Atheists and Agnostics risk infinite loss for no gain

[Brian37]

No heaven or hell? In that case EVERYONE shares the same terminal outcome.

BINGO!

Macbeth act 5 scene 5

"Life is a flurry of activity,................. full of sound and fury, signifying NOTHING!"

Astute observation by a non scientist. Bill had no clue how lucky that guess was.

The planet and sun are "terminal" as well. These will die too and the universe will continue on without us and no record of us.

Humans make up gods as an anthropomorphic reflection of the word "special". If biological life did not have the evolutionary drive to "survive" we would not have that feeling of "special" and we would not evolve. We have yet come close as a species to understand our own childish psychology that concocts these superstitions.

[Cyberman]

You do know that scientists are searching space for such signals. If they could not be detected why are they searching?

Because what you were asking for was a radio message from some alien ambassadors saying "Peoples of the Universe, please attand carefully. The message that follows is vital to the future of you all. The choice for you all is simple; a continued existence under my guidance or total annihilation." (Bonus points if anyone gets the reference; deducted if you used Google to cheat. I'm a prophet; I'll know.)

Anyway, what scientists working for the Seti project are listening for is a signal, rather than a message, something that deliberately declares its artificial origin above the natural background radio noise of space. And it may be that such a signal has already been received. Apart from the aforementioned "Wow!" signal, radio telescope data is coming in all the time, literally 24/7. The problem isn't with listening; it's analysing the results. It's one thing looking at this stuff - it's quite another knowing what it is you're seeing.

Which is where the Seti@home project comes in. Basically you sign up - for free - and after downloading the analysis software (it used to be a dedicated Seti app but now it's more of an opensource project thing), they send you a package of raw data for your pc to process in its downtime. It's like a screensaver. Afterwards, your pc sends the crunched data back to Seti automatically and gets a new workload.

The big advantage of doing it this way is that instead of it taking many, many decades for one or even a few dedicated and expensive supercomputers, they are using the equivalent processing power of the whole planet, ideally speaking. Plus the discoverer, should there prove to be one, gets their name in the history books.

So it's a bit premature to close the door on this just at the moment.

[SavedByGraceThruFaith]

You do know that scientists are searching space for such signals. If they could not be detected why are they searching?

Because what you were asking for was a radio message from some alien ambassadors saying "Peoples of the Universe, please attand carefully. The message that follows is vital to the future of you all. The choice for you all is simple; a continued existence under my guidance or total annihilation." (Bonus points if anyone gets the reference; deducted if you used Google to cheat. I'm a prophet; I'll know.)

Anyway, what scientists working for the Seti project are listening for is a signal, rather than a message, something that deliberately declares its artificial origin above the natural background radio noise of space. And it may be that such a signal has already been received. Apart from the aforementioned "Wow!" signal, radio telescope data is coming in all the time, literally 24/7. The problem isn't with listening; it's analysing the results. It's one thing looking at this stuff - it's quite another knowing what it is you're seeing.

Which is where the Seti@home project comes in. Basically you sign up - for free - and after downloading the analysis software (it used to be a dedicated Seti app but now it's more of an opensource project thing), they send you a package of raw data for your pc to process in its downtime. It's like a screensaver. Afterwards, your pc sends the crunched data back to Seti automatically and gets a new workload.

The big advantage of doing it this way is that instead of it taking many, many decades for one or even a few dedicated and expensive supercomputers, they are using the equivalent processing power of the whole planet, ideally speaking. Plus the discoverer, should there prove to be one, gets their name in the history books.

So it's a bit premature to close the door on this just at the moment.

I agree that is premature to close the door.

[popeyespappy]

Let’s talk about the Drake equation. As a scientific tool the Drake equation is useless. There are just too many unknown variables. That hasn’t stopped some highly educated people from plugging in values based on based available data.

At bbc.com they have an online Drake equation tool with presets for a few calculations. These presets include Drake’s original calculation, lowest estimate, optimistic current estimate and skeptical current estimate. The current estimates return values of 1 for skeptical and 72,000 for optimistic for number of civilizations in the Milky Way.

Even on the optimistic side of the scale the distribution of those 72,000 civilizations over both space and time would make it unlikely any exist other than our own within the OP’s 500 light year radius of Earth at a point in time that would make any transmissions they might make detectable to us.

[Lion IRC]

No heaven or hell? In that case EVERYONE shares the same terminal outcome.

BINGO!

Macbeth act 5 scene 5

"Life is a flurry of activity,................. full of sound and fury, signifying NOTHING!"

Astute observation by a non scientist. Bill had no clue how lucky that guess was.

The planet and sun are "terminal" as well. These will die too and the universe will continue on without us and no record of us.

Humans make up gods as an anthropomorphic reflection of the word "special". If biological life did not have the evolutionary drive to "survive" we would not have that feeling of "special" and we would not evolve. We have yet come close as a species to understand our own childish psychology that concocts these superstitions.

