Curious Atheist said:
I do respect your viewpoint, so I will humbly agree to disagree on the evidence for and against. But I am now interested in what you think about alien life amongst other things for quite a good reason. Part of what makes me more confident that the Earth and humans were not the work of a creator, made solely for our benefit can be expressed in images such as this
IIPMooViewer 2.0 :: IIPImage High Resolution HTML5 Ajax Image Streaming Viewer (please zoom in). It just blows my mind (not literally of course, but as close as I think possible) trying to really appreciate the size of this universe. Why would a God only interested in creating humans in his image create such a huge number of galaxies, stars and planets. There could be a billion other inhabitable planets such as ours, which makes us highly insignificant and not particular special.
I do think the Big Bang theroy is the most likely theory we have and you might find this article interesting
Astrobiology Magazine although most of the physics and mathematics is beyond my current understanding. I do not trust everything science and scientists suggest to be true, such as string theory as it is purely theoretical and untestable. But I suppose I do put trust in professionals who have the intellect and understanding I lack, such as the trust I have in a doctor to treat me. Nearly all of my arguments are based upon the principle of occam's razor, the rest generally being from a moral standpoint. Sorry going against my first sentence suggesting I am going to be humble, can you honestly say your faith is based firmly on the most likely answer, since you have move on from being agnostic?
We can agree to disagree. As for alien life, it does not bother me at all if it exists or not, nor does it change my faith in any shape or form; however, I can agree with you that some Christians may have big problems believing in alien life existing. I am doubtful we are the only sentient intelligence in the entire galaxy, let alone the entire universe.
If you read CS Lewis books and open up to some of his ideas, like the childhood stories of Narnia where Aslan the lion is an alluation or characterization of Christ on another world, it is plausable the God may come in different forms to different worlds that lead to similar, if not the same, outcomes in changing the world culture for the better.
Even though I am a protestant, I live in a heavily Catholic neighborhood and I asked my catholic friends what is the catholic church's stance on alien life?
My friend told me that the catholic view of alien life would be to view the terms of being made in God's image as in a spiritual sense. Basically regardless if the sentient intelligence is human, vulcan, or some other intelligent creature the soul of it is made in God's image. I am quite impressed by the Catholic church's stance versus that of modern day protestantism that denies any potential for alien life to exist.
As for your question about going from agnostic to Christianity, I always leaned in favor of God. I had a dream of heaven and saw God, and since then never questioned his existance. My parents are agnostic (though I think my dad maybe an atheist that was raised catholic, not sure though), so any real influence was directly from my mom reading me bible stories when I was younger, but I didn't really understand it more than these men who had faith in God and whenever they were in a jam, they came to God and asked for help.
So what lead me from agnosticism to Christianity is hard to say, but I believe its because I always had a desire to be with God. When I was agnostic, I didn't really believe in any particular religion and was more of a deist, than anything else. Now what led me to Chistianity when I was so hardened against organized religion was a bunch of picular things that happened in my life just before accepting Christ as my Savior and Lord. I was in a dark place and pretty selfish as a person, and I hated myself and where I was at in life. The change was slow but gradual. The first thing to set me into the path of coming to Christ was a sense of change to come for the betterment of myself and others, call it intuition, a hunch, whatever you would like to describe a lingering feeling like what I had. The next was some picular people: an astrologer, a median (or something like that if I remember correctly) that had given me some kind of indication that I was ready for change, but for what at the time I did not know. The year that accepted Christ also had odd things happen, I dated this girl that like back in college and we hit it off (she was Christian), and her mom was pretty upset that I wasn't saved and both tried to witness to me which pushed me away (it was a major turn off). However, something was changing inside and I didn't realize it, but I became more open minded one night after my girlfriend at the time told me to feel free to ask any questions. Well I decided to do my own research into Christianity after she sparked my curiosity, and one late night as I was reading about Jesus and who is and what he is all about, I accepted him as my Savior and Lord right then and there.
Since then its been an interesting road of wonder and discovery. I have learned a great deal about myself that would have happened had I not received Christ into my life. Truth is, just like you legalism turns me off from any religion. I hate it with a passion; however, as I have read the bible more and spoke with Jews and Christians alike I discovered more and more that doctrine and legalism is just plan rubbish as you would put it. Most Christians don't even realize that under Jewish law only a kinsman (blood relative) can bail you out of jail, this is why Jesus had to come in the flesh to pay for our sins.
On top of that as I contiued to educate myself, I realize even more as to why certain sins (and/or OT laws exist); few good examples of OT laws are: circumcision, homosexuality and kosher foods. For homosexuality, at least for guys as some Jews interpret lebianism as OK in a literal interpretation of the law (in their eyers), it was more about protecting the individual from getting STDs and infections, and also to keep them inline with the natural order of God's intention of the sexes. Circumcision is known to reduce the risk of penial cancer and other infections. Kosher foods was due to a lack of refrigeration. There are many others, like pigs for example could not have been killed humanly at the time, which kosher law requires; however, some Jews do it pork now, because we can kill pigs humanly thanks to technology, its weird I know.
I also got into CS Lewis books, which helped greatly expand my perspective on Christianity and modern society. Its the message that really matters to summarize CS Lewis as of my current understanding. Its about faith, hope, and love. Faith in Christ = salvation from sins (past, present, and future), which in turn brings freedom from sin and allowing one to change for the better (i.e. we are no longer bound by the law, because he bailed us out of jail in a sense). This salvation through faith gives hope, hope in that Jesus will be all that is needed to get to heaven and be with God, and hope for becoming a better person as you become less and less selfish by following Christ. The last and most important is Love, it is love where selflessness and altruism comes from and because of love one becomes more like Christ as they love others more than themselves.
In a nutshell the message is to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and your neighbor as you would yourself. Out of faith people placed their hope in the unseen (God), and out of love God gave us hope. Its a cycle that requires each one to exist along with the other. As an atheist, I am sure you have hope in somethings, faith in people, and love others as it is the nature of love itself brings out the trifecta of faith, hope, and love. You can't love someone if you don't have faith in them; for example: you may put your faith in your child's ability to learn. You can't have hope without faith: for example: you hope your child's ability to learn will result in great things. You can't have the other two without the foundation of love: for example: a loving parent will have faith that their child can succeed and hope that their child's education will payoff.
What are your thoughts on faith, hope, and love?