It seems I'm late for the party, but I'm putting my 2 cents anyway!
Since this god has failed to prove himself, we assume it is simply a figment of someone's imagination which caught on and was then built upon by other fertile imaginations.
The "seriously" part of that question makes me think that you don't include yourself in that group of people that started the question...
If intelligent life could sprout from life on this planet, it seems probable that it would sprout elsewhere.
The possibility that such lifeforms exists is real, but we just can't say that they do exist.
This requirement is there because the first generation stars only have Hydrogen in their makeup... and planets made of hydrogen are just gaseous clumps, or nebulae... not exactly planets at all! As this first generation star matures, it converts hydrogen to helium and close to the end of it's life cycle, it fuses nuclei to produce a large amount of elements up to Iron (in mass), and traces of the remaining heavier elements. The star dies when the fusion reactions' force ceases to balance the force of gravity.... which happens when the force of gravity isn't powerful enough to fuse heavy nuclei.
A second generation star uses hydrogen from somewhere else (a nebula) and the elements created by the first star will tend to clump around it, in planets.
So considering that the fist generation star had a lifetime of about 8 billion years, this second generation star will be about 5 billion years old, much like our sun.
Then you have to give it time for life to appear and then intelligent life. Here on Earth, it took too long, most likely due to all the mass extinctions we got... Elsewhere, such extinctions may have not happened and intelligent life could have developed much earlier... at best, 300 million years earlier.
So, at best, they would be a few millions of years ahead of us.... Even so, they may be bound by the physical limit of the speed of light in their travels. Also, why would they come here? The received some of our transmissions? Then they must have stated their travels some 60 years ago. If they are more than 60 light-years away (which would be very likely), then they wouldn't have even departed yet.
(November 16, 2012 at 10:25 pm)ronedee Wrote: DO YOU WANT TO BELIEVE IN GOD?No.
(November 16, 2012 at 10:25 pm)ronedee Wrote: ...or is [proof] the main thing holding you back?If a god proves itself to exist, we'll know that it does exist. No belief is then required.
Since this god has failed to prove himself, we assume it is simply a figment of someone's imagination which caught on and was then built upon by other fertile imaginations.
(November 16, 2012 at 10:25 pm)ronedee Wrote: Do you believe that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe?I answered that here: https://atheistforums.org/thread-15540-p...#pid363909
(November 16, 2012 at 10:25 pm)ronedee Wrote: Can anyone here (besides us zealots) answer a question, or challenge to their reasoning seriously? oops thats 4!
The "seriously" part of that question makes me think that you don't include yourself in that group of people that started the question...
(November 16, 2012 at 10:59 pm)ronedee Wrote: Ok....For those who don't "think" there is a God, or want to "think" there is a God...So, for everyone, right?
(November 16, 2012 at 10:59 pm)ronedee Wrote: Why would you think there is intelligent life somewhere else?Life is a biological process. As it came to be on this planet, so it can come to be on some other of the billions of planets of the Universe.
If intelligent life could sprout from life on this planet, it seems probable that it would sprout elsewhere.
(November 16, 2012 at 10:59 pm)ronedee Wrote: Wouldn't it be a "belief" that someone exists w/o seeing proof?No.
The possibility that such lifeforms exists is real, but we just can't say that they do exist.
(November 16, 2012 at 10:59 pm)ronedee Wrote: Also, wouldn't it be possible for this unproven intelligent life to be 100's of billions of years superior to us? And actual hide from us 40,000 year old infants?Well, it would necessarily have to come from, at least, a second generation star, much like our sun.
This requirement is there because the first generation stars only have Hydrogen in their makeup... and planets made of hydrogen are just gaseous clumps, or nebulae... not exactly planets at all! As this first generation star matures, it converts hydrogen to helium and close to the end of it's life cycle, it fuses nuclei to produce a large amount of elements up to Iron (in mass), and traces of the remaining heavier elements. The star dies when the fusion reactions' force ceases to balance the force of gravity.... which happens when the force of gravity isn't powerful enough to fuse heavy nuclei.
A second generation star uses hydrogen from somewhere else (a nebula) and the elements created by the first star will tend to clump around it, in planets.
So considering that the fist generation star had a lifetime of about 8 billion years, this second generation star will be about 5 billion years old, much like our sun.
Then you have to give it time for life to appear and then intelligent life. Here on Earth, it took too long, most likely due to all the mass extinctions we got... Elsewhere, such extinctions may have not happened and intelligent life could have developed much earlier... at best, 300 million years earlier.
So, at best, they would be a few millions of years ahead of us.... Even so, they may be bound by the physical limit of the speed of light in their travels. Also, why would they come here? The received some of our transmissions? Then they must have stated their travels some 60 years ago. If they are more than 60 light-years away (which would be very likely), then they wouldn't have even departed yet.
