Paphos People

"God so loved the world that he gave us his only son............" etc. etc.

With the increasingly common discovery of exoplanets capable of sustaining life, it follows that the likely overall number of planets capable of sustaing life will run into quite a large number - which statistically means that there are quite a few planets sustaining sentient beings, either in a more advanced state of development than us, or behind us, either way, there's a whole bunch of them out there.

Given that God is supposed to have created the whole shebang, it follows that he also created these other planets and civilizations.

My questions are:- "Did God have more than one son to send to these other places? or did he spread Jesus around a bit? How do these aliens imagine they came into existence - would it be a similar story to us? If their story isn't the same, how do we continue to justify our Biblical story?

It occurs to me that the whole biblical things falls flat unless we turn out to be the only sentient beings in the entire universe!!, but is anyone arrogant enough to feel able to state that is the case?

I'm not trying to make light of religion, just trying to get my head round the whole proposition, so if anyone can shed some sensible light on the subject I would be very interested.

chris

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Merda taurorum animas conturbit

religion was a great tool to keep the world in order " The fear of god" ruled for centuarys.
Now that we are starting to evolve from this , we use other things to keep people in line
its called the fear of terrorists ..

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REACH 1000`s of PAPHOS CUSTOMERS EVERY DAY FOR A FRACTION OF WHAT THE OTHERS CHARGE
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Whilst the optimist and the pessimist argued that the whisky glass was either half full
or half empty ? .
I drank it .....
The opportunist..

It was God that made the Earth in 6 days and created man. The son thing was a much later event and only really applies to Christianity which is not the Earth's majority religion.

Thus God could have made the other planets and their beings at another time or indeed the same time if you are to believe his total presence in the universe. He may not have bothered with the disruption that Jesus caused on Earth and all the resulting wars in his name.

I would like to think that aliens would manage without religion. It would save them a lot of trouble and they would be far stronger without it.

As far as our Biblical story is concerned, don't forget that it's big business. That's how it's continuation is justified.

Pete

An easy way to get your head round it would be to read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.

OK that will be second on the list.............after finishing the Bible which I am currently ploughing my way through - don't worry I'm not a nutter, but promised myself one day that I would read the Bible cover to cover to see what the fuss is all about...............hard going let me tell you!!

After that its the Koran, although after one go at it I am not looking forward to it!!

Mind you, if anyone has looked into the interesting world of Noetics, there are some fascinating questions arising.............

chris

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Merda taurorum animas conturbit

Yes, I should read the bible from cover to cover - the best work of fiction ever. And just to see how many ways it can contradicts itself.

Back to the main point. If we find intelligent life forum of equal or higher on another plant, this could easily be used to support an existence of a God of some kind.
For plant to support life is very rare combination of things to happen, correct temperature, gravity, water, correct chemicals/gas etc. Then for the life to develop past anything above microorganisms we are talking billions and billions to 1 chance. In theory, we shouldn't be here. Therefore, if we find that intelligent being may be there's a God guiding all of this mess after all?

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Alison - Ali for short

Good on you Chris for giving it a go it's on my to do list one day. When my son was about 8 he asked me if God made the world who made God?

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Bev

[What if the Hokey cokey is what it's all about

in situations like that , I would suggest you give kids a clip around the ear and tell them
to shut up and eat there dinner ..

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REACH 1000`s of PAPHOS CUSTOMERS EVERY DAY FOR A FRACTION OF WHAT THE OTHERS CHARGE
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Whilst the optimist and the pessimist argued that the whisky glass was either half full
or half empty ? .
I drank it .....
The opportunist..

The problem is..................if it all started with "The Big Bang", then where did the stuff that formed the material in the "Big Bang" come from? Science appears to be telling us that it was always there.........and that there is no end to the extent of the universe......................how can that be? ....and who created the material in the first place...someone must have!!

chris

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Merda taurorum animas conturbit

told him to ask the priest (my kids went to catholic school) he did and got a shrug.

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Bev

[What if the Hokey cokey is what it's all about

Ok Chris - your reading list is now:

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking

Doesn't that assume that the alien life forms complies with the same rules as us? Why not assume that life could evolve based on a completely different chemical structure? After all if you were God starting over, would you really want to come up with a design like human beings - constantly in a state of repair, frail, unhardy with unreliable and overly complex internals, annoying leaks and too vulnerable to disease.

Pete

...........but that pre-supposes there is a God...............


..........and in any event, why wouldn't God create other life like us, after all according to the Bible he created Man in his own image. Therefore God must figure that its a pretty good role model!!


chris

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Merda taurorum animas conturbit

Another add to the reading list 'Sophie's World' by Jostein Gaarder

It pre-supposes God with a preceeding "if" for the purposes of considering the possibility.

You say "according to the Bible" but the Bible was written by man and not God. If man is God's image then I think he was a poor role model! It didn't take him long to come up with sodomy, sexual guilt, prudity, murder, incest, mutation and bullying to name a few of the things which still are predominant features to be found in many of today's religions.

Pete

Did God however become a feckless father :
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1313782/BEL-MOONEY-The-mothers-blame-feckless-father-15-children-14-women.html

He might have had a few other sons (or daughters in this politically correct age) to put about the universe and sort things out upon other planets?

