When Space Aliens Ask Us About God, What Will We Answer?
Sound of Trumpet
http://markshea.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#2053232600063100285
It turns out God made everything, not just Catholics
Therefore, if life turns up on other planets, it's not a problem for
the Catholic Church. I've never understood how somebody could think
that a religious tradition which already accepts the idea of non-human
created intelligences (namely, angels and demons) would have a crisis
if ET turned up. That's not to say he will. Along with Enrico Fermi,
my main question to believers in the Billions of Civilization is
"Where is everybody?"
But I think it would be hilarious if ET did turn up, was unfallen, and
proceeded to instruct the secularists in search of the ET Eschaton
that there is one God, the Father, the Almighty, Creator of Heaven and
Alpha Centauri Prime. Of course, if there are unfallen creatures
capable of space travel, they would probably, in their divine wisdom,
stay far away from us. On the other hand, if ET turns out to be fallen
like us and capable of interstellar flight, then I think it would be a
fine time to re-read The War of the Worlds.
Alternatively, we could find that ET is here because he is a sort of
unfallen pagan who saw a Star in the Gamma Quadrant 2000 of our earth
years ago, and he seeks to meet the race Maleldil has so honored that
he became one of us.
ET: People of Earth! Our Oyarsa have told us that Maleldil, whom you
call in your language by such names as "God" "Dios" Gott" "Dieu"
"Allah" and so forth was actually born on your world as a member of
your species! We come here full of wonder and seek to know you better.
Our Oyarsa have told us not to assume too much from this fact and we
shall try not to, but we must say that we eagerly anticipate getting
to know you better since your race now stands by virtue of your
peculiar relationship to Maleldil, as creatures who are higher than
even the Oyarsa themselves!
So please, tell us of the mighty celebrations you held when Maleldil
walked among you! Recount for us the worship and honors you crowned
him with. Let us hear the wonderful stories of how you welcomed him!
Who among us would want the job of shifting uncomfortably in his seat,
coughing, and with burning cheek having to explain to a
technologically super-sophisticated alien with the innocence of a
saintly child just how our race welcomed God in the flesh? The look of
sheer horror on that alien face would be the worst indictment we ever
face apart from the face of our Lord himself. Only the power of the
Resurrection would over come it. The safest thing to bring with us to
any encounter with an unfallen ET would be a Host. For we would have
good reason to hope that, being unfallen, he would discern the Lord
present there and find the power necessary to forgive us rather than
vaporize us on the spot.
Ed
wrote:
I expect space aliens to be as profoundly apostolic as humans are.
They won't come asking us about God, they'll come TELLING us about
God.
Why would aliens do what humans have never done? Can you cite an
instance when Christians, for example, went to other peoples or lands
for the purpose of asking them about God? No, they sent missionaries
to tell those people about their God, never mind what those people
knew before the missionaries got there.
The missionaries came to convert, not to learn; the aliens will
probably do the same.
LC
"Ed" <solo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:899c7e9c-45fe-4c0f...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com...
> The missionaries came to convert, not to learn; the aliens will probably
> do the same.
Or, as James Michener succinctly wrote in "Hawaii": "The missionaries came
to do good, and they did very well indeed."
chazwin
The only difference will be that their god has 20 tentacles and is
green and that the story of Jesus of Nazareth will be a heresy
punishable by being microwaved to death over a 24 hour period.
Conspiracy of Doves
If aliens ask me about god, I'll tell them the truth. God is a figment
of primitive imaginations that holds back social and technological
progress. It divides a society and drives people away from reason and
logic, and the ideal of compassion and empathy for their own sake.
And they will respond, "Felicitations, earth human. We would welcome
you and the rest of the cognitively advanced portion of your species
to partake in a mass exodus of your planet so that you may take your
proper place among the civilized beings of the galaxy. We would not
wish to see you remain here, as such as you should be preserved when
the less advanced, superstitious and avaricious, members of your
species inevitably destroy themselves under the weight of their own
willful ignorance."
