Space exploration

Dawnhammer · Dec 12, 2017

Tom Farebrother said:
Who feels all cuddly about possibly being the only conscious creatures (if we are)? I think you’re making a bit of an assumption there.

Is Belief in Alien Life Harmless?

The sentiment is there.

Apart from the space is big , really big, the fact that life is possible at all is the most weighty argument.

Tom 1 · Dec 12, 2017

Dawnhammer said:
Is Belief in Alien Life Harmless?

The sentiment is there.

Apart from the space is big , really big, the fact that life is possible at all is the most weighty argument.

Maybe, I don’t really know enough about it. I’m not sure if I’d take probability as a convincing argument.

The article is interesting, but it’s not a conclusive or rather not an absolute biblical view. The way I see it, if God created life on other planets/rocks and let it develop, that’s his business - he’s under no obligation to let me know. I do see that it raises some potential issues though.

For me it’s an absolute unknown. I know 1 guy who is convinced he saw a UFO.

dms1972 · Dec 12, 2017

For myself I don't believe aliens have ever visited earth. I don't know if the Creator has done more than he has told us. Thats up to Him, he doesn't have to tell me. I don't see how anyone can say definitely at this moment that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, its an unknown, and we don't know if we will ever know.

JacquelineDeane55 · Dec 14, 2017

Wow, you are young. I was born in 1987 and grew up watching Star Trek the Next Generation with Captain Picard and the Klingons. You remember Commander Riker? Maybe not, you are younger than I am after all.

The Next Generation is probably old school to people now.

JacquelineDeane55 · Dec 14, 2017

Aliens do exist, they are just not what people are expecting. The alien lifeforms I am talking about are the angelic and demonic spiritual lifeforms GOD created. They are not human like we are, so I am going to call them aliens, or non-human forms of life.

Satan and his ilk patrol this world and they live alongside us, unfortunately. It churns my stomach thinking that I have to share this world with the likes of the Devil, but there is nothing I can do about that. I don't want to see him, or hear him, or have anything to do with him. I don't even like him.

We definitely are not alone. GOD is with us everywhere we go. And sometimes His angels come down to this world as well.

Every-now-and-then you hear of haunted houses and sightings of ghosts. What people are seeing are possibly evil spirits disguising themselves as innocent ghosts to deceive the masses. If you suspect a place is haunted, be very careful that the ghost that is haunting you is not actually one of Satan's demonic henchmen. They are very dangerous. They can possess and hurt non-believers. So my advice? Be safe and DO NOT visit haunted places.

Tom 1 · Dec 14, 2017

I know 1 guy who is utterly convinced he saw a UFO, and that on another occasion he saw people walking in a thick mist, at eye level. I don’t believe it, but he clearly really does believe this happened. He doesn’t give any signs of actually having a mental disorder of any sort, he has a family, job etc and is easy to talk to. Pretty strange. He’s the only person I’ve met with an actual UFO story

dms1972 · Dec 15, 2017

JacquelineDeane55 said:
Aliens do exist, they are just not what people are expecting. The alien lifeforms I am talking about are the angelic and demonic spiritual lifeforms GOD created. They are not human like we are, so I am going to call them aliens, or non-human forms of life.

Satan and his ilk patrol this world and they live alongside us, unfortunately. It churns my stomach thinking that I have to share this world with the likes of the Devil, but there is nothing I can do about that. I don't want to see him, or hear him, or have anything to do with him. I don't even like him.

We definitely are not alone. GOD is with us everywhere we go. And sometimes His angels come down to this world as well.

Every-now-and-then you hear of haunted houses and sightings of ghosts. What people are seeing are possibly evil spirits disguising themselves as innocent ghosts to deceive the masses. If you suspect a place is haunted, be very careful that the ghost that is haunting you is not actually one of Satan's demonic henchmen. They are very dangerous. They can possess and hurt non-believers. So my advice? Be safe and DO NOT visit haunted places.

Not sure if your previous post was to me or not. I don't say there is no intelligent life out there in another part of the cosmos. Cosmologists explore, and record. Thats what we have to go on.

If you want to speak of angels - fallen (as God doesn't create demons, which I am sure you meant) and unfallen, then they would be intelligent life, but funnily enough I never really think of them in the category of extra-terrestial, and not as aliens. When the discussion went onto other things I forgot i'd mentioned Lewis's notion of angels. Maybe some angels are pure intelligences as Thomas Aquinas, and CS Lewis explored in his science fiction. But I don't think we have been visited by aliens as in the sort of thing depicted in films like ET.

But sometimes it seems people are too ready to believe all sorts of stuff, and it may sometimes generate a kind of hysteria, and I am not going to get caught up in that if I can help it. People claim to see angels more often than Abraham did! Earlier in my life I was deeply troubled by reports of something that was happening that I simply could not believe, it was a terrible time for I thought my inability to accept it meant I was in outright unbelief. I don't regard that thing now as so essential.

dms1972 · Dec 15, 2017

Dawnhammer said:
Is Belief in Alien Life Harmless?

The sentiment is there.
know
Apart from the space is big , really big, the fact that life is possible at all is the most weighty argument.

I think its possible that there could be life elsewhere, perhaps some sort of plant life. That would be amazing. I have to be careful however that I don't think to myself this seems a good thing to me for God to have done, therefore God must have done it.

