C'mon, man. When you look at your desk...there is no evidence that there is life on any planet circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol. What makes you suppose that is evidence that there are no sentient beings on any of those planets? — Frank Apisa

Life on other planets isn't supposed to be omnipresent, is it?

God is supposed to be.

If we're talking about a non-omnipresent God, I'll point out the lack of evidence of it in the locations where we're supposed to find it.

Also, scientists are in the process of finding actual, physical proof of alien life: https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/nasa1.html

Where's your God meteorite?

NKBJ
704

What you "assume"...you assume. I have NOT said anything about that. I, like most people, assume all sorts of things.

But what you assume about sentient beings on any planet circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...has absolutely NOTHING to do with whether any sentient beings live on any of those planets.

So why did you mention it? — Frank Apisa


Your post doesn't really make sense....but I'll try to wean as much out of it as I can.

I assume there is life on other planets because there is plenty of reason to believe there is. For example, life evolved on this planet, so clearly it's possible for it to happen. You multiply that possibility by the number of inhabitable planets and you get a pretty decent likelihood.

You have no precendent for the existence of gods. Not one. There's not a single reason or piece of evidence to believe they might exist. — NKBJ

YOU telling me how to make sense...is like Chris Christie telling me how to stay thin, N.

In any case...the nonsense you posted above does not impact on my question...which talks about the planets circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...not the universe.

By the way...to the best of our knowledge...no life exists except on planet Earth...not even in our system...which has billions of bodies circling the sun.

Wean that!

By the way...to the best of our knowledge...no life exists except on planet Earth...not even in our system...which has billions of bodies circling the sun. — Frank Apisa

See my above link.

YOU telling me how to make sense...is like Chris Christie telling me how to stay thin, N. — Frank Apisa

If you're gonna start getting snarky and insulting with me, I'm also gonna go on my merry way.

Terrapin Station
8.2k

C'mon, man. When you look at your desk...there is no evidence that there is life on any planet circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol. What makes you suppose that is evidence that there are no sentient beings on any of those planets? — Frank Apisa


Life on other planets isn't supposed to be omnipresent, is it?

God is supposed to be.

If we're talking about a non-omnipresent God, I'm point out the lack of evidence of it in the locations where we're supposed to find it. — Terrapin Station

I am not talking about anyone named God. If you are saying that certain gods do not exist...SAY THAT!

If you are arguing that no gods exist...fine.

I do not mind you sharing your blind guesses about the REALITY.

In fact, I thank you for them.

I am not talking about anyone named God. — Frank Apisa

I said "it." Are you not talking about anything named God?

NKBJ
706

By the way...to the best of our knowledge...no life exists except on planet Earth...not even in our system...which has billions of bodies circling the sun. — Frank Apisa


See my above link. — NKBJ

Okay...they are in the process. When they answer my question about sentient life on any of the planets circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...get back to me.

YOU telling me how to make sense...is like Chris Christie telling me how to stay thin, N. — Frank Apisa


If you're gonna start getting snarky and insulting with me, I'm also gonna go on my merry way.

Then either stop the nonsense about me not making sense...or be on your way. Because if you show me a lack of respect...I WILL return the favor.

Terrapin Station
8.2k

I am not talking about anyone named God. — Frank Apisa


I said "it." Are you not talking about anything named God? — Terrapin Station

You said, "God is supposed to be."

I am not talking about anyone...or anything...named God.

If you are saying that no gods exist...

...I still thank you for sharing your blind guess about that.

In fact, I wonder if you are correct or not.

If you're not talking about anything named God then what the hell are we even talking about?

"Let's start a thread using this word, but then say that we're not talking about anything using this word." How stupid is that?

Then either stop the nonsense about me not making sense...or be on your way. Because if you show me a lack of respect...I WILL return the favor. — Frank Apisa

I said your post wasn't making sense. I didn't attack you as a person.

Okay...they are in the process. When they answer my question about sentient life on any of the planets circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...get back to me. — Frank Apisa

They still have a meteorite and soil samples and the existence of all of life on earth and you got nothin. So the ball is still in your court: where is a single shred of anything that makes God even a tiny bit more likely than Russell's teapot?

In any case...the nonsense you posted above does not impact on my question...which talks about the planets circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...not the universe.

By the way...to the best of our knowledge...no life exists except on planet Earth...not even in our system...which has billions of bodies circling the sun. — Frank Apisa

Even in our best instruments, large eco-planets appear as mere specks, so there is no way we are going to be able to detect life on them.

Earth is the only thing big enough to support an atmosphere within the the habitable zone so you would not expect life in the rest of the solar system.

