Would extraterrestrial life disprove creationism?

Confident Learner Joined: Jun 16, 2008 Posts: 78

zacherystaylor wrote:

I don't doubt that there are a lot of foolish cult 9/11, UFO of JFK conspiracists but there are also a lot of cult debunkers that automatically dismiss these theories before looking at them. The official story for these events isn't adding up and there are foolish mistakes being made on both sides of each issue.
lumping them together and dismissing them is a common cult debunker tactic.
I don't know the whole story on any of these events but I know that the media is not giving us a straight story. In order to figure out the truth a lot of mistakes and lies need to be sorted out.
If recognizing a bullshit story and saying we should try to figure out what is realy true makes someone a conspiricy theorist I guess I'm one.
If you think the media is being completely honest with the public you haven't been paying attention.
Try turning it around if there was evidence that what you believe is wrong would you acknowledge it? Wink

Hello Zachery!

Yes, I'll agree with you that I DO have cult-debunker tendencies. These stem from my personal history. If you go to the "Introductions" area you'll see mine and you'll read that I was truly, madly and deeply involved in the cultish side of fundamentalist evangelical christianity.
Hence the moniker, BornAgainAthiest.

These days I prefer to season whatever I hear and read with large helpings of skepticism and ice-cold logic. The times where I unquestioningly believed what I was told are definitely over!

A powerful tool that I find helps me to cut thru all the crap is Ockham's Razor. Summed up simply, this concept says that the claim with the least amount of assumptions is the one most likely to be true. Not always, but often enough to be very useful.

I can give you a worked example of this relating to UFO cultists and their beliefs. Go to... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STENDEC

Here we have an incident that remained a mystery until the year 1998.
Up to that time some UFO zealots maintained that the aircraft and it's passengers had been abducted by aliens because there was no trace of wreckage to be found - something you would expect if the plane had simply crashed.

So we have two versions of what happened to the Stardust and the eleven people onboard it.

1. The official report.
This aircraft has disappeared for unknown reasons and is presumed to have crashed. Case closed. The only assumption made here is that an explanation for it's disappearance might come to light in the future.
Number of assumptions made = 1.

2. The UFO cultist's theory.
The Stardust was intercepted over the Andes by alien spacecraft and taken by them to wherever they came from.
This assumes the following...
* Alien life exists elsewhere in the universe.
* This life is intelligent.
* This life is much more intelligent than us.
* These aliens have a practical means of interstellar travel.
* They were aware of intelligent life on the planet Earth.
* They made the decision to visit Earth.
* They decided to intercept the Stardust in mid-flight in an area of the Earth's surface where no other humans were around to witness this act.
* They had the capacity to "snatch" the fast moving aircraft in such a way that it was not damaged. i.e., no fragments of wreckage falling onto the mountains below.
* They took only one aircraft at this time, despite the fact that there were many more civilian and military planes crossing Earth's oceans and remote areas - readily availible for the taking.
* They took no interest in Earth's cities, nuclear facilities, rocket test bases, radio and radar stations - all of which indicate a certain level of intelligent life that was native to the planet Earth.
Number of assumptions made = 10.

1 assumption or 10? It seems to me that I'll go with the lesser number every time. As far as I'm concerned JFK's death was down to a lone gunman rather than being the result of a vast, carefully-concealed conspiracy. Also, I reckon Al-Qaida pulled off the 9/11 attacks, nobody else.

Now don't get me wrong, Zachery! I agree that these things ought to be fully looked into, but that it should be done with a sceptical eye and a logical frame of mind. Stringing together anomalies, errors and gaps in the data to form outlandish theories of dark conspiracy is a mindset that I totally reject.

Replying to your, "turning it around" suggestion...

Yes, I could be wrong. But for that to happen; for UFO's to really exist, for JFK to be shot by more than one gunman and for 9/11 to be a self-inflicted U.S. conspiracy a LOT of assumptions would have to be proven to be true. As I said earlier, I prefer the way of fewer assumptions.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Mars.

Yes, I very much doubt that anything living will be found by our probes. I reckon there's an outside chance of long-fossilized, very ancient life being discovered there.

Actually, that would be a win-win situation.
If Mars is currently sterile then there's no micro-organisms for future colonists to worry about, but it would also mean that life DID begin separately on two different planets. That would imply a greater chance of finding it on some of the exoplanets astronomers are discovering around other stars. Now THAT would be interesting!

BornAgainAthiest.

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 525

Wait, I think I have it. Any life on mars would be single celled bacteria and other simpler organisms, right? Why would god create these organisms on another planet for no reason?

Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:06 am

Cygnus wrote:

Why would god create these organisms on another planet for no reason?

Apologetic answer: God uh... experimented on other planets before actually creating men! Yeah... see how much he cares about us?!

Lol, I hope I live long enough to experience that XD !

Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 6:44 am

zacherystaylor wrote:

Even hundreds of millions of years ago Mars was to far from the sun and to cold. Even though it suposedly had a thicker envirnment it probably wasn't thick enough and warm enough for life.

There's strong evidence to suggest Mars once had liquid flowing water on its surface. If this were the case, its climate would have been warm enough to support "earth like" life. Of course, there are many other environmental factors to consider beyond just temperature.

We need to be less earth-centric (biased) when considering the climates possible of supporting life forms that may be completely unlike what we find on this planet.

Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 6:48 am

AliTheBandit wrote:

Cygnus wrote:

Why would god create these organisms on another planet for no reason?

Apologetic answer: God uh... experimented on other planets before actually creating men! Yeah... see how much he cares about us?!

Lol, I hope I live long enough to experience that XD !

An omniscient god wouldn’t need to experiment.

Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 7:12 am

Quote:

Would extraterrestrial life disprove creationism?

Social memes, like religion, change very slowly over time. While I don’t think solid proof of extraterrestrial life would necessarily disprove creationism, it would be another extremely important milestone in the “remolding” process that’s been happening to religion ever since the natural sciences began. It might be as influential a discovery as natural selection.

Post Noob Joined: Jul 07, 2008 Posts: 58

Born again atheist

You did it again.

You used selective arguments to back up your view. and you took a long time doing it.

I'm not going to adress this issue now but when I have more time perhaps I'll get back to it

one thing you might try is reading the Warren report, the house select commitee report on asasinations, the Shaw trial trancript, the Condon report etc. and then thinking carefully about them.

They are all availible online for free if you search for them. They are not all accurate if the government puts out reports that don't make sense then something is wrong.

Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 9:09 pm

[/quote]

I don't doubt that there are a lot of foolish cult 9/11, UFO of JFK conspiracists but there are also a lot of cult debunkers that automatically dismiss these theories before looking at them. The official story for these events isn't adding up and there are foolish mistakes being made on both sides of each issue.

lumping them together and dismissing them is a common cult debunker tactic.

I don't know the whole story on any of these events but I know that the media is not giving us a straight story. In order to figure out the truth a lot of mistakes and lies need to be sorted out.

If recognizing a bullshit story and saying we should try to figure out what is realy true makes someone a conspiricy theorist I guess I'm one.

If you think the media is being completely honest with the public you haven't been paying attention.

Try turning it around if there was evidence that what you believe is wrong would you acknowledge it? Wink

I agree with you... Calling 9/11, JFK, and UFO enthusiasts , cultists, is a pretty big stereotype. Conspiracy theorists to me are more rational thinkers than the schmucks who believe everything that the news media tells them and everything that their gov't tells them is the truth. I say to question authority as much as possible and look at the evidence for yourself. Taking somebody else's word for it is a dangerous thing and will often mislead you. In my opinion the conspiracy opinions about 9/11, JFK, and UFOs are more valid than the explanations given by the corrupt govt. These conspiracy theories are not based on thin air, they are based on common sense AND evidence, lots of evidence pointing to an alternative explanation to the issue. We are considered conspiracy theorists not cultists. I am sure there are some peeps out there who overdue it and overexaggerate things but they are entitled to do so just like how the u.s govt exaggerates just about everything on terrorism, bin laden, etc. It is a mind game they play with the population constantly repeating those words, terror/terrorist, to sway the population into supporting its agenda. The govt needs an enemy figure to work the way it does and do the illegal bullshit that it gets away with. The enemy figure of terrorist extremist muslims has been overexaggerated and i believe might have been created originally by the CIA and it is all based on a monstrous myth. official govt explanation of 911: 19 muslim terrorists hijack 4 commercial airliners with boxcutters? and hit 75% of their targets all the while evading and eluding NORAD, and the US air force who were 100% succsessful when intercepting hijack planes in the past and somehow on this particular day their whole system fails and they dont intercept even 1 of the hijacked planes?Never b4 in history has a steel structed skyscraper collapsed due to fire but on that particular day history was made when the first 3 steel skyscrapers ALL collapsed due to fire on the SAME DAY!? Are we supposed to believe that? I mean come on. Govt UFO explanation: All ufos are either weather balloons, swamp gas, or some other weird crazy weather phenomena?? Objects that are tracked on radar flying over 5K miles/hr, brilliant colourful objects and were seen over military bases and then subsequent shutdown of nuclear weapons on the site? Didnt know weather balloons could to that. Mile wide craft appearing and dissapearing in a blink of an eye. All of these are either weather balloons, swamp gas, or weird weather phenomena, or planets, or shooting stars? COME ON! Govt explan JFK: One lone gunman hiding in a building window above the JFK's motorcade shoots JFK from BEHIND yet JFK's reaction was BACK AND TO THE LEFT? Since when does your head richochet back and to the left when you are shot in the BACK of the head? Also dozens of witnesses hearing a shot from the grassy knowl and chasing the assasin in that direction. And conspiracy theorist are crazy for suggesting that lee harvey osswald wasnt the only shooter?COME ON!

