god v aliens

[willow27]

do aliens exist, cause it occurred to me the other day that if they do then that totally rules out the theory of god because in the bible it says that there are no other planets in the universe or any other galaxy that have life on so if there is aliens then were all screwed cause theres no heaven either

[MargeB]

No, genetics does not just concern their expression in physical make-up and behaviour, it concerns reproduction and survivability.

Clanad, not talking about chimps as such here, I'm talking about evolution and the place of humans in an overall 'ancestral tree'. Humans have evolved from a common ancestor which they share with chimpanzees. We have a great many fossils of those that are not homo sapiens, nor our common ancestor with chimps, but who lie in the developmental line in between the two. We do not place fish, in this section of the tree, nor trees, because we have DNA and physiological evidence which allows us to exclude them while knowing where chimps and the others are placed on the tree.

[MargeB]

Those other replies do not appear to be answers. Please advise, badams and Clanad, in plain english, roughly the history that you even guess happened between there being no people on earth and then people on earth. I have done my best to show a rough indication from no solar system to there being people, you both reject this at almost all levels. What do you offer in its stead? What? God threw down a bunch of animals, left it for a while, threw down a few more?

[mfewell]

I've been reading with great interest from the sidelines. I had an excellent scientific education, alongside a 'free church' (Congregational) religious influence. I was subjected to the pull between Fundamentalist Scofield and a more modern questioning Christianity. I had to cope with the probability (my word) that something along the lines of Darwin was more likely than strict Genesis creation. However it remains to me a delightful puzzle, which I have dropped into other discussions, that there is a spider that lives underwater and comes up to the surface for bubbles of air. After years of thought, I have reconciled my mind. I do not think it to be the slightest problem if the human organism evolved, since the creation of the 'spirit'/'soul' is much more important. I therefore believe in a creative God, and one with a sense of beauty and humour. Keep it going folks, I am learning loads, particularly a scientific insight into what my gut tells me is right. If the thread gets round to questioning why a bunch of simple people would go out and spread a gospel they knew to be false, to the point even of dying in its name, then I shall feel better qualified to join in. In the meantime, thanks to all for the insights, and apologies to willow for assaulting her inbox ! Best wishes to all, I look forward to much more intriguing reading.

[MargeB]

For the same reason that a bunch of muslim guys blow themselves and some others up for something which they believe to be the truth.

What is the spirit/soul? What do they do, that the brain cannot be shown to do?

[mfewell]

MargeB, no comparisons there. The original apostles knew Christ in person, there was no established order to do any brainwashing. If there was no empty tomb, no resurrection, or if there was just a body, or some limping bandaged wreck, why would they and the 'arch-enemy' Paul go to such great lengths to pull a hoax and die for it. Spirit/Soul - well, contributes in part to what all of us are doing now on this thread, the thing that makes your skin tingle when you hear Figaro, just gives higher emotions. Also an innate sense of continuity and purpose. But apologies again, we've gone WAY off aliens and the thread.

[MargeB]

ok.......

so people with Alzheimers/autism/Down's Syndrome, they all got problems with their souls have they?

This relates very closely to questions of alien existence. If you need a soul for 'higher intelligence' then we need to show how they got theirs.

[simont]

Hi everyone - very provocative reading and I am always surprised how passionately people ague their own particular views.  Not wishing to offend anyone, and I hope this is in the vain of furthering the thinking, I offer my opinions - measured and come to after some years pontificating these very questions: creation/the bible/God and Aliens...

I

[mfewell]

I did not link spirit/soul to higher intelligence, but to what we are doing now, and I am simplistic in that I think that aspects of the complex intellectual and emotional processes we are going through transcend electrical activity. Dolphins and chimpanzees are incredible, but they don't do what we do (I say this fully realising I am wide open to responses such as 'slaughter each other'). Please continue the scientific aspects of the thread, they are actively reinforcing my Christian beliefs, and highlighting the despair I would be feeling if I had to face the world and the meaning of my life without them.

[georgit79]

Good golly! In the time it's taken me to drive from London to Manchester, this thread has got very busy!

Just off for a few drinks, so I think I'll wait till I get back to post something which will hopefully be insightful and thought-provoking (this is a very tall order).

In the meantime....hey MargeB, how'r you doin'?