Hmm an interesting thread. I guess we will never know and it may well just come down to whatever an individual believes in. I do occasionally wonder what the point of humans and life is.

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And the Oscar goes to........

Can you imagine if we had a world catastrophe today and life were all but wiped out.

The first book to be unearthed and interpreted in 1000 years time would be Harry Potter and he would then be reverred and worshiped. The first film to be put back on a projector was Blazing saddles meaning this is how we all lead our lives and the first audio recording was Joe Pasqualli, what an impression our successors would have of us.

Regigion in my humble opinion is a big business feeding on the need for many to have some belief (confidence) and allowed to grow so large it has overtaken lives.

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Straight talking, no Gimmicks.

Live your dreams.

2 thoughts on this subject....

1...If there is a God, and we are made in his image, then doesn't that presuppose that he's the most blood thirsty being in the universe????

2...If there is a God, then why on Earth do the people of this little spitball of a planet half a parsec from nowhere think they are important to him? If he created a whole infinite no end in sight universe then a few billion humans would be about the same level of concern to him as a few billion germs are to a human. ie not a lot.

Still we'll all find out sooner or later I guess.

Interesting!!

1. According to the Old Testament, God killed enemies of the Jews in their thousands, on one occasion he killed 185,000 at a single stroke; he allowed the devil to mix it up with one of gods most devout followers, killing his servants and totally destroying his life just to prove that the man was truly dedicated to god and could not be swayed by the devil. So you would be quite correct to say he is the most bloodthirsty being in the universe.

2. Is it not the case that an all-seeing all-knowing entity capable of creating entire universes on a whim would be capable of keeping a weather eye open on his creations?

chris

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Merda taurorum animas conturbit

As I said it's great fun to see how many times the bible contradict,
One of the 10 commandments, Thou shall not kill/murder, but God can just kill off lots of people because he feels like it?
Even within a few pages it starts contradicting itself. God makes everything within the first 6 days. A couple of pages later, Adam is bored so God makes women, Eve, so God didn't make everything in 6 days, confused already.

Back to the point about life on other plants, and Pete's response. There are some theories about silicon based life forums, but generally (without writing 30 page essay - you can google the details), due to the laws of physic and chemistry, it's believed that the only form of possible life will be carbon based and very similar on micro level and require a lot of the basic things we need, ie water, similar temperature and gravity range.

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Alison - Ali for short

I'm far from an expert on this but I understand that earth houses creatures living in extremes of temperature from the hottest deserts to the freezing depths of oceans, the latter having extremes of pressure and lack of oxygen. There have been recent discoveries of this nature exciting scientists and questioning some of the established assumptions about life.

Pete

Indeed Pete, this planet is capable of sustaining many different types of lifeforms. It is also interesting that new forms and species are still regularly found on land as well as in the ocean.

In fact on a recent exploration a species of new subhuman was found which organises itself along very very basic tribal lines. They are individualy volatile, do not welcome incomers, are often seen to eat their own young and live in squalid conditions. It was also noted that this species lives on the perifery of main stream society. One such recent sect was noted as living in Polemi and had direct links to the Drumchapel chapter.

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Straight talking, no Gimmicks.

Live your dreams.

I do like this thread, and am somewhat surprised that there are no contributions from those who unreservedly believe in some deity or other.

It is generally agreed that the bible is just a collection of related books that were written over a considerable period of time. The version available to read in English has been through a number of translations rendering it a collection of unreliable versions of the originals.
The bible is one of a number of such books from various religions. Not surprising when one realises there are about 4200 religions in the world. Therefore there is no real basis to support the view that it is the one true one.

If there is a benevolent god, then he isn't very competent at his job, given what is happening in the world. Christians seem to believe this has something to do with eating apples!

There is no god. There, I've said it. No thunderbolts. Still here.

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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein

What bothers me in all this is the question "Where did all the matter that exists in the universe, apparently forever, come from?"

Something had to create it in the first place................

chris

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Merda taurorum animas conturbit

Guess you'll have to put Stephen Hawking's new book "The Grand Design" as he states his theory in there about how the universe could start without a God.

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Alison - Ali for short

Interesting Horizon tonight on BBC2 at 9pm (UK time) for anyone interested in this kind of thing:

damn it conflicts with Spooks

chris

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Merda taurorum animas conturbit

I can understand that it's hard to believe the universe started from "a big bang" which started from basically nothing. So people say that God made the big bang.
But hang on then, where did God come from?
People can accept there is an all powerful being, that's just there, didn't come from anywhere, floating around in nothing, just gets bored and starts the universe one day? Why didn't he bored sooner, like a 100 billions years before he did?

Either way it can make you go crazy thinking about why start the universe when it did regardless of how or when you believe it started.

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Alison - Ali for short

Well I watched Horizon who dumbed down the program enough for me to understand a little!

It would seem that the Big Bang theory is going out of fashion and a large amount of work being put into replacement theories, none of which are developed enough to become mainstream yet. However the rate of development of this work should see the emerging theories explained further and better over the next few years.

Funnily enough, God wasn't mentioned.

Pete