h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm annoyed with myself. I've complained before about people who reply to messages without changing the title, and now I've done it myself. My last post had nothing to do with God, so why did I put him in the title?

"God is based on faith," yes?
Now possibly you could say that *belief* in God is based on faith. That would make some sense.

I've done it again!

C. S. Lewis put forward an answer to that one:

Imagine an evil cow. Really evil, now. Wicked through and through. A cow bent on world domination, perhaps.

Now, if you've finished laughing, try to imagine an evil man. Or to think of a real evil man.

A little easier, perhaps? The better a creation is -- the 'higher' it can go --, the greater its capacity for evil -- the lower it can fall. Humans that didn't go evil would be excellent. Humans that couldn't go evil would be cattle.

Does that make sense?




And another, related, question: If God is all-powerful, how could something happen contrary to his will?

Again, I'm going to take a suggested answer from Lewis' Mere Christianity.

You tell your child to take care of his own room: you aren't going to tidy it for him and you're not going to demand that he tidies it himself. You'd prefer him to, all the same. You have relaxed your rule and given way to his own free will, however he chooses to use it.

(God, as Creator, has, of course, more authority than a parent, but the analogy works fairly well and is one employed in the Bible itself.)



TRiG.

I've spoken with some of the "experts" on the ancient astronaut delusion. The idea of aliens comming to the earth and becomming the basis of religion and mythology is probably the most unsuportable theory on the origins of religion ever put forward.

Life attracts life, period. species interact with each other all time. You only have to look at the natural world to see this as a fact. Its only by interacting and understanding that we find ways to adapt and survive in the ever changing environment. After all this is what we have intelligent for as it is quicker to create a way to get yourself out of trouble than it is waiting for the natural evolution of things to grow a extra body part or something to help you. If we meet a superior race or an equal for example of course we will fight it. Its a kind of way of proving our worth to the opposing force and a way of finding out each others potential. Once this is found then you get a kind of stale mate. When that happens integration of species starts and the best bits of both sides are utilized to insure our survival into the future years. Black meets white fighting happens, sort the wheat from chaff or put it another way removing the weaker strains of genetics from each side. then your left with strong on strong. stale mate. then integration. If aliens do come here then i imagine the same will happen, eventually if we haven't been wiped out then both sides will benefit from a new knowledge of perspective on how to live in our individual parts of the galaxy. Enabling us to expand further. why do you think we explore and so much money is spent scouring the deepest oceans for new forms of life. its not to make documentaries that's just a spin off. New species in hostile environments provide ways for us to understand how to live and survive in harsher and hostile situations. Most of the things we have invented are recreations of things we have discovered. A lot of the discoveries made to date in our oceans are helping us in our space explorations. As for god, if you believe in him then im sure he would be proud as we are doing exactly what our nature intends us to do. And that is live. Space is a nothingness made up of the building blocks of everything. So if the nothing is everything then anything is i like to believe eventually possible. If you believe something is real you will make your own discoveries on that belief and contribute to life based on the knowledge gained from living that way. Once all the wrongs things have been tried and tested then surly the only thing that can be left is the right. We must be doing ok don't you think after all we are all still here.

personally i disagree how can you say that god exists when thers no proof well thers no concrete proof even the bible contradicts itself it seems to me more likely that aliens can exist than god! to me i believe religion is just a source of comfort!!! people dont like the thot of dying and having nothing to look forward to!!! how can you say that all religions have some sort of link? theyr totally different! the only thing linkin them is an "almighty being" of some sort but theyv all got different names! in my opinion god does not exist it is much more easier for me to understand that thers a scientific explanation for the creation of the universe and not created within seven days i believe the world would be more peaceful without religion it causes to much confliction people can have morals without being religious in anyway think of a world without religion would some of the horrific wars and terrible incidents still have occured if ther was no religion?

I do believe there is a "creator " of some kind.. I do believe that this creator has an interest in his creation.. In Us..

I suspect he cares for us and wants us to make the best of the world he gave us..

I can see no reason why there shouldn't be other life forms to us, in the universe, probably a few ... not sure if they are more advanced than us or not.. they may be aware of us and see us as no threat , they may be unaware .

They may be so different to us they don't care whether we are here or not.

It does seem a tad arrogant of us to think we are the only "ones" and that we would be so significant to other worlds that they would be interested in us.

There are so many questions and so many different ways of looking at this thing.. maybe we can expand our minds and our personal philosophies and our sense of the spiritual by wondering and hypothesisng . imo That can only be a good thing.

I'm sorry - but I was having a browse and I can't pass by without saying "THERE IS NO GOD!!!! FFS _ IT'S THE 21ST CENTURY _ PLEASE GET OVER IT!!!!"

ahem - thanks - i needed that

And, as it's the 21st century, you're entitled to your own opinion, of course. Why you feel it so necessary to scream that opinion, unasked for, without backup argument, and obviously without positive effect, is known only to you, I am sure.

