If you're an atheist should you not at least believe in aliens?

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: randay

Originally posted by: bsobel
Your changing the debate. Happy to have this discussion with you in another thread (my personal view is much of what is written in these quasi-historic texts can be explained by intelligent non-earth life). Especially when you account for angels, the fight between yahwea and lucifer, etc. Burning bush but without fire or smoke? Yea, it's called a lightbulb. But this is all irrelevent for this discussion where god is defined as the christiain omni-potent which exists outside of our laws of science.

oh. my. god.

I didn't say it was true, I said it could be explained (quite cleanly actually) in that context.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: So

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Kev
Gravity isn't proven?

Here's an experiment for you:

Ready?




Still with me?




Here goes....








Jump

Excellent observation. Now how did it happen?

So, you don't accept science on any level?

WTF?

Scientific proofing requires that you "show your work." I'm not confusing anything, I'm just wasting my time debating with pseudoscience religionists.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: So

Originally posted by: Vic
Well (and to clarify something I posted earlier), you have to think about the ramifications that discovering even the most basic form of alien life would have on science as we know it.
Not at all, Vic, evolution has been proven.
Currently, evolution tells us that life on earth evolved independently (and that's real science BTW).
Yes and no - yes, it's science, but it's abiogenesis, a theory completely independent of evolution
If we were to find recognizable life on an alien planet, that basic premise of evolutionary theory would fly out the window.
not at all, again, abiogenesis would be a little weaker, that's it.

Questions like, did life evolve separately on the 2 planets, or did the chicken come before the egg (did life evolve on one and then spread through space to the other), etc. would have to be brought up.
this is true
Current science simply does not support the notion of alien life. It is in the category of "God," i.e. possible, but unlikely and (most importantly) unnecessary.
your conclusion doesn't follow at all from the facts you've presented. If life could evolve here, why would it be any less likely to evolve in similar conditions somewhere else? All extraterrestrial life would do is make hypotheses about interplanetary seeding more interesting. Nothing more, nothing less.

- Evolution is not proven, it is observed. There is a difference. It's comparable to gravity. We don't know why or how gravity works, therefore it is not proven, but it is observable.
- I clearly said evolution, not abiogenesis, and I do understand the difference between the 2.
- What part about the word UNNECESSARY do you and Thraxen not understand?

The process and mechanics of evolution are understood quite a bit more than just mere observation. Same for gravity, although quite a bit less *understood* than evolution.

Current science most certainly supports the notion of alien life - we haven't found it yet, and it may or may not be out there, but nothing precludes it. Whether or not it's unlikely is even still up to debate and waiting on more data.

- It will never be possible to explore every planet in the universe, especially when considers that the rate of the universe's acceleration means that eventually the universe is going to start moving away from itself at speeds greater than that of light. P=NP doesn't even need to enter there. But when it does, you hit the brick wall of the life cycles of star and planets, ad naseum.

Ehhh...not quite. An interesting concept, but it's a misinterpretation of the physics behind it.

- You might say that I am changing the debate, but I would say you are engaging in straw man. If you wish to pigeonhole the idea of God in such a way, then I will insist that aliens be defined as grays flitting around in their faster-than-light saucers who anally-probe Bush and Cheney at Area 51 with Elvis and the 2nd shooter.

If everyone is going to resort to pre-AD skepticism in order to make a point, we might as well all stop now.

 

[randay]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: randay

Originally posted by: bsobel
Your changing the debate. Happy to have this discussion with you in another thread (my personal view is much of what is written in these quasi-historic texts can be explained by intelligent non-earth life). Especially when you account for angels, the fight between yahwea and lucifer, etc. Burning bush but without fire or smoke? Yea, it's called a lightbulb. But this is all irrelevent for this discussion where god is defined as the christiain omni-potent which exists outside of our laws of science.

oh. my. god.

I didn't say it was true, I said it could be explained (quite cleanly actually) in that context.

whew, thats good, you have no idea how blown away I was after reading that. lol

 

[Thraxen]

Originally posted by: Vic
Scientific proofing requires that you "show your work." I'm not confusing anything, I'm just wasting my time debating with pseudoscience religionists.

Again, there's a difference between proving something exists and explaining how it works. That's not a difficult concept.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Kev
Gravity isn't proven?

Here's an experiment for you:

Ready?




Still with me?




Here goes....








Jump

I didn't jump, because I won't put my Faith in some kooky theory!!!!!

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: BD2003

- It will never be possible to explore every planet in the universe, especially when considers that the rate of the universe's acceleration means that eventually the universe is going to start moving away from itself at speeds greater than that of light. P=NP doesn't even need to enter there. But when it does, you hit the brick wall of the life cycles of star and planets, ad naseum.

Ehhh...not quite. An interesting concept, but it's a misinterpretation of the physics behind it.

