I agree with S. W. Hawking where this is unknown territory, we have a
tendency to being destructive and careless. We must evolve if we wish to
survive, boldly while trying to work out that Achilles heel (arrogance).
Allan I was thinking similarly in part, I am not so sure monotheism is
for everyone though. Where people can devise stories to fit a niche in
nature, then further reconcile from that I think there is much less to
say on God than people might, it may even be sacrilege to do so. In the
sense of attempting authority on the nameless, a belligerent act so to
speak. Agrarian civilization, centralization of authority, and cultural
homogeneity (dare add monotheism) have allowed us to achieve major
advancements but I question that we are approaching or even on track
with a 'destination truth'. It seems we are a hollow shell filled with
culture, but shouldn't it be the other way around?!
I keep looking, but I'm just not seeing that 10% innovation in the
population, there is some serious parasitic drag somewhere in our
equations. Sorry so subjective tonight Al. :)
On 10/26/2012 1:12 PM, Allan H wrote:
The foundations of most of the religions are not that far apart.. it is
the interpretation of them that gets the idea screwed up.. It seems
though that the creator places people that have a better link and can
help straighten the cultures so there is hope as to maintain the same
ideas. so I think that there us a very real possibility that common
ground is available.
poking a nd prodding out of curiosity is to be expected it is called
curiosity.
Allan
Matrix ** th3 beginning light
On Oct 26, 2012 3:18 PM, "Lee Douglas" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Ohhh I don't know Andrew.
As I have said we can of course speculate on all sorts of things
about alien life, but seeing as we can only ever think about from
our particular species POV, I question how useful such speculation
would be. I think the most logical deduction we could make is to
say 'Well I really don't know', and that is indeed my line.
Heh of course having said that and in the spirit of pure
speculation, given that our current understanding of universal
principles, and laws of physics etc.. seem to encompass the totality
of the universe, I do not think it incorrect to draw some
speculative conclusions.
Would alien lifeforms be carbon based as on our planet? I
suspect probably yes, but there are reasons enough to suppose
otherwise also.
Would then non carbon life forms form different morality than carbon
based life forms? Umm well I'm going with 'I don't know' for this
one, as I lack an in depth understanding of neurology.
As a theist who believes in a single creator God though I would have
to agree with Allan.
A large part of my struggle is with the message of God. Trying to
recompense different religions with this single message is hard. I
try to imagine that all religions are valid and look for
the similarities, I rather suspect as I grow I will have to claim
that some are wholly false and man made whilst others are
the direct message from God albeit fucked with by mankind for his
own nefarious ends(Christianity for example). So then the job
becomes separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were.
How would intelligent alien life cope with God's message I wonder,
and would they be in the boat as we? Perhaps they have no idea of a
God at all? Or perhaps they may be the only beings who hold to the
truth? Ahhh once again, I'm forced to say I don't know.
Let us endeavour to understand the other sentient creatures we share
this planet with first, then just maybe we can make better educated
guesses.
Heh yes you can assume from that I am in favour of granting
personhood upon those 'higher order' animals, enshrouded in law.
On Friday, 26 October 2012 10:22:52 UTC+1, andrew vecsey wrote:
I agree. Extra terrestrial visitors to earth would not be
comparable to us. They would have different values and morals.
They would find all life sacred and would respect it, no matter
how depraved or primitive. Perhaps they were the ones who seeded
earth in the first place. They would probably recognize our
weaknesses and would let us either survive to our next stage or
let us destroy ourselves.
On Wednesday, October 24, 2012 1:19:42 PM UTC+2, William L.
Houts William L. Houts Lukaeon William L. Houts wrote:
All right, I just wanted to run this by you guys. I know it
seems I'm
always rattlling on about aliens, but they're really a stand
in for,
well, for a lot of things. Anyway, I've been on Facebook
and recently
made a status report commenting on the conversation we had
going on here
about hypothetical aliens and what they might or might not
want from
us. And I was making the point that I made here: that said
aliens will
turn out to be just as befuddled by it all as we are, and
are probably
in no position to give us the goods on life's mysteries, or
even make a
good cocktail.
Now, my friend Matt, who is very smart but also very bitchy,
put forth
Professor Hawking's notion: that we'd better keep our heads
down low,
because history tells us that when a more technologically
advanced
species meets a less developed one, the results are usually
horrible for
the latter. I replied that yes, this does seem to be the
pattern in
Earth history. But, I went on, races which manage to break the
lightspeed barrier are going to have better things to do
than enslave 7
billion people, or even mistreat them very much. Their
energy problems,
I said more or less, will have been solved to such an extent
that they
won't have to vampirize us. Matt made it clear that he
thought I was
being terrifically naive.
Now, Mat is quickly becoming a sour old queen, but I want to
know: with
whom would you agree? Or is there a third answer which I
haven't
proposed here?
--Bill
--
"I just flew in from the Land of the Dead
and boy are my arms tired."
--
--
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