Ken Ham: "Stop sciencing, astrophysicists! Aliens are hellbound!"

[Esquilax]

In his ongoing crusade to spin the largest and most nonsensical fan-canon for the bible possible, Ken Ham recently intimated that space exploration is a waste of time and resources, as all alien species there might be are automatically going to hell. Moreover, it's just a conspiracy perpetrated by "secularists" who want to disprove god by finding aliens!

Of course, secularists are desperate to find life in outer space, as they believe that would provide evidence that life can evolve in different locations and given the supposed right conditions! The search for extraterrestrial life is really driven by man’s rebellion against God in a desperate attempt to supposedly prove evolution!

Apart from being one of the dumbest things ever written by a human, Ken Ham's intensely ridiculous idea here is also dead wrong. In no way does the bible assert that the entire universe was affected by original sin; you can go and read Genesis 3 quite easily to see that, but also why would it? The biblical authors had no concept of other planets that could bear life, and in fact their cosmology had the sky as a firmament filled with water. In fact, the whole point of the doctrine of original sin is that it's passed down through the descendants. It's something inherited from a previous sinner; aliens wouldn't have that by definition.

There are other interesting consequences of this idea that Ken clearly hasn't thought through; having not eaten of the tree any intelligent life out there would have no concept of good or evil, and so are being punished with hell for sins that they not only did not have any chance of committing or preventing, but also have no conception of them as evil. The god being proposed here is terrifyingly evil on an indiscriminate scale that even we atheists don't automatically credit him with. This is a god who focuses his attentions on earth... but punishes the far reaches of space just as an afterthought.

Free will goes out the window as an excuse, as now we've got potentially intelligent aliens with their own free wills and no choice at all as to where they go, though I've no doubt Ken Ham- who is apparently now a racist even to potential non-terrestrial intelligences- would have no trouble simply accepting that the free will theology only applies to humans for some reason, and who cares about aliens?

I know all this is hypothetical, but so's the god question to begin with, and what all this goes to show is the complete lack of thought with which fundie christian dickheads like Ham heft about their imagined ideas of what god thinks. It's to the point where he's contradicting even other parts of his own personal interpretation, but a consistent worldview apparently isn't as important as unthinking praise for god. And now he's promulgating a view that would actively retard scientific progress in one of potentially the most important fields of study we have, because of his fucking storybook.

This kind of shit demonstrates exactly how dangerous unrestrained theology is.

[Lemonvariable72]

In his ongoing crusade to spin the largest and most nonsensical fan-canon for the bible possible, Ken Ham recently intimated that space exploration is a waste of time and resources, as all alien species there might be are automatically going to hell. Moreover, it's just a conspiracy perpetrated by "secularists" who want to disprove god by finding aliens!

Of course, secularists are desperate to find life in outer space, as they believe that would provide evidence that life can evolve in different locations and given the supposed right conditions! The search for extraterrestrial life is really driven by man’s rebellion against God in a desperate attempt to supposedly prove evolution!

Apart from being one of the dumbest things ever written by a human, Ken Ham's intensely ridiculous idea here is also dead wrong. In no way does the bible assert that the entire universe was affected by original sin; you can go and read Genesis 3 quite easily to see that, but also why would it? The biblical authors had no concept of other planets that could bear life, and in fact their cosmology had the sky as a firmament filled with water. In fact, the whole point of the doctrine of original sin is that it's passed down through the descendants. It's something inherited from a previous sinner; aliens wouldn't have that by definition.

There are other interesting consequences of this idea that Ken clearly hasn't thought through; having not eaten of the tree any intelligent life out there would have no concept of good or evil, and so are being punished with hell for sins that they not only did not have any chance of committing or preventing, but also have no conception of them as evil. The god being proposed here is terrifyingly evil on an indiscriminate scale that even we atheists don't automatically credit him with. This is a god who focuses his attentions on earth... but punishes the far reaches of space just as an afterthought.

Free will goes out the window as an excuse, as now we've got potentially intelligent aliens with their own free wills and no choice at all as to where they go, though I've no doubt Ken Ham- who is apparently now a racist even to potential non-terrestrial intelligences- would have no trouble simply accepting that the free will theology only applies to humans for some reason, and who cares about aliens?