What if we are actually code running in a simulation, and the simulation (being run by a military entity) has as its objective to assess the effectiveness of a demoralization of the enemy, where in the real reality the people being targeted are majoritarily atheists, and the simulation is there to demonstrate numerically that if the enemy were to be made to believe in gods, they would become more sectarian and less capable fighters?

Then it would be our duty to denounce this simulation, and its objectives, out of solidarity towards our real flesh selves.

In other words, if we are in a simulation trying to assess how weak we are when believing in god, we should disbelieve and resist.

What if we are being nurtured by divine beings into becoming better people than we are, but in order to avoid gamification of the educational system, our true nature (the spirit) was hidden from us with lies and deception, so that we strived to be better persons primarily out of strength of character and secondarily out of education, but only marginally out of religion?

Then it would be our duty to follow the deception, and its objectives, out of solidarity towards our real spiritual selves.

In other words, if we are in the material world of a spiritual reality trying to learn morality, we should study and accept.

What if we are consciousness deluding itself that anything exists, and the illusion (made of more or less spiritual parts) has as objective creating reality indefinitely, as an endless social dream?

Then it would be our duty to improve the world in all senses, out of self interest: we are going to be stuck here forever.

In other words, if reality is make-believe, we should play as seriously as possible.

Terrapin Station
8.2k
↪Frank Apisa


If you're not talking about anything named God then what the hell are we even talking about?

"Let's start a thread using this word, but then say that we're not talking about anything using this word." How stupid is that? — Terrapin Station

I do not know. You tell me about stupid.

In any case...I am not talking about any particular god. You apparently are, since you refer to this "something" named God.

I ask again: Are you asserting that no gods exist...or that it is more likely that no gods exist than that at least one does?

NKBJ
707

Then either stop the nonsense about me not making sense...or be on your way. Because if you show me a lack of respect...I WILL return the favor. — Frank Apisa


I said your post wasn't making sense. I didn't attack you as a person.

Okay...they are in the process. When they answer my question about sentient life on any of the planets circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...get back to me. — Frank Apisa


They still have a meteorite and soil samples and the existence of all of life on earth and you got nothin. So the ball is still in your court: where is a single shred of anything that makes God even a tiny bit more likely than Russell's teapot? — NKBJ

Are you actually asking me to support that?????????????????

Here is my position, which I have posted a dozen times at least:

I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...

...so I don't.

Now...if you are asking me to defend that, I will do my best.

Devans99
1.1k

In any case...the nonsense you posted above does not impact on my question...which talks about the planets circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...not the universe.

By the way...to the best of our knowledge...no life exists except on planet Earth...not even in our system...which has billions of bodies circling the sun. — Frank Apisa


Even in our best instruments, large eco-planets appear as mere specks, so there is no way we are going to be able to detect life on them.

Earth is the only thing big enough to support an atmosphere within the the habitable zone so you would not expect life in the rest of the solar system. — Devans99

What is the point of your post?

If you are saying that the only logical response to the question is: I do not know....

...great. We are I agreement.

I feel this same way about the god thing.

How about you?

Sounds right on the button to me.

Speculation...supposition...and opinions about the implications of the speculations and suppositions.

Excellent post.

Yes, except that I said the truth is that nobody KNOWS if God does or does not exist, which is entirely different from BELIEVING something or having a belief. You can believe that God does or does not exist, but that is the extent of what anyone is doing when they are part of a theistic religion or when they are an atheist, unless they are still willing to acknowledge in spite of this that they do not KNOW if God exists.

As for agnosticism-- there are people who are atheists, and people who are theists but who also accept that God might exist or might not exist even in spite of their own belief. In any case, THIS is different than being an agnostic, which is someone who has no opinion either way but pretty much takes a neutral stance regarding whether or not God exists. Meanwhile, there are also some atheists who believe that God does not exist, no questions asked, and some theists who believe that God does exist, no questions asked, in addition to those who accept that they don't know either way.

I feel it is likely that there is life in nearby systems.

'The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years; the earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates from at least 3.5 billion years ago. There is evidence that life began much earlier.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_known_life_forms

So evolution did not take long to get up and running here. I'd expect similar results on similar planets elsewhere.

If you're not talking about anything named God then what the hell are we even talking about?

"Let's start a thread using this word, but then say that we're not talking about anything using this word." How stupid is that? — Terrapin Station

On the ball, as ever. Makes you wonder whether he actually read the opening post properly. Seems a tad inconsiderate to turn up to a discussion, disregard the wording of the opening post, then just try to push your own single-minded agenda, as you do repeatedly in multiple other discussions on the topic.

