Does finding life on another planet disprove religion?

Robbo said:
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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Each person will have their own personal reasons and evidence they accept which defines their faith, Religions offer an organised structure in which people can express those beliefs and explore their own spirituality consistent with their own cultural background and values.

That is the reason there are so many religions, and so many denominations within those religions.
 
I could understand religion better if people tried to justify it as a lifestyle (if you know what I mean), but the baseless belief in a divine being just doesn't quite sit right with me.
 
Robbo said:
I could understand religion better if people tried to justify it as a lifestyle (if you know what I mean), but the baseless belief in a divine being just doesn't quite sit right with me.
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I understand your point of view and in many ways following a religion is exactly a lifestyle choice, however their beliefs are not baseless, not to them at least, you and I simply do not share them is all.
 
I sometimes find it difficult, when talking to friends who are religious, to remember that they genuinely believe it all, and it can be quite jarring sometimes to be talking to them (one person i know is particularly religious) and realise that what i am saying could actually be taken as offensive by them.
It is genuinely hard for me to remember sometimes that it can be a very important aspect of their lives, and they will sometimes take what i'm saying and be honestly offended by it.

As someone who is not religious at all, it can be hard sometimes to understand faith.
 
Robbo said:
The 'god' beliefs are factually baseless though, are they not?
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That depends on how you define "factually", it is not always feasable to ascribe a scientific naturalist definition of fact to philosophical questions and concepts such as God.

Facts are very subjective and God is one of those ethereal concepts that we current have no way of defining in a universal way or testing scientifically even if we could define exactly what to test for.

Also there is a religious or philosophical position called Pantheism which equates God to Nature and the Universe.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism

Which is something many people overlook when they talk about religion, in some ways God and religion are seperate arguments.
 
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The discovery of extra-terrestrial life would certainly make the claim that the billion trillion stars present in the universe were created for us, seem even more ridiculous and unlikely than it already does.
 
Castiel said:
I'm not personally advocating any specific ideology, however from a theological perspective that is exactly what God does.



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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How about I replace the "god created everything dogmatic religious concept" with a theory that gods don't exist and that it was fairies which created the universe and life as we essentially know it?

Using the same defence mechanism that religions use to defend their teachings, there is no tangible evidence to disprove that fairies didn't create the universe and therefore the Fairy theory has equal provenance to that of any religious belief or teachings!

This is the problem with all religions or beliefs in the supernatural...they never address any proof issues with anything other than ever-evolving doctrine to answer critics or questioners of their beliefs!
 
lttlejoe said:
How about I replace the "god created everything dogmatic religious concept" with a theory that gods don't exist and that it was fairies which created the universe and life as we essentially know it?

Using the same defence mechanism that religions use to defend their teachings, there is no tangible evidence to disprove that fairies didn't create the universe and therefore the Fairy theory has equal provenance to that of any religious belief or teachings!
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Unless you have over 2000 years of supporting theological and philosophical literature, treatises, and interpretation, your idea that God can be defined as the Daoine Sidhe doesn't have equal provenance, especially as they had their own Goddess Danu and were considered Godlings themselves anyway.

So all you are really doing is substituting one interpretation of God for another more ancient one.

Also it doesn't address religions such as Hinduism, Taoism and many folk and pagan religions that have pantheist views rather than anthropomorphic creator viewpoints.

lttlejoe said:
This is the problem with all religions or beliefs in the supernatural...they never address any proof issues with anything other than ever-evolving doctrine to answer critics or questioners of their beliefs!
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Only from a purely materialist science-centric perspective. Philosophical questions require philosophical answers.

Anyway I and others like Rainmaker have addressed these questions in what seems to a dozen threads over the past week, you may wish to review some of them before submitting another conjecture. It would save the repetition.
 
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Castiel said:
Unless you have over 2000 years of supporting theological and philosophical literature, treatises, and interpretation, your idea that God can be defined as the Daoine Sidhe doesn't have equal provenance, especially as they had their own Goddess Danu and were considered Godlings themselves anyway.

So all you are really doing is substituting one interpretation of God for another more ancient one.
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It really makes no difference with regard to the maturity of the beliefs or whatever the various religions believe...there is no more proof or provenance than my fairies theory!
This supporting theological and phylosophical literature that you mention contains absolutely no categoric evidence of their god's existance - it is merely a collection of unsubstantiated claims created by humans who believe in the superstitions of a superior being.
 
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