What's Harder for you to Believe in: Aliens or God?

[mrzed]

I am with those who think that the perfection and elegance that is revealed when we probe deeply is a miracle.

I also think the existence of aliens is more likely than the existence of god.

I am a committed rationalist and agnostic who is somewhow completely and totally in love with my wife, in a way I cannot explain, in a manner that is totally at odds with my rationality.

I help explain it to myself by admitting that i do not (cannot) know everything.

. . .

I can barely know anything.

But still, the idea that of countless particles in space, formed somehow sometime (or here forever if you're not a bang beleiver) would somehow give rise to a mind that could even ponder the question, simply by chance, makes so much more sense to me than the idea that a being/thing/intelligence/spirit/what have you created it all. The numbers alone compel me, because they are so beyond my understanding, even as numbers, that I cannot imagine them. Why therefore should I imagine there are limits to what these numbers can do?

That said, I beleive it is all beleif. You theists may be right, but until I see with my own eyes the evidence, (and more than once, so I can be sure I'm not hallucinating), and people I love and trust confirm what I have seen, I'll stick with aliens.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: diegoalcatraz
Drake equation means sh!t - we have one, and only one, intelligent life to base any of the values from. The rest we're just pulling out of our collective asses.

Edit: "Aliens Cause Global Warming" by Michael Crichton

Great article.
Drake's equation is no better than all those christian arguments saying it's statistically impossible for life to have naturally formed.
However, aliens isn't supernatural.. but some magical god is, so aliens is much easier to stomach than god.

 

[Bill Brasky]

How do you define aliens? Eight legged creatures that travel at warp speed? Or any life at all including bacteria that live on planets other than Earth? The first, aliens. The second, I think both exist.

 

[IGBT]

..didn't god make the alien??

 

[doze]

We know very little about our own planet, and much less about the universe and beyond so aliens are certainly possible and may already be on the planet as some other species.

God is a man made idea and religion is essentially an effective way to control people. Although god/religion is a good idea for many people there is no factual base.

 

[Sc4freak]

Extraterrestrial life can be proven to exist. God cannot.

Pretty clear which is harder to believe.

 

[BillyBatson]

it is harder to believe in god. Because here we are and we exist and the universe is SO huge and diverse there is a chance of some other life form out there whether by chance (like how i think we came to be) or by god who could have very well created more words with other life out there (if he exists). While we have no proof of any sort of higher being to be able to say they exist so god might too

 

[letdown427]

Originally posted by: Rob9874

I think it takes way more faith to believe that everything in existence happened by chance. I don't think a C2D chip would have developed on it's own. So why should I think a solar system, Earth, or a human body would? Those are way more complex than a CPU. It had to be designed by someone.

There is another factor of the whole 'it happened by chance' argument that makes it easier to believe. Your basis of 'something must have created it' just leads to the good old question "Well, what created the creator?"

Of course one could argue that the whole need for a creator is just based on the fact that our brains can't contemplate omnipresence. We need to have something created etc for it to exist, because that is what our brains have always seen. It's for that reason that our poor brains can't really contemplate something infinite, because again, everything we experience is finite.

However, in my opinion, it is far easier to comprehend that, given 15billion years, a fair few chance happenings did occur, that ultimately led to intelligent life. We don't even know that, for example, we are in the only universe, that we are the first universe. For all we know, universes could expand from a 'big bang' and eventually collapse into a singularity, only to experience another 'big bang' and start all over again. I don't think we will ever really know that for sure.

The whole probability thing is far easier to consider possible, than some creator, that designed it all. This 'God'/Creator is a human creation. It is something that we came up with. A human brain applied it's own limited experiences to explaining something it didn't understand. Say the tide, the seasons, the sun moving, etc etc, they were just contributed to some 'God' as humans couldn't explain them.

