A Question of Religion...

You're certainly free to believe whatever you like just as some of us have the same freedom to believe in God. There's a Bible verse about those who say "there is no God" but I won't quote it. I assume you don't accept it as having any authority anyway. That's your privilege. Plus I'm not going to waste a lot of time trying to defend God to you. The garbage going on in the word started when sin entered. I'm sure you don't believe in that either. But it's interesting that you'll believe in aliens but not God. p.s. I don't think God will accept your claim that there's no proof of His existence. Look around you at creation.

 

The existence of aliens is actually plausible. But there is no proof that aliens have visited Earth.

 

Oh and here's a book I'd highly recommend about these "aliens" :

Alien Obsession: What Lies Behind Abductions, Sightings and the Attraction to the Paranormal: Ron Rhodes: 9781565078499: Amazon.com: Books

 

Lets talk about ALIENS. It gets my mind off this damn tinnitus and today has been a bad day.

I have never questioned the idea that aliens exist. There are a million times more reasons why they (or it ) should exist than a single reason why they should not. If they have ever visited this earth is another matter to discuss.

It has been only about 400 years since Galileo had to recant his theory, under the threat of torture or death from the religious sect, that the earth was not the center of the universe.

What are we so afraid of ?

If GOD did create this world then why not another or even millions. Is God limited in his/her ability to create and oversee just one little world? I think not. There is estimated to be over a 100 BILLION galaxies out there and we are still counting. There is estimated to be more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of this world combined. Its a big place out there. For too bigger and beautiful place to just be created for a single race of beings who for the most part never even look up at it or let alone be amazed by it.

If we evolved here then why not elsewhere. One chance out of a billion some scientists say for the conditions to be just right for life to form. So what. The vastness of the universe allows a trillion times a trillion for such an event to occur even just once and once is all it takes for aliens to exist.

We are just afraid now as in Galileo's time. Afraid now as then of the truth. We humans have very fragile and shallow egos. We don't want to admit that just perhaps we are NOT the most intelligent and important thing in the universe. That perhaps we are not God's only children. We are like a spoiled child, we want to be the center of attention.

If an alien race has evolved to the point of interstellar travel and visited us I wonder what they would think of us. Would they look upon us as poor misguided ignorant creatures bent on self destruction of themselves and their planet. Would they offer us guidance and sympathy? Or perhaps they would look upon us as nothing more than late night snack food.

 

hi ,
well the question of religion brings me to some thoughts that if there is a higher presence we might be left here to do free will in which the higher presence does not interfere,although i have pondered a higher presence i sometimes think that somehow we were given the technology and resources to build what we have today,i am an amateur astronomer and as i see ,the universe has been created and had to come from more than just a big bang,sure i am skeptical of things but i truly had two experiences that may have changed my thoughts,as i said ,i am an amateur astronomer , i saw a u.f.o once from my observing site and i know the sky from weather balloons to search flares to all kinds of sky phenomenon and earth vehicles, i truly believe i saw an interstellar ship checking in on us and it hovered over the remote site i was at fairly high up in the upper atmosphere ,the speed it left at ,we cannot achieve,i was in a panic of being overwhelmed,anyone can make an assumption but it left me for the first time thinking,we are not alone.
one other experience i had because like i said i have been skeptical of everything,my wifes father passed away a few years back and her parents are church going people,they also new i was skeptical, well after the funeral ,into bed i go for a good nights sleep,and remember,i am skeptical,halfway through the night my wifes father came inside my mind ,in a white robe he embraced me and pinned me to the bed saying i am not dead repeatedly as i tried to get up i couldnt get up, my wife woke up to me jaunting let me up,let me up,i was in total shock,of course frightened ,never had it happen again. i know you all dont know me but i dont believe in story telling,those are facts that have happened to me,as we know ,there are many mysteries that cannot be solved but when you have someone close to you pass away,you feel genuine heartache,it actually aches,well, our bodies are made of organs,organs should not ache, but if there is a soul inside the body,then the body will feel the pain,that makes me think that we must have a soul,just my perspective as an astronomer,kevin

 

one thought on the aliens, to travel among the stars means they are extremely much more evolved then we are they would study us like we would study amoeba and protozoa,they would be curious to check in on us from time to time and will have known of our existence since the dawn of humankind as we are very young in this sector of the galaxy , they would have had multi generations to learn and develop how to traverse the vast distances amongst the stars and if they wished to enslave or destroy us they would have done their dirty work a long time ago,we are much too primitive for them to make contact with us!

 

I would love to believe any Alian if they could cure T. They are all invited to my place. As a matter of fact I would gladly travel to another Galaxy if it provided some piece - but something tells me that's not gonna happen. Alians, trolls, monsters and hobbits. I'm sorry to say it's not real. When it comes to religious matters I guess we will never know as long as we live as those matters are mostly for those who have left us.

 

Your story is strong astronomer and I appreciate you sharing it, I have no doubt what so ever you experienced something that was special to you - at the same time I believe physical pain is due to nerves reacting to electric impulses that the brain can produce. When we feel physical pain it's always a physical reaction, it may come from a mental source or taught processes but still with no nerves we wouldn't be able to feel anything physical. It's all a tactile system. Sadness is something else.

 

If one day aliens visit the world, cure the diseases, solve the problems and give us peace then we will belive in what they believe.

 

Hello, hey I'm of the greek orthodox faith I was baptised greek orthodox, married in a greek orthodox church, as were my kids who attended catholic schools, my faith in " GOD " has been diminished somewhat as his lack of presence in the world today as he sits and watches the stupidty that is going on in todays world, how can he sit there and do nothing....For the record more wars in the world have been caused by religion than any other factor...My god is no better than your god or any other god of ones choosing, as for my belief in aliens, the writings on the wall....so to speak

 

Space travel very expensive, try vitamins

 

Is religion a good thing?