Also, he seems like another one of those single-issue philosophy types. I find them weird. Broaden out. There's way more to philosophy than this one single issue.

You are confusing being agnostic with being an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. The difference is that someone who is purely agnostic tends to take a neutral stand regarding whether or not God exists, because they do not want to take either side of the argument when they don't know either way. Meanwhile, an agnostic atheist does not believe that God exists, although they are still willing to acknowledge that God might exist, and an agnostic theist believes that God does exist, but is still willing to acknowledge that God might not exist. In any case, having any belief about God's existence is completely different than choosing to have no belief since you don't know the truth, although in both cases it still stands that no one knows whether or not God exists. Even in the case of gnostics who believe that God either does or does not exist, no questions asked, they still do not know if God does or does not exist, it's just that they are not willing to admit this on any level.

Devans99
1.2k
↪Frank Apisa
I feel it is likely that there is life in nearby systems.

'The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years; the earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates from at least 3.5 billion years ago. There is evidence that life began much earlier.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_known_life_forms

So evolution did not take long to get up and running here. I'd expect similar results on similar planets elsewhere. — Devans99

IS THERE SENTIENT LIFE ON ANY PLANET CIRCLING THE NEAREST 25 STARS TO SOL?

Any answer except, "I do not know"...is absolute nonsense.

Your bar movement from "nearest 25 stars to Sol"...to "nearby systems"...and changing "sentient life" to "life" is beneath someone of your intelligence, Devans.

— S

If you have something to say to me...try to grow the balls to actually say it to me.

We would never know if there was sentient life in a nearby system - they are just too distant for us to be able to pick up artificial EMR.

We have a sample size of one solar system that says solar systems come with sentient life. It's dangerous to rely on a small sample size I know, but that is all the information we have.

So I feel a gambling man, if he had to make a bet, would bet on aliens.

I would not say that I don't know if there is a refrigerator in my kitchen, because I do know this. If I go into the kitchen and I see a refrigerator, then I know that there is one there, but if I go in the kitchen and do not see a refrigerator, then I know that there is not one there. Moreover, if you can in hindsight present me with a name or a description of any person, object, or item and inquire if I know if the person/item/object is in any given location, then in theory I can and should be able to determine if the person/item/object is in your suggested location by looking in your supposed location and seeing if it is or is not there. If it is not possible to do this, then I would indeed be willing to admit that I do not know if the person/item/object is in the location that you suggested since it isn't possible to determine this. If the scenario that I described were to be applied to God, then I suppose the premise would be that you have an indiscriminate location and want to determine if God is in the indiscriminate location, which I don't know because I can't go to the indiscriminate location and see if God is or is not there. If the indiscriminate location was "Heaven," I can't go to "Heaven" and see if God is there or not, so I would admit that I do not know whether God is there or not.

Devans99
1.2k
↪Frank Apisa
We would never know if there was sentient life in a nearby system - they are just too distant for us to be able to pick up artificial EMR.

We have a sample size of one solar system that says solar systems come with sentient life. It's dangerous to rely on a small sample size I know, but that is all the information we have.

So I feel a gambling man, if he had to make a bet, would bet on aliens. — Devans99

Okay...so you agree..."I do not know" is the answer.

Why can you not just say that?

Do you feel you would be making an unwarranted concession to me...or what?

I'm not going to discuss the "little" bit of information showing there might be a god but that being said people need to understand that when discussing a concept or perhaps working on a project or system for a business you might work for, when you miss a few critical data points or pieces of information (its easy for anybody to do) that can drastically change the outcome of the system you are designing or the conclusion you come to. This is a common theme in programming and mathematics and i would argue any field of study.

I didn't have something to say to you, I had something to say about you. You're so predictable that I already know to a degree of exactitude how you'll respond, so it seemed kind of pointless directing it to you. You could probably be replaced by a bot and it wouldn't make much of a noticeable difference.

Okay...so you agree..."I do not know" is the answer — Frank Apisa

No: I think the answer is that there probably are aliens.

Probability is how we judge the merit of inductive truth, how we differentiate between weak and strong inductive truth. This is a more refined approach than guessing (but if you take a guess, probably your subconscious uses statistics anyway so there is no escaping probability).

S
9k
↪Frank Apisa
I didn't have something to say to you, I had something to say about you. You're so predictable that I already know to a degree of exactitude how you'll respond, so it seemed kind of pointless directing it to you. — S

Oh, my...you know exactly how I'd respond...and you did not want that response.

Grow some balls.

If someone can point to "God" and I can see him/her, I am willing to entertain believing again.