UFOs and the bible

[JuggernautJon]

Looks as though my thread grew a giant, painful erection and seems to be fucking those who gaze at it. And for that, I am sorry. However, with my OP I was simply implying that the terms used to describe other miracles in the bible could be an inferior human's way to describe things that they may have experienced and seen. Thebibleufoconnection.com is the website that I saw a lot of it. I believe.

[xSilverPhinx]

I just looked up ''Life'' in my dictionary and the definition is exaustive. A dictionary is a basic tool, like a screwdriver. If you don't own one, that tells me somethings about you.

 

Jesting aside, dictionaries may be simple tools (veeery simple) but words themselves are not. Hence the problem with dictionaries. They're utterly shallow, loose and subjective. Useless for this kind of conversation. Your definition of life, going by the way you use it, is clearly more sophisticated than the ones listed above.[/quote]

Thanks for saying basically what I meant.  

[Heretical Rants]

In this context, the relevant definition of "life" has 7 qualifications.
All 7 qualifications must be met.

1) Life metabolizes energy
2) Life adapts to its environment
3) Life maintains homeostasis
4) Life grows and develops
5) Life reproduces and passes on genetic material
6) Life evolves
7) Life has cellular organization

Use the correct resources... in this case, that is not a dictionary (as Melmoth said). Try this newfangled internet thingy (you're on it right now ) or any biology textbook instead

[AreEl]

Jesting aside, dictionaries may be simple tools (veeery simple) but words themselves are not. Hence the problem with dictionaries. They're utterly shallow, loose and subjective. Useless for this kind of conversation. Your definition of life, going by the way you use it, is clearly more sophisticated than the ones listed above.

I guess it depends which dictionary you use. Mine defines ''Life'' so well that it took me 10 minutes to read it through. Anyway, Heretical Rants had an even better idea:

Use the correct resources... in this case, that is not a dictionary (as Melmoth said). Try this newfangled internet thingy (you're on it right now  ) or any biology textbook instead

With this in mind, why not discover for yourselves the meanings of the following (with your keyboard or with your favorite reference works):

-Imagination
-Hypothesis
-Reasoning
-Knowledge

Each of these ideas has a bearing on our discussion with reference to the faith you need to accept ET life as probable. When you get through the above, here are two more ideas for those who want a deeper understanding:

-Induction
-Logic

+++

Looks as though my thread grew a giant, painful erection and seems to be fucking those who gaze at it. And for that, I am sorry. However, with my OP I was simply implying that the terms used to describe other miracles in the bible could be an inferior human's way to describe things that they may have experienced and seen. Thebibleufoconnection.com is the website that I saw a lot of it. I believe.

Inferior human?!  I guess you meant ''less technologically advanced'' or something along that line.

[xSilverPhinx]

In this context, the relevant definition of "life" has 7 qualifications.
All 7 qualifications must be met.

1) Life metabolizes energy
2) Life adapts to its environment
3) Life maintains homeostasis
4) Life grows and develops
5) Life reproduces and passes on genetic material
6) Life evolves
7) Life has cellular organization

Use the correct resources... in this case, that is not a dictionary (as Melmoth said). Try this newfangled internet thingy (you're on it right now ) but under that definition a virus is not alive (they don't fall under numbers 1, 3 and 7). To me they're lipo-proteic chemical "machines" with genetic material that "strive" to "survive" and pass on their genes. IMO, looks like they're midway between being alive as you defined it above and not alive. Some people discuss broadening the definition of "life" or even allowing for a different kind of "life" for them, but they're certainly not like us.

It's where these things get blurry that I find the most interesting.  

[Heretical Rants]

With this in mind, why not discover for yourselves the meanings of the following (with your keyboard or with your favorite reference works):

-Imagination
-Hypothesis
-Reasoning
-Knowledge

Each of these ideas has a bearing on our discussion with reference to the faith you need to accept ET life as probable. When you get through the above, here are two more ideas for those who want a deeper understanding:

-Induction
-Logic

Asking me to tell you what those things are is meaningless unless you give me a context, and even then most of them are far more subject to debate than "What is life?"

Yes, I would prefer a biology book over a dictionary (biology - study of...life, so there :crazy:

Yeah, same here. For example, I can imagine some form of alien life that would be crystalline rather than cellular in nature, while exhibiting all of the other traits of life, but if we found such a thing we'd probably consider its crystalline structure to be equivalent to a cellular structure.

A virus, on the other hand, I don't even consider to be half-alive. I like the silverware analogy here: what if an alien species were observing us, but they focused on our silverware as being the living being, in their eyes?  The silverware 'tricks' us to make more of it, because of its utility, and we use the old successful/popular designs of silverware to produce the next 'generation.' If viruses are alive, then so are our plates.

[AreEl]

With this in mind, why not discover for yourselves the meanings of the following (with your keyboard or with your favorite reference works):

-Imagination
-Hypothesis
-Reasoning
-Knowledge

Each of these ideas has a bearing on our discussion with reference to the faith you need to accept ET life as probable. When you get through the above, here are two more ideas for those who want a deeper understanding:

-Induction
-Logic

Asking me to tell you what those things are is meaningless unless you give me a context, and even then most of them are far more subject to debate than "What is life?"

