Is there anybody out there??

[Sheepy]

That's kind but untrue. I am as flawed as anyone else, but it isn't a competition or a race. We all have our own path to tread. We all have obstacles to overcome. I guess it's having the confidence to hang on tight and also recognition of what to cling to. I believe that once we have hold we can rely on the certainty that nothing can really hurt us. It kind of changes the focus to a much longer view.

It was just an observation; I didn't say you weren't just as flawed as the rest of us. You just present your thoughts and feelings in a manner that one can say, fair enough, that is your belief and fine.

[T00ts]

I guess so, over the years I have come across some right savages calling themselves Christians, in a way you sort of make up for them.

That's kind but untrue. I am as flawed as anyone else, but it isn't a competition or a race. We all have our own path to tread. We all have obstacles to overcome. I guess it's having the confidence to hang on tight and also recognition of what to cling to. I believe that once we have hold we can rely on the certainty that nothing can really hurt us. It kind of changes the focus to a much longer view.

[Sheepy]

Equally what proof of a God would anyone else require to convince them? Nothing I could say or write would ever be enough. This knowledge comes from somewhere else. It hits the heart as much as the mind.

I guess so, over the years I have come across some right savages calling themselves Christians, in a way you sort of make up for them.

[T00ts]

Again, very convenient.

Any way, you haven't answered the question.

If a life form way in Advance of ours lands at the side of you and explained away God, what would be your reaction? Would you believe it?

How can I give that answer? What proof would you have them provide? What proof would satisfy me? Even I don't know the answer to that. What I do have is absolute certainty and even that I cannot explain. I only know that I asked the question and got my answer and if I can everyone can. It wasn't a bolt from the skies, it wasn't something that made me fall to the floor in shock or a blinding light, but it might just as well have been because since that day there has been absolutely no doubt. Nothing can take that moment from me.

Equally what proof of a God would anyone else require to convince them? Nothing I could say or write would ever be enough. This knowledge comes from somewhere else. It hits the heart as much as the mind.

[johnofgwent]

Again, very convenient.

Any way, you haven't answered the question.

If a life form way in Advance of ours lands at the side of you and explained away God, what would be your reaction? Would you believe it?

But convenience aside the statement is correct. God does not do "proof". God requires faith in the face of a total absence of proof.


God and Science don't work in the same place and time. Well, they might, but we have no evidence if it.

[johnofgwent]

That is a profound question, one that I hope will be answered before I cast off my mortal coil.

For me there are 2 questions that come from that:

Excluding the question of is Mars, for example habitable with the right gear. What is the driving force for sending a rover to look for life on the red planet? Is it to prove the non-existence of God? I'm kind of in two minds over that. On the one hand I would kind of like to be proved right, that there is no God. But on the other hand I wouldn't want to ram it down the throats of believers and say I told you so.

The second question is for the theologians amongst us. If life was discovered on another planet and categorically disproved the existence of God, how would you accept that, would you accept that?

Whether you're a carbon based life form or a Snottite, the prerequisite for life is still liquid water. And we know Mars and many other planets had and possibly have liquid water. Time and liquid water means life, for me it's just a matter of finding it.

Ok


I used to believe in a supreme being. I no longer believe one worthy of my worship exists.


When Carl Sagan sent his gold plated porn to the stars, powered by the most toxic to life material then available to man, and if you can't see the irony in that there's no hope, I was in my "believer" mode.


I saw absolutely no problem with a supreme being creating life in multiple areas of his creation. But then I was a scientist who didn't believe God did the job six thousand years ago in six days. I chose to believe the account of him doing that was penned by a thirst-driven hermit in a desert shithole whose mind was about the consistency of a fruit cake LONG before he put scratchy thingy to soft rock to record his rantings. And because scientists believe we advance by coming up with a hypothesis and then pinning facts to it to make it a theory, MY idea the writer of the six day wonder was a swivel eyed loon with no grasp of science, plus the fossil record, trumped his barking mad rantings.


He stayed firmly at first base with his six day hypotheses and I advanced to second base with my theory and until someone fetches me a time machine or a pissed off deity glares at me the day after I'm dead, that's where science gets to and no more.


So, I'm a pretty firm advocate of the stance that finding life on other worlds DOESNT "just about wrap it up for God" as the Hitch Hikers Guide puts it.


By the same token, I don't think we sent those probes to go knocking on Heaven's Door.


We sent probes to other planets because we could. We equipped them to look for chemical evidence of processes indicative of life or mimicry of such because we could, and because whatever they found would be "interesting". And that's Fred Hoyle speaking there, those are his words spoken to my face (and fifty odd others) decades ago ......

[Nick]

God doesn't do proof.

Again, very convenient.

