(November 2, 2014 at 1:16 pm)His_Majesty Wrote: But as an atheist, here is what you have to believe...you have to believe that billions of years ago before humanity, dead matter was floating around in space...and for whatever reason, suddenly, this dead matter "came to life". Not only did it come to life, but it came to life and began thinking, talking, and having sex.

No we don't. Atheism is about not believing in any gods, and nothing more. You're over-defining the term.

An acceptable answer to questions like these is "I don't know". Admitting when you've hit the limitation of your knowledge is a lot more honest than making up something unsupported and calling it "an answer".

(November 2, 2014 at 1:16 pm)His_Majesty Wrote: Just think about that for a second. This non-living material suddenly CAME TO LIFE. For the life of me, I just can't get myself to believe that, even if I tried. I just don't understand how naturalism/atheism is a more reasonable position than theism.

You have to believe that a process that can't think or see, created consciousness. So consciousness came from a process that can't think??

So, this is ridiculous, yet, believing that everything was made by an invisible magician isn't ridiculous?

I mean, it'd be one thing if your position didn't look ludicrous and if you had any non-presuppositional evidence for it, but you don't. Your same argument ("it doesn't make sense") can be used against you.

(November 2, 2014 at 1:16 pm)His_Majesty Wrote: I just don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

It would help if you defined atheism properly and didn't strawman the opposing point of view. It might make more sense, in that case.

(November 2, 2014 at 3:19 pm)dimaniac Wrote:

(November 2, 2014 at 3:13 pm)Beccs Wrote: Proof of this claim, please?

Proof that Earth is special, please.

It doesn't have to be special. You have to know what the odds are for the state of affairs we observe to be remarkable. You don't know the odds, so you have no basis for claiming that we should have detected another civilization by now.

(November 3, 2014 at 4:20 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: It doesn't have to be special. You have to know what the odds are for the state of affairs we observe to be remarkable. You don't know the odds, so you have no basis for claiming that we should have detected another civilization by now.

How could we ever hope to detect other civilizations anyway?

We're looking at things as they were thousands, tens of thousands or even millions of years ago. Unless Einstein had it all wrong, we could never hope to reach distant systems. And the same applies to every other possible civiization.

The best we can hope for is to detect planets where life is possible.

(November 2, 2014 at 3:34 pm)dimaniac Wrote:

(November 2, 2014 at 3:20 pm)TaraJo Wrote: 2) Placement. We're at a perfect place where none of those nasty things can kill us.

There are 100 billion galaxies with 100 billion stars in every galaxy. There are plenty of perfect places in the universe

Sure. But how many of them does abiogenesis occur on? What percentage of those result in civilizations? There could be a civilization per galaxy (100 billion civilizations) and we are far from the point of being able to detect a civilization in another galaxy that isn't a Type III civilization on the Kardashev scale.

(November 2, 2014 at 3:34 pm)dimaniac Wrote:

Quote:3) Distance. If the universe actually is infinite, yes, there is intelligent life out there. But it may very well be so far away that we'll never reach it. And vice versa; we're so far away from them, they'll never reach us.

Type II civilization can easily reach any star in the galaxy.

You can't assume that a Type II civiizaton has FTL travel. FTL travel may be practically impossible. The proposed Alcubierre drive requires exotic matter that doesn't exist yet which may be impossible to create... and even then it maxes out around 10x light speed which means it would still take about five months to reach Proxima Centuri from here; so even with a working Alcubierre drive a Type II civilization on the other side of the galaxy would take 10,000 years to get here at full steam, and there's no reason to think they would know we're here before their ships get in range, so they would not be making a beeline for us, making a million years after discovering the drive a more likely time frame for them to discover us.

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(November 2, 2014 at 3:42 pm)dimaniac Wrote:

(November 2, 2014 at 3:35 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Hope for what?

Continuing your family line, passing on genes, ensuring survival of humanity

Neither atheism nor theism has anything inherently to do with those things.

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(November 2, 2014 at 4:03 pm)dimaniac Wrote:

(November 2, 2014 at 3:50 pm)TaraJo Wrote: There aren't as many places that meet all three of those criteria.

Only one such place is needed so aliens could colonize whole galaxy.

Without FTL, it would take a million years to cross our galaxy at an average speed of 10% of the speed of light. You just can't handwave that they'll have FTL AND that they're close enough to have reached us by now even with it.

(November 2, 2014 at 3:34 pm)dimaniac Wrote: Such civilization could build billions of drones to explore and eventually colonize other stars and it would take only 50,000 years.

If they started at the center of the galaxy and the drones approached light speed. The center of the galaxy is about the least likely place for them to be. From the other side, it would easily take twice that for them to get here. And just because they could doesn't mean they will, even if you presuppose there's another civilization capable of doing that within 50,000 light years that was ALSO in a position where it could have started sending drones 50,000 years ago.

(November 3, 2014 at 4:36 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:

(November 2, 2014 at 3:34 pm)dimaniac Wrote: There are 100 billion galaxies with 100 billion stars in every galaxy. There are plenty of perfect places in the universe

Sure. But how many of them does abiogenesis occur on? What percentage of those result in civilizations. There could be a civilization per galaxy (100 billion civilizations) and we are far from the point of being able to detect a civilization in another galaxy that isn't a Type III civilization on the Kardashev scale.

100 billion civilizations and none of them reached Type III?

(November 3, 2014 at 4:53 pm)dimaniac Wrote: 100 billion civilizations and none of them reached Type III?

The laws of physics apply to the whole universe. So, as long as our fundamental laws of physics aren't actually wrong, nothing can beat the speed of light.

What's so hard to understand?

So, do some simple math. If a planet is 10.000 light years away - at what time, compared to earth's history, are we looking? Right, we were still residing in caves and only get a glimpse of how that particular planet looked back then.

(November 3, 2014 at 4:53 pm)dimaniac Wrote:

(November 3, 2014 at 4:36 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Sure. But how many of them does abiogenesis occur on? What percentage of those result in civilizations. There could be a civilization per galaxy (100 billion civilizations) and we are far from the point of being able to detect a civilization in another galaxy that isn't a Type III civilization on the Kardashev scale.

100 billion civilizations and none of them reached Type III?

How would we know? Given the distances involved, entire civilizations could have risen and fallen to dust by the time we gained the ability to even realize the planet is there. That's the problem with your immensely simplistic view of all this; it's not like we can just swing a telescope upward and see what's happening on another planet right this second, and any potential civilization out there would be facing precisely the same limitation.

Sentient life on other planets could have started billions of years ago.

Could've, sure. What's your point?

(November 3, 2014 at 5:10 pm)dimaniac Wrote: Sentient life on other planets could have started billions of years ago.

So.....