My original idea was to present a synthesis of these ideas and their relation to ET life with the view to showing that belief in ET life is faith-based, and nothing more. Then, I decided that no one would be interested as faith is never overcome by reason. Faith is deeper and stronger than reason. Plus, the task I set for myself was daunting and would require a lot of my time. I am on this board for Fun, not for anything else.

 

[Davin]

My original idea was to present a synthesis of these ideas and their relation to ET life with the view to showing that belief in ET life is faith-based, and nothing more. Then, I decided that no one would be interested as faith is never overcome by reason. Faith is deeper and stronger than reason. Plus, the task I set for myself was daunting and would require a lot of my time. I am on this board for Fun, not for anything else.

I don't think you'll any disagreement that believing in ET life without supporting evidence is faith. My only objections to what you were saying was that just thinking that ET life is possible was also faith.

[Heretical Rants]

My original idea was to present a synthesis of these ideas and their relation to ET life with the view to showing that belief in ET life is faith-based, and nothing more. Then, I decided that no one would be interested as faith is never overcome by reason. Faith is deeper and stronger than reason.

Ummm...... OK. You do realize that 95% of the people on this forum will dissagree with you on that one, right? You could probably compile an entire book from the arguments against that that I've seen here.

I'm not going to argue with you about it, but I just wanted to point that out.


The real reason no one would be interested is closer to what Davin said. Speculation is not equivalent to faith. The people who are absolutley unequivocally certain that UFOs=contact with alien life are the ones with faith here....and they're nutters.

[xSilverPhinx]

My original idea was to present a synthesis of these ideas and their relation to ET life with the view to showing that belief in ET life is faith-based, and nothing more. Then, I decided that no one would be interested as faith is never overcome by reason. Faith is deeper and stronger than reason. Plus, the task I set for myself was daunting and would require a lot of my time. I am on this board for Fun, not for anything else.

 

I was actually looking foward to seeing you try.

But then again I guess you're admitting defeat, since the belief that alien life could exist is one based on not knowledge but reason (and thus speculative) which is not faith as you put it.

[AreEl]

I don't think you'll [find] any disagreement that believing in ET life without supporting evidence is faith. My only objections to what you were saying was that just thinking that ET life is possible was also faith.

OK...I understand now that you meant simply ''Thinking that ET life is possible without supporting evidence'' is faith...sorry, I didn't get that at first. To clear things up, I would agree that simply thinking ET life is possible would not be faith-based, as long as you leave it at that. If you start dreaming up foreign worlds and civilizations, you've crossed a line.

My original idea was to present a synthesis of these ideas and their relation to ET life with the view to showing that belief in ET life is faith-based, and nothing more. Then, I decided that no one would be interested as faith is never overcome by reason. Faith is deeper and stronger than reason.

Ummm...... OK. You do realize that 95% of the people on this forum will dissagree with you on that one, right? You could probably compile an entire book from the arguments against that that I've seen here.

I'm not going to argue with you about it, but I just wanted to point that out.


The real reason no one would be interested is closer to what Davin said. Speculation is not equivalent to faith.

95% of the people may disagree with me but of that percentage, how many people really know what they are talking about? Belief is belief and speculation is speculation. I am old enough to know that most people confuse the two, or pervert them, or convolute them.

I was actually looking foward to seeing you try.

But then again I guess you're admitting defeat, since the belief that alien life could exist is one based on not knowledge but reason (and thus speculative) which is not faith as you put it.

You really do have a bad habit of reading into what I write. Stop it! It doesn't tell me anything good about your deductive reasoning; you would be a mystical nutcase if you were a theist! I know you're smart...so start acting smart.

[Heretical Rants]

they're nutters.

[xSilverPhinx]

You really do have a bad habit of reading into what I write. Stop it! It doesn't tell me anything good about your deductive reasoning; you would be a mystical nutcase if you were a theist! I know you're smart...so start acting smart.

No more comments here.

Yeah, same here. For example, I can imagine some form of alien life that would be crystalline rather than cellular in nature, while exhibiting all of the other traits of life, but if we found such a thing we'd probably consider its crystalline structure to be equivalent to a cellular structure.

You make some good points here.

[AreEl]

No more comments here.

I just read your posts in The World Today and Islam, so I know that you are smart.  I found you to be a little soft with the Muslim guy on that thread but...you must be a nicer person than I am.

[xSilverPhinx]

No more comments here.

I just read your posts in The World Today and Islam, so I know that you are smart.  I found you to be a little soft with the Muslim guy on that thread but...you must be a nicer person than I am.

More reasonable, probably, but then I again I'm capable of stretching what 'reasonable' is to breaking point and nice to people who do not deserve it. iSok has done nothing to make me not want to be nice to him and be reasonable in my approach to his beliefs, which I place more or less on the same page as yours.  

Well thank you. I think that you're smart too.