Round 6 Elections: Let's hear your thoughts...

Terry Martinez10 said:If I were ever forced to choose between putting my faith in God and Jesus versus believing in aliens, I’d go with the former without a second thought, really. Because if there’s any truth to the whole alien theory, then we’re essentially just sheep in a pasture, waiting around until it’s finally harvest time.

But the real kicker here is the word
- choose

👍

Amanda Jackson5 said:But why assume we're just livestock if someone like Jesus is actually involved in our story? Besides, if you encounter a civilization advanced enough, the line between high technology and divinity becomes almost impossible to draw. It’s possible that existence itself eventually converges toward a single point where those two things become one and the same.
Another thing worth considering is that if Jesus were to walk among us today, nobody would even realize who he was, let alone believe him. The same logic applies to alien civilizations—it might have even happened quite recently:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...gets-trickier/

So, what's the deal with Oumuamua? Why'd they pick that name anyway?

Amy Bennett said:Besides, if there were aliens capable of crossing those impossible interstellar gaps, they would have already crossed them and arrived here. Since they haven't? Well, bye-bye, aliens.

In my view, aliens are largely a byproduct of how we've secularized the spiritual realm. We tend to take profound spiritual experiences and filter them through a materialistic lens, interpreting them as contact with foreign technological beings.

Wait, what do you mean by "already"? Why couldn't it have happened a million years ago, or maybe a million years from now?

Just think about it—what if WE were the ones to bridge those gaps? Say, around the year 2400 or something. Wouldn't someone far away from here, living back in the year 2300, look at us and say, "If aliens existed, they'd already be here"?

Amanda Jackson5 said:I don't see it either.

I’m honestly struggling to see why everyone is so convinced this isn't safe. It’s entirely possible that any plausible aliens out there aren't looking for a physical takeover, but rather a spiritual one. For some reason, capturing our souls might be far more valuable to them than just seizing territory. They could be aiming for a kind of cosmic evangelization to "save" us, or who knows—I can probably come up with a dozen different scenarios along those lines. To borrow a thought from Unamun, maybe their goal isn't actually to defeat us, but simply to convince us. Or, if you want to get really weird about it, maybe they’re just massive fans of humanity. We might actually be the cult classic civilization of the universe. Even Jesus might have been an alien for all we know; wasn't that basically Däniken's whole argument?

Fair enough, though I might have missed your point regarding "deception." It sounded a bit like you were suggesting we need to be wise 🧐 so that superior aliens won't trick us, or something along those lines. I’d argue we probably wouldn't be capable of being wise enough in that scenario; if those superior beings actually wanted to deceive us, they would succeed. Even in your line of thinking, maybe Hegel was an alien. 🤣

Amanda Jackson5 said:But why assume we're just livestock if someone like Jesus is actually involved in our story? Besides, if you encounter a civilization advanced enough, the line between high technology and divinity becomes almost impossible to draw. It’s possible that existence itself eventually converges toward a single point where those two things become one and the same.
Another thing worth considering is that if Jesus were to walk among us today, nobody would even realize who he was, let alone believe him. The same logic applies to alien civilizations—it might have even happened quite recently:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...gets-trickier/

No matter how sophisticated a civilization becomes, it can't truly be God, because even they have limitations, whereas God is limitless.
Oumuamua was spotted far too late... basically as it was already leaving. And sure, it’s possible it was some leftover tech from a distant civilization, but isn't it more likely to be just a natural phenomenon?
The real distinction, if you ask me, lies in the intent; God is a benevolent Father, someone with harmless intentions, whereas if we happen to be the product of some alien civilization, wouldn't they eventually expect a return on their investment, or some kind of payoff for their creation?
There is a massive difference between simply being aware of another civilization existing out there and actually being the direct biological byproduct of those aliens.

I honestly couldn't care less about potential aliens, because if you ask me, we should be much more worried about us humans

Amanda Flores88 said:So, what's the deal with Oumuamua? Why'd they pick that name anyway?