Incredibly improbable things can happen, do happen, just happened. The probability of anything in your life actually happening, is very small. Let's say the whole Adam and Eve thing is correct. Even given that starting point, the probability that those two would lead on to the human race, that 2006 years after this Christ character snuffed it, after all of the occurences that have happened in the world, every single thought/movement undertaken by every single human that has ever existed, every single option that has existed for every single living creature, for every single piece of debris in space, the probability that the path's taken by everything would be the paths that were taken, and that all of that would lead to 6billion people undertaking their lives at the moment, and that a group of those people would be communicating about it, over some interweb, using computers, in a language, inside buildings, that have been designed, the very probability of all of history happening is miniscule, but alas, it has happened and is happening.

For that reason, I'm pretty comfortable believing that all of this did happen by chance.


Cliffs-

-Everything is pretty damn unlikely
-I'm happy believing this all happened by chance
-I don't believe God designed the C2D

 

[eits]

if you're talking about aliens that abduct people and the ufo sighting kinds, then i'll have to say aliens are harder to believe in than God.

however, if you're talking about just some kind of life out in the universe that is in a galaxy billions of lightyears away that we can't see, yet, then God would probably be harder to believe in.

personally, i believe in God because i've actually felt his presence and help. i'm still not sure about the whole divinity of christ thing, but i'm pretty damn sure about the God thing.

 

[letdown427]

Originally posted by: eits
Personally, i believe in God because i've actually felt his presence and help.

You'll probably take this as me trying to ridicule you, but none-the-less, here goes...

May I ask how you felt his presence? As in, how it manifested itself?

I'm genuinely curious here, nothing more.

 

[Sc4freak]

Originally posted by: Rob9874

Originally posted by: 151528
...its just ludacris to think some superbeing created everything we know today...

OK, last post on this topic for me. But I never understood that logic. I think it takes way more faith to believe that everything in existence happened by chance. I don't think a C2D chip would have developed on it's own. So why should I think a solar system, Earth, or a human body would? Those are way more complex than a CPU. It had to be designed by someone. I'm a Christian (a logical educated one who also accepts science), but I don't care if you believe the designer is Jesus or Abraham's God. But I have a hard time when people say it makes more sense that no one designed the universe, and that it developed by chance.

I think it's funny and ironic that the intellectual crowd who says it's silly to have faith in a creator, have faith in aliens. We have no evidence (even circumstantial) that aliens exist, whatsoever. It's purley based on hope and probability. However, when we look at our complex universe, at least that's tangible evidence of a creator.

Actually... Given enough time a C2D chip would have developed on its own. By random chance, it is possible that a bunch of silicon and copper bunches up together in exactly the correct manner to form an exact replica of a C2D chip. An example of this logic: monkey randomly bashing on a typewriter for a long enough period of time will eventually produce the works of Shakespere.

Of course, it is extremely unlikely, but it is possible. Life is the same. By some random chance, a bunch of chemicals combined to form the first organic compounds. And these organic compounds formed the first single cellular life, which evolved over billions of years. Not too hard to believe, considering that the Earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years, and the first self-replicating cell had about 500 million years to appear.

Besides, there are some reports suggesting that life used to exist on Mars. Such a parallel development of life would not have ocurred if life had only had an infinetesimally small chance of developing on its own.

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

I BELIEVE IN XENU, BOW DOWN BEFORE HIS MIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[eits]

Originally posted by: letdown427

Originally posted by: eits
Personally, i believe in God because i've actually felt his presence and help.

You'll probably take this as me trying to ridicule you, but none-the-less, here goes...

May I ask how you felt his presence? As in, how it manifested itself?