Is religion true?

These are two completely different questions, and even Richard Dawkins mix them ALL the time in his debates.

Having T I wish I could be religious, but I sure as hell don't wish religion to be true lol. Eternal life? What if it is an eternal life with T!

 

If that's what you want to believe so if someone decides to choose a tree as their god then that's ok, believing it makes it so? I assume you don't believe in absolute truth, that there's one truth for everyone?

 

the truth is out there...

 

noisy

 

The answer to both would be depends on the religion. Course, I tend to look at things from the biblical/Christian perspective. I don't really like the term religion, it can be deceiving. Religion can mean anything, it's people trying to do something to reach God whereas Christianity is God reaching down to man through Christ. And nowadays the word Christian can be deceiving also, you have to explain terms because people make it mean whatever they want. And why would you think that you'd have T for eternity?

 

Love the smiley faces.

 

wow,
religion is a touchy subject, me pappy was right,never discuss religion or politics or anything else,well i dont know about the anything else,however,as i have been a skeptical person i think i would rather stay on the positive side than the negative side,so if there is a chance i may live again in some way i think i would rather do what your suspose to do and that is one simple word '' believe '',so just to be on the safe side i think i will stick with the wise men ( and women) , nice sharing thoughts and opinions but now it is time to get on to other subjects and me pappy said it is safe to talk about the weather with others,hows the weather? just kidding

 

That's what I say all the time to doctors (not just with regard to tinnitus, but other stuff as well). What I leave unsaid, expecting them to finish the statement, is "so let's go find it". But that just never registers in their heads. It's just a big elephant in the room that they never see.

I firmly believe aliens have visited this planet. There are those who talk about intelligent design as an alternative explanation to evolution. Certainly the complexity of life and the human body raises the question whether it could have arisen from the randomness of genetic mutation and survival of the fittest (Darwinism). Most people seem to equate intelligent design with creationism (I.e., created by God). I think it is entirely possible that we, if not all species on Earth, were intelligently designed by some entity much smarter than us - maybe aliens. They could easily have short cut evolution in much the same way we do now with genetically modified crops. For all we know, Earth could have been a big life science playground for some alien beings from another galaxy. I don't think it would be that difficult to visit this planet and leave no trace. Maybe a science fair project. One guy creates a mouse, another guy one ups him by creating a cheetah to eat the mouse. Just a higher tech version of the kid robot completions we now have in high school etc.

 

Well, Christ said to go to the world with the gospel so how can a Christian do that without talking about it? Course, I realize you have to try and discern whether to speak in a given situation or when it's time to stop. Oh and the weather here is very cold right now, we've had some snow.

 

I love discussions like this!

Religion and science explain many of the same existential questions we think about. Where did all THIS LIFE and EXISTENCE come from?

I remember, as a kid, thinking the world was flat, with oceans falling off the edge (complete with dragons on the other side of a flat earth). Then I learned about Columbus, and how the world was round. About 6th grade, I wondered if the edge of the Universe had walls!

I love thinking about this stuff.

Here's something that I believe: There is no such thing as time. Time is an illusion that living things experience. There is no issue of "Eternity" because there is no time. Our bodies are like movie projectors, giving us the illusion that we are moving through time. But once we die....no time.

We ask questions like, "What happened before the Universe was created?". This is one of those big questions, a logic puzzle that assumes there is "a before". But what was before "Before'?".....and before that? No solution to that one. Perhaps the fault is in our assumption there is time. Time could be only an experience of living things.

Here's another one I think about: We are all told how big the Universe is. But what if space is also an illusion? What if the Universe is actually caused by only one particle? The physicist Richard Feynman actually therorized the entire universe may be the result of the path of only one particle! (Read "Physics of the Impossible", p. 244: "...Feynman then speculated that perhaps the entire universe consisted of just one electron, zigzagging back and forth...Imagine that out of the chaos of the original big bang only a single electron was created...")

What if there is only "one thing"? Hey, it almost makes sense to me.

Interestingly, tinnitus forces a person to question what is reality, really? When we hear things, it is via neuron voltages to our brains. Unfortunately, sometime things get mixed up and some stray current cause us to hear tinnitus, which is just as real.

I think that our bodies create meanings about time, space, sound....through our senses. That's what "meaning" means.

I think, in the grand scheme of things, we are limited by our own senses. Primitive man was a child, and was very narcissitic. We tend to personify nature, putting things into human terms,....sometimes believing that all of life must revolve around only us. Some of us draw lines in the sand, dividing us into groups, saying "we all love one another - just as long as you're on my side of the line!".

 

Hi there, while you find this stuff interesting, I tend to try not to dwell on it as I have a bit of a propensity towards obsessional thinking. I have been through a terrible time battling with existentialism in the past so I prefer to skim the surface and not dig too deep. I understand it is interesting but sometimes it all gets a bit too much for me and I get overwhelmed by it, because I have one of those brains that tends not to just accept things but question everything and then I get tied up in knots. Like the time I could not accept the fact that I was made up of atoms and molecules and that the fact that I was created with a single sperm and and egg meant that I must be insignificant because nothing that could be created so easily could be significant. Well anyway, I am sure you don't want to hear this but the best way I have found out of this mess, is to believe that I was created by The Creator and He loves me and my life has purpose and meaning. I find that far easier to accept without questioning it than us all being here by a series of events that all just happened to take place at exactly the right time. Actually, have you ever read "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. If not, I thoroughly recommend it.

 

The earth as a science project.....AWESOME theory Mick