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Should Space Aliens Play God? Yes it is a serious question.

OK, you're a powerful and clever alien hovering over the earth. You have the ability to switch off the need for God, belief in him and all evidence of previous belief. Do you do it and if so why?

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Permalink Reply by Stuart Jeremy Oxley on November 11, 2011 at 7:46am

I got sucked into the whole God thing for about 6 yrs in the 90s. Fortunately, I got a virus that kept me from the weekly brainwashing for 5 or 6 weeks and science and logic crept in and I saved myself.
Had someone tried to talk me out of it, the installed 'firewall program' 'if it's not of god it is of the devil,' would have kicked in and I'd still be lost.
So I can empathise with you there.
Your opinions are factually correct as well. Here are some examples.
Idiotic mind set: Genesis and Noah etc.
Thwarts true independence: No sex before marriage. Arranged marriages, many paramount to rape. Can't do anything else that the religion forbids. Many children are forced into religion through early brainwashing.
Not harmless: generates bigotry eg, gays not allowed to marry, no contriception, extremism, terrorism, sexism need I go on.

If people gave the money they do to churches to genuine charities and cut out the middle man, the world be alot better off and our population would be considerably smaller. Although some of that would be countered by the fact that millions more people would be alive due to fewer wars.

Permalink Reply by gerry gallacher on November 11, 2011 at 12:25pm

Thanks for understanding thats the kind of encouragement I need : ) I took a vow of obedience, a vow of poverty and a vow of chastity...NO say, No pay and No lay! After ten years all I had was the moral high ground. Thankfully I discovered Dawkins and Hitchens et al.

Permalink Reply by Alice on November 11, 2011 at 7:51am

You see, I wonder if God hasn't come out of the same place that brings on ideas such as your last ideas about humans harnessing the power of many suns and eternal life....

From my understanding - we are facing the heat death of the universe at some point in the future - I know the jury is out on quantum mechanics, but the only theory I've come across so far with regards that - is that we might have another big bang when the heat death comes along.... please enlighten me with further theories on that topic...

In fact the whole idea of these theories based on QP experiments such as the double slit etc - sound quite as outlandish to me as those of religion - but perhaps more up to date - religious stories did perhaps have the same amount of evidence to support them as our modern quantum theories - I don't know... but the whole membrains and dark matter, energy and the latest theory of dark velocity - or some such directional description connected to gravity bouncing off our 'realm' into the other 'realm' - it's all sounding a bit like Lord of the Rings to me - which I like, so not unattractive to me at all - just 'out there'!

Permalink Reply by Stuart Jeremy Oxley on November 11, 2011 at 8:27am

The heat death will come in about 4-5 billion years when the sun expands into a red giant and incinerates the planet. Although life as we know it will only be sustainable for a few more hundred million years.
Latest theories include the hypothosis that there are infinite universies outside of ours, but because incidences are finite, there is another you and me blogging somewhere. There are also universies where you and I are neighbours, or share a lottery jackpot, or running for president/primeminister.
Then there are the parallel universies that exist on top of our own, that sci-fi shows like Fringe and Doctor Who love so much.
Dark Matter is stuff we know exists because its gravity effects stuff we can. The other stuff confuses me until I watch something on Discovery Channel about it.

Permalink Reply by Alice on November 11, 2011 at 10:45am

I think the heat death is when all energy is used up so way after our sun expands into a red giant. But when all matter in our universe has used up it's fuel and cooled. Brian Cox has a great series that describes all that we understand from the big bang to the heat death in the Wonders of the Universe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMaIiHFp-nk

I really can't see that there is another you and me blogger in another universe - that's not how I've understood it - unless we have some sort of shadow selves in a neighbour membrain universe - but I would imagine that any parallel universe would have a different beginning that would lead to an exponentially different outcome - at the same age of our universe.

