defense of Christianity. That was just pointing out that a belief in religion is not exclusive to the stupid. Mentioned him on this thread and also the Christmas thread where it was done in a joke fashion with the and in repsonse to Kryst.

 

[Mike375]

What gives you such conviction?

Experience it all of the time.

So, is the God one of the supernaturals that you mentioned above? Are there a bunch of supernaturals with capabilities beyond our own, some of them having inspired various religions here on Earth based on human's interactions with them?

No, as I said

"I also think there is a chance that Bible has some truth but the God is limited and also limited to maybe this solar system."

I believe all the various religions are man made.

 

[Mike375]

I heard an interesting program on Radio the other day when they were discussing this subject. The main point made by one speaker was that if there really was an infinite number of galaxies then there would be an infinite number of earthlike planets with people just lik us on them. There would also be an infinite number of earthlike planets with diferent life forms. He then said he found this so mindblowing tht he found it easier to accept the idea of a finite universe with a large number of galaxies than the infinite alternative

That would depend if stars/planets are pre disposed to forming certain ways.

A dice could be loaded so a number would never show up. The counterpart in nature might be rolling a rock and one side will never be up.

 

[Kryst51]

That was Werner von Braun. That was not defense of Christianity. That was just pointing out that a belief in religion is not exclusive to the stupid. Mentioned him on this thread and also the Christmas thread where it was done in a joke fashion with the and in repsonse to Kryst.

Which I was not able to fully appreciate

 

[Mike375]

Which I was not able to fully appreciate

It was this the thread "Religion only for the uneducated? "

 

[Galaxiom]

Assuming there is intelligent life elsewhere the odds would be very high that some of it is extremely advances compared to us.....god like for practical purposes.

Not really. I think you underestimate the state of modern science and our understanding of our environment. Our current technology might appear "godlike" to man of just a couple of centruies ago who knew very little about the physics governing processes in their world. However we now understand the two fundamental mechanisms that explain every reliable observation and everything an ordinary person could ever see without highly advanced equipment and an education in an advanced subject.

QM dominates our experience except at the largest scales where General Relativity takes precedence. I expect Relativity has not been reconciled with QM because it is a manifestation of the physics that dominate the larger medium that gave rise to the Universe. (I call it the "Omniverse").

The huge gaps in the knowledge of our great, great grandparents have been plugged. The experience of other civilisations in our Universe, no matter how advanced, will definitely be predominated by exactly these same laws. Their primary technologies will be based on these laws and I have little doubt that anyone with a good understanding of QM and Relativity would be capable of comprehending the principles of their technology, even if some of the actual implementations were considerably more advanced than ours.

If there are conscious beings within the Omniverse then I very much doubt that they would be aware of our specific existence even if they did realise such a manifestation was possible. It would even less of an awareness than us to know of a bacterial colony in a puddle, much less a lizard on your lawn.

No, my proposition was that the "physics" would never be available to us because not part of our natural laws. Thus it is supernatural.

You underestimate human ingenuity.

What is pre Big Bang. Wasn't it Hawking who said something along the lines of.....we can't observe pre Big Bang, no physics or time etc....

The believers love to trot out what they perceive as the priests of science because they don't understand that science is not a personality cult like their own.

Hawking is an old man. Like Einstein in his later years, Hawking is no longer cutting edge. While the classic portrayal of Einstein is the old guy with the wild hair, one should not forget that he published Relativity when he was 25 years old and he completed his major theoretical contributions before he turned forty.

We don't currently have the physics to deal with what came before the Big Bang because we don't yet have reliable observations. That does not mean it does not exist or that the physics to deal with are not ultimately accessible to us.

I don't have the maths to be into cutting edge Quantum Mechanics or the desire. I would have thought questions like mine and similar were a long way from cutting edge

Exactly. My dig was about the likes of yourself imagining you have a clue about the subject and asserting that the faith in your imagination aught to carry the same weight of argument as that of someone well versed in the subject.

