Let's cut to the chase. Do you have any evidence?

[no evidence no belief]

I feel like we've been beating around the bush for... 6000 years!

Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?

If you believe there once was a talking donkey (Numbers 22) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe there once was a zombie invasion in Jerusalem (Mat 27) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe in the flying horse (Islam) could you please provide evidence?

Walking on water, virgin births, radioactive spiders who give you superpowers, turning water into wine, turning iron into gold, demons, goblins, ghosts, hobbits, elves, angels, unicorns and Santa.

Can you PLEASE provide evidence?

[zeromeansnothing]

re no evidence no belief Post--If they put a gun to my head and said "guess whether there is life on any other planet in the universe. If you guess wrong, I'll shoot you", I'd guess that there is. But if evidence emerged demonstrating that there in fact cannot be life on any planet other than earth, I would not be too difficult to persuade.

Thank You for standing up here and answering my query. I had given up on receiving a reasonable argument on this. You mentioned tangential evidence and this is again my point here. Tangential evidence on this issue leads to many many sci-fi variations that I do not want to entertain. Would tangential evidence on this lead me to Mormon Cosmology or not . I haven't a clue. Thank You for your answer. If I had a gun to my head on this I would wait until the shooter's arm got tired. Star done good here.

God is another dimension.
abiogenesis in outer space produces aliens
dianaiad knew it before we did

[Peter]

.

You Sir cannot possibly know the origin of the universe because you cannot possibly know any more about it than anyone else and nobody else knows the origin of the universe. Can you tell me one instance where "god did it" was correct?

How do you know "nobody else knows the origin of the universe"? Do you read minds? Or do you just have some sort of omniscience?

For the same reason I can say absolutely that nobody knows how many jelly beans are in the jar on my desk. The facts are simply out of reach for everyone, including me unless I sit here and count them. We have no way of "counting the jellybeans" at the beginning of the universe. Eventually, science may figure out a way but until then let's try not to be so arrogant as to claim we know. Deal?

[Peter]

Oh my the idea that I know the origin of the universe and you don't just irritates you doesn't it? Just because you don't know doesn't mean that others do not. You are not the be all and end all of knowledge my dear Peter. As for the "god did it"....you brought up that nonsense first so you will have to explain what you mean.

By "God Did It" I'm referring to all the god of the gaps arguments. Science keeps knocking them down one by one and the gap is getting smaller and smaller. Honestly the only place left for gods to hide is the Big Bang. What caused the Bang? A god maybe. That possibility can't be ruled out. Yet.

[Peter]

what evidence do you have for macro evolution? species turning into a completely different species? example - foxes are restricted by their genetic coding to be foxes (although there can be variations in their own species- microevolution), they cannot transform into a whale. they do not have the information in their coding to do so. give me proof

There is absolutely no reason why the modern Fox cannot evolve into a whale like animal given the right selective pressure and enough time. They're both mammals so most of the evolving is already done. We'd just need to work on the form. I don't know, maybe 6 million generations? Definitely a long term project!

Now consider a cockroach evolving into something like a whale. Wow, that's a tough one. That might actually be impossible. Probably the best we could do would be an aquatic insect the size of a very small whale unless we could change the breathing mechanism of the insect which is why they're limited in size.

[no evidence no belief]

God is another dimension.

Meaningless statement. No more and no less meaningful than "Batman operates on a different level".

abiogenesis in outer space produces aliens

I don't think there's any valid reason to speculate that life can exist in outer space. The speculation is that life can exist on other earth like planets.

dianaiad knew it before we did

Ridiculous non sequitur. I'm assuming you're referring to the mormon belief that when you die you get to become the ruler of a separate planet. To infer the validity of such a claim from the possibility that there is life on other planets is pathetically absurd.

It's like inferring that there is a spaceship behind a comet which you can reach by committing suicide, just because you can see a comet.

It's like believing in spiderman because you saw a spider. It's like believing in Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer because you saw a reindeer at a zoo.

Heck, it's like believing Superman exists and comes from the planet Krypton, because you speculate alien life may exist.

The notion that life on other planets may exist does no more to validate the fairy tale of mormons becoming leaders of other planets when they die than it does to validate any other science fiction claim about aliens.

Why is it even necessary that I say any of this?

[Peter]

Why is it even necessary that I say any of this?

Somebody has to. Imagine what a disaster this planet would be if 80% of the population was split into factions, each certain they had the magic instruction book written by the creator of the universe... oh, wait. Darn!

[zeromeansnothing]

re no evidence no belief Post3057 I don't think there's any valid reason to speculate that life can exist in outer space. The speculation is that life can exist on other earth like planets.


Good one this, the man who brought monotheism to the outer universe. . Now how do I want my hair split, outer space or other earth like planets? Abiogenesis by your own definition will produce whatever the cycle defines. God knows what that is? This time I'm gone, you win.

[dianaiad]

re no evidence no belief Post--If they put a gun to my head and said "guess whether there is life on any other planet in the universe. If you guess wrong, I'll shoot you", I'd guess that there is. But if evidence emerged demonstrating that there in fact cannot be life on any planet other than earth, I would not be too difficult to persuade.

Thank You for standing up here and answering my query. I had given up on receiving a reasonable argument on this. You mentioned tangential evidence and this is again my point here. Tangential evidence on this issue leads to many many sci-fi variations that I do not want to entertain. Would tangential evidence on this lead me to Mormon Cosmology or not . I haven't a clue. Thank You for your answer. If I had a gun to my head on this I would wait until the shooter's arm got tired. Star done good here.

God is another dimension.
abiogenesis in outer space produces aliens
dianaiad knew it before we did

I knew what before you did?

1. If you have something to say about my posts, go ahead and address those issues and those posts.

2. If the above is simply an appeal to ridicule against me personally, you might want to rethink it and see #1.

[dianaiad]

God is another dimension.

Meaningless statement. No more and no less meaningful than "Batman operates on a different level".

abiogenesis in outer space produces aliens

I don't think there's any valid reason to speculate that life can exist in outer space. The speculation is that life can exist on other earth like planets.

dianaiad knew it before we did

Ridiculous non sequitur. I'm assuming you're referring to the mormon belief that when you die you get to become the ruler of a separate planet.

(raising hand) er, we don't believe that. We've never believed that. We have often been accused of believing that, but we don't believe that. Sorry. We do believe that we can become like God, and He isn't in charge of one measly planet, is He? At least, not in the belief system under discussion, He isn't.

Not that it matters in the context of the point you are attempting to make, here, mind you; I'm just correcting a mistaken impression of Mormon doctrine.

[Star]

re no evidence no belief Post--If they put a gun to my head and said "guess whether there is life on any other planet in the universe. If you guess wrong, I'll shoot you", I'd guess that there is. But if evidence emerged demonstrating that there in fact cannot be life on any planet other than earth, I would not be too difficult to persuade.

Thank You for standing up here and answering my query. I had given up on receiving a reasonable argument on this. You mentioned tangential evidence and this is again my point here. Tangential evidence on this issue leads to many many sci-fi variations that I do not want to entertain. Would tangential evidence on this lead me to Mormon Cosmology or not . I haven't a clue. Thank You for your answer. If I had a gun to my head on this I would wait until the shooter's arm got tired. Star done good here.

Unlike NENB I would be a very tough sell on the idea that life is only possible on Earth. Even if life was so rare that only one galaxy on average had life, there'd still be hundreds of billions of instances of life, intelligent or not.

There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe, each averaging hundreds of billions of stars. Imagine how many planets and moons there are, past, present, and future.

We have no evidence of life outside our own planet, sure, but that's understandable. Given the unimaginable size of the universe, consider the possibilities. The potential is bigger than our minds can even comprehend.

I've always said, nature is more wonderful, bizarre, and exciting than any science fiction.