Look, i respect peoples beliefs that there is a god but the likely hood is fairly slim. then again there is still a likely hood. Any way, that makes no sense. if he was dissapointed with us he could just destroy us. End of, put something else there instead. Same as you would do if you were dissapointed with something on your computer. simply erase it.

Unfortunately that argument is easily avoided by saying that God loves us too much to destroy us.

This is the one I like: "What does God need with worshippers?"

Who said God needs worshippers?

If he doesn't need them, why do people waste so much time worshipping him?

Mind you, I wouldn't particularly care, if they didn't also seem to think that God needs them to bother me for /not/ worshipping him.

To think that there is a god or creator of any kind is really just wishful thinking. The Bible doesn't really count as proof of god, since it was WRITTEN. In order to be written, a human had to write it. In order for a human to write it, humans had to have been alive.

There is quite clear and consistent proof from scientific theory and evidence (such as the carbon dating of fossils) that earth is around 4.5 billion years old, and yet humans have only existed for around 11,500 years. So how can the bible account for all the years on earth that men haven't been alive for? Unless your one of those that believe "fossils were put there to test our faith", in which case, go look at the scientific evidence, then come back and tell me fossils are not real.

So if the bible can't account for the rest of the time that humans were not alive, then how can we accept on the basis of this book that god is real, when everything that came before us is still for the most part unknown.

As for aliens, the likelihood of humans actually evolving was miniscule, and yet it still happened. What, then, are the chances of a lifeform capable of thought evolving on another planet? If they did evolve, the sheer distance between galaxies means that their flight technology would have to be FAR beyond anything we are capable of. As for UFOS, if there have been so many sightings, it would be plausible to assume that contact would have been made by now by enough people that even governments would find it impossible to cover up or deny.

Therefore IF aliens do exist, and thats a big IF, then we haven't made contact yet, and most probably never will, in all of our lifetimes at least, as technology would have to reach a level where we could send a computer controlled craft to another galaxy unmanned. Anyone more interested in this, go and read bill bryson's a short history of nearly everything, it explains alot of what I've written here!

I would argue that in an infinite universe of infinite possibility, sentient life is inevitable, sooner or later. And there is in fact every reason to think that there are alien species that are even smarter than us who, because they think of us much the same that we think of mice or ants, simply haven't bothered to /make/ contact. More importantly, why do they have to be in another galaxy? They could just as easily be in this one; it's 100,000 light years in diameter after all.

But..IF the universe is infinite and IF we came about by pure chance, then there would be infinite life forms in infinite places with infinite levels of technology. So why aren't ANY living with us by now, unless of course they had no interest in us? And because we have interest in both lesser and greater life forms, it follows that in an infinite universe there are other life forms with the similar curiosity. Because of this I do not believe the universe is infinite AND we came about by random chance. But then if we came about by chance, the universe must not be infinite. And if the universe is finite, what does finite even mean? finite mass and energy? finite dimensions? finite intricacies of the so called "laws of physics"? But the laws of physics are written from the percieved world by finite human imaginations! Maybe the universe is infinite or maybe infinite universe cannot be defined. Something defines the universe. something causes the "laws" to remain unchanged. If it is indeed our own perception, how did our perception come to be? We can either call the definition by the name "god" or some other name, or we must say the universe defines itself and us, and we do not truly exist.

Just some thoughts

~*~But...IF the universe is infinite and IF we came about by pure chance, then there would be infinite life forms in infinite places with infinite levels of technology. So why aren't ANY living with us by now, unless of course they had no interest in us?~*~

.... Because it's a very LARGE universe. Seriously, talk to an astronomer, they'll explain.

Hello Guys. Ive got news for you. there are no aliens, just 1 god and we are gods creation. god created angels and jins(demons).
angels are created to do what god tels them and the jins are made from flameless fire also roaming the earth. the devil is made in this uniqu way from a flameless fire. if you read about King Solomon who is a prophet in the 3 Monothies religions (judayism, christiyanity and islam) its speaks about how he controlled these Jins by the will of God. Ill let you guys look into the discriptions but in a nut shell they look like the aliens you see on tv today. These jins also have religions. some belive in jedayism, some christinity, some muslims and some have no religion at all.

To get a good overview of all this above please watch The Arrivals.

Us Humans as alot of us say are kind fed up people and thats why god sent us prophets. The job of the devil is to make people belive there is no god but the people who belive are all good and well.

Just sort your selfs out and give a wave to the devil. I got something personal but mainly business against the devil. He was a good creation who obayed but disobayed when told to bow to adam.

He knows his fate is in hell and his aim is to take as many to hell with him.

when he said to god i will take you creation to hell and this disobedient creation will forget you and go astray got replied that as long as they ask me for forgive ness i shall forgive them.

gods you best friend man. hell forgive you.
Main thing is people have respect and learn to respect and thats more than enough. find common ground and work from there.

say no to bad and yes to good. and even if you do bad then you will feel bad and try to be good. only 24 hours in a day. 8 we sleep 8 we work and 8 we do what ever. look at your self and see how much bad you do do. r u really that bad or r u more good than bad.

Peace.

I know a guy named Warner, you might like. You can probably find him here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F16034?thread=6311115