Posted on 12/19/2008 5:27:13 AM PST by moneyrunner
Atheists consider themselves the supreme realists. They don’t believe in the “ghost in the machine” and ridicule those of us who believe that God exists and is the creator of the universe.
But they do have a metaphysical problems relating to the origin of things. Does the universe have a beginning or an end? How did life begin? What was there in the beginning of things?
The last question cannot be dismissed because the theory of evolution, which seeks to explain how we are what we are demands that there be a beginning. If life began an eternity ago, is the world as we see it and all the things in it the natural end result of … forever? That seems to be illogical.
So I read with interest an article Glenn Reynolds liked to in Popular Mechanics 5 Projects Ask if Life on Earth Began as Alien Life in Space.
To try to answer the question of the origin of life on earth and to answer critics who reason that life’s complexity is too great to have evolved spontaneously, theories have been created that life on earth began on some other planet.
That underscores the reasons that people like Ben Stein have given for Intelligent Design, and the reasons for allowing it a place at the table of science. If enough scientists are concerned that life may not have begun from non-life on earth, doesn’t that leave open the possibility that the explanation may not be entirely materialistic in the way we understand the term?
If reputable scientists are actually exploring the possibility that life arrived on the earth wholly formed and not just the building blocks of life, but
...organisms that were ready to rock and roll when they arrived,
(Excerpt) Read more at moneyrunner.blogspot.com ...
Panspermia atheists believe that humans didn’t just evolve-
but aliens did. How delicious- the chance to deny God twice.
Interesting to think that God in his infinite wisdom would have created a universe of such vast expanse and put the only intelligent life on our earth.
In comparison to the universe earth is not even a single molecule of a grain of sand out of all the sand on our earth.
I don’t know how anyone could believe in God and intelligent design and look at the stars in the sky and NOT understand God would have sewn the seeds of life throughout his creation.
The limits of man’s conceit are simply boundless.
Indeed. And like any tool it has an intended purpose which dictates it's design and parameters. Trying to use it outside of the limitations imposed by those parameters is both an abuse of the tool and the work.
Richard Dawkins has used panspermia / exogenesis as a possible explanation for the origin of life on earth, but he has made it clear that he does not support the theory.
When will Creationists stop lying?
They are really not "faithless" at all, it's a different faith that exists in opposition to Christianity.
And Islam, and Zoroastrianism, and Judaism, and... you get the idea?
It's supernaturalism we're opposed to.
“...Science is demanding that God reveal himself on their terms, not His.
Science is an intellectual tool. It’s the one wielding that tool who uses or abuses it...”
Hmmm Perhaps a better phrase is: “Science demands...”
Either you believe in the beginning was: God
Or in the beginning there was: Dirt
You decide.
I heard that from some evangelist or speaker somewhere.
JB
What kind of God would put all that there for no reason but to provide something beautiful and interesting for his children?
A God whose love is simply boundless.
You are splitting hairs.
The principles of science are based on empirical data and reproducible results. The principles demand these tangible findings for proof of a theorem or hypothesis.
ping
Only a few % of Americans are atheists, the majority are Christian.
Therefore most believers in UFO’s in the USA are Christian.
Don't ask ME how they reconcile these contrary beliefs.
She looks reptilin in a shape-shifting sort of wway..../<8^0
If she isn’t I want to go to the planet of tall good looking red heads!
ZZ top “Planet of Women.... oh yeah!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAnSfW_r5Ms
How is belief in UFOs incompatible with being a Christian?
Oh, it's worse than that.
While scientific literacy has doubled over the past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are "scientifically savvy and alert," he said in an interview. Most of the rest "don't have a clue."
...snip...
Dr. Miller's data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.
Source: Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much
Well, now I've depressed myself for the day.
Simple. God created the aliens too.
Do you suppose like Giordano Bruno, that aliens have souls? If so then would they not need salvation? Would God have to send an “alien Jesus” to the alien world to accomplish their salvation?
I was pointing out that the premise of this thread is mistaken. Most UFO believers are not atheists, they are Christians.
According to the Bible mankind is special, made in the image of God. Are aliens also made in the image of God? How did they get so much more advanced than us that they send faster than light (presumably) space craft into our atmosphere? And they presumably travel all that distance just to pick up some redneck Billy Joe Bob and give him the rectal probe?
Nothing in the Bible precludes extraterrestrial life, but extraterrestrial hyper intelligent technologically advanced life that visits Earth? The Bible must have left out a lot of relevant details in that case.
Some here even advocate this nonsense.
Do you think those princples need to be revised or replaced? If so, what exactly are you proposing they be replaced with?
“It’s supernaturalism we’re opposed to.” ~ CE2949BB
But Dawkins embraces “scientism”, doesn’t he? :)
“.. science reduces the world to a coherent absurdity, while metaphysics expands it into a coherent non-absurdity. And there is no reason to take anyone seriously who believes existence to be absurd, since anything they can say will be equally absurd. And no one is more proudly absurd than the atheist. .. to the extent that science converges on truth, then it is converging on Truth, which is to say, God. God does not embrace falsehood, whether scientific or religious. Therefore, whether they care to hear it or not, the scientist’s passionate quest for truth is a religious one” ~ Gagdad Bob Continued: http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/search?q=dawkins
Robert W.Godwin [Gagdad Bob] , Ph.D is a clinical psychologist whose interdisciplinary work has focused on the relationship between contemporary psychoanalysis, chaos theory, and quantum physics.
<>
“...[and] which theory of evolution are you talking about? “...What is the significance of such a theory? To address this question is to enter the field of epistemology.
A theory is a metascientific elaboration distinct from the results of observation, but consistent with them.
By means of it a series of independent data and facts can be related and interpreted in a unified explanation. A theory’s validity depends on whether or not it can be verified; it is constantly tested against the facts; wherever it can no longer explain the latter, it shows its limitations and unsuitability. It must then be rethought.
Furthermore, while the formulation of a theory like that of evolution complies with the need for consistency with the observed data, it borrows certain notions from natural philosophy.
And, to tell the truth, rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution.
On the one hand, this plurality has to do with the different explanations advanced for the mechanism of evolution, and on the other, with the various philosophies on which it is based.
Hence the existence of materialist, reductionist, and spiritualist interpretations. What is to be decided here is the true role of philosophy and, beyond it, of theology.
Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider _the spirit_ as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person. ...”
Excerpted from:
Theories of Evolution
John Paul II
Copyright (c) 1997 First Things 71 (March 1997): 28-29. Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996
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