There's overwhelming historical support for such a correlation. The Catholic Church burned Giordano Bruno for suggesting that life might exist somewhere other than Earth. I know it's 2011, but I don't know of many major religions that encourage their flocks to consider the possibility of life on other planets. Scientology would be a notable exception. :grin:
IIRC, toycen428, who is apparently strongly religious, once indicated that he thought UFO's and aliens were actually demons or some other supernatural beings. That sort of answer really screws with what you can infer from the poll results.
I prefer existentialism: So long ago, I don't remember when That's when they say I lost my only friend Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease As I listened through the cemetery trees I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn The long broken arm of human law Now it always seemed such a waste She always had a pretty face So I wondered how she hung around this place Chorus: Hey, come on try a little Nothing is forever There's got to be something better than In the middle But me & Cinderella, We put it all together We can drive it home With one headlight She said it's cold It feels like Independence Day And I can't break away from this parade But there's got to be an opening Somewhere here in front of me Through this maze of ugliness and greed And I seen the sun up ahead At the county line bridge Sayin' all there's good and nothingness is dead We'll run until she's out of breath She ran until there's nothin' left She hit the end-it's just her window ledge (chorus) Well this place is old It feels just like a beat up truck I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn Well it smells of cheap wine & cigarettes This place is always such a mess Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn I'm so alone, and I feel just like somebody else Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams I think her death it must be killin' me ahh.. the 90's
Existentialism of course, being no god, no purpose, no meaning of life and living for the sake of living.
This seems like a very silly thing to say. Even if one were to accept that there are billions and billions of planets, how do you assign a probability for any life to occur, let alone intelligent life? Is it 1 in ten? 1 in a hundred? 1 in 10^10^10? For me, I am agnostic in the literal sense when it comes to alien life. We still have no real framework of knowledge when it comes to life in the universe. Maybe it is stunningly common, maybe we are alone, but right now making a guess is just that, sometimes influenced by wishful thinking (for both sides)
When conservative estimates say there are at least ten million billion planets in the Universe and we KNOW intelligent life has evolved on ours it's actually you that is silly here. In fact, I find it's more a combination of fear and ignorance that causes people to question the high probability (I would say certainty) that intelligent life has evolved on other planets.
What percentage of those planets has a moon as massive ours (relative to the Earth). What percentage of those plants is in a habitable zone around its sun? What percentage of those planets is far away from the center of the host galaxy as to not get wiped out by cosmic radiation? Can you give me those (and a host of other) percentages? The number of factors it takes to get life is huge. Multiply a lot of small percentages out there and you get a really really really small number. I know that it appears that there is really really really high number of estimated planets out there but we are just guessing at so many factors for life that it simply isn't reasonable to give a likelihood one way or another for extraplanetary life. You are falling trap to the anthropic principle when you say that just because life has evolved on Earth that it is probable that life has evolved other places. Just because something is possible does not make it probable.
I don't think there is "alien" life as people imagine it on movies. If it exists, it's probably microbes. If there is sentient life then they may face hurdles worse than us and be grazers on corn. Life on earth was an amazing thing. Probably one in a very big number. Development into animals was even more incredible, and into human beings...iimagine all the things that have to go into it. The face that DNA is the universal building block of life is also very telling. Why didn't another mode of information come about in the construct of life? Why is there no Beta to this VHS, no Firefox and Chrome or even Netscape to IE? There's also the sad possibility that we are the most ancient surviving lifeform in the universe. It's only 13 billion years old and our solar system wasn't exactly a late comer to the cosmos. 99% of star systems have too much radiation to even support basic life. What would be an interesting poll is this: When do you think humanity and all its descendants will go extinct?
So do you believe that your god (the christian god, or the god that created Humans) also created this alien life? I'm always interested in this. I do not believe in a god, but I do believe in Alien life forms. I'm one of the people that see how many stars and planets there are and cannot blieve that only on Earth there is life. It is always difficult what your definition of a god is. Is a god a more intelligent life form (in that cause it could be an alien). Or is a god a onmipotent being that created the universe and all life in it?
Alien life would be part of creation...so I believe the Creator created it. I believe the universe is His.
I have seen a spacecraft not from earth with my physical eyes. I have seen God with my spiritual eyes. I doubt too many of you can claim that!
