Is there really a God ?

[Signalcalc]

Music: rhythmic sound vibrations, typically pleasing, though the latter can be subjective.

There's your definition

God?

 

[Nowler]

God: a term used by the vast majority to describe the creator of everything that is. For a minority, it's a philosophical term used which encompasses the spirit of morality and life itself

 

[J Livermore]

Hey mate

Are you aware of the limitations we are faced with when it comes to space travel? Considering how far we can see, and how long it would take us to get to such reaches, that would in fact take far superior technology.

Also, by definition, if you dont come from earth, you are an alien.

Hi Nowler,

I wasn’t trying to start a debate so I’ll share some of my thoughts:


An alien should be determined in the realm of lawyers and not scientists, Otherwise a baby born on the International Space Station could be considered an alien.

Let me give you another hypothetical. Suppose 50 years in the future a British Airways space plane takes off from London for a one hour flight to Tokyo. During that flight a baby could be born while the plane is at its highest point above the Earth. At what altitude would the plane have to be at in order for the baby to be considered an alien? What if the plane’s highest point was below the ISS? What if the plane’s highest trajectory was way beyond the ISS? This is what I mean by lawyers getting involved. A scientist is not going to draw a line and say a baby born 500 kilometers above the Earth is definitely an alien where as 499 kilometers is not.

Getting back to my idea that it could have been humans who came from another world who placed us here here and not “alien” species….. If they cared about us and didn’t want us invaded, they most likely put us in territory owned or at least controlled by them, so that could actually make us citizens of their empire and we would never know it until contact was made. If I remember my history correctly, children born in the 13 colonies were citizens of the British Empire and were not considered aliens.

As far as the technology needed to travel the stars goes, yes, I know we humans probably need a few more centuries for that. Don’t forget, knowledge and technology grow at an exponential rate and not linear. We put a man on the moon a little over 65 years after man’s first flight then our space travel technology growth seemed to die after that due to the cost of money.

I’m a little guilty of bunching growth in knowledge into centuries because I’ve read one too many archeology magazines so I take a long term view of progress.

Hope this clarifies what I ment to say.

 

[Nowler]

Hi Nowler,

I wasn’t trying to start a debate so I’ll share some of my thoughts:


An alien should be determined in the realm of lawyers and not scientists, Otherwise a baby born on the International Space Station could be considered an alien.

Let me give you another hypothetical. Suppose 50 years in the future a British Airways space plane takes off from London for a one hour flight to Tokyo. During that flight a baby could be born while the plane is at its highest point above the Earth. At what altitude would the plane have to be at in order for the baby to be considered an alien? What if the plane’s highest point was below the ISS? What if the plane’s highest trajectory was way beyond the ISS? This is what I mean by lawyers getting involved. A scientist is not going to draw a line and say a baby born 500 kilometers above the Earth is definitely an alien where as 499 kilometers is not.

Getting back to my idea that it could have been humans who came from another world who placed us here here and not “alien” species….. If they cared about us and didn’t want us invaded, they most likely put us in territory owned or at least controlled by them, so that could actually make us citizens of their empire and we would never know it until contact was made. If I remember my history correctly, children born in the 13 colonies were citizens of the British Empire and were not considered aliens.

As far as the technology needed to travel the stars goes, yes, I know we humans probably need a few more centuries for that. Don’t forget, knowledge and technology grow at an exponential rate and not linear. We put a man on the moon a little over 65 years after man’s first flight then our space travel technology growth seemed to die after that due to the cost of money.

I’m a little guilty of bunching growth in knowledge into centuries because I’ve read one too many archeology magazines so I take a long term view of progress.

Hope this clarifies what I ment to say.

Why should the term alien be a legal term?

Someone born on a space station would be a human born in space. And as we know, humans come from earth. You could claim they were an illegal alien were they to try enter a country on earth, though that's an old term used to describe an illegal immigrant.

As I disagree completely with these first 2 aspects of your arguement, it makes no sense continuing with the rest. Your framework is massively flawed

With all due respect, of course

 

[Pat494]

Maybe I would respect the clergy more if they came clean and admitted there is no god. Just the concept of what the perfect being should be. The holy books should be long past retirement date and put into museums. They were cutting edge philosophies centuries ago but almost irrelevant to present day living, in their present form. Things have moved on since The Gospels and Koran.
So there is a vacant space currently for someone to cherry pick the best bits for a new religion/philosophy of life.

 

[J Livermore]

Why should the term alien be a legal term?

Someone born on a space station would be a human born in space. And as we know, humans come from earth.

Hi Nowler,

You said my point well. A human born in space is a human, not an alien. Unless the lawyers get involved.

As far as where we humans came from, nobody knows that. Not you, not I, or anybody else.

 

[J Livermore]

Why should the term alien be a legal term?

Let me try and clarify what I'm trying to say. These posts have gotten pretty lengthy. If lawyers and other legal experts don't try to explain what a biological species is in legal terms then the scientists (or even politicians) could label anyone, including humans, born away from the Earth, an alien. Including humans born on other planets if that were to ever happen. I believe you have suggested the alien label in a previous post. Some people might think of it as a negative statement against humans born on other planets.

I hope my lengthy posts haven't muddied the situation.

 

[wackypete2]

As far as where we humans came from, nobody knows that. Not you, not I, or anybody else.

