Does finding life on another planet disprove religion?

asim18 said:
No.

One of my mates is a religious nutjob. He believes anything which is not in the Quran is false and just does not exist. He believes dinosaurs are a figment of the American government (read "Illuminati"), created solely for the purpose of disproving Islam.

So even if they find E.T. life, the religious nutjobs with just think it's a conspiracy.
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You should get you mate to join and start a thread on what he believes, it would be interesting to see how he reacts to someone who can use the Qu'ran to refute his interpretations and see how and why he has come to the strange conclusions he has.
 
Rainmaker said:
Indeed. To state that one has to reject logic and rational thinking to adhere to a religion or believe in a god is a strange assertion.

To be honest, I wouldn't be entirely surprised should science and religion/philosophy one day merge into some kind of super-discipline. Put another way, I think that it's entirely possible that one day we'll be able to measure the things that currently aren't measurable.

While hardly mainstream, an engineer named Ronald Pearson has some interesting maths demonstrating (he says) that one can amalgamate quantum and relativistic theory to explain the origins of the universe, that God IS the universe, and that we are all simply eternal fractions of this universal God-consciousness explainable by today's physics and basic mathematics.

While I'm certainly not advocating that he's right, it certainly does get the imagination running.
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That is very interesting actually, especially if you recall something I put forward in a prior conversation of ours.

Ronald Pearson you say?
 
Castiel said:
It means to spontaneously create something without any change from another substance.

Are you stating that we could theoretically create matter without any prior substance, effectively creating something out of nothing?

If you are then I would like to see the citation.....
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I never said that it was presently possible to create matter without any prior substance, I merely pointed out that it was theoretically possible to create primitive life form chemically without organic input!
 
lttlejoe said:
I never said that it was presently possible to create matter without any prior substance, I merely pointed out that it was theoretically possible to create primitive life form chemically without organic input!
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I realise that, and thus my point stands simply creating life doesn't really affect God insomuch as we are not creating, we are changing energy (or matter) from one form into another.

If we could suddenly and without the aid of any form of energy or matter or device create life then you may have a point, however I suspect that is currently impossible theoretically or otherwise.

Something else to consider also is that if as a species we ever did get to the position in our evolution that we had that kind of capability would we not have then become Gods ourselves and that in itself would indicate that Gods prior to us would also theoretically have existed?

Simply put, Abiogenesis like Evolution, does not preclude the existence (or non existence) of God.
 
Castiel said:
I realise that, and thus my point stands simply creating life doesn't really affect God insomuch as we are not creating, we are changing energy (or matter) from one form into another.

If we could suddenly and without the aid of any form of energy or matter or device create life then you may have a point, however I suspect that is currently impossible theoretically or otherwise.

Something else to consider also is that if as a species we ever did get to the position in our evolution that we had that kind of capability would we not have then become Gods ourselves and that in itself would indicate that Gods prior to us would also theoretically have existed?

Simply put, Abiogenesis like Evolution, does not preclude the existence (or non existence) of God.
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Are you honestly suggesting that this so called god was able to create everything we see from absolutely nothing?

If that is the case then surely any other life form that might be found to exist on other planets would have to look exactly as we do in order to fit in with religious theocratic teachings of how we were created in god's image!

If not, any divergence from this would firmly discredit current religious doctrine.
 
lttlejoe said:
Are you honestly suggesting that this so called god was able to create everything we see from absolutely nothing?
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I'm not personally advocating any specific ideology, however from a theological perspective that is exactly what God does.

lttlejoe said:
If that is the case then surely any other life form that might be found to exist on other planets would have to look exactly as we do in order to fit in with religious theocratic teachings of how we were created in god's image!

If not, any divergence from this would firmly discredit current religious doctrine.
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Why?

You assume from a Catholic Christian literal genesis interpretation that "gods image" is indicative of appearance, many other theologians including St Augustine (there he is again), Origen and others maintain genesis is allegorical and also that "in the image of God" doesn't mean anything other than a manifestation of certain parts of our nature, such as self expression etc.....

So any life would not necessarily have to resemble us at all, all they would have to do is have a familiar capacity for self expression, which I suspect would be a basic requirement of sentience.

This also only addresses Catholic doctrine, Islam for example has no such "in gods image" dogma, neither do many other major religions.
 
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I once upset a friend by making him admit god must be an alien.....

God doesn't exist, religion was used to gain control of people by making them believe if they behaved to a certain set of rules in there current **** life they would be rewarded with having a better life afterwards. Now we live by society's rules there is no need for religion, religion now days is for the week minded and the brainwashed.
 
Castiel said:
You should get you mate to join and start a thread on what he believes, it would be interesting to see how he reacts to someone who can use the Qu'ran to refute his interpretations and see how and why he has come to the strange conclusions he has.
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You're going to try and argue with someone who is obviously insane? :p
 
Play assassins creed brotherhood and there you go,you have the answers lol:rolleyes:

I like the way some people like to knock science,the science that gives us the lives we lead today,biblebashers yes=nutjobs:eek:
 
Sayso said:
True but i wouldn't call them crazy, you don't have to be crazy to believe in god just a bit gullible.
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I don't think you have to be crazy or gullible to believe in a god, we've all had different experiences which go some way to shaping our world view, for the people who believe in a god theirs have just been a bit different to yours (or mine for that matter). There's very little that is absolutely right or absolutely wrong in such matters so it would be nice if we could all respect that other people may think differently.

In saying that I'm probably as well wishing for unicorns, leprechauns and centaurs to all be real as I am for some people to manage to respect others beliefs...
 
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Sayso said:
True but i wouldn't call them crazy, you don't have to be crazy to believe in god just a bit gullible.
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I'm not referring to people who believe in God, but specifically Asim18's dinosaur denying, conspiracy promoting fundamental literalistic friend.

I don't agree that you are necessarily gullible if you have faith either.
 
The whole *science vs religion* is pretty invalid anyway. It should really be *science vs [insert specific religion here]*. Even if I were to ever consider religion, the fact that there are so many and only one can be correct makes it impossible for me to believe in any of them without solid evidence.
 
The only thing I don't really 'get' about religion is how so many people can believe in something they have absolutely no proof of.

I mean obviously it is because of the sheer number of people that believe it, but even so. Something being popular doesn't make it true.
 
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