Alien Question for Atheists

[Mystic]

One has a real stick turning into a real snake while the other one just makes it appear as if by illusion. When Moses' stick devoured their lies, people had to make the distinction.

It was followed up by 8 other signs, each bigger, the next one was his hand emitting bright light that harmed not the eyes of people (ie. was without evil).

[The Grand Nudger]

I think it;s hilarious that your commitment to silly shit makes you imagine even sillier shit that you refuse to believe in the case of your own silly shit.

You asked me what I would take as proof that sticks could be turned into snakes. Consider how straightforward and obvious my answer was..now reread the nonsense you wrote in response. You wouldn;t even accept it before your very eyes unless it was an allah snake. All the other magic stick snakes are illusory, lol.

-and all of this...all of it......... is your attempt to make sense of a wizard battle you read about in a magic book.

I have a simpler explanation.

[Edwardo Piet]

Yeah. It's the same exact attitude as some religious folks take when they act like nothing could ever convince them that something about their religious beliefs is wrong.

It depends what I'm supposed to be open to being convinced of. If I am going to be be convinced of something I want it to first be coherent. I'm perfectly okay with some sort of supreme being being possible and open to evidence of that. But a being outside of the universe and outside of space and time? I'm not sure what that even means. But even if we are to accept that it's just something outside of nature whatever that is... I'm fine with the idea of something indescribable later coming to be known but when you talk about something that is outside of the reality we live in then how can we possibly have evidence of it? Evidence only exists in the natural world... so even if such a being intervenes in the natural world how could we know that any of it existed outside of the natural world if that is definitionally beyond our reach? It seems to me like we can only possibly have evidence of the supernatural by actually stepping into the supernatural realm. And even then, how would we know we were in it and not just deceived by a supreme being in the natural realm? Even if we die in this world it could have all been a simulation run by a powerful alien being in the natural world. And then what appeared to be an afterlife could be a further simulation ran by such a being.

It seems to me that there's no way to possibly have evidence of anything supernatural because evidence is definitionally natural.

[Mister Agenda]

Burden of proof remains the same. Testimony just won't cut it.

I guess the "evidence" in this case would be the crazy coincidence that an alien species from another solar system has the same predominant religion as us. Would that not give you pause at all?

It would be interesting, but out of thousands of religions is it really so surprising one would be something of a match?

[Angrboda]

Meh. I'd take Hume's lead and give it a twist: whatever the evidence for God you have is, there is a more probable explanation that is not God. I don't see how you get around that basic argument (with Hume, contra miracles). I'll be doing some reading on that soon, but failing any great revelation, that holds. That and it is, I believe, in principle, impossible to demonstrate any property which is by its nature unlimited (e.g. omnipotence).

[Edwardo Piet]

Like I said, it would be fascinating but if it happened I'd think the simulation argument or the possibility of alien technology deceiving us are both far more plausible than "A being outside of the universe and space and time made everything."

---

Meh.  I'd take Hume's lead and give it a twist: whatever the evidence for God you have is, there is a more probable explanation that is not God.  I don't see how you get around that basic argument (with Hume, contra miracles).  I'll be doing some reading on that soon, but failing any great revelation, that holds.  That and it is, I believe, in principle, impossible to demonstrate any property which is by its nature unlimited (e.g. omnipotence).

I agree.

If only because our demonstrations itself are entirely natural. Literally any explanation we could come up with would be a natural one. The problem with a 'supernatural explanation' is it's not an explanation at all. It's not clear what "Outside of space and time" and "outside of nature" and "supernatural" even mean.

[KevinM1]

I think it;s hilarious that your commitment to silly shit makes you imagine even sillier shit that you refuse to believe in the case of your own silly shit.

You asked me what I would take as proof that sticks could be turned into snakes.  Consider how straightforward and obvious my answer was..now reread the nonsense you wrote in response.  You wouldn;t even accept it before your very eyes unless it was an allah snake.  All the other magic stick snakes are illusory, lol.

-and all of this...all of it......... is your attempt to make sense of a wizard battle you read about in a magic book.

I have a simpler explanation.

As much as I hate Terry Goodkind, he got one thing right: Wizard’s First Rule -

People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they’re afraid it might be true. Peoples’ heads are full of knowledge, facts and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

[Fake Messiah]

My question is, how would you react, especially with regard to their intelligence, and that their religions are incompatible with Christianity. Would it make you doubt Christianity, or that humans are "special" and made in God's image? 

Which Christianity? I think those kind of aliens are much more in threat from other Christians who see them as "wrong Christians" than atheists.

Not to mention that Christianity is impossible on other worlds if you believe the Bible (but I guess most Christians don't) because Bible says Jesus died only once Hebrews 10:10 and it is truly far fetched that aliens would believe that some guy on another planet and another galaxy died for their sins.

[vulcanlogician]

If aliens had religion at all it would intrigue me. Comparative religion is super interesting as it is, and your scenario would make it (pardon the pun) out of this world.

The whole thread is tl;dr, so I'm sure others have mentioned it: if Christianity is "compatible" with any religion that has "trinity, salvation, Heaven and Hell" then Christianity is already compatible with Hinduism. Hindus have the Eternal Triad--Brahman/Shiva/Vishnu--who are themselves avatars of an all-encompassing monotheistic God. Thay have Nirvana... that's kind of like salvation. Also there are afterlives of bliss and afterlives of infernal torment. Even though these are finite to Hindus (after a period it is possible to be reincarnated on Earth), they very much resemble the Heaven/Hell concept of Christianity.

In form and spirit, many religions resemble Christianity, but they are nonetheless deemed incompatible with Christianity because they aren't about the Jesus.

If Christianity developed within an alien culture exactly like it is Earth--yeah. I'd give it a really close look because that is quite unfathomable. After all, Christianity hasn't developed independently anywhere on Earth--nor has any other religion. For it to develop independently on another world would truly suggest that an all powerful God seeded the religion on every planet.

[robvalue]

Meh.  I'd take Hume's lead and give it a twist: whatever the evidence for God you have is, there is a more probable explanation that is not God.  I don't see how you get around that basic argument (with Hume, contra miracles).  I'll be doing some reading on that soon, but failing any great revelation, that holds.  That and it is, I believe, in principle, impossible to demonstrate any property which is by its nature unlimited (e.g. omnipotence).

I think I could be convinced that this is some sort of controlled reality. If it's a computer simulation for example, then I'm not going to be able to "meet" the designer in his reality (although I guess they could manufacture some sort of clone of me in their reality). I could meet a creator-controlled avatar, which walks me through the evidence in real time. (I could be hallucinating of course, but I'm assuming this state of affairs continues and everyone else witnesses it as well as me.)

That's about as far as it goes. Most theists wouldn't recognize this being as "God" without piling a load of other qualities onto it, which I'm probably going to be unable to witness (amongst those that even make sense). Its own reality generally has to consist of nothing and has no other inhabitants. They'd probably argue against me even saying it is in its own reality. It has to be everything and nothing, so to speak. They can't seem to bear the hypothetical idea that there's more than one level above ours; I guess that's because an imposter could easily be pretending to be one of these religious mythological characters. It has to just be our reality, then God, for some reason.