I agree about the Dark matter issue - science really hasn't worked it out yet - and so those of us who are lay people are left to guess and wonder with the rest of them... :)

Permalink Reply by gerry gallacher on November 11, 2011 at 12:38pm

You may be right it does come out of the same place as god - our imagination....I base my future ideas (which are not rigid or unalterable but fluid and amandable as any ideas should be) on the progress made by science and technology. I want you to watch this video and let me know what you think please, about harnessing the power of the sun and the hope that the species can get through without destroying itself and live forever. I find it hard to understand E=MC2 never mind quantum theories which do seem fictitious at times. But maybe this is due to human nature, for example theories and science have to vie for economic power and to do this they need to galvanise the imagination of the public, become popular before they can be accepted or explained in a way that is understandable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ftF8sXzoWk

Permalink Reply by Alice on November 13, 2011 at 4:42am

Interesting - we do need to name things to bring them into our conciousness and awareness as a species. This is what brings us forward and progresses our understanding and ability to harness new ideas.

He's got a good point when he says that the the maths shows that we should have lots of type 1, 2 and 3 civilisations - but we can't see them.

Then says that it's because it's really dangerous - because of the other consequences. He is quoting movies a lot. Which doesn't bode to well with me - we have movies about vampires, ghosts and other supernatural entities.

He's optimistic. He does like the idea that it will happen. Personally I don't think we are evolved enough to do it. Is it a possibility - I'm my limited knowledge I is possible - but in the frozen river of time it is already known where it will take place or not.

Still even if it does happen, it is fanciful to believe that we would become immortal - because the heat death of the universe means that everything is over, lost power, nothing left to burn - we're not even going to get close to doing that - IF the head death of the universe is a fact and we can't get into another baby parallel universe.... but saying all that what do we do in our own short life?

Find something to do, something to look forward to and someone to love - and enjoy, as much as you are able :)

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on November 11, 2011 at 7:47am

Honestly, I'd rather not.

I came to the conclusion that there was no god ON MY OWN, because I was willing to look at the evidence (or lack thereof!), wrestle with the issues myself and come to the conclusion that belief without substance is a fool's errand.

If I superimposed that standpoint by a flick of a switch, I would be no better than the putative deity who demanded we worship him and follow his commandments on pain of death. Granted, it might improve man's lot, but it would also remove man's choice in this matter, and I am not down with that.

I have no need for a puppetmaster. I also have no desire to BE one.

Permalink Reply by Stuart Jeremy Oxley on November 11, 2011 at 8:06am

Like your answer.
Personally, I'd flick the switch because man rarely knows what he's doing as a species and if we had no memory of it we wouldn't know any different. And the lives it would save would alone be worth it.
Total respect to you though.

Permalink Reply by Alice on November 11, 2011 at 10:34am

I concur... totally we don't know what we are doing or where we are going - I've heard a number of times recently that in retrospect - 20 years in retrospect - that experts in any given field were simply way out in predicting the future in their field of expertise.

We only live in the present time - and we can only experience the present time. Everything we say or think is processed information - and our brains tend to tell stories about what is happening to which we proscribe meaning. Basically we can tell any story we like. I've noticed that friends and family - myself included will 're-write' history even - plucking out events from the past to create a story - a dramatised and believable story - but all the same, it is a story.

The stories that we tell ourselves and others, and the stories that we hear, trigger our bio-chemical regulations. So that we can tell ourselves a sad story and cry, or a happy story and laugh - it's a powerful tool - and this is what we see all the time, in non-fiction and fantasy.

I'm quite taken with this idea that our lives are not fixed histories, but constructed realities effecting our moods, that can be re-created - and that they are all in effect stories of fantasy.

Permalink Reply by Alice on November 11, 2011 at 10:18am

But we don't have free will or choice - we are fully determined based on fully caused events...

There is no way to get a significant amount of people to change, unless it naturally evolves, because it is the 'fittest' idea ... :)

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on November 11, 2011 at 10:27am

If you want to be "determined," that's your trip. Personally, I don't buy it.

And that's all I have to say about that.
-- Forrest Gump