Any way, you haven't answered the question.

If a life form way in Advance of ours lands at the side of you and explained away God, what would be your reaction? Would you believe it?

[T00ts]

How do you know this logged end of the world is accurate?
I'm fairly sure it will be consumed by our Sun as it expands.

You may well be right. There are scriptures that talk of everything being burned. Why would God change the way He functions? He has used science at every level in such a way that we are gradually able to learn and understand the universe. We are told of lands moving, eruptions etc so I can imagine that it will be a series of natural disasters in the same way that the earth has been created. If we expect God to suddenly pop up magically then we will be disappointed. The way I understand it is that our decision to believe is paramount. God doesn't do proof.

[Barry]

A messiah of some kind may have been prophesied, I believe it was just a very convenient story to cover up infidelity on Mary's part.

Oh yes. "Infidelity" with the Holy Spirit. Oh dear.
Prophesied 400 years earlier to cover it up? You are having a laugh, Nick.

[Nick]

So how do we explain the Prophets? How do we explain their visions or their professed talks with God?
Were they simply charismatic nutters?

As you said, professed! What did they say that was so amazing?

How was the birth of Jesus the Messiah prophesied throughout the ages so accurately?

A messiah of some kind may have been prophesied, I believe it was just a very convenient story to cover up infidelity on Mary's part.

How have we a blow by blow account of the end of the world so clearly logged? Much of which is already coming true. Genius nutters?

How do you know this logged end of the world is accurate?
I'm fairly sure it will be consumed by our Sun as it expands.

[T00ts]

That's where religion for me crosses from fact to fiction. I believe the bible, it's the best account of life in those times. BUT, you have to take it literally as it is written.
When it says it hailed fire and brimstone, that's exactly what it means. Volcanoes where not understood at the time and seen as coming from God.

The Israelites in the desert following a dust cloud by day and a bright light by night is when the piece of Jupiter broke off and formed Venus. It passed so close to the Earth it created the dust, light and it's gravitational pull created the parting of the waves.
Fantastic events but all explainable.

See below.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_in_Collision

You are right that the Bible is a record of those times but we cannot guarantee it's accuracy of translation or that it is complete. I would agree that all scriptures are written within the boundaries of their knowledge at that time. So how do we explain the Prophets? How do we explain their visions or their professed talks with God? Were they simply charismatic nutters? How was the birth of Jesus the Messiah prophesied throughout the ages so accurately? How have we a blow by blow account of the end of the world so clearly logged? Much of which is already coming true. Genius nutters?

Was it really just fiction or was it a warning to us all and a record how certain behaviours impact humanity? Did no-one else on earth maintain records as yet to be discovered? If not why not? We reduce the carefully recorded voices of our predecessors to mere fiction at our peril I fear.

It is often commented that those in ancient times knew no better and therefore created Gods out of fear and as a way of explanation for those things they didn't understand.  I would suggest that the tradition of a God comes from the creation of this earth when knowledge of a living God was a fact. Chinese whispers and secular leanings have changed that all into a comfortable 'fairytale' by a people that no longer feel beholden to or answerable to our Creator. We have taken His world creation built with care over millennia and wrecked and abused it while all the while glossing over its origin and His hand in it.

[Sheepy]

I am not so sure that we can state that definitively.

If he could, you wouldn't be typing for the whole world to see.

[Nick]

No. Because it is a matter of faith.

Precisely, but I genuinely believe when I put the lottery on I am going to win. I have faith in that, but as of tonight I have been wrong.

[Nick]

What if the Bible and other records are true

That's where religion for me crosses from fact to fiction. I believe the bible, it's the best account of life in those times. BUT, you have to take it literally as it is written.
When it says it hailed fire and brimstone, that's exactly what it means. Volcanoes where not understood at the time and seen as coming from God.

The Israelites in the desert following a dust cloud by day and a bright light by night is when the piece of Jupiter broke off and formed Venus. It passed so close to the Earth it created the dust, light and it's gravitational pull created the parting of the waves.
Fantastic events but all explainable.

See below.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_in_Collision

[T00ts]

We don't, but we do know that the laws of physics on Earth apply all over the universe. At the moment it is fairly safe to say that liquid water is required for life.

I am not so sure that we can state that definitively. As far as we know water is required for life as we know it, but perhaps the mere presence of water in the human body and its action on body cells makes the body age and deteriorate causing death. What if the body could live for eternity without what we currently think is an essential? What if the Bible and other records are true that man will rise again and live eternally but to do that we would not need blood? If humanity has one major failing it is the conviction that we have any of the answers. By our very nature we limit what must be the infinite knowledge of a Creator - and even if we follow the big bang theory etc who created that explosion?