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Belief In Life On Other Planets Is An Act Of Religious Faith Based On Nothing

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Eatomus

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  1. U.S. & World

Study nixes Mars life in meteorite found in Antarctica​

Updated: Jan. 13, 2022, 8:41 p.m. | Published: Jan. 13, 2022, 8:41 p.m.

I can still remember the presidential press conference concerning this meteorite in 1996 when the opening remarks from the president in which he immediately took a swipe at God/people of faith on the false premise fed to him that life had been found, made me realize that the primary, not secondary, purpose of this ongoing quest of religious faith based on nothing, to find life, somewhere, anywhere other than earth is to debunk the idea of a God involved in human affairs.
To scientifically establish based on mere faith, and nothing more, where we did not come from , and where we are not going
With a desperate urgency no less that the president well exemplified that day, causing believers in this outer space faith to be ultimately befuddled over and over again.
A religious faith entirely taxpayer funded by the way.

" Well, it seems that God did not tell us everything " ( President Bill Clinton meteorite press conference 1996)
 
Eatomus said:
  1. U.S. & World

Study nixes Mars life in meteorite found in Antarctica​

Updated: Jan. 13, 2022, 8:41 p.m. | Published: Jan. 13, 2022, 8:41 p.m.

I can still remember the presidential press conference concerning this meteorite in 1996 when the opening remarks from the president in which he immediately took a swipe at God/people of faith on the false premise fed to him that life had been found, made me realize that the primary, not secondary, purpose of this ongoing quest of religious faith based on nothing, to find life, somewhere, anywhere other than earth is to debunk the idea of a God involved in human affairs.
To scientifically establish based on mere faith, and nothing more, where we did not come from , and where we are not going
With a desperate urgency no less that the president well exemplified that day, causing believers in this outer space faith to be ultimately befuddled over and over again.
A religious faith entirely taxpayer funded by the way.

" Well, it seems that God did not tell us everything " ( President Bill Clinton meteorite press conference 1996)
Click to expand...
Don't be silly. There's nothing religious about it.
 
That's like saying my belief that there is someone somewhere out in the world saying something as dumb as what I just read is based on faith. I can't know for sure, but it seems pretty likely.

I don't "BeLiEve" in alien life. I don't pray to them. I don't structure my life around them. I just look around and see that there are conditions that led to life here, so it seems reasonable that there are conditions that led to life somewhere else.

Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. But I certainly don't have "faith" in alien life. It's not some position I dogmatically hold.
 
Even extremely conservative numbers plugged into the Drake Equation make it a guarantee there is life on other planets.

The universe is a very ****ing big place. Just because Mars can’t support life, that means nothing.
 
The mathematics of staistics cannot of course confirm so, but lends strong credence to life existing somewhere in this unimaginably vast universe.

Religion has no role in the mathematics. Whether such cosmic life qualifies as "intelligent" is another matter altogether.
 
All the OP thread title had to do was say "Religious Faith Based On Nothing". Not just life on Mars, that would have covered everything.
 
Eatomus said:
  1. U.S. & World

Study nixes Mars life in meteorite found in Antarctica​

Updated: Jan. 13, 2022, 8:41 p.m. | Published: Jan. 13, 2022, 8:41 p.m.

I can still remember the presidential press conference concerning this meteorite in 1996 when the opening remarks from the president in which he immediately took a swipe at God/people of faith on the false premise fed to him that life had been found, made me realize that the primary, not secondary, purpose of this ongoing quest of religious faith based on nothing, to find life, somewhere, anywhere other than earth is to debunk the idea of a God involved in human affairs.
To scientifically establish based on mere faith, and nothing more, where we did not come from , and where we are not going
With a desperate urgency no less that the president well exemplified that day, causing believers in this outer space faith to be ultimately befuddled over and over again.
A religious faith entirely taxpayer funded by the way.

" Well, it seems that God did not tell us everything " ( President Bill Clinton meteorite press conference 1996)
Click to expand...
And with the hundreds of billions of stars in the milky way alone and the billions of other galaxies you think we are alone? P.S. it has nothing to do with religion.
 
Questerr said:
Even extremely conservative numbers plugged into the Drake Equation make it a guarantee there is life on other planets.

The universe is a very ****ing big place. Just because Mars can’t support life, that means nothing.
Click to expand...
The Drake Equation is pure conjecture.
 
Questerr said:
The Drake Equation is logically sound and every step of the way meets scientific rigor for statistical study.

Given the size of the universe, it is a guarantee that there is life elsewhere in it.
Click to expand...
The scientific community has no idea what most of the values of the equation are. So, yes, appealing to the Drake Equation is conjecture.
 
@Napoleon

You realize that just in the *observable* universe there are more than a hundred billion galaxies and more than a hundred *billion trillion* stars, right?

We’ve found more than 40 billion potentially habitable planets in the Goldilocks Zone of stars in just the last 20 years.


In case you can’t conceive a “billion trillion”:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
 
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Napoleon said:
The scientific community has no idea what most of the values of the equation are. So, yes, appealing to the Drake Equation is conjecture.
Click to expand...