I know all this is hypothetical, but so's the god question to begin with, and what all this goes to show is the complete lack of thought with which fundie christian dickheads like Ham heft about their imagined ideas of what god thinks. It's to the point where he's contradicting even other parts of his own personal interpretation, but a consistent worldview apparently isn't as important as unthinking praise for god. And now he's promulgating a view that would actively retard scientific progress in one of potentially the most important fields of study we have, because of his fucking storybook.

This kind of shit demonstrates exactly how dangerous unrestrained theology is.

Don't worry, we won't find any. Earth like planets are far too rare, and even if you have one evolution does not veer towards intelligence but rather away from it as brains are energy expensive. Yes I'm aware of the kepler finds but we have no way of knowing if those worlds have the liquid core needed for life to evolve.

[Crossless2.0]

I'm tickled by the thought of Ken Ham or some other fundie knuckle-dragger trying to persuade a being sophisticated enough to traverse such vast distances that he/she/it must accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior. I imagine that the slack-jawed (or whatever) look of incredulity on the face of the alien visitor would be priceless. Then, to round out my fantasy, the extraterrestrial would put him down with a fucking light saber like one would put down a rabid dog.

[Nine]

So he's both convinced they have souls and that they would go to hell. Surely it would be more Christian to save their little/huge alien souls.

[Minimalist]

Borowitz today....

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-...0%28106%29

MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report)—Historians studying archival photographs from four decades ago have come to the conclusion that the U.S. must have believed in science at some point.

[StealthySkeptic]

So he's both convinced they have souls and that they would go to hell. Surely it would be more Christian to save their little/huge alien souls.

Christians would also run into this problem.

[Surgenator]

Don't worry, we won't find any. Earth like planets are far too rare, and even if you have one evolution does not veer towards intelligence but rather away from it as brains are energy expensive. Yes I'm aware of the kepler finds but we have no way of knowing if those worlds have the liquid core needed for life to evolve.

I have to repectfully disagree. The precentage of earth size planets is still unknown. Astronomers only recently were able to find these small planets.

Also, water is very common in the universe as it is a byproduct of the star formation.

[jesus_wept]

I'm tickled by the thought of Ken Ham or some other fundie knuckle-dragger trying to persuade a being sophisticated enough to traverse such vast distances that he/she/it must accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior. I imagine that the slack-jawed (or whatever) look of incredulity on the face of the alien visitor would be priceless. Then, to round out my fantasy, the extraterrestrial would put him down with a fucking light saber like one would put down a rabid dog.

I'm sure this must be a repost but this seems as good a time as any to post it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqImgriM4As

[vorlon13]

I'd advise extreme caution for our Christer friends in any possible attempts at bringing the Word to aliens.

By definition, they are not sons of Adam, and it is an absolute certainty they will not possess human souls. Attempts at converting them, regardless of their existing religious beliefs, if any, would be an abomination, if not actual BLASPHEMY.

Christians don't bother bringing the Word to plants, fungi, animals and fish for that precise reason. Aliens would be no different.

Imagine the ruckus should an observant ultra-Orthodox Jew attempt to convert a pig to Judaism. Same idea, exactly the same idea.


DON'T DO IT!!!

[Anomalocaris]

Don't worry, we won't find any. Earth like planets are far too rare, and even if you have one evolution does not veer towards intelligence but rather away from it as brains are energy expensive. Yes I'm aware of the kepler finds but we have no way of knowing if those worlds have the liquid core needed for life to evolve.

If our understanding of planetary formation and galactic evolution is anything close to being right, then all rocky planets with simular age as earth and same or larger size as earth, and formed in similar surrounding in dust rich spiral arms of milky way, are extremely likely to have still have liquid cores. The reason is they formed sufficiently late in the evolution of Milky way such that their formation nebulas would include substantial percentage of long half-live raioactive isotops, and these would be included in the planet to form a strong, durable heatsource in the core. At the same time their size would provide the insulation and relatively low surface area to volume to enable them to retain heat well enough to keep their core molten for >5 billion years.

Also, liquid core is probably not necessary for life. It is now strongly suspected that most primitive, as well as most common form of life on earth, and probably throughout the universe, are extremaphiles that can exist underground under high temperture and harsh chemical conditions. These forms of life can exist even if a planet is not protected by any form of megnetic field. Complex, intelligent life might be hard to develop in these situations based on our current understandin, but our understanding of what conditions are needed for intelligence to evolve is sketchy anyway.