Other Forms of Life (Evolution)

by BBella , Thursday, December 04, 2008, 23:02 (5831 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Thursday, December 04, 2008, 23:08

I was surprised to see my reply to this post not posted, I may have taken too long to write it, or some other glitch in the system may have happened, nevertheless, I did write a reply before I left on our holiday trip last week but it did not post, so I will try and remember what I wrote and repost. - >We are prepared endlessly to discuss the nature of an invisible, omnipotent being to which we attribute innumerable, idealized characteristics, and yet whose very existence is doubtful. But the moment people talk of other forms of life (e.g. extra-terrestrials, ghosts), they are often dismissed as cranks, sometimes even by those who believe in God. I would like to thank you for raising the subject, and to add a few thoughts of my own, with a view to opening up the discussion. (I'm changing the thread title, as "Catastrophes" no longer seems appropriate.) - Thank you dhw for your thoughts on this subject and your willingness to 'go there.' It is much appreciated and even makes more sense to me than to discuss a subject that can only lead in circles without end.
> 
> 1) Clearly the existence of such beings won't help us solve the problem of origins. Instead of asking how we got here, we would have to ask how they got here. But the same question can be asked of God's origin, and in any case the forum is not confined to discussing origins.
> - It may not help solve the problem of origins to discuss these other life forms (altho who knows, it might), yet it may solve many other questions we may wonder about and even possibly shed light on why we find it necessary to spend endless hours discussing an unseen God in which there cannot be any proof whatsoever. Even the scriptures claim God cannot be seen and a man live to tell about it. - > 
> 4) What evidence is there of such forms? None of us can possibly read all books on all subjects. Some experts have devoted themselves to studying the possibilities, and if they disagree, then they are in the same boat as the pro-God, anti-God lobbies, and we should at least consider what evidence they have to offer. (The same applies to the possibility of an afterlife.) - I agree, evidence for these other life forms as well as an afterlife should be discussed everywhere all the time as much as possible (and of course it is being discussed always), mainly because I believe it needs to move out of the taboo level and onto a more acceptable level of discussion in higher places. - But, I do not think the lobbies would be in the same boat as you say above. Pro/anti God lobbies have much less to work with than pro/anti other life form lobbies. Yet because the status of the God lobbies have moved up to acceptable discussion, even to the point of having religious universities, the 'other life form' lobbies have remained in the bottom level as a taboo or hallucination stage with us bottom feeders (lol). I believe because the discussion of an unseen God is within an acceptable level and has been discussed to death, we have become more enlightened as a society as a whole. The reason being, many of us who were brought up in this mystical realm of religion have finally found our way out because of it's acceptable place in society. I believe in time, when these 'other life forms' subjects are no longer taboo, and have found acceptance and true investigation is given it, on many levels, we will then move up and even move on in our enlightenment past these things as well. As long as it stays taboo and unacceptable we are ignoring the very nose on our own faces. 
 - > 5) Who knows what technology we might have developed in, say, ten thousand years ... if we are still around? Space exploration and colonization must be a distinct possibility. If we accept that as a hypothesis, why not go back ten thousand years and imagine a planet like ours, from which beings have set forth to explore us? Maybe even colonize us? - And even another possibility, these other life forms could have been the so-called 'god' the prophets of old saw and heard and wrote about, mistakenly believing they were the all powerful unseen God we worship and still discuss endlessly to this day. - > 
> what is the difference between debating God and debating other forms of life? - Maybe the difference is, one is discussing something that cannot be seen or proven yet is completely accepted in our society, and allows us to stand firmly for or against it, altho completely unknown, and we can also fight and kill endlessly for it, feeling completely justified, so this subject of an unseen God can find no end and no rest and so we can remain at a wall no one can penetrate and nothing can move or prove us wrong for standing there. The other is a discussion of something that, all tho not fully known or understood yet, possibly can be...who knows until we truly bring the subject out of the closet?