And it seems the mor ecutting edge you get the close you get to "don't know"

Of course. What else would "cutting edge" mean except dealing with the "don't know"? However you might note that the cutting edge has inexorably continued to elucidate the "don't know" while building a coherent picture of our reality and facilitating a remarkable range of technologies that have revolutionised our way of life.

Meanwhile you argue that, at any point, "don't know" means we need to conjure up the supernatural. Supernatural explanations have been unrelentingly demolished by the advance of science. In the light of this experience, clinging to the tattered remnants of the supernatural hypothesis can only be described as irrational.

 

[Mike375]

Glaxiom,

Is the physics for pre Big Bang the same as we have. If it is not then it is supernatural.

 

[Lightwave]

Mike the physics pre-bang is not known

It is outside our knowledge and is beyond our present understaninding I would suggest that is equivalent to "supernatural" however to most that word is associated with the term magic which I suggest is anything which actively defys physics. If there are a set of physical laws pre-bang that are consistent but albeit different they are not super anything but merely different but entirely natural.

With regard to all beliefs..

Its entirely normal for people to believe in things so strongly that they insist they must be correct. How many times have we all assumed things worked in certain ways , possibly even being convinced just to be proved down the line that they weren't correct.

How many of us are convinced that in Access we are doing things in the optimal way?

There's even a special word for it..

specious

Which means ;-

An attractive or plausible idea based on a fallacy.

Don't fall in love with your own ideas.

 

[Mike375]

Glaxiom seems to be the only one who is 100% definite on everything.

Even Hawking is now a dud

 

[Galaxiom]

Is the physics for pre Big Bang the same as we have. If it is not then it is supernatural.

Our current physics is a special case of a broader physics that governs the Omniverse in the same way that Newton's physics is a special case of Einstein's physics.

Newton's Laws of Motion hold for objects that move at relatively low speeds. Einstein's extra term is required for accuracy at high speeds.

Newton's Gravity is a practical, Classical description of the phenomenon where Space and Time are independent attributes of reality. Einstein's General Relativity describes Gravitation in terms of the relationship of mass and energy within SpaceTime.

Newton would get you to the Moon and back but without Einstein your GPS would be useless.

Your use of the word "supernatural" is incredibly rubbery. In some posts you incite the influence of gods while in others it simply means "beyond the known".

While the deeper nature of reality is currently "beyond the known", there is zero evidence to suggest a need for our Universe to be any more than the product of neo-mechanistic processes, albeit processes whose description would require an extension of our current physics. This is by definition "natural".

The word "supernatural" is, at best, inappropriate while the suggestion that these processes require "gods" is utterly unfounded.

 

[Mike375]

Wiki

The supernatural or supranatural (Latin: super, supra "above" + natura "nature") is anything above or beyond what one holds to be natural or exists outside natural law and the observable universe

Is physics pre Big Bang what you have to play with or is it a different set of rules.

 

[Galaxiom]

Glaxiom seems to be the only one who is 100% definite on everything.

Even Hawking is now a dud

Not at all.
I consider Hawking's work on Black Holes ground breaking and exemplary in his construction of the description. (No doubt that you haven't a clue about his work.)

My point was that science is not a personality cult like Christians and Jesus, Islam and Mohammed or Mikeism and Mike.

You continue in the same mentality. "Even Hawking..."

I have never been one hundered percent definite on anything. No decent scientist ever would be. However I have spent much of my life becoming familiar with the complexity of what we do know about reality. I stand in awe of those who built the field of cosmolgy and consider assertation without knowledge (as displayed by you) as an insult to this legacy.

It is you, Mike, who are incapable intellectual honesty as you demonstrate your utter ignorance in failing to comprehend Einsten's century old understanding while you continue to assert "supernatural" as the logical outcome of this debate.

You, sir, are an arrogant fool.

 

[Mike375]

You, sir, are an arrogant fool.

