General Religious discussion

[mtlhddoc2]

I would not say that dark matter is a common belief, just a vocal one. I am highly skeptical on the who dark matter thing. I rather doubt it exists. More than likely, their "unexplained" gravity is just an object they cannot see, such as a black hole or something. Scientists love to fill holes with things like that. When there is no viewable explanation, they just make one up.

As far as other life proving or disproving God: I dont think it applies and would not do either. Finding other life would not change how I view it, and shouldnt make a difference how you view it either, since your religious tomes were intended for an audience on THIS planet only.

[Eerongal]

I would not say that dark matter is a common belief, just a vocal one. I am highly skeptical on the who dark matter thing. I rather doubt it exists. More than likely, their "unexplained" gravity is just an object they cannot see, such as a black hole or something. Scientists love to fill holes with things like that. When there is no viewable explanation, they just make one up.

As far as other life proving or disproving God: I dont think it applies and would not do either. Finding other life would not change how I view it, and shouldnt make a difference how you view it either, since your religious tomes were intended for an audience on THIS planet only.

well, see, that's the thing, i don't see *WHY* some people get so adamant about how finding/not finding life is going to radically change religious perspective. That's what I was hoping someone could put into perspective and explain, it's just something i head occasionally and makes no sense to me...

[Reaves]

also, while we're in the general ballpark of the subject, can someone explain something to me? And i mean this seriously, as I've never understood any side of this debate.

I've heard alot of people from both sides of the camps (highly/non-religious) argue that life can/can't exist in the rest of the universe, because it would disprove/prove god.

I've heard highly religious people argue that there CAN'T be other life in the universe because god didn't create other life, and I've heard highly atheist types claim that finding life in the universe would disprove god, and I don't understand how either of these beliefs come off saying either as fact.

If other life were discovered, how does this disprove the existance of god? All this proves is that life probably springs from a natural process. This would mean, most likely, that many precepts of religion are incorrect, such as god creating man in his image, etc. but this doesn't god is disproven. Maybe s/he defined the process that creates life (as well as all processes in the universe). All this would do is make us less special insofar as to how religion relates humans to their deity.

Real quick can you go a bit more in-depth on that with me? How do you come to that conclusion? As we know in logic...
According to the Bible, All S is P, where S is man and P is those life forms created in God's image. The corollary is that Some P is S. How does discovering life on other planets say anything about man being created in God's image?

[Peter Ahlstrom]

I guess you'll just have to ask somewhere else then, Eerongal, since no one here seems to think that or has heard a good explanation for it.

[Patriotic Kaz]

Dark matter/ energy is an accepted fact it produces varying sources of radioation but not visible light a black hole is made up of dark energy... we can detect all sorts of readings from it we just can't see it...you can't see the wind either...

[Eerongal]

also, while we're in the general ballpark of the subject, can someone explain something to me? And i mean this seriously, as I've never understood any side of this debate.

I've heard alot of people from both sides of the camps (highly/non-religious) argue that life can/can't exist in the rest of the universe, because it would disprove/prove god.

I've heard highly religious people argue that there CAN'T be other life in the universe because god didn't create other life, and I've heard highly atheist types claim that finding life in the universe would disprove god, and I don't understand how either of these beliefs come off saying either as fact.

If other life were discovered, how does this disprove the existance of god? All this proves is that life probably springs from a natural process. This would mean, most likely, that many precepts of religion are incorrect, such as god creating man in his image, etc. but this doesn't god is disproven. Maybe s/he defined the process that creates life (as well as all processes in the universe). All this would do is make us less special insofar as to how religion relates humans to their deity.

Real quick can you go a bit more in-depth on that with me? How do you come to that conclusion? As we know in logic...
According to the Bible, All S is P, where S is man and P is those life forms created in God's image. The corollary is that Some P is S. How does discovering life on other planets say anything about man being created in God's image?

my reasoning for this conclusion is that if we find more intelligent life in the universe, that doesn't look like us (if it looks like us,or at least vaguely like us, it makes this reasoning moot) then it takes everything that was supposed to be special about us (mainly, our intelligence) and makes it less specific to just us, meaning that how would we know that we were created in god's image, and not just a random assortment of parts and looks?

(For example, we find a 5-tentacled blob monster thing that intelligent, and believes THEY were created in god's image, there's no proving them or us right, and most likely means we weren't created in anyones image, at least to me.)

That's just the way i see it, but YMMV.

