Moontanman

looks good, can you tell us what each thing is?

I would have no problem asserting that as true, any lie asserted as the truth and used to manipulate people is improper... So what we really need is "Biblical Glasses" ? That is a good point, it suggests the entire idea of religion is misuse...

No one said it was alright to kill in the name of god... any god... Your assertion about Moses as though he really existed shows your own ignorance immortal... Again you make claims about knowledge as though religion give some real world information that can be confirmed empirically... I call horse feathers... You have yet to show this to be true after what must be hundreds of pages of debate you still cling to this fallacy ..

yes, i would define those things as harmful...

Why would god need to explain? If god wrote the manuscript it should be perfect, no errors what so ever. God could have written the math and eventually we would have understood it. What we see is a book that has no place in reality what so ever..

I found Jesus, he was mowing the grass next door....

When they result in harm to another human?

I guess there is no possibility you can show some real world evidence of this is there? To get back on topic... I guess we can assume they have hands of some sort, arms to allow the hands to to move around, legs of some sort. A head with two or more eyes, eyes would be close to the brain so there is less lag time between seeing and knowing. I don't think we can count on them being vertebrates... The more I think about it the less likely i see any aliens being humanoid... Arthropods seem more likely...

What does this mean?

Please clue us in on this "objective" truth... Seriously? Are you suggesting someone can separate the wheat from the chaff? Assuming there is any wheat or chaff to begin with... this would indicate none of them are correct...

I don't know about equations but this is the best number 8008135...

People like Immortal do... He has counterparts in every religion in the world...

First you ask this... Then you ask this... I guess i have a twisted sense of humor...

So you have stumbled on the little known fact that African crocodiles can be crossed with Green Iguanas and you get an invisible dragon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile_crocodile

I just can't believe you would give me a straight line like that...

Not human? Quite recently you were at least asserting they were humanoid at least, the picture that is your avatar to be precise...

I agree, although I doubt it is intentional in most cases, most religious people I know really believe, even if it is false. I agree they can't all be right in fact I would expect that if a book was indeed written by a god it would be the most profound book ever written, contain no inaccuracies what so ever, no human authored book could possibly compete with it, and be a source of profound morality. What we see instead is a multitude of writings, none of which contain anything like what you would expect and most of them not only directly contradict each other they are also internally contradictory, they never accurately portray reality in any realistic way. The only conclusion I can see is that they are all wrong and "truth" is something that cannot ever be grasped only pursued.

While this direction of discussion does assume quite a bit, like us or them having something akin to FTL travel. I remember reading something about this many years ago, I think it was Issac Asimov, he said that given FTL travel he could see occasional waves of conquerors spreading out into the galaxy but without that capability such actions become highly unlikely.

Come on Immortal, your definition of Judaism? Can you not see how twisted this is becoming?

I do question that there is only three possibilities but I wonder if it is possible for them as a species to be significantly "smarter" than we are? What would being smarter than we are mean? IMHO intelligence would be similar in most species due to the similar forces shaping their evolution. Just MHO though. Would anyone else like to explore this? Case a. seems unlikely unless we discover them. If we do discover them I have to admit that humans have in the past demonstrated a proclivity to hate anything different, especially if the difference is small, the Europeans managed to stir up quite a bit of hatred for native Americans, dehumanizing them was seemingly the first step, aliens would start out dehumanized by definition. This could be a problem. Case b. seems a bit extreme, I am not a big fan of aliens wiping us out type scenarios simply because space is so vast and resources so freely available. There could be an alien refueling station in the Saturn moon system and we would never know it, I can't see where the conflict would necessarily arise. Case c. seems overly simplistic, if they are more intelligent than us... you would expect their technology to be superior as well. They might be rather difficult to wipe out...

Very cool Arete, I have read of some of this before. makes you wonder if visiting another planet with it's own viruses would be such a good idea down the line...

I keep coming back to this song in this gun thread...

I decided I wanted to finally sort all this out so i watched Monty Pythons the meaning of life... it's clear to me now...

I'd like to discuss this little bit of wisdom... I think it's quite a profound assertion. Are you saying that the gods were hidden and we discovered them like discovering a new planet? Please elaborate on this idea of the ancients discovering gods. While I admit to not being knowledgeable about all religious doctrine I have never encountered the idea that humans discovered gods, how were they discovered? Did they go deep inside the Earth to find these gods? Cave paintings are thought by some to have religious significance, certainly the environment inside caves can be a powerful sensory experience. Mind altering drugs? Explain how gods were discovered please...

I wonder how much of an influence on vertebrate evolution such gene transfers have....