Immortalist
wrote:
A similar thing happened when Apostle Paul ran into the philosophers
in Greece preaching his Christ. He couldn't deal with but respected
the shreading he got and then just said they must be doomed. Then
there is the Christian dilemma of what about people [and implictly
aliens from other planets] who never hear the werd. After the
Christians got through with decribing their position to some advanced
aliens, it would be lucky of the aliens didn't destroy these
representatives of earth primates. But they might be able to
understand their instincts for believing such things and try and deal
with them justly and fairly, depends upon the aliens;
Paul faces the philosophers
As Paul preached the word of God in this public place, he was
confronted by Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. They asked
sarcastically, “What does this babbler want to say?” (Acts 17:18).
Others said that he was “a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because, as
Luke says, “he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection” (verse
18).
These brilliant and educated Athenians didn’t understand the simple,
though profound truth of God. Their intellectualism must have
impressed Paul deeply. Later, he would write to the nearby Corinthian
church, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18). The “Jews request a sign, and Greeks
seek after wisdom” (verse 22)....
...It’s not surprising that the Epicureans and Stoics did not
comprehend the gospel of Christ. The Epicureans believed the gods
didn’t exist or weren’t involved with human affairs. To them, Paul’s
God and Savior was just another foreign deity. The Stoics believed in
reason as the principle by which humans should live. They relied on
rational abilities and self-sufficiency. There was little place for a
personal God in their thinking.
http://wcg.org/lit/bible/acts/stepspaul.html
....In the Western world, almost anyone has elementary knowledge about
Christianity, and therefore the terms of one's salvation are clear. As
for those who never had the chance to hear the Christian message or
heard a perverted version of it, it is obvious that their judgment
will require other criteria than responding to the historical Jesus
Christ.
Grace attributed retroactively
Surprisingly, in Hebrews 11 we can find a whole list of people who
never heard about Christ but still are saved. Before analyzing these
cases, we must acknowledge that if salvation depended exclusively on
how much information one had about Christ, we would affirm a form of
Gnosticism (salvation through attaining the right knowledge of
spiritual realities). But God does not limit his grace to those who
have enough information of him. The examples mentioned in Hebrews 11
prove that the salvation of those who never heard about Christ depends
on two basic requirements: 1) their response to the amount of
revelation they had, which is their responsibility; 2) the retroactive
conferring of Christ’s sacrifice on the basis of their faith, which is
God’s responsibility. Let us see how this works...
...The above considerations do not imply that all those who don’t know
anything other than their native religion are rejected by God....
Walter Bushell
wrote:
Their children did well indeed, not the missionaries themselves. From
the natives standpoint, a difference without much distinction.
--
What is done in the heat of battle is (normatively) judged
by different standards than what is leisurely planned in
comfortable conference rooms.
John Locke
ET wouldn't have any use for mindless superstitions. In fact, the
first thing they'll probably do is vaporize all the religious zombies,
restoring normality to the planet.
"It is far better to grasp the Universe
as it really is than to persist in delusion,
however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
saint...@hotmail.com
the Pleiades. Semjase claimed that the Pleiadians worship the
Creation and NOT a Creator of any kind. She regarded Jesus as the
turf of humans in general and Billy Meier in particular, who in fact
wrote a book called the Talmud of Jmmanuel, Jmmanuel being his name
for Jesus.
There is much truth to the view of the Pleiadeans, insofar as the evil
side of the Biblical God can be transcended by depersonalizing it.
One can depersonalize God altogether, as atheists do, but that is to
the detriment of humans, since a personal relationship with a truly
good God is quite desireable.
Cary Kittrell
Space aliens?
We'll never know, because immaculate and unfallen or not, conservatives
will accuse them of coming here to steal our cars, spread disease,
and go on welfare.
-- cary
Don Martin
> In article <cd78b3cf-c7f1-486b-af38-cfcb47752...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com> Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com> writes:
>
> Space aliens?
>
> We'll never know, because immaculate and unfallen or not, conservatives
> will accuse them of coming here to steal our cars, spread disease,
> and go on welfare.
I suspect that any aliens capable of getting _here_ before we can
manage to get _there_ will probably have dispensed with the baggage of
sky pixies and the like some millenia before they began their voyage
hither. If they are peaceful, theology is an unlikely topic for
discussion. If they are not, it is a moot one.
Hatter
>
> Space aliens?