And you sir would be better off to avoid these debates.

But this should be simple for you

Wiki

The supernatural or supranatural (Latin: super, supra "above" + natura "nature") is anything above or beyond what one holds to be natural or exists outside natural law and the observable universe

Is physics pre Big Bang what you have to play with or is it a different set of rules.

 

[Galaxiom]

Wiki

The supernatural or supranatural (Latin: super, supra "above" + natura "nature") is anything above or beyond what one holds to be natural or exists outside natural law and the observable universe

Is physics pre Big Bang what you have to play with or is it a different set of rules.

Notice how the entry uses the Latin to define "super" and "supra" but relies on entirely subjective interpretaiton of "natural" to mean "observable". I could edit that entry in Wiki myself. Indeed you could have done so yourself to suit your perspective.

Regardless of the inarguably subjective semantics, you have repeatedly incited the need for a superior "superntatural" consciousness to have created our reality without a shred of evidence.

None so profoundly demonstrate their ignorance as those who resort to semantics in defence of their position.

In all these debates you have been resoundingly outclassed.

 

[Galaxiom]

And you sir would be better off to avoid these debates.

Why? Because you think you have won? If so you are profoundly deluded.

This debate is exactly the same as our discussion of the speed of light. While I demonstrated the ability to manipulate the concepts in a way that would make sense to anyone who sincerely tried to follow my explanations, you showed you still haven't a clue and continue to assert your misguided intuition.

Such is the case of the religious today and why I bother to engage in such debates.

 

[Mike375]

Check other definitions.

People make various claims such as UFO sightings or whatever and these are answered by your physics and thus are not supernatural.

Supernatural is something that can't be answered with our natural laws and that is pre Big Bang.

I don't think I "incite" anything. Wow!!!

 

[Mike375]

Why? Because you think you have won?

No. Because you reduce yourself to personal attacks and get very agitated.

You also seem to degenerate to a fixation on "religion"

 

[Adam Caramon]

However, I suspect you might not be a true atheist but more an anti religious person or non believer in religions and that is perhaps why so many of your posts are directed at Kryst and so many of your posts to me swing back to religion.

I suspect you're right. The posts of mine that aim at Kryst are mostly me trying to attain knowledge. The life of a truly dedicated believer is all but foreign to me. I've seen people say they are religious, but most don't live the life, follow the rules, etc.

It intrigues me that someone actually believes in religious rules and then follows them, lives by them, etc.

The posts that swing to you do so because, as I mentioned, you tend to stand on unknown ground.

That was Werner von Braun. That was not defense of Christianity. That was just pointing out that a belief in religion is not exclusive to the stupid.

Which, when someone is making the assertion that religion and education or intelligence are on opposite sides of the spectrum, would be a defense of Christianity (or perhaps, religion in general). Again, perhaps you don't see it, sometimes it is hardest to look at one's self, but you're solidly in the religious/Chrisitian camp.

Experience it all of the time.

So your conviction that telepathy exists is because you personally experience telepathy all of the time? And, you assume, that since you experience it, others must experience it as well?

No, as I said

"I also think there is a chance that Bible has some truth but the God is limited and also limited to maybe this solar system."

I believe all the various religions are man made.

hmmm. Help me understand your thoughts here. If religions are man made, then how could the bible have some truth? Do you mean only the non-magical parts?

Also, what types of limitations do you suppose are placed on the god?

 

[Galaxiom]

No. Because you reduce yourself to personal attacks and get very agitated.

You also seem to degenerate to a fixation on "religion"

I am not at agitated in the slightest.

Religion is a strongly held belief. Your belief in the "supernatural" is religion whether it involves traditional gods or not because you hold it on faith.

Moreover you continue to dodge this question of gods. It is clear to me that you feel the need for a grand consciousness in order to manifest reality. Call it a god, or "something out there" it is still a form of a deity.

I won't bother with the rest of your semantic arguments as they are innane.