:roll:

 

[Thraxen]

So, Vic, are you saying that if scientists found microbes on Mars tomorrow that would suprise you just as much as if God materalized in the sky and said, "Here I am!".

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Thraxen

Originally posted by: Vic
Scientific proofing requires that you "show your work." I'm not confusing anything, I'm just wasting my time debating with pseudoscience religionists.

Again, there's a difference between proving something exists and explaining how it works. That's not a difficult concept.

Really? Is that even remotely the same context as to how this tangent got started? STFU out this thread and take your high school science with you.

 

[Thraxen]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Thraxen

Originally posted by: Vic
Scientific proofing requires that you "show your work." I'm not confusing anything, I'm just wasting my time debating with pseudoscience religionists.

Again, there's a difference between proving something exists and explaining how it works. That's not a difficult concept.

Really? Is that even remotely the same context as to how this tangent got started? STFU out this thread and take your high school science with you.

LOL... wow. Just admit you have lost this debate.

 

[randay]

Wow this thread is a real eye opener for me. There are people who believe in science, and people who believe in religion. Each requiring its own amount of faith, belief, and interpretation. While science would be easier to accept by those who are of the "Ill believe it when I see it types" most of it is just read about in books.

To answer the OP, no, an atheist does not necessarily believe in aliens, nor is it required to be an atheist. At least thats what I believe.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Thraxen
So, Vic, are you saying that if scientists found microbes on Mars tomorrow that would suprise you just as much as if God materalized in the sky and said, "Here I am!".

The microbes in the Mars meteorite claims was disproven. So your point doesn't mean anything. You're trying to generalize likelihoods based on personal prejudices and then foolish yourself into thinking that doing so is "scientific."

And let me say again for ad hom-users in this thread: I do not believe nor disbelieve in God or aliens, and I do believe 100% in the scientific method. If you're going to insist on using straw men, you may as well leave the discussion instead of poisoning it.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Thraxen

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Thraxen

Originally posted by: Vic
Scientific proofing requires that you "show your work." I'm not confusing anything, I'm just wasting my time debating with pseudoscience religionists.

Again, there's a difference between proving something exists and explaining how it works. That's not a difficult concept.

Really? Is that even remotely the same context as to how this tangent got started? STFU out this thread and take your high school science with you.

LOL... wow. Just admit you have lost this debate.

Admit what? That you have used nothing but conjecture, ad homs, and straw men in this discussion?

 

[BD2003]

From: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/FTL.html

According to the Hubble Law, two galaxies which are a distant D apart are moving away from each other at a speed HD where H is Hubble's constant. In that case two galaxies which are a distance greater than c/H apart are moving away from each other faster than the speed of light. This is quite correct. The distance between two objects can be increasing faster than light because of the expansion of the universe. However, it is meaningless to say that the universe is expanding faster than light because the rate of the expansion is measured by Hubble's constant alone which does not even have the units of speed.

As was mentioned above, in special relativity it is possible for two objects to be moving apart by speeds up to twice the speed of light as measured by an observer in a third frame of reference. In general relativity even this limit can be surpassed but it will not then be possible to observe both objects at the same time. Again, this is not real faster than light travel. It will not help anyone to travel across the galaxy faster than light. All that is happening is that the distance between two objects is increasing faster when taken in some cosmological reference frame.

And most importantly, galaxies are expanding relative to each other. The universe does not move away from itself...thats nonsensical. So there can certainly be galaxies that appear to move FTL away from Earth, but not from itself.

And by the time we start pushing the boundaries of intergalactic exploration, the concept of "We" and "Us" is no longer going to be confined to merely planet earth and the milky way.

 

[Thraxen]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Thraxen
So, Vic, are you saying that if scientists found microbes on Mars tomorrow that would suprise you just as much as if God materalized in the sky and said, "Here I am!".

The microbes in the Mars meteorite claims was disproven. So your point doesn't mean anything. You're trying to generalize likelihoods based on personal prejudices and then foolish yourself into doing so is "scientific."

And let me say again for ad hom-users in this thread: I do not believe nor disbelieve in God or aliens, and I do believe 100% in the scientific method. If you're going to insist on using straw men, you may as well leave the discussion instead of poisoning it.

Umm... I'm not talking about any specific past examinations of martian life. Scientists have NOT ruled out that it could still be found there. This whole debate was started when you said that belief in God and belief in alien life takes the same "type and level" of faith. You have dragged the debate all kinds of pointless directions, but int he end we have proof of evolution and life and no proof of God. That alone proves you wrong, but you simply won't admit it.

[edit] poor typing skills

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Thraxen
So, Vic, are you saying that if scientists found microbes on Mars tomorrow that would suprise you just as much as if God materalized in the sky and said, "Here I am!".