Confident Learner Joined: Jun 16, 2008 Posts: 78

zacherystaylor wrote:

Born again atheist
You did it again.
You used selective arguments to back up your view. and you took a long time doing it.
I'm not going to adress this issue now but when I have more time perhaps I'll get back to it
one thing you might try is reading the Warren report, the house select commitee report on asasinations, the Shaw trial trancript, the Condon report etc. and then thinking carefully about them.
They are all availible online for free if you search for them. They are not all accurate if the government puts out reports that don't make sense then something is wrong.

Ok Zach, let's see...

Yes, I used a selective argument, focusing only on those UFO cultists who came up with their interpretation of the fate of that aircraft.
I then used Ockham's Razor to show how many assumptions they were making and how this lead me to think that their views are wrong.
Yes, I took a long time doing it but why shouldn't I cover all the bases in this specific case? Sorry, but that's just the way I do things.

Where you're tripping up is that you think I'm applying these points to all UFO cultists, all JFK conspiracists and all 9/11 doubters. Not so.
Only those expressing their views about that specific incident.

What I am applying to all is the principle of Ockham's Razor, having illustrated it's use in that one specific case.

Now, if I'm wrong here and you're actually saying that I shouldn't apply the Razor across the board to all conspiracy theories then please tell me why not.

BornAgainAthiest.

Post Noob Joined: Jul 07, 2008 Posts: 58

re: checkitb4uwreckit
You make some valid points but some of the conpiracy theoists really are cultist like the heavens gate cult. This is a very small minority and the debunkers try to make it appear that all conspiracy theororist are cultist. A big part of the difference is that cultist believe what there told and can't tell the difference between speculation and fact. In most cases rational conspiracy theorists don't have enough information to know the hard facts so the next best thing is to organize the hard facts that you do know then speculate. some people become so convinced of one version of a conspiracy theory that they won't consider other possibilities.

BTW you forgot one If there is nothing to this UFO thing then we have an epidemic where dozens military pilots and police officers are chasing stars weather baloons and planets. Rolling Eyes

The Learned Joined: Nov 30, 2004 Posts: 122

AliTheBandit wrote:

As most of you probably know, the phoenix mars spacecraft has landed on mars and has started its mission to find water under its surface.
There is a probability that traces of live will be found.

So it made me wonder, what if we someday prove that there is in fact life outside the earth? Wouldn't that completely destroy the theistic ideas of god making life exclusively on earth and of abiogenesis being too improbable?

In a way, it would be comparable to god cheating on us XD .

What do you think, if life is indeed found to exist somewhere other than our home planet, won't the church find itself in trouble?
Especially creationism should be laid to rest once and for all.

...or not.

They'd just say that the Bible only speaks about god's relation to humans and earth. Or they'd so like some in the past did about other races: say they are Cain's children or other such nonsense.

Never forget what it takes to admit ones belief system is wrong. Often financial decisions that have shaped their life are directly involved. My life for example is filled with "faith" decisions and my de-conversion led to a complete 180 that's directly effected our bottom line (ex ministry student).

Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:52 pm

Wouldn't it be a nice surprise though for Kent Hovind when he comes out of prison to find that extraterrestrial life has been discovered XD ?
I imagine him say: "The earth and all its life has been created six thousand years ago by god... oh, and those fossils on Mars are NOT millions of years old!!
4000 years ago Mars had a similar atmosphere to earth, but with the fall god decided to destroy Mars to show the earthly worms all his holy power and glory. In other words, he did it for the lulz [...] ."

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 525

The job of the Apologist is never to search for truth, but to search only for more arguments to protect one's belief.

Speaking of Kent Hovind, has anyone seen the debate with him and Massimo Pigliucci?

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:41 am

Cygnus wrote:

The job of the Apologist is never to search for truth, but to search only for more arguments to protect one's belief.

Speaking of Kent Hovind, has anyone seen the debate with him and Massimo Pigliucci?

I've heard the debate Reggie hosted between the two.


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