It basically translates to "scout" in Hawaiian.

steelridge58 said:I honestly couldn't care less about potential aliens, because if you ask me, we should be much more worried about us humans

But why is that? 😍

Everything being said here just feels incredibly narrow-minded, uncritical, and frankly, a bit unimaginative:

Terry Martinez10 said:No matter how sophisticated a civilization becomes, it can't truly be God, because even they have limitations, whereas God is limitless.
Oumuamua was spotted far too late... basically as it was already leaving. And sure, it’s possible it was some leftover tech from a distant civilization, but isn't it more likely to be just a natural phenomenon?
The real distinction, if you ask me, lies in the intent; God is a benevolent Father, someone with harmless intentions, whereas if we happen to be the product of some alien civilization, wouldn't they eventually expect a return on their investment, or some kind of payoff for their creation?
There is a massive difference between simply being aware of another civilization existing out there and actually being the direct biological byproduct of those aliens.

Without getting bogged down in how we define God, you have to wonder why an advanced enough civilization couldn't reach a state where they effectively have no boundaries—whatever that implies, whether physically or spiritually. If you believe in the idea of quantity eventually transforming into quality, anything is on the table. I don't see any theoretical reason why some form of consciousness couldn't evolve to a point where you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between it and a god. In fact, I’d argue that any form of self-awareness naturally strives toward that. It might have even happened somewhere else in the universe already, maybe even more than once. And perhaps that first instance of "godhood" actually prevents others from happening, much like how the emergence of life on Earth changed everything else...

Terry Martinez10 said:No matter how sophisticated a civilization becomes, it can't truly be God, because even they have limitations, whereas God is limitless.
Oumuamua was spotted far too late... basically as it was already leaving. And sure, it’s possible it was some leftover tech from a distant civilization, but isn't it more likely to be just a natural phenomenon?
The real distinction, if you ask me, lies in the intent; God is a benevolent Father, someone with harmless intentions, whereas if we happen to be the product of some alien civilization, wouldn't they eventually expect a return on their investment, or some kind of payoff for their creation?
There is a massive difference between simply being aware of another civilization existing out there and actually being the direct biological byproduct of those aliens.

Nobody has sat down to run the actual probabilities here, but even looking at the linked article, it's clear that object behaved strangely in ways science hasn't quite pinned down yet. To be honest, there are some explanations out there that are far weirder than the idea of an alien origin.

Terry Martinez10 said:No matter how sophisticated a civilization becomes, it can't truly be God, because even they have limitations, whereas God is limitless.
Oumuamua was spotted far too late... basically as it was already leaving. And sure, it’s possible it was some leftover tech from a distant civilization, but isn't it more likely to be just a natural phenomenon?
The real distinction, if you ask me, lies in the intent; God is a benevolent Father, someone with harmless intentions, whereas if we happen to be the product of some alien civilization, wouldn't they eventually expect a return on their investment, or some kind of payoff for their creation?
There is a massive difference between simply being aware of another civilization existing out there and actually being the direct biological byproduct of those aliens.

First off, when you look at God through a philosophical lens rather than a religious or emotional one, you're essentially talking about a theoretical construct. We can plug just about any attribute we want into that construct, provided the final result remains logically coherent. You could even imagine one that is logically incoherent, but then you lose the ability to make any meaningful arguments regarding its traits.
Second, we have absolutely no way of knowing what a hypothetical alien civilization might want from us or what their motives would even be.
So, at the end of the day, both God and aliens are just hypotheses, and whatever traits we assign to them are really nothing more than our own human projections.

Amanda Jackson5 said:Everything being said here just feels incredibly narrow-minded, uncritical, and frankly, a bit unimaginative:

Without getting bogged down in how we define God, you have to wonder why an advanced enough civilization couldn't reach a state where they effectively have no boundaries—whatever that implies, whether physically or spiritually. If you believe in the idea of quantity eventually transforming into quality, anything is on the table. I don't see any theoretical reason why some form of consciousness couldn't evolve to a point where you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between it and a god. In fact, I’d argue that any form of self-awareness naturally strives toward that. It might have even happened somewhere else in the universe already, maybe even more than once. And perhaps that first instance of "godhood" actually prevents others from happening, much like how the emergence of life on Earth changed everything else...