The microbes in the Mars meteorite claims was disproven. So your point doesn't mean anything. You're trying to generalize likelihoods based on personal prejudices and then foolish yourself into thinking that doing so is "scientific."

And let me say again for ad hom-users in this thread: I do not believe nor disbelieve in God or aliens, and I do believe 100% in the scientific method. If you're going to insist on using straw men, you may as well leave the discussion instead of poisoning it.

Show me where it was disproven. I havent heard that...I'm interested.

It has always been little to go on from the start, nothing more than a footnote than something that required serious investigation, because you can't really tell much from a microbial fossil, let alone one from another planet.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: BD2003
From: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/FTL.html

According to the Hubble Law, two galaxies which are a distant D apart are moving away from each other at a speed HD where H is Hubble's constant. In that case two galaxies which are a distance greater than c/H apart are moving away from each other faster than the speed of light. This is quite correct. The distance between two objects can be increasing faster than light because of the expansion of the universe. However, it is meaningless to say that the universe is expanding faster than light because the rate of the expansion is measured by Hubble's constant alone which does not even have the units of speed.

As was mentioned above, in special relativity it is possible for two objects to be moving apart by speeds up to twice the speed of light as measured by an observer in a third frame of reference. In general relativity even this limit can be surpassed but it will not then be possible to observe both objects at the same time. Again, this is not real faster than light travel. It will not help anyone to travel across the galaxy faster than light. All that is happening is that the distance between two objects is increasing faster when taken in some cosmological reference frame.

And most importantly, galaxies are expanding relative to each other. The universe does not move away from itself...thats nonsensical. So there can certainly be galaxies that appear to move FTL away from Earth, but not from itself.

And by the time we start pushing the boundaries of intergalactic exploration, the concept of "We" and "Us" is no longer going to be confined to merely planet earth and the milky way.

I think I understand how it works. Text

Pardon my generalization used in haste. Next time, I'll spell everything out really clearly for you so that you don't get confused and feel the need to pick holes in it.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Thraxen

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Thraxen
So, Vic, are you saying that if scientists found microbes on Mars tomorrow that would suprise you just as much as if God materalized in the sky and said, "Here I am!".

The microbes in the Mars meteorite claims was disproven. So your point doesn't mean anything. You're trying to generalize likelihoods based on personal prejudices and then foolish yourself into doing so is "scientific."

And let me say again for ad hom-users in this thread: I do not believe nor disbelieve in God or aliens, and I do believe 100% in the scientific method. If you're going to insist on using straw men, you may as well leave the discussion instead of poisoning it.

Umm... I'm not talking about any specific past examinations of martian life. Scientists have NOT ruled out that it could still be found there. This whole debate was start when you said that belief in God and belief in aline life take the same "type and level" of faith. You have dragged the debate all kinds of pointless directions, but int he end we have proof of evolution and life and no proof of God. That alone proves you wrong, but you simply won't admit it.

*sigh*

Where does evolution disprove God? WTF does evolution even have to with this?

This discussion of mine is about people who have faith in unproven probabilities (edit: and more importantly, try to abuse real science by calling their faith "scientific" when it really is no better than believing in intelligent design). You are deeply confused if you think it's about anything else, and a very poor reader. Alien life may exist, it may not. Speculating on what it might be like is science. Believing in its probability is not. Get it?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: BD2003
From: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/FTL.html

According to the Hubble Law, two galaxies which are a distant D apart are moving away from each other at a speed HD where H is Hubble's constant. In that case two galaxies which are a distance greater than c/H apart are moving away from each other faster than the speed of light. This is quite correct. The distance between two objects can be increasing faster than light because of the expansion of the universe. However, it is meaningless to say that the universe is expanding faster than light because the rate of the expansion is measured by Hubble's constant alone which does not even have the units of speed.

As was mentioned above, in special relativity it is possible for two objects to be moving apart by speeds up to twice the speed of light as measured by an observer in a third frame of reference. In general relativity even this limit can be surpassed but it will not then be possible to observe both objects at the same time. Again, this is not real faster than light travel. It will not help anyone to travel across the galaxy faster than light. All that is happening is that the distance between two objects is increasing faster when taken in some cosmological reference frame.

And most importantly, galaxies are expanding relative to each other. The universe does not move away from itself...thats nonsensical. So there can certainly be galaxies that appear to move FTL away from Earth, but not from itself.

And by the time we start pushing the boundaries of intergalactic exploration, the concept of "We" and "Us" is no longer going to be confined to merely planet earth and the milky way.

I think I understand how it works. Text

Pardon my generalization used in haste. Next time, I'll spell everything out really clearly for you so that you don't get confused and feel the need to pick holes in it.

And that post shows what? That you posted a physics question in HT and now you're the authority? Your "generalization" didnt have holes, it was completely wrong. The expansion of the universe isn't going to factor into our inability to explore other galaxies.