Radagast · Dec 15, 2017

Dawnhammer said:
Considering the incomprehensible vastness of space it is pure lunacy to think that life only exist here.

The Drake equation suggests that there are zillions of alien species producing radio signals. We have never detected any. This problem is called the Fermi paradox. Since we have no actual evidence of any alien life (not even plants), the obvious answer is: there's nobody out there.

Dawnhammer · Dec 15, 2017

Radagast said:
We have never detected any. This problem is called the Fermi paradox. Since we have no actual evidence of any alien life (not even plants), the obvious answer is: there's nobody out there.

If it was that obvious I doubt it would called paradox.

It was obvious for ages that earth couldn’t be round or people would be dropping off and everyone could see that it was flat anyway. Just because something is obvious doesn’t make it true.

As for good ol Fermi paradox ; This guy has a ton of related science videos about them if interested.

Radagast · Dec 16, 2017

Dawnhammer said:
It was obvious for ages that earth couldn’t be round

We've known for at least 2,500 years that the earth was round.

Dawnhammer said:
This guy has a ton of related science videos about them if interested.

Not interested; YouTube is not a reliable source of science information.

Dawnhammer · Dec 16, 2017

Radagast said:
Not interested; YouTube is not a reliable source of science information.

With that attitude I can see how you come up with only obvious answers.

dms1972 · Dec 17, 2017

Radagast said:
The Drake equation suggests that there are zillions of alien species producing radio signals. We have never detected any. This problem is called the Fermi paradox. Since we have no actual evidence of any alien life (not even plants), the obvious answer is: there's nobody out there.

Feeding the information we currently know into it.

N is 1. The rest is an equation (humor)

dms1972 · Dec 17, 2017

It would be interesting to examine this equation however, i'd like to know more about maths. What for instance is f subscript e in this equation, anyone know?

Dawnhammer · Dec 17, 2017

dms1972 said:
What for instance is f subscript e in this equation, anyone know?

Drake equation - Wikipedia

dms1972 · Dec 17, 2017

ok so its not really maths, its just a discussion starter - its not really a way to calculate or quantify these things, and therefore not something one could plug values into and get a definite answer. The 'factors' could therefore be listed as bullet points. You have to have detected some intelligent life other than on our own planet, to begin. That intelligent life has to be advanced enough I suppose to be able to be sending out communications into deep space.

Would it be right to land (ie manned landing) on an inhabited world if one does exist? While CS Lewis seems to be more concerned with the dangers of spiritual ínfection, what if we took a germ or virus with us, one that we are immune to, but which life on that planet had never been exposed to? A mere flu might wipe out an entire civilisation. On the other hand, what if an extra-terrestrial germ was brought back to earth, from an otherwise uninhabited planet?

dms1972 · Dec 17, 2017

Dawnhammer said:
If it was that obvious I doubt it would called paradox.

Good point. But still we don't know for sure [angels etc. aside] that these assumed extraterrestrials are out there.

If the reasoning isn't based solely on a-priori probabilities then I am ready to listen. As Lewis writes in his essay, such arguments are those that begin with 'it is only natural to suppose', or 'all analogy suggests', or 'is it not the height of arrogance to rule out -'...They make good reading but, he asks, if there is not a shred of empirical evidence does anyone except a born gambler risk money on such grounds in ordinary life?

dms1972 · Dec 17, 2017

Tom Farebrother said:
I know 1 guy who is utterly convinced he saw a UFO, and that on another occasion he saw people walking in a thick mist, at eye level. I don’t believe it, but he clearly really does believe this happened. He doesn’t give any signs of actually having a mental disorder of any sort, he has a family, job etc and is easy to talk to. Pretty strange. He’s the only person I’ve met with an actual UFO story

I don't discredit these things always but I had on one occasion a kind of hallucination, over twenty years ago. I don't take any 'recreational' drugs, and I don't even think I was on any medications at the time. But I was experiencing a lot of stress in my life, much of which I could not talk about. I saw what for all I could tell were a lot of creepy crawlies moving over my bed, I was standing beside the bed, and it seemed entirely real. I felt almost paralysed with fear - after I suppose wondering for a second or two if an infestation were possible, I decided to test reality, and put my hand on the bed, and the hallucination ceased, it returned when I took my hand away and I had to repeat, the second time defused the hallucination permanently. Although I can't say for sure, in part I think it was to do with a film I had seen a few times, combined with my own philosophical uncertainties, something generated by my subconscious perhaps, but not having any actual existence. Even though not real I would not want to ever experience that again.

Radagast · Dec 17, 2017

dms1972 said:
A mere flu might wipe out an entire civilisation. On the other hand, what if an extra-terrestrial germ was brought back to earth, from an otherwise uninhabited planet?

This worried people back in the time of the moon landings.

Radagast · Dec 17, 2017

dms1972 said:
What for instance is f subscript e in this equation, anyone know?

The image explains that. Click on it to zoom (or see the Wikipedia link already posted).

As you correctly point out, the values of the variables relies on some guesswork. All the actual evidence we have to date (no life found elsewhere in the solar system, no signals from space) supports the idea that there is nobody else out there.

There are of course other, more speculative, ideas as to why we've spotted no signals from space. But the simplest explanation is: there is nobody else out there.

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