Re: Aliens? was Re: God, Religion, and Sports Medicine

[Erik Reuter]

On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 11:29:54PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Does it change anyone's perspective recalling that as many people
> believe in aliens/intelligent life (or some such), as believe in
> religion?

It doesn't change mine. I don't "believe" in intelligent life. I think
there is a good chance that there has been, is, or will be other
intelligent life in the universe other than us (if it can happen here
and now, it could happen elsewhere and elsewhen). But that is just a
guess. I don't claim intelligent extraterrestrial life actually exists,
and if I were to live forever and search and search for millenia and I
didn't find anything, I would change my assertion about there being a
good chance.


-- 
"Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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Re: Aliens? was Re: God, Religion, and Sports Medicine

[Joshua Bell]

From: Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 11:29:54PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Does it change anyone's perspective recalling that as many people
> believe in aliens/intelligent life (or some such), as believe in
> religion?
It doesn't change mine. I don't "believe" in intelligent life.
[Slight connotation change by snipping there, but it was worth it.]

We even have about 6 billion examples of intelligent biological life forms 
handy to bolster that claim. ;-)

So we have pretty undeniable proof that the universe supports intelligent 
biological life; finding more examples is, as Erik says, just a matter of 
looking. There is no faith required. Either we'll find more examples or we 
won't, but it doesn't change the fact that some do, in fact, exist, right 
here on Earth.

Compare/contrast with belief in supernatural beings, where we don't have any 
handy, uncontestable examples of any members of the entire class of such 
entities.

Joshua

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