Moontanman

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....

Of course it follows that you happen to have special knowledge of what religion means? Revealed truth? Or horse feathers asserted as reality? your arguments stink of ego immortal... You are a prime example of that assertion.... Show that this is a false analogy please... Both have exactly the same amount of supporting evidence.. They discovered gods? That's quite an assertion, care to show some evidence of that? Oh no wait you don't have any... I suggested they discovered that humans tend to have the same hallucinations due to similarities in brain chemistry... seems a bit more likely than gods who cannot be shown to have any influence on reality what so ever... Although it was discussed I'm not sure it was ever actually asserted to be true. I would say religion is rooted in ignorance and ignorance spawns poverty.. Religion is a parasite on our culture that takes root due to ignorance... better? Pot kettle black immortal...

iNow immortal his his own definitions of what religion is and what evidence is, it's impossible to have an intelligent discussion with him.

I am quite sure no one would ignore any evidence based in reality.. so far you have provided none...

How about you provide some actual evidence for gods other than your own beliefs and faith.

I have to agree, while Dr. King did indeed preach non violence his movement was far from non violent, I will not debate whether it was justified or not, i was too young and too far away from it to know for sure...

I don't know dude, Church of the Whale Penis has little to do with "Man" magnified or otherwise...

You really don't grade em at all do you? Don't you even think it might be pertinent to give some evidence that there are aliens before you start asserting what they believe about god?

That doesn't even make good fiction... and it has no basis in reality what so ever... why would you assert such a thing?

Give me some empirical evidence that there is a god much less your idea of god, what you feel and what you've heard are not meaningful. I can find people who would dispute you with Holy Scripture in a half dozen other basic religions and thousands of individual sects that not only disagree with you but disagree with each other... often to the point of wanting to actually kill people over it but none of them have any more or any less evidence than you do... Indian culture, while I'm sure rich and varied has no more evidence for god than the ancient Egyptians had or any other dead god or pantheon of gods... why not toss the entire concept on the trash heap with all the other ones we no longer need? Like Thor or Zeus? Ra or Adriana?

You can't see spaghetti? Damn I thought eating spaghetti was going to save me.... explains that extra 59 pounds following me around... I have this really great you tube video that would be a great addition to this thread... but I'd like to keep my reputation and membership in this forum... suffice it to say that evidently anything can have worshipers and a church... I lost something like 50 face book friends the first day i posted it...

His take on Americans is a classic...

The body of evidence for a higher power is so completely underwhelming you have no evidence what so ever, if you did you would have given it by now! You cannot guarantee anything supernatural semjase, I suspect you are too intelligent not to realize that by now...

Well I've stuck my neck out may as well go all the way. How do we know super massive black holes don't just vanish at some point? Aren't there large galaxies that have no central black hole? http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001AJ....122.2469G Thanks, very interesting... http://evodevouniverse.com/wiki/Cosmological_natural_selection_(fecund_universes) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Smolin

Some where in the not too distant past... I read that black holes create new universes by ripping through space time and the energy released by such a puncture (puncture seems more to the point) releases even more energy that expands (energy of expansion was the wording) and creates anew space time full of energy condensing into matter... at some point it seems I remember something about the mass of the black hole reaching a critical mass but then again maybe not... The idea was that universes that have laws of physics that give rise to black holes are more likely to give rise to other universe via the creation of black holes and so propagate their laws of physics. Laws of physics that gave rise to fewer black holes or resulted in lots of small black holes do not propagate as well... just lucky the laws that allow the correct number of black holes result in life? did i get that too wrong to even be understood?

And why is this? Could it be because a connection with reality is not a prerequisite? It would also be nice if you stopped calling people who disagree with you stupid!