[simont]

Umm, sorry there, don't know what happened:  could be the toddler on my knee, she's not well and can't sleep.  Anyway:

I do believe in God, I believe in Creation happening in 7 days and seven earth days at that, I believe there are no aliens from outer space and I believe fully in the crucifixation, resurrection and pending second coming/rapture.  The reasons I believe all this are difficult to explain in the few words I have here and are wrapped up with many, many other life experiences, however here are a few ideas:  If one takes the assumption that God is real, then one also must take the assumption that Satan exists.  You cannot have hot without cold, or light without dark etc etc.  Everything must balance out.  So, if we assume that satan is real, we must assume we know him to be wholly evil.  The bible describes satan as 'the Prince of all lies'.  It is his sole desire to keep us from God, and from (IMHO) the truth.  I believe that the whole phenomenum of aliens in particular in the last 100 years has been a lie from satan and its intention has been to undermine the facts about God:  "God sent his one and only son to save THE world so that we might not perish but have eternal life" He did not send his son to save the WORLDS.  I have not found any biblical support for the existance of Aliens, but lots of personal experience for the existance of God.  I believe Aliens to be one of the rumours we should be wary of as described in Revelation and copious other NT books.  Aliens would be mentioned in the creation account if they were indeed also created.  I find it very interesting also that amoung the people that believe to have had experiences with Aliens, also have a history or either dabbling or being very involved in practices of the Occult; not offering an opinion here, just stating this as a little known fact.  ( Continued...)

[georgit79]

ps: MargeB- there's a question completely devoted to you over in CB...

[simont]

(continued) I do believe that God is real, although his existence does not require me to, he would still exist even if I denouced him; however, I also believe that his heart must break when he looks at us his creation, his children and sees what we have done to his world, when he sees our hearts and when he sees what we have become.  It is at this time that I am so grateful that he sent his son so that I who once was lost can not call him God, but instead, Father.

Please don't be mad at me, this is just my opinion, but I feel so strongly, i felt I couldn't be a lurker on this one!!!

stay safe, and be happy.

[mfewell]

simont, please never be a lurker. Speak up, post up ! I for one need your help. My beliefs may appear absurd to the cynical and angry sections of the scientific community but I have examined them through and they click. I believe in the crucifixion and the resurrection and the statement God was making to man from the cross.

Come over to Macedonia and help us !!

Us mad cookies need all the help we can get to counter the overwhelming scientific evidence that shows how brainwashed we are. (By the way, who was around at the time to brainwash Stephen, Paul - these were such total nutters that they chose to get stoned/beheaded for a pile of nonsense, knowing it to be nonsense).

[georgit79]

Right...here we go (bear with me here, this may take a while)

 

For years now, people (myself included) been chipping away at the foundations of religious belief by suggesting that "otherworldly" experiences are nothing more than the inner workings of the human brain. Lots of brain scientists (I think clever people call them neuroscientists but I'm having trouble spelling it due to a few too many units of alcohol in a very short space of time...I have to keep erasing spelling mistakes) claim they can locate and explain brain functions that produce everything from religious visions to sensations of bliss, timelessness or a feeling of a union with something 'other worldly'.

Apparently, by stimulating the cerebral region presumed to control our sense of self, some Canadian sciency person has been able to induce in hundreds of people a "sensed presence" only the people themselves are aware of. This presence may be described as Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Muhammad etc. depending on the name the subject's culture has trained him or her to use.

This has its critics, and I'm sure we'll find some here. Some say doesn't distinguish between experiences that contain a moral or spiritual dimension (such as visions of God) from those that don't (such as ghostly perceptions- although I've always thought that people who claim to see'ghosts' are usually open to all the religious stuff anyway. For example, they must believe in an 'afterlife' in order to believe that they can see ghosts.) Others point out that none of this research can ever establish whether our brains have been designed to apprehend religious experiences or whether these are simply the by-product of bad wiring.

Is this far too simplistic? I'm having trouble following who thinks what...

[Clanad]

So, where were we?  Oh, yes... MargeB."s concern about why we resemble chimps, apes, etc.  One answer comes to mind... convergence... Convergence refers to the widespread tendency in nature of unrelated organisms to possess nearly identical anatomical and physiological characteristics. The wings of birds and bats is one textbook example of convergence.  Birds and bats are unrelated organisms, with birds belonging to the class Aves and bats to the class Mammalia.  Though superficially similar, the wing structures of birds and bats are fundamentally different. Both the creation and evolutionary paradigms offer an explanation for convergence. Creationists view convergence as the intelligent activity of a single Creator who employs a common set of solutions to address a common set of problems facing unrelated organisms in their quest for survival. Evolutionists assert that convergence results when unrelated organisms encounter nearly identical selection forces (environmental, competitive, and predatory pressures). Natural selection then channels the random variations believed to be responsible for evolutionary change along similar pathways to produce similar features in unrelated organisms.

One of the challenges that convergence creates for the evolutionary paradigm is the frequency with which it occurs throughout life�s history. Convergence is a common characteristic of life.

Contd.

[Clanad]

Contd.