So the universe of "us" is not everlasting and past-eternal? No other parallel space/time dimensions?
Singularities like big bangs and death/conception never happen?
No black holes or birth canals into new realms of consciousness/existence?

Boy, that whole dark energy, quantum spookiness thing was a big let-down.

[Bucky Ball]

No heaven or hell? In that case EVERYONE shares the same terminal outcome.
Given the existence of heaven and hell, it stands to reason that NOT EVERYONE shares the same existential boarding pass and seat allocation.
This is simple logic- not apologetics.

No it's not EVEN apologetics, as a Freshman in Babble school would know Sheol is/was not hell, and ALL Hebrew in the Babble went to the SAME place.

It's also not "logic", as there is no mechanism for post-mortem preservation, nor have you ever proposed one or explained how it could/would work.

What it is though, is wishful thinking, by a coward that can't accept human mortality.

However is also philosophical bullshit. What humans perceive as "logical" has been proven to be unreliable. One needs EVIDENCE. You have none.

Hope Pussy-Cat-Who-Failed-Apologetics has a great day.

[Doubting Thomas]

"While it’s interesting to imagine how far our radio signals have traveled into space, it’s extremely unlikely that an alien will be able to catch the latest episode of ‘I Love Lucy’. This is thanks to the inverse square law. In Layman’s term, it’s a form of signal degradation.

...

Another way to think of it, is that the strength of a radio signal will be only 1/4 as great once you are twice the distance from the source. At ten times the distance, the strength of the signal would only be one hundredth as great.

That's what I was going to say. As a radio amateur, I know all too well how signals degrade over great distances, and that's only thousands of miles. Think about a signal traveling in almost all directions (not through the earth) for trillions of miles and how degraded it would be. You'd need an incredibly HUGE antenna (parabolic reflector or many directional yagis) to be able to hear anything, and then you'd have to sort it out from all the background space noise. So when I send out a signal, it's highly unlikely that some alien civilization 5000 years from now will be receiving it.

And of course all this is assuming that alien civilizations have discovered how to use electromagnetic waves for communication anyway. They could be at the cave man stage, or possibly some form of non-sentient life.

---

"Atheists and Agnostics risk infinite loss for no gain."

[b]You do know I hope, the Hebrews did not believe in hell. Sheol was not hell. What. You never took Bible 101 ?
Jebus and his disciples were good Jews. They wouldn't have either, obviously.

Not only that, but Jesus never spoke of Hell. Christians got their idea of souls burning in Hell for eternity from the Jesus' parable about the wheat and the chaff. The wheat would be harvested (which is why there are so many Christian churches around here that have "harvest" in their names. Last thing I want to think of myself is being harvested for any reason) while the chaff would be burned "in unquenchable fire."

---

Because what you were asking for was a radio message from some alien ambassadors saying "Peoples of the Universe, please attand carefully. The message that follows is vital to the future of you all. The choice for you all is simple; a continued existence under my guidance or total annihilation." (Bonus points if anyone gets the reference; deducted if you used Google to cheat. I'm a prophet; I'll know.)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Been a while since I've seen that movie, so I can't remember for sure.

[Brian37]

BINGO!

Macbeth act 5 scene 5

"Life is a flurry of activity,................. full of sound and fury, signifying NOTHING!"

Astute observation by a non scientist. Bill had no clue how lucky that guess was.

The planet and sun are "terminal" as well. These will die too and the universe will continue on without us and no record of us.

Humans make up gods as an anthropomorphic reflection of the word "special". If biological life did not have the evolutionary drive to "survive" we would not have that feeling of "special" and we would not evolve. We have yet come close as a species to understand our own childish psychology that concocts these superstitions.

So the universe of "us" is not everlasting and past-eternal? No other parallel space/time dimensions?
Singularities like big bangs and death/conception never happen?
No black holes or birth canals into new realms of consciousness/existence?

Boy, that whole dark energy, quantum spookiness thing was a big let-down.

Dude, pick the ancient traditions, or si fi crap, but don't fucking mix the too, you already look stupid trying to claim the old crap. Trying to make Jesus look like Captain Kirk is just as absurd.

[Esquilax]

Because what you were asking for was a radio message from some alien ambassadors saying "Peoples of the Universe, please attand carefully. The message that follows is vital to the future of you all. The choice for you all is simple; a continued existence under my guidance or total annihilation." (Bonus points if anyone gets the reference; deducted if you used Google to cheat. I'm a prophet; I'll know.)

It's Doctor Who, isn't it? The Master?

[Cyberman]

Sorry DT, the legendary rabbit-horse pipped you to it..!

Yep, it was from Tom Baker's swansong Logopolis. Even if I did misspell 'attend'.