Now, maybe I'm just grossly misinterpretting the whole "Created in his image" thing, but as far as I'm aware, god isn't depicted as looking like every creature so that everything is created in his image, so when I hear "Created in his image" that says to me that god's image looks human.

[SarahG]

Most Christians believe that the "image of God" concept refers to something other than physical appearance.  Some opinions of what it is include intelligence, speech, and moral understanding.  My preferred interpretation is that mankind represents God on earth, and as such we are responsible to carry out God's will in relation to the rest of creation.  The basis for this understanding is the word "image" being like a statue of an emperor in a distant province, reminding people of the emperor's power; or of the emperor's face being depicted on a coin or a seal, authorizing certain acts in his name.

In any case, there are many ways to read "image of God", but I don't know of anyone who argues that the Bible is trying to say God actually looks like a human in a corporeal sense.

[Reaves]

Ok, now I see where you are coming from. I think it is very easy to interpret that verse in many different ways. For example, I always took that verse to mean that we have a soul. I don't think God's image refers to physical characteristics. If it did, then one could look at a person physically deformed from birth and say that he or she was not created in God's image.

I suppose white Christian Europeans might have thought something similar when they first encountered non-white indigenous peoples on other continents: "They don't look anything like us, how can they be created in God's image??!!"

I'm with Sarah on this one: as God's image-bearers we do represent him. There are a lot of subtle meanings that go into the concept of "image of God."

[Eerongal]

Ok, now I see where you are coming from. I think it is very easy to interpret that verse in many different ways. For example, I always took that verse to mean that we have a soul. I don't think God's image refers to physical characteristics. If it did, then one could look at a person physically deformed from birth and say that he or she was not created in God's image.

I suppose white Christian Europeans might have thought something similar when they first encountered non-white indigenous peoples on other continents: "They don't look anything like us, how can they be created in God's image??!!"

I'm with Sarah on this one: as God's image-bearers we do represent him. There are a lot of subtle meanings that go into the concept of "image of God."

yeah, i understand where those ideas are coming from, but i was just using it as an example of the only thing that I could really think that finding intelligent alien life would be "proving wrong". And that's only when intepretted in one specific way, so even then, it's barely even impacting anything

Edit:

I suppose to clarify, I'm looking for how/where in the bible it says "Hey, future people, if you find aliens, forget all this, because it's totally wrong then", because as far as I'm aware, this has like no bearing on pretty much any part of modern religious beliefs.

[mtlhddoc2]

Kaz: "dark matter" is still considered a hypothesis, not a "fact"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

[The Jade Knight]

I would not say that dark matter is a common belief, just a vocal one. I am highly skeptical on the who dark matter thing. I rather doubt it exists. More than likely, their "unexplained" gravity is just an object they cannot see, such as a black hole or something. Scientists love to fill holes with things like that. When there is no viewable explanation, they just make one up.

As far as other life proving or disproving God: I dont think it applies and would not do either. Finding other life would not change how I view it, and shouldnt make a difference how you view it either, since your religious tomes were intended for an audience on THIS planet only.

It's becoming quite evident that you disbelieve a great many things, Mtlhddoc2.  Have you read Nietzsche?  I think you would really appreciate him.

[Renoard]

I prefer Plato and Pascal myself.

[The Jade Knight]

I enjoy Nietzsche, but this is partly because I really like what Heidegger did with him.

[Renoard]

In the words on Monty Python, "Heidegger, Heidegger . . ."

[mtlhddoc2]

I would not say that dark matter is a common belief, just a vocal one. I am highly skeptical on the who dark matter thing. I rather doubt it exists. More than likely, their "unexplained" gravity is just an object they cannot see, such as a black hole or something. Scientists love to fill holes with things like that. When there is no viewable explanation, they just make one up.

As far as other life proving or disproving God: I dont think it applies and would not do either. Finding other life would not change how I view it, and shouldnt make a difference how you view it either, since your religious tomes were intended for an audience on THIS planet only.

It's becoming quite evident that you disbelieve a great many things, Mtlhddoc2.  Have you read Nietzsche?  I think you would really appreciate him.

non-belief is not the same as disbelief. I believe in things that can be proven, not things that cannot. If you prove to me that this invisible matter that emits no radiation that we can detect, nor does it impede travel of planetary bodies. So it has no mass, apparently either. Prove it, and I will believe it. Same goes with the invisible man in the sky. Prove it and I wil believe it.