Nobody has sat down to run the actual probabilities here, but even looking at the linked article, it's clear that object behaved strangely in ways science hasn't quite pinned down yet. To be honest, there are some explanations out there that are far weirder than the idea of an alien origin.

First off, when you look at God through a philosophical lens rather than a religious or emotional one, you're essentially talking about a theoretical construct. We can plug just about any attribute we want into that construct, provided the final result remains logically coherent. You could even imagine one that is logically incoherent, but then you lose the ability to make any meaningful arguments regarding its traits.
Second, we have absolutely no way of knowing what a hypothetical alien civilization might want from us or what their motives would even be.
So, at the end of the day, both God and aliens are just hypotheses, and whatever traits we assign to them are really nothing more than our own human projections.

Why shouldn't we start with the most straightforward assumption derived from our own history? What has any advanced civilization ever taken from a newly discovered, inferior one?
They simply took whatever they wanted.
Resources were seized, and the local population was exploited or even wiped out if they stood in the way of resource extraction.
In an interplanetary context, the primary resource is the planet itself. They certainly wouldn't travel all this way just for gold, oil, or diamonds. It’s much more likely that their own world became overpopulated, uninhabitable, or otherwise depleted, driving them toward ours. If they arrive in waves, perhaps there won't be an immediate "extermination"; maybe they'll just treat us like we treat animals in a zoo.
Alternatively, if their motive is pure curiosity, it is highly probable that any "scouting" would be conducted without alerting the local population, as I suspect we would act in much the same way in some distant future.

Amanda Jackson5 said:Everything being said here just feels incredibly narrow-minded, uncritical, and frankly, a bit unimaginative:

Without getting bogged down in how we define God, you have to wonder why an advanced enough civilization couldn't reach a state where they effectively have no boundaries—whatever that implies, whether physically or spiritually. If you believe in the idea of quantity eventually transforming into quality, anything is on the table. I don't see any theoretical reason why some form of consciousness couldn't evolve to a point where you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between it and a god. In fact, I’d argue that any form of self-awareness naturally strives toward that. It might have even happened somewhere else in the universe already, maybe even more than once. And perhaps that first instance of "godhood" actually prevents others from happening, much like how the emergence of life on Earth changed everything else...

Nobody has sat down to run the actual probabilities here, but even looking at the linked article, it's clear that object behaved strangely in ways science hasn't quite pinned down yet. To be honest, there are some explanations out there that are far weirder than the idea of an alien origin.

First off, when you look at God through a philosophical lens rather than a religious or emotional one, you're essentially talking about a theoretical construct. We can plug just about any attribute we want into that construct, provided the final result remains logically coherent. You could even imagine one that is logically incoherent, but then you lose the ability to make any meaningful arguments regarding its traits.
Second, we have absolutely no way of knowing what a hypothetical alien civilization might want from us or what their motives would even be.
So, at the end of the day, both God and aliens are just hypotheses, and whatever traits we assign to them are really nothing more than our own human projections.

Given that's the case, I'm really not sure why I should even bother attempting a response when it's painfully obvious that I'm operating on a level far beneath her expectations....

What truly keeps me up at night is the growing possibility—and it’s looking more plausible with every passing year—that humans aren't actually at the top of the food chain. I suspect there might be species, likely invisible to the naked eye, that subsist on our emotional energy.
In this scenario, they would essentially trigger the very manipulations we see playing out in society every day, even if we can't identify the true source.
Most of these entities would likely feed on negative frequencies, specifically fear and anger.
It’s as if we were biologically hardwired to exist in a state of perpetual anxiety. We start with a primal fear of death, and from there, we spend the rest of our lives constructing a million different, highly imaginative phobias that build upon that initial dread. It creates a feedback loop where we constantly generate new anxieties, effectively fueling ourselves indefinitely. It's a strange paradox: we strive to do good, yet we end up committing wrongs we never intended. Quite a fascinating split in the human psyche, wouldn't you agree?

Given how insane things have become lately—where we are essentially watching the most absurd sci-fi novels and graphic novels come to life in real-time—this concept doesn't even sound that crazy anymore.