If no body knows where or how we came to be then why is it so hard to believe in an omnipotent being (GOD) that created the entire universe?

Peter

 

[J Livermore]

If no body knows where or how we came to be then why is it so hard to believe in an omnipotent being (GOD) that created the entire universe?

Peter

Actually I don't know what to believe a lot of the time. I tend to be more of a "show me the proof" type of person. I feel that beliefs are just guessing games when there's no evidence backing them up.

Just remember this: Nobody in this world has a monopoly on truth.

 

[Nowler]

Of course we know where humans came from.
We came from earth.
We came earlier species.

 

[Pat494]

The elite of every society that ever was has tried to manipulate their masses. They do this by passing harsh laws coupled with punishments and appealing to their better natures via religion plus custom.
Looking out into the universe astronomers can see that chaos reigns in most places. Earth may be the only planet with intelligent life. The huge distances between planets has probably proved an effective barrier. It is more likely to be complete luck that earth had just the right situations for advanced ( ? ) life for a while.

 

[Nowler]

What I find difficult to grasp is that the universe is infinite. Every single thing I have seen, smelled, touched and tasted has a beginning, and an end.

My poor brain just cannot fathom it...

With all that makes up the universe, it's got to be contained within something. But then by that logic, even that has to be contained within something... ~brain explodes~

 

[Signalcalc]

God: a term used by the vast majority to describe the creator of everything that is. For a minority, it's a philosophical term used which encompasses the spirit of morality and life itself

But similar to your description of music, it is but a concept a way of being able to describe an artifact in a way that humans can understand, it doesn't describe how music or god work, what it is, you have only described the effects of music, the feelings of God and what it means to those humans that listen and/or believe.

Music - humans create music by the physical movement of molecules of air, those movements are picked up by physical receptors in the ear which cause an electric signal to enter the brain where they are interpreted by the brain and enter your conciousness, but what exactly is your conciousness and how does that work, what makes your consiousness like or dislike the sounds received, what makes it remember, how does it actually work at the quantum level?

God - a concept of an ethereal being, the creator, a description of the same thing provided by many different people and interpreted in an infinite amount of ways by an infinite amount of people. What gives the human a sense of reality about a story told by another human, what actually fixes the idea in your consciousness, in your memory for later retrieval?

I picked these two examples as just as with everything else we believe or sense, no-one has managed to explain how or why it works. What we can say though is that the concept we call the universe most likely doesn't care what the animals we know as humans actually do with any of the information we are able to sense.

 

[Signalcalc]

What I find difficult to grasp is that the universe is infinite. Every single thing I have seen, smelled, touched and tasted has a beginning, and an end.

My poor brain just cannot fathom it...

With all that makes up the universe, it's got to be contained within something. But then by that logic, even that has to be contained within something... ~brain explodes~

There isn't an answer forthcoming, only mathematical models and theories to provide the concept, why any of it exists no-one is able to answer.

 

[Signalcalc]

Of course we know where humans came from.
We came from earth.
We came earlier species.

How are you so certain, what if we came from space and not earth, space dust landing on earth triggering chemical reactions that over billions of years has resulted in where we are today, we believe we can trace DNA back to originating species. Reality is that we are all from space dust/rock/whatever existed prior to earth, we don't even have a proveable concept of the beginning of the universe which is still just a mathematical theory.

 

[Nowler]

How are you so certain, what if we came from space and not earth, space dust landing on earth triggering chemical reactions that over billions of years has resulted in where we are today, we believe we can trace DNA back to originating species. Reality is that we are all from space dust/rock/whatever existed prior to earth, we don't even have a proveable concept of the beginning of the universe which is still just a mathematical theory.

I'm saying humans came from earth. I suppose if I was to be as accurate as I could be, I'd rephrase that to its overwhelmingly likely that humans came from earth. And our ancestors, and theirs... if you go back far enough then life quite possibly had something to with other places in the universe.

 

[J Livermore]

Maybe I would respect the clergy more if they came clean and admitted there is no god. Just the concept of what the perfect being should be. The holy books should be long past retirement date and put into museums. They were cutting edge philosophies centuries ago but almost irrelevant to present day living, in their present form. Things have moved on since The Gospels and Koran.
So there is a vacant space currently for someone to cherry pick the best bits for a new religion/philosophy of life.

Pat,

Just because you can disprove man made religious books doesn’t mean you can disprove a creator. The two are completely separate debate points.

 

[Pat494]

Pat,

Just because you can disprove man made religious books doesn’t mean you can disprove a creator. The two are completely separate debate points.

C'mon it's all a big con ! Direct line to the creator ? Hardly likely.
Some use the Almighty theory as a crutch through life while the elite lay it on the masses to be obedient.
Even the Universe is so chaotic that it would be by chance life gets going anywhere.
Don't want to rain on your beliefs but really...........

 

[Nowler]

C'mon it's all a big con ! Direct line to the creator ? Hardly likely.
Some use the Almighty theory as a crutch through life while the elite lay it on the masses to be obedient.
Even the Universe is so chaotic that it would be by chance life gets going anywhere.
Don't want to rain on your beliefs but really...........

I believe religion is akin to using a spoon to loosen/tighten screws when we have not only screwdrivers, but electric drills.

It's a grossly outdated tool!

 

[wackypete2]

So, IF we came from somewhere else in the universe, cosmic dust, or whatever, how did the universe start? There must be a beginning to all this madness...

Peter