That’s why I said, “even with extremely conservative numbers plugged in”. You could give the most pessimistic numbers realistically conceivable, and because of the size of the universe, it’s still a guarantee that life exists on other planets.
 
Napoleon said:
The scientific community has no idea what most of the values of the equation are. So, yes, appealing to the Drake Equation is conjecture.
Click to expand...
As @Questerr noted, as long as the numbers you put in are not literally 0, it is a guarantee that there is some life out there somewhere. It might not even be intelligent life. Maybe most intelligent life wipes itself out. But it's hard to argue there isn't some bacteria living under a rock somewhere at a bare minimum.
 
Nomad4Ever said:
As @Questerr noted, as long as the numbers you put in are not literally 0, it is a guarantee that there is some life out there somewhere. It might not even be intelligent life. Maybe most intelligent life wipes itself out. But it's hard to argue there isn't some bacteria living under a rock somewhere at a bare minimum.
Click to expand...

“Intelligent life” is problematic for multiple reasons. For one, “intelligent” is a highly contested and loaded term and we don’t even fully understand what “intelligence” means scientifically. For another, “intelligent” doesn’t mean “technological” or “space-fairing”.

To quote a famous scientist discussing the topic “Dolphins are highly intelligent, but they’ve had 40 million years to invent a radio telescope and have not done so.”

The question of why we don’t see space-fairing technological intelligent races in the universe is the question of the Fermi Paradox, and it has lots of potential hypothetical answers.
 
Could be life out there under some rock, but leaning on the drake formula to tell us so is fools errand. As SETI members have said, the formula is a wonderful way to organize our ignorance.
 
Mulefoot said:
Could be life out there under some rock, but leaning on the drake formula to tell us so is fools errand. As SETI members have said, the formula is a wonderful way to organize our ignorance.
Click to expand...
It's not so much about the specifics of the drake formula, and more the fact that no matter how low the odds are of life developing if you acknowledge that there are any odds at all (no matter how low) the sheer scale of the universe guarantees it is out there somewhere.
 
Mulefoot said:
but leaning on the drake formula to tell us so is fools errand.
Click to expand...
For example, forget the Drake Formula, use the new patented @Nomad4Ever Formula™.

(number of potential life supporting planet) x (chance of life developing on such planets during that planet's lifespan)

So, lets say that life is super super super unlikely. Let's say...0.0000001 of these planets develops life.

Now, scientists estimate there are at least 5.3 trillion potential life supporting planets in the observable universe.

So:
0.0000001 x 5,300,000,000,000 = 530
 
Nomad4Ever said:
For example, forget the Drake Formula, use the new patented @Nomad4Ever Formula™.

(number of potential life supporting planet) x (chance of life developing on such planets during that planet's lifespan)

So, lets say that life is super super super unlikely. Let's say...0.0000001 of these planets develops life.

Now, scientists estimate there are at least 5.3 trillion potential life supporting planets in the observable universe.

So:
0.0000001 x 5,300,000,000,000 = 530
Click to expand...
Christain: Believe god over math.

There is no reasoning with people of faith.
 
Nomad4Ever said:
For example, forget the Drake Formula, use the new patented @Nomad4Ever Formula™.

(number of potential life supporting planet) x (chance of life developing on such planets during that planet's lifespan)

So, lets say that life is super super super unlikely. Let's say...0.0000001 of these planets develops life.

Now, scientists estimate there are at least 5.3 trillion potential life supporting planets in the observable universe.

So:
0.0000001 x 5,300,000,000,000 = 530
Click to expand...
Instead of super, super, super unlikely it could just be moderately unlikely. Or it could be impossible. I'm not denying that life could exist somewhere, it is a pretty big place. I'm just saying the formula is so simple, and presupposes possibilities that we are unbelievably ignorant on.
 
Mulefoot said:
Instead of super, super, super unlikely it could just be moderately unlikely. Or it could be impossible. I'm not denying that life could exist somewhere, it is a pretty big place. I'm just saying the formula is so simple, and presupposes possibilities that we are unbelievably ignorant on.
Click to expand...

It isn’t impossible. Because we know life developed on Earth and the chemical processes behind that development aren’t rare.
 
Questerr said:
It isn’t impossible. Because we know life developed on Earth and the chemical processes behind that development aren’t rare.
Click to expand...
No, we don't know that. We presuppose that to build these type of formulas. Could be that a multi-verse exists and other universe spawned this universe with a stand-alone simple life forms incapable of "developing" on earth. Musk could be right and we exist only in a simulation.
 
Mulefoot said:
No, we don't know that. We presuppose that to build these type of formulas. Could be that a multi-verse exists and other universe spawned this universe with a stand-alone simple life forms incapable of "developing" on earth. Musk could be right and we exist only in a simulation.
Click to expand...

That question is as impossible to scientifically/philosophically falsify as the problem of hard solipsism.

Musk is right about very very few things. He’s an opportunistic douche with great PR, not any kind of scientist.
 
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