Sandra Murphy33 said:What truly keeps me up at night is the growing possibility—and it’s looking more plausible with every passing year—that humans aren't actually at the top of the food chain. I suspect there might be species, likely invisible to the naked eye, that subsist on our emotional energy.
In this scenario, they would essentially trigger the very manipulations we see playing out in society every day, even if we can't identify the true source.
Most of these entities would likely feed on negative frequencies, specifically fear and anger.
It’s as if we were biologically hardwired to exist in a state of perpetual anxiety. We start with a primal fear of death, and from there, we spend the rest of our lives constructing a million different, highly imaginative phobias that build upon that initial dread. It creates a feedback loop where we constantly generate new anxieties, effectively fueling ourselves indefinitely. It's a strange paradox: we strive to do good, yet we end up committing wrongs we never intended. Quite a fascinating split in the human psyche, wouldn't you agree?

Given how insane things have become lately—where we are essentially watching the most absurd sci-fi novels and graphic novels come to life in real-time—this concept doesn't even sound that crazy anymore.

If that were actually true, I honestly think I'd just want to have an invisible
fat and skinny

Laurel and Hardy
🙂)

😁

And why couldn't it work like in Sagan's Contact? Maybe "aliens" just contact individuals directly so they don't even have to physically land on Earth. Or, if we're talking imagination here: like, 160 years ago, nobody had any clue that what we call electromagnetic waves even exists. To some enlightened materialist atheist back then, everything we take for granted today involving EM waves would've seemed like straight-up magic—you know, long-distance communication, moving things from afar, all that stuff. Basically, EM waves would have felt "incorporeal." So, isn't it possible that in another 160 years, we'll stumble upon some other form of "matter" that looks totally "ghostly" to us now, almost like "magic"? And maybe some "aliens" actually have a "material" form made of stuff like that? It makes me wonder if those various "gods," "angels," or "demons" are just aliens like that, influencing human history by communicating with specific people through these weird mediums.

So, yeah, is that imaginative enough for you? 😉

We can get even more creative here: if everything materialists say is true—that our thoughts and experiences are "really" just electromagnetic patterns in our neurons—then why couldn't electromagnetic patterns somewhere else be thoughts and experiences too? Like, why couldn't the electromagnetic patterns of the Sun actually be the Sun's own thoughts and feelings? And if that's the case, maybe the Sun is basically some kind of solar god influencing people on Earth through the Earth photon path?

Alright, come on, give me something way more imaginative than that.

Terry Martinez10 said:Given that's the case, I'm really not sure why I should even bother attempting a response when it's painfully obvious that I'm operating on a level far beneath her expectations....

"Here’s the bottom line: critical thinking, much like actual science, sits far above friendship, private or group interests, and ideological leanings."

Saša Ćirić

James Lee77 said:And why couldn't it work like in Sagan's Contact? Maybe "aliens" just contact individuals directly so they don't even have to physically land on Earth. Or, if we're talking imagination here: like, 160 years ago, nobody had any clue that what we call electromagnetic waves even exists. To some enlightened materialist atheist back then, everything we take for granted today involving EM waves would've seemed like straight-up magic—you know, long-distance communication, moving things from afar, all that stuff. Basically, EM waves would have felt "incorporeal." So, isn't it possible that in another 160 years, we'll stumble upon some other form of "matter" that looks totally "ghostly" to us now, almost like "magic"? And maybe some "aliens" actually have a "material" form made of stuff like that? It makes me wonder if those various "gods," "angels," or "demons" are just aliens like that, influencing human history by communicating with specific people through these weird mediums.

So, yeah, is that imaginative enough for you? 😉

Sure, it's possible. It's just as possible that the entire universe was constructed by people from the future, or perhaps by the descendants of self-replicating machines—since we don't really have a better term for them yet—operating on a timescale where our concept of time becomes totally irrelevant.