I'm genuinely curious here, nothing more.

it's all good. i posted about it a while ago... lemme try and find the thread so i can paste what i said...

i believe in God because i've felt his communication. one night, after much searching for whether or not God exists, i got fed up with trying to find proof and humbled myself and asked that if God existed to please reveal himself to me. then, i felt like God smacked me in the head and said to me, "i've been here the entire time, you jackass! i've tried to get you to look up and see me soooo many times in your life (shows me a slideshow of the various times in my life God's been there to try and hint that he's been there for me, except it happened in a fraction of a second... it was pretty intense). you were too proud to notice me." i cried that night... still not completely sure why.... don't know whether it was because i was in awe or if it was joy or if it was guilt or if it was repentance or all of the above...

i'm still not sure about christ's divinity, though. after realizing and experiencing a little of God's greatness, it's just really hard for me to wholeheartedly say that a man was in fact God incarnate. it just seems too blasphemous to me, but i'm not putting it out of the realm of possibility. i just don't know, yet...

i honestly don't know what religious category i fall under... i'm technically not a christian, jew, or muslim. i guess i'm just spiritual.

anyways, that's my story of why i believe in God.

 

[shiatan]

I believe in the Divine and aliens. Free your mind.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: Vic

Aliens and (intrinsic/transcendental) God are most definitely in the same category.

- "Higher power" extraterrestrial beings
- May have created life on earth (i.e. "seed theory" for aliens)
- May communicate/interact/interfere with life on earth
- No proof whatsoever that either exist
- Large followings of faithful believers

I suggest you pick up your Bible and read the Book of Ezekiel, starting with the 1st chapter.

about the proof.. i have proof for you.. whether or not you humble yourself and conced to this proof is up to you, but its actually rather simple..

close your eyes.. imagine something.. anything...

there yea go. proof.

 

[So]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK

Originally posted by: Vic

Aliens and (intrinsic/transcendental) God are most definitely in the same category.

- "Higher power" extraterrestrial beings
- May have created life on earth (i.e. "seed theory" for aliens)
- May communicate/interact/interfere with life on earth
]- No proof whatsoever that either exist [/B
- Large followings of faithful believers

I suggest you pick up your Bible and read the Book of Ezekiel, starting with the 1st chapter.

about the proof.. i have proof for you.. whether or not you humble yourself and conced to this proof is up to you, but its actually rather simple..

close your eyes.. imagine something.. anything...

there yea go. proof.

Ooh. I just imagined some guy with no proof whatsoever, and *poof* it happened. Creationism! :laugh:

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: So

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK

Originally posted by: Vic

Aliens and (intrinsic/transcendental) God are most definitely in the same category.

- "Higher power" extraterrestrial beings
- May have created life on earth (i.e. "seed theory" for aliens)
- May communicate/interact/interfere with life on earth
- No proof whatsoever that either exist
- Large followings of faithful believers

I suggest you pick up your Bible and read the Book of Ezekiel, starting with the 1st chapter.

about the proof.. i have proof for you.. whether or not you humble yourself and conced to this proof is up to you, but its actually rather simple..

close your eyes.. imagine something.. anything...

there yea go. proof.

Ooh. I just imagined some guy with no proof whatsoever, and *poof* it happened. Creationism! :laugh:

the fact that you take your existance and life so lightly, that you can't consider your existance a blessing, that you think you just happened by chance, just tells me you are an empty observer. how i read all of that out of your statement i dont know, but i got the feeling. im tired btw....

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK

Originally posted by: Vic

Aliens and (intrinsic/transcendental) God are most definitely in the same category.

- "Higher power" extraterrestrial beings
- May have created life on earth (i.e. "seed theory" for aliens)
- May communicate/interact/interfere with life on earth
- No proof whatsoever that either exist
- Large followings of faithful believers

I suggest you pick up your Bible and read the Book of Ezekiel, starting with the 1st chapter.

about the proof.. i have proof for you.. whether or not you humble yourself and conced to this proof is up to you, but its actually rather simple..

close your eyes.. imagine something.. anything...

there yea go. proof.

Proof and faith are 2 very different things.

 

[Ika]

It's easier to believe in aliens than God for me, simply because the universe is so completely vast that the chances that humans are the only intelligent life forms that exist are nil, in my mind. God, on the other hand, is, once again, IMO, a spiritual being that supposedly does not have any form. Thus, I believe in aliens more than I believe in God.