RE: Aliens and Atheism
July 12, 2014 at 9:32 am
(This post was last modified: July 12, 2014 at 9:35 am by Simon Moon.)
There are 200 billion galaxies in the universe, each one has 100+ billion stars.
So far, 1810 extrasolar planets have been discovered, some are quite earth like. And that's just in our neighborhood of our galaxy.
So, just on numbers alone, the likelihood of other intelligent life in the universe seems to be a pretty sure bet.
The chances of said life visiting earth, almost nil.
For many reasons, the above scenario almost certainly did not happen.
The 'ancient astronaut' hypothesis is a perfect example of a 'just so story'.
To begin with, there are other, more likely explanations for ancient art and stories than alien encounters. If anything we should know about humanity, is that our capacity for imagination knows no bounds.
But besides there being better explanations for so called ancient astronauts, the hypothesis totally belittles human accomplishments. Just because we're talking about humans of several thousand years ago, does not mean they did not have their share of geniuses.
So far, 1810 extrasolar planets have been discovered, some are quite earth like. And that's just in our neighborhood of our galaxy.
So, just on numbers alone, the likelihood of other intelligent life in the universe seems to be a pretty sure bet.
The chances of said life visiting earth, almost nil.
(July 11, 2014 at 12:35 am)TheGamingAtheist Wrote: That is similar to what my fiance believes. He somewhat believes that due to old egyptian paintings and caveman "art" derive from the possibility of an extraterrestrial being visiting the earth to assist, or bump, humanity in to technology. Due to this, he thinks that this may be why a "god" or "gods" were thought to have existed.
For many reasons, the above scenario almost certainly did not happen.
The 'ancient astronaut' hypothesis is a perfect example of a 'just so story'.
To begin with, there are other, more likely explanations for ancient art and stories than alien encounters. If anything we should know about humanity, is that our capacity for imagination knows no bounds.
But besides there being better explanations for so called ancient astronauts, the hypothesis totally belittles human accomplishments. Just because we're talking about humans of several thousand years ago, does not mean they did not have their share of geniuses.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