This commonness makes little sense in light of evolutionary theory. If evolution is indeed responsible for the diversity of life, one would expect convergence to be extremely rare.  The mechanism that drives the evolutionary process consists of a large number of unpredictable, chance events that occur one after another. Given this mechanism and the complexity and fine-tuning of biological systems, it seems improbable that disparate evolutionary pathways would ever lead to the same biological feature.  A recent DNA sequence analysis has just confirmed two earlier studies that, from an evolutionary perspective, requires echolocation (the ability to locate and catch prey by reflected sound waves) in bats to have evolved independently in two separate groups. (Citing sources on request) This study, along with previous analyses also indicate that the strikingly similar limb structures of bats and flying lemurs used for flying, likewise, must have evolved independently, when the data is interpreted from an evolutionary perspective.

Another recent study, employing behavioral differences in gene expression in brain tissue, has demonstrated that the brain structure of hummingbirds, songbirds, and parrots responsible for vocal learning (the ability to �learn� vocalizations by imitation rather than by instinct) is essentially identical. This is surprising, since these three birds are unrelated to one another. It is difficult to accept, even when biased towards naturalism, that the complex structures involved in bat echolocation, bat and lemur flight, and bird vocal learning could have emerged strictly through random events. However, the remarkable convergence just described would be expected if a single Creator was responsible for creating bats, lemurs, parrots, songbirds, and hummingbirds.

Contd.

[Clanad]

Conclusion:

These examples highlight the difficulty that convergence creates for the evolutionary paradigm. No known evolutionary mechanism can account for the nature of biological convergence. Convergence has been far too common throughout life�s history, has involved exceedingly complex structures, and has occurred in situations in which the forces of natural selection have been vastly different.  Biological convergence is an important component in the argument that life, throughout earth�s history, is a result of the supernatural activity of a Creator.

So, OK, let me catch my breath and, if you like, I'll outline the timeline of Creation and what Genesis and other books really say... Have a nice weekend!

[badams]

Hey - I go off to Tescos for the shopping and come back to find MargeB putting words in my mouth! (I did watch a couple of episodes of CSI as well!)

"I have done my best to show a rough indication from no solar system to there being people, you both reject this at almost all levels."

Where did you show this? And where did I reject it?  Am I loosing the plot or something, because I don't remember either of these!?

What? God threw down a bunch of animals, left it for a while, threw down a few more?

No, but not a million miles from the truth. Going back to my garage analogy, as it progressed I added new materials as required.  The raw materials for breeze blocks and mortar are very similar to the constituants of concrete, but the effective use of the materials very different.  Likewise, no real change in the raw materials when it came to plastering.  Same designer, same basic materials, very different effect.  I believe that at certain times, God made changes to the lifeforms on earth.  The actual mechanics of how he did it are not particularly important - what is important is that the fossil record is consistant with this having happened, so this is not just some crackpot notion - it is backed up by scientific evidence.

[badams]

Slightly off thread, but here�s an illustration. (A long one).
I live about thirty miles from the Giant�s Causeway. 

http://www.thisisthelife.com/photos/experiences/large/gi ants-causeway.jpg

This natural wonder is a formation of basalt rock columns, caused by volcanic eruptions and cooling lava.  There are about 40,000 columns, most of which are hexagonal, although some have four, five, seven, or eight sides.  The tallest are around 40 feet high, and it covers a huge area, and extends under the sea.  The stones look man-made, and legend has it that was made by the giant Finn McCool.  No-one believes the legend.
There is another stone structure � much smaller this time.  There are fewer stones, and their shapes are much less complex.  It covers considerably less space, and although there is some regularity to it, many of the stones are strewn in a semi-random manner. (They may have stood upright at one time, but there is no evidence for that, nor can an experiment be carried out which would show whether or not they did).  This arrangement is called Stonehenge. Everyone believes it was man-made.
Continued

[badams]

Continuation
Why is it that we firmly believe that Stonehenge with its fewer less complex stones is man made, when we are sure that the Giants Causeway is a natural occurrence? Order combined with complexity I believe.  One look at the Giants causeway, and most people will decide � interesting, but obviously a natural phenomena.  One look at Stonehenge and we say � �who built this�.  We could speculate, and suggest that perhaps Stonehenge was the result of an unusual landslip in prehistoric times, or that the stones had broken off a single rock face and been eroded to basically the same and size and then been deposited by glaciation in their current form.  No doubt the explanation would be complex, and there would be parts of it where we would simply have to say �we don�t have a clue what happened here�.  In reality, no-one would believe that explanation.
The basic building blocks of life (DNA, protein, cells etc.) are much more complex than Stonehenge.  Their constituent parts too are complex and must be ordered in critical arrangements for them to function.  Evolutionists believe they happened by chance.  Creationists believe they happened by design.  To me, believing that these complex integrated ordered elements of life came about by chance, is as likely as Stonehenge being a natural phenomena, and the Giants Causeway being an ancient man-made monument.