James Lee77 said:And why couldn't it work like in Sagan's Contact? Maybe "aliens" just contact individuals directly so they don't even have to physically land on Earth. Or, if we're talking imagination here: like, 160 years ago, nobody had any clue that what we call electromagnetic waves even exists. To some enlightened materialist atheist back then, everything we take for granted today involving EM waves would've seemed like straight-up magic—you know, long-distance communication, moving things from afar, all that stuff. Basically, EM waves would have felt "incorporeal." So, isn't it possible that in another 160 years, we'll stumble upon some other form of "matter" that looks totally "ghostly" to us now, almost like "magic"? And maybe some "aliens" actually have a "material" form made of stuff like that? It makes me wonder if those various "gods," "angels," or "demons" are just aliens like that, influencing human history by communicating with specific people through these weird mediums.

So, yeah, is that imaginative enough for you? 😉

Yeah. 👍

Sandra Murphy33 said:The spiritual realm should never have been allowed to become secularized.
🧐

Why did God permit this to happen?

🍿

God foretold this. I’m not really sure why that’s surprising to you—if anything, every religion has predicted this exact same thing.

lonegardener said:Wait, what do you mean by "already"? Why couldn't it have happened a million years ago, or maybe a million years from now?

Just think about it—what if WE were the ones to bridge those gaps? Say, around the year 2400 or something. Wouldn't someone far away from here, living back in the year 2300, look at us and say, "If aliens existed, they'd already be here"?

Enrico Fermi, is the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence for extraterrestrial life and various high estimates for their probability (such as some optimistic estimates for the Drake equation).[1][2]

The following points help illustrate this apparent contradiction:

There are billions of stars in the Milky Way similar to the Sun.[3][4]
It is highly probable that some of these stars host Earth-like planets within a habitable zone.[5]
Many of these stars, and by extension their planets, are much older than the Sun.[6][7] If Earth is just a typical case, some might have fostered intelligent life a very long time ago.
Some of these civilizations might have already mastered interstellar travel—something we are just starting to look into now.
Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way Galaxy could be completely traversed in a few million years.[8]
And since many of the stars similar to the Sun are billions of years older, Earth should have already been visited by extraterrestrial civilizations, or at least by their probes.[9]
Yet, we have no convincing evidence that any of this has actually occurred.[8]

James Lee77 said:And why couldn't it work like in Sagan's Contact? Maybe "aliens" just contact individuals directly so they don't even have to physically land on Earth. Or, if we're talking imagination here: like, 160 years ago, nobody had any clue that what we call electromagnetic waves even exists. To some enlightened materialist atheist back then, everything we take for granted today involving EM waves would've seemed like straight-up magic—you know, long-distance communication, moving things from afar, all that stuff. Basically, EM waves would have felt "incorporeal." So, isn't it possible that in another 160 years, we'll stumble upon some other form of "matter" that looks totally "ghostly" to us now, almost like "magic"? And maybe some "aliens" actually have a "material" form made of stuff like that? It makes me wonder if those various "gods," "angels," or "demons" are just aliens like that, influencing human history by communicating with specific people through these weird mediums.

So, yeah, is that imaginative enough for you? 😉

There’s a very thin line between being imaginative and being schizo. Maybe stop watching so much History Channel.

Amanda Jackson5 said:It basically translates to "scout" in Hawaiian.

Thanks

James Lee77 said:We can get even more creative here: if everything materialists say is true—that our thoughts and experiences are "really" just electromagnetic patterns in our neurons—then why couldn't electromagnetic patterns somewhere else be thoughts and experiences too? Like, why couldn't the electromagnetic patterns of the Sun actually be the Sun's own thoughts and feelings? And if that's the case, maybe the Sun is basically some kind of solar god influencing people on Earth through the Earth photon path?

Alright, come on, give me something way more imaginative than that.

Cute 😍, assuming every single process counts as an experience.

James Lee77 said:We can get even more creative here: if everything materialists say is true—that our thoughts and experiences are "really" just electromagnetic patterns in our neurons—then why couldn't electromagnetic patterns somewhere else be thoughts and experiences too? Like, why couldn't the electromagnetic patterns of the Sun actually be the Sun's own thoughts and feelings? And if that's the case, maybe the Sun is basically some kind of solar god influencing people on Earth through the Earth photon path?

Alright, come on, give me something way more imaginative than that.

That’s basically panpsychism. It’s how a lot of people try to explain consciousness.