 

[Thraxen]

Originally posted by: Vic
Where does evolution disprove God? WTF does evolution even have to with this?

This discussion of mine is about people who have faith in unproven probabilities. You are deeply confused if you think it's about anything else, and a very poor reader.

Seriously, you are trying to play it off like I'm an idiot, but that honor clearly goes to you. You accuse me of not reading, but evolution has beena part of this debate for LONG time now. Let me recap since you must have slept recently... Evolution came into the debate because it's known process that could occur on another planet to result in life. It's not blind faith to think this could happen. It IS blind faith to believe in God with no proof at all. Thus, your original statement that it takes the same "type and level" of faith is DEAD WRONG. End of story. Period. /thread

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: BD2003
And that post shows what? That you posted a physics question in HT and now you're the authority? Your "generalization" didnt have holes, it was completely wrong. The expansion of the universe isn't going to factor into our inability to explore other galaxies.

Did you even read it?

And yes, it will. While it is true that earth is not accelerating away from the sun, and the sun is not accelerating away from the Milky Way, the Milky Way and it neighboring galaxies are accelerating away from other more distant galaxies in the universe, and that will impede our ability to visit them all. Not that it even matters, because (like I already said) it is no more possible to visit every planet in the universe than it would be shake every person's hand on earth, and for the exact same reason.

Is this what we're down to here, chasing moot points, trying to prove obvious impossibilities?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: randay
Wow this thread is a real eye opener for me. There are people who believe in science, and people who believe in religion. Each requiring its own amount of faith, belief, and interpretation. While science would be easier to accept by those who are of the "Ill believe it when I see it types" most of it is just read about in books.

Theres a big difference between books that were supposedly handed down by a supernatural god, and textbooks that contain reference to peer reviewed journals, containing a self-consistent framework of concepts that can be tested against your own reality and experience.

Sure, it's quite difficult to run your own DNA analyses and particle collider experiments without billions of dollars, but it's all about consistency. You take a few basic scientific ideas, test them against your own experience, and then the tougher concepts that you can't afford to or don't have the time to explore personally can be put up against your own framework and understanding of the basics that you've already acquired.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Thraxen

Originally posted by: Vic
Where does evolution disprove God? WTF does evolution even have to with this?

This discussion of mine is about people who have faith in unproven probabilities. You are deeply confused if you think it's about anything else, and a very poor reader.

Seriously, you are trying to play it off like I'm an idiot, but that honor clearly goes to you. You accuse me of not reading, but evolution has beena part of this debate for LONG time now. Let me recap since you must have slept recently... Evolution came into the debate because it's known process that could occur on another planet to result in life. It's not blind faith to think this could happen. It IS blind faith to believe in God with no proof at all. Thus, your original statement that it takes the same "type and level" of faith is DEAD WRONG. End of story. Period. /thread

Hey man, sorry if I blaspemed your faith.

No wait, I'm not. That was my whole plan.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: randay
Wow this thread is a real eye opener for me. There are people who believe in science, and people who believe in religion. Each requiring its own amount of faith, belief, and interpretation. While science would be easier to accept by those who are of the "Ill believe it when I see it types" most of it is just read about in books.

Theres a big difference between books that were supposedly handed down by a supernatural god, and textbooks that contain reference to peer reviewed journals, containing a self-consistent framework of concepts that can be tested against your own reality and experience.

Sure, it's quite difficult to run your own DNA analyses and particle collider experiments without billions of dollars, but it's all about consistency. You take a few basic scientific ideas, test them against your own experience, and then the tougher concepts that you can't afford to or don't have the time to explore personally can be put up against your own framework and understanding of the basics that you've already acquired.

Yeah well, once those books handed down from God were "peer reviewed" too.

I'm not knocking science. As I have already said in this thread, I adhere 100% to the scientific process and philosphy. My issue is with people who believe in science in a way that is not, shall we say, scientific.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: BD2003
And that post shows what? That you posted a physics question in HT and now you're the authority? Your "generalization" didnt have holes, it was completely wrong. The expansion of the universe isn't going to factor into our inability to explore other galaxies.

Did you even read it?

And yes, it will. While it is true that earth is not accelerating away from the sun, and the sun is not accelerating away from the Milky Way, the Milky Way and it neighboring galaxies are accelerating away from other more distant galaxies in the universe, and that will impede our ability to visit them all. Not that it even matters, because (like I already said) it is no more possible to visit every planet in the universe than it would be shake every person's hand on earth, and for the exact same reason.

I read it. I fail to see where it the physics precludes galaxy hopping as a method to spread round about the galaxy. Sure, there would come a point where you couldn't get the information back to earth.

Is this what we're down to here, chasing moot points, trying to prove obvious impossibilities?

Isn't that basically what the entire thread is based upon?

It's cute how you act as if you are the arbiter of logical consistency, but don't apply the same rules to yourself.