Thread: What is out there?

DO you think that there is other intelligent life out there in the universe? why? what do you think it will look like? How do you think we'll deal with them?

No, I don't believe in extraterrestrial life. It is not in my religion as a Christian.

If you go by statistics taking into consideration the number of planets in our own solar system times the number of other solar systems, it is likely that there are hundreds of millions of other planets. Is there a another planet just like earth? Hard to say, until we acquire some means to check them out.

It's nearly impossible to predict what other life forms might look like because there is a great deal of diversity even on our own planet. However many years ago were the dinosaurs, then humans, and acquatic life and life in between.

I think that this would be a really interesting subject but since we don't have the technology to do any serious inquiry we will have to wait. I wouldn't mind just getting off earth, nevermind other life forms.

... If they atacked then guess what, to bad for them.

Yeah right. I'm sure that they would kick our ass if they have the technology to travel through space and visit us.

What are you basing this comment on?

Likely some religious bull**** written somewhere.

> I am a Catholic. I can't recall there being anywhere in the bible where it says there is no life beyond earth. What are you basing this comment on?

I guess I don't really have direct proof of this, but I have thought of this before, of course, and I go back to the creation stories. God created all on earth and humans are the master of them all. Well, the point is "on earth". He didn't create any life forms on other planets. But that is just my interpretation.

I'm rather agnostic about it. The vastness of space says yes, the lack of any evidence of extraterrestrials in our solar system says no. Considering how little we know, we can't even speculate fairly. I suppose the most reasonable thing to say is that there is likely extraterrestial intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but it's extremely rare; no more than a few per galaxy.

It also depends on what we mean by the universe: everything which we'll potentially come into contact with in the foreseeable future (our Galaxy), the presently observable universe, the entire universe, or the multiverse in either its conceptions as a higher-dimensional structure connected (or not) to our 3/4/11 dimensional universe or as proposed by the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.


As for what they look like, almost certainly nothing like us. In fact, any civilization which we would actually come in contact with would probably be so advanced it would have transformed itself to look nothing like it did originally, simply because supporting creatures that evolved on planets in hostile environments requires far too much effort, and because there are limitations on the creative and calculative power of an organically evolved intelligence. I think a highly advanced civilization would grow so dependent on machines that they would eventually completely supplant the original species. After a point there'd be nothing left for the original species to do; their continued existence would be purposeless.


I think the Christian problem with extraterresials is the whole Jesus-saving-everyone-through-death thing. It would seem to require Jesus being incarnated on each planet individually, and then dying to save each planet individually. Total nonsense. (But then again, so is most of the rest of religion. And in regards to "saving", I'm not even sure that this has been adequatly compromised with evolution, which by identifying Genesis as a myth renders the concept of a fall nonexistent, and therefore making "saving" and Jesus seemingly pointless.)

Originally posted by EvenFlow Sigh. Why do people who profess no belief in Jesus or God take the bible so literally?

Well, moderates aren't exactly well known for violently promulgating their point of view, so it's the extremist interpretations that leave lasting impressions. I don't want to throw this thread off-topic, but do you have an alternative explanation? Do most Christians believe that Jesus did not die to "save" humanity? (If not, why do they call themselves Christians; as isn't that what Christ means?)