>
> We'll never know, because immaculate and unfallen or not, conservatives
> will accuse them of coming here to steal our cars, spread disease,
> and go on welfare.
>
> -- cary
Actually I think how things will go, they will be ill mannered, coo
and giggle over our pecular primitve religions, take holophoto of our
momuments, enjoy our resteraunts, buy a few handmade trinkets, and
take our resources. And yet our lives overall will get better because
the middle class of them can afford to hire Bill Gates for party
entertainment.
These earthers heh, I got one to be a maid for my vacation home for a
year just by offering a few anti-cancer pills and a handfull of pocket
8 quatrawatt batteries...I tell you these human will work for nothing.
Hatter
Immortalist
> > What Will We Answer?
>
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Eda1KAT9-hc
> ET wouldn't have any use for mindless superstitions. In fact, the
> first thing they'll probably do is vaporize all the religious zombies,
> restoring normality to the planet.
>
> "It is far better to grasp the Universe
> as it really is than to persist in delusion,
> however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan-
If ET were not a dumb ass, kew about biological organsims and
evolution generally, and obviously went through particular stages
itself on its way to becoming [humanoid as we did] it would probably
conclude that we humans were just further back than them in our
evolutionary history. It would be more like in Star Trek and the
"prime directive" not to mess with less evolved species who might be
harmed by advanced knowledge or technology. Then again it could be
like you want and ET would be like Hitler.
Here is how an ET with sufficient knowledge of science would see it;
The mind is composed of a large number of mental modules each designed
to solve a specific problem. For example, there is one mechanism for
perceiving three dimensions, another for anger, another for falling in
love. The mind is like a Swiss Army knife; i.e., it has lots of
specialized tools. There is no such thing as general intelligence,
general learning, or any other general ability to solve problems.
...we [these humanoids] are endowed with a moral faculty that delivers
judgments of right and wrong based on unconsciously operative and
inaccessible principles of action. The theory posits a universal moral
grammar, built into the brains of all humans. The grammar is a set of
principles that operate on the basis of the causes and consequences of
action. Thus, in the same way that we are endowed with a language
faculty that consists of a universal toolkit for building possible
languages, we are also endowed with a moral faculty that consists of a
universal toolkit for building possible moral systems.
If across the globe and throughout history, human beings have engaged
in a variety of religious practices and have held a diversity of
religious beliefs and these phenomena have been explained in a variety
of different ways by anthropologists, psychologists, and other
scholars, as well as by religious practitioners themselves, with
varying degrees of success, then perhaps more puzzling, and just in
need of an explanation, is the fact that all human beings have
religion in the first place.
If religion is a by-product of the way our minds evolved to negotiate
the natural and, more importantly, the social world and the
explanation for religious beliefs and behaviours is to be found in the
way all human minds work.
Religious concepts activate various functionally distinct mental
systems, present also in non-religious contexts, and ‘tweak’ the usual
inferences of these systems. They deal with detection and
representation of animacy and agency, social exchange, moral
intuitions, precaution against natural hazards and understanding of
misfortune. Each of these activates distinct neural resources or
families of networks.
The Inferential Instinct: ...a naturalistic account of cultural
representations that describes how evolved conceptual dispositions
make humans likely to acquire certain concepts more easily than
others. The aggregated result of these individual acquisition
processes channels cultures along particular paths, with the result
that some concepts are both relatively stable within a group and
recurrent among different groups.
Our brains have been "designed by evolution" to employ particular
cognitive systems that help us to make sense of "particular aspects of
objects around us and produce specific kinds of inferences about
them." There are, for instance, brain–systems in this sense that deal
with inanimate objects, others that deal with human persons, and yet
others that deal with supernatural agents. Just as our brains have
become by evolution such that they inevitably (and mostly
unconsciously) deploy the complex inferential systems that permit us
to survive and get around in a world of inanimate objects, so they
also have become such that we find ideas about full–access strategic
agents to be plausible because these ideas generate for us rich
inferences about how to behave and what choices to make, and they do
so with particular richness in a social context in which we can
reasonably assume that everyone else shares such ideas.
Scientists themselves thus reverse many traditional attempts to
explain religion away. It is not that we invent the gods because by so
doing we can meet needs otherwise difficult to satisfy, or because
they permit us to explain things otherwise hard to explain, or because
they give us the illusion of comfort in a harsh and comfortless world,
or because they give us persuasive reasons to act morally. It is,
rather, that evolution has equipped us (or most of us) with certain
proclivities or dispositions to explain misfortune, gain scarce social
goods, and act morally (roughly, acting in such a way as
evolutionarily to benefit either ourselves or the tribe).
Moreover, these proclivities dispose us to accept and act upon the
idea that there are gods—or, if you prefer, full–access strategic
agents. Evolution makes all of us likely worshipers in much the same
way that it makes all of us likely language–users. We are innately
predisposed for both, and so such disparate religious traditions as
Christian theology, Islamic law, and Buddhist metaphysics are merely
different forms of baroque ornamentations added on to an evolutionary
edifice.
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/11/marc-hauser-mor.html
Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal
Sense of Right and Wrong - by Marc Hauser
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minds-Nature-Designed-Universal/dp/0060780703
http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/463evolpsyIQ.html
Religion Explained: The Human Instincts That
Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors
by Pascal Boyer
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465006965/
ffr...@mailandnews.com
'A Case of Conscience' by James Blish deals with this issue. From the
Wikipedia article:
'It is the story of a Jesuit who investigates an alien race that has
no religion; they are completely without any concept of God, an
afterlife, or the idea of sin; and the species evolves through several
forms through the course of its life cycle. '
And,
'One (Catholic fan) even sent James Blish a copy of the actual Church
guidelines for dealing with extra-terrestrials.'
Keynes
Personality is partiality. Partiality is bias. Bias is good and evil.
A good and evil discrimination that differs from the next person.
Therefore personality is not perfection, not at all above error,
and the basis of continual human strife.
Those who would approach God must abandon personality.
"I knocked on the door.
God said, 'Who is there?'
I said, 'It is I'.
God said, 'There is no room here for me and thee.'
Again I knocked on the door.
God said, "Who is there?'
I said, 'It is thou.'
And entered into paradise."
saint...@hotmail.com
Butch Malahide
>
> If aliens ask me about god, I'll tell them the truth. God is a figment
> of primitive imaginations that holds back social and technological
> progress. It divides a society and drives people away from reason and
> logic, and the ideal of compassion and empathy for their own sake.
>
> And they will respond, "Felicitations, earth human. We would welcome
> you and the rest of the cognitively advanced portion of your species
> to partake in a mass exodus of your planet so that you may take your
> proper place among the civilized beings of the galaxy. We would not
> wish to see you remain here, as such as you should be preserved when
> the less advanced, superstitious and avaricious, members of your
> species inevitably destroy themselves under the weight of their own
> willful ignorance."
When you meet space aliens, you're going to tell them you don't
believe in God.
Priceless.
When I meet the Easter Bunny, I'm going to tell him I don't believe in
Santa Claus.
Cary Kittrell
> On May 15, 12:59=A0pm, c...@afone.as.arizona.edu (Cary Kittrell) wrote:
> > In article <cd78b3cf-c7f1-486b-af38-cfcb47752...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.co=
> m> Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com> writes:
> >
> > Space aliens?
> >
> > We'll never know, because immaculate and unfallen or not, conservatives
> > will accuse them of coming here to steal our cars, spread disease,
> > and go on welfare.
> >
> > -- cary
>
> Actually I think how things will go, they will be ill mannered, coo
> and giggle over our pecular primitve religions, take holophoto of our
> momuments, enjoy our resteraunts, buy a few handmade trinkets, and
> take our resources. And yet our lives overall will get better because
> the middle class of them can afford to hire Bill Gates for party
> entertainment.
>
> These earthers heh, I got one to be a maid for my vacation home for a
> year just by offering a few anti-cancer pills and a handfull of pocket
> 8 quatrawatt batteries...I tell you these human will work for nothing.
>
But they'll be back...I'm building a rattan and bamboo rocket
landing port even as we speak. You'll see.
-- John Phrum
Cary Kittrell
> On May 15, 11:11=A0am, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, 15 May 2008 09:58:28 -0700 (PