Alien Life Semi-Confirmed by NASA. (This may be historic)

[DribbleZ]

I agree with the dmt. The aliens aren't out there, they're in here. Excellent if we find evidence of life in space, but the aliens we want to communicate with are in a higher dimension than we normal perceive. Evolution is heading towards the inner world and expansion of consciousness into new and delightful perspectives. Our consciousness had to expand a whole lot to get us to where we are today and it's not going to stop with us.

[Darwin]

I don't know which is more valid as they are both entirely untestable.

There is a key difference. The Many Worlds interpretation is in principle mathematically and logically disprovable. The Deity interpretation cannot in any meaningful way be entirely disproved thus it really is untestable.

[spirit72]

It will be interesting to see how the Catholic Church might spin this one...

You might be suprised, actually. The Vatican has been pretty open to the possibility of extraterrestrial life for some time now. I think you'll see more voices in support of the science than in opposition to it.

I think the most vociferous opposition to it, within Christendom at least, will be from the fundamentalist side of the theological spectrum.

[lxskllr]

You might be suprised, actually. The Vatican has been pretty open to the possibility of extraterrestrial life for some time now. I think you'll see more voices in support of the science than in opposition to it.

I think the most vociferous opposition to it, within Christendom at least, will be from the fundamentalist side of the theological spectrum.

The Catholics are very open, and flexible regarding science. Where they don't budge is on "moral" issues, and I can understand that since they aren't inherently scientific, and are more philosophically based.

[WickedKitchen]

You might be suprised, actually. The Vatican has been pretty open to the possibility of extraterrestrial life for some time now. I think you'll see more voices in support of the science than in opposition to it.

I think the most vociferous opposition to it, within Christendom at least, will be from the fundamentalist side of the theological spectrum.

I'd certainly welcome it. My kids are in Sunday school now so I try to keep up or at least avoid times of complete contradiction with what they might've heard at church. I remember when I was going through the catholic education courses the priests didn't have an answer and chalked it all up to God understanding things and we humans can't always understand the answers. Stuff like that, and God has yet to reveal the answer to those questions yet. It didn't sit right with me back then but it was clear that at least the parish that I belonged to didn't have answers to these sorts of things. At least I wasn't taught anything about the earth being only 6000 years old or anything like that. In fact, I haven't even heard of that theory until I was over 30.

I agree about the fundamentalists...or perhaps they could be described as radicals. The bible belt of this country of ours is astoundingly devout from my point of view. I think we'll see some pretty big changes in the religion in our lifetime though. Didn't the pope just exonerate the Jews for the murder of Jesus Christ?

[truthwolf1]

I agree with the dmt. The aliens aren't out there, they're in here. Excellent if we find evidence of life in space, but the aliens we want to communicate with are in a higher dimension than we normal perceive. Evolution is heading towards the inner world and expansion of consciousness into new and delightful perspectives. Our consciousness had to expand a whole lot to get us to where we are today and it's not going to stop with us.

Does science even investigate these possibilities? It would make sense that there are things we still cannot see in full color because we are limited to what we have evolved to. We might be looking in the wrong places after all.

[spirit72]

I'd certainly welcome it. My kids are in Sunday school now so I try to keep up or at least avoid times of complete contradiction with what they might've heard at church. I remember when I was going through the catholic education courses the priests didn't have an answer and chalked it all up to God understanding things and we humans can't always understand the answers. Stuff like that, and God has yet to reveal the answer to those questions yet. It didn't sit right with me back then but it was clear that at least the parish that I belonged to didn't have answers to these sorts of things. At least I wasn't taught anything about the earth being only 6000 years old or anything like that. In fact, I haven't even heard of that theory until I was over 30.

I've always viewed the 'Creation In Six Sequential Solar Days Circa 4000BC' argument and the 'We're Here Because Of A Cosmic Dice-Roll That Came Up Box Cars' argument as being equally ridiculous.

I agree about the fundamentalists...or perhaps they could be described as radicals. The bible belt of this country of ours is astoundingly devout from my point of view. I think we'll see some pretty big changes in the religion in our lifetime though.

I think it was St. Augustine Of Hippo who said(in the 4th Century AD or so, mind you)that 'The Scriptures were written to show us how to go to Heaven, not to show us how the heavens go', or something close to it. Clearly, that concept has yet to filter through some minds.

Didn't the pope just exonerate the Jews for the murder of Jesus Christ?

I haven't completely read up on it yet, mostly because the whole 'Blood Libel' thing has never really been on my theological radar. What I can say about it, though, is that it hasn't been an issue for the lion's share of Catholics for a long while. One of the Catholic Church's peculiarities is that it can be very slow to change...which most of the time I view as a Good Thing. On the other hand, this means it can take a very long time before the Pope puts a lid on something once and for all, when it could(or should) have been laid to rest ages ago..

[cobrageezer]

Personaly I feel that is very misguided to assume, "we are alone." All one has to do is look around at his fellow man to know. " We ain't all from around here." How else can you explain The People of Wal-Mart.

[lxskllr]

Personaly I feel that is very misguided to assume, "we are alone." All one has to do is look around at his fellow man to know. " We ain't all from around here." How else can you explain The People of Wal-Mart.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

[sgreger1]

Does science even investigate these possibilities? It would make sense that there are things we still cannot see in full color because we are limited to what we have evolved to. We might be looking in the wrong places after all.

Yes there is some science on these things, though not how they relate to aliens or anything. But based on our current knowledge of how things evolved and how our brains display the world to us, a truly alien life form that evolved elsewhere else may be so different that we just don't know how to see them. Even your perception of time is specific to planet earth, if life evolved around a planet that took 300 years to make one orbit around it's star, than life would have evolved to adapt to those time periods. A human being sees 24 hours as a "full day" as a unit of measure etc, and our bodies (and all life on earth) have eveolved a natural clock that is specific to how time works where we are at. In other places this may not be the case, 100 years could be a day's worth of events to an alien, or perhaps they are like flies and only live for 1 human day but have an increased number of events occur during that period? It is just impossible to know, but something that developed elsewhere would likey be very different, unless all life has the same orrigin in which case there could be some similarities inherently built into the whole intelligent life thing.

[captncaveman]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Good lord... now I'm aroused.

[sgreger1]

I'm actually not buying this.

Not that I care or have any vested interest - and I don't doubt that life exists elsewhere in a practically unimaginably large universe.

But, if you take a rock from space and then dip it into the soup of life that is the Earth - it is really difficult to determine if that life is from Earth or if it was on the rock in space.

So, for me, the burden of proof is too high - basically insurmountable. The proponents of the space theory need to prove that these are not of terrestrial origin - not the other way around.

If they found this _in_ our solar system - I would still doubt it - since the life could have come from the Earth originally.

And, IMO, most of the people looking for this sort of thing _want_ to find it - and that makes the science questionable to me - remember the scientist about 6 months ago that basically guaranteed that there was life on a "goldilocks" planet they found - just the other day it turned out that this was _totally_ wrong and they even had it orbiting the wrong star.

So, yeah... Science playing out in the press is goofy - these press conferences and media blitzs should be replaced with the normal peer reviewed publication process they used to use.

Yah I am very upset at NASA. First the whole non-carbon based life living off arsenic or whatever turned out to be wrong AFTER THEY MADE A HUGE DEAL ABOUT IT WHEN THEY ANNOUNCED IT, and now the same thing is happening with this.


Originally the plan was that the life in this rock could not have been from earth because of the type of material of the rock, it dissolves in water and since earthly microbes have water in them it would have left very noticeable marks where the water from the roganism eroded the rock around it. This was supposed to finally prove that it could not have POSSIBLY been life from earth due to the composition. Of course, days later in a way less publicized announcement, NASA has now distanced themselves from the scientist who found this and everyone is saying it's not true anymore. Not that it's not true, but that it's back to "inconclusive", in that other scientists who peer reviewed it ended up saying that while yes there are holes that look like they were caused by microbe fossils, those holes could have been made by some other natural process.


So i'm pretty pissed, and this turned out to be a non-story. I am so ****ing sick of this happening, HEY SCIENTISTS, PROTIP: BE CERTAIN OF YOUR CLAIMS BEFORE MAKING ANNOUNCEMENTS TO THE PRESS. Orriginally they were saying this was the most peere reviewed paper in all of history and now it turns out that other sceintists did peere review it but pretty much said that this was not proo of life but just more evidence in it's favor. Very upset but not surprised by this.

[CoderGuy]

Yah I am very upset at NASA. First the whole non-carbon based life living off arsenic or whatever turned out to be wrong AFTER THEY MADE A HUGE DEAL ABOUT IT WHEN THEY ANNOUNCED IT, and now the same thing is happening with this.


Originally the plan was that the life in this rock could not have been from earth because of the type of material of the rock, it dissolves in water and since earthly microbes have water in them it would have left very noticeable marks where the water from the roganism eroded the rock around it. This was supposed to finally prove that it could not have POSSIBLY been life from earth due to the composition. Of course, days later in a way less publicized announcement, NASA has now distanced themselves from the scientist who found this and everyone is saying it's not true anymore. Not that it's not true, but that it's back to "inconclusive", in that other scientists who peer reviewed it ended up saying that while yes there are holes that look like they were caused by microbe fossils, those holes could have been made by some other natural process.


So i'm pretty pissed, and this turned out to be a non-story. I am so ****ing sick of this happening, HEY SCIENTISTS, PROTIP: BE CERTAIN OF YOUR CLAIMS BEFORE MAKING ANNOUNCEMENTS TO THE PRESS. Orriginally they were saying this was the most peere reviewed paper in all of history and now it turns out that other sceintists did peere review it but pretty much said that this was not proo of life but just more evidence in it's favor. Very upset but not surprised by this.

Hmmm, I am looking at it completely differently... I am seeing them making these discoveries, then announcing them and suddenly due to massive pressure from religions, "admit they made a mistake" to cover it.

[deadohsky]

I never really understood the whole "religion hates aliens" thing. Is it even a real phenomenon?

I'm not religious at all. But, if you have a god that, in a massive universe, only bothered to populate 1 planet - he seems more like a hobbyist then an actual omnipotent god. This leaves the point to the rest of the universe being what? So the sky isn't completely dark at night? If that is the case then it seems like an excessively complex solution to an easy problem...

Besides, nothing energizes the base like an external threat - a little competition from alien gods would probably help the "business".

I was brought up in a very religious home so i can give you my experiences from that time.

Science/ astronomy was never discussed as far as i can remember. We were told to take the bible as the literal word of 'god' (which you can get into a lot of interesting situations if you actually do that; stoning disobedient children, killing a neighbor if you see them working on the sabbath, etc.) so as far as us children being taught from the bible, we didn't think about space in any real significant way. God created the Earth and life in six days, nothing more nothing less. That's how it was taught and presented in my church anyway.

I don't know about other denominations/ religions. The one good thing about the catholic church is they are at least open to the idea, and have their own astronomers and such.

[WickedKitchen]

I heard a theory yesterday about earth seeding.

It was theorized that perhaps there were a life filled planet out there and the residents of that planet knew that they were living on a dying orb. Getting off of that planet was necessary yet they hadn't yet figured out interplanetary travel. They located our planet with telescopes or what have you and decided that it was a habitable place. They send their DNA or equivalent here and that was the beginning. I don't know that I particularly subscribe to that theory but it's an interesting one nonetheless.

Back on track...I think religions, at least the Catholics, don't have a central answer. Of course, nobody has an answer really that's much better. ET life throws a monkey wrench into a lot of their teachings, that's for sure. Does anyone know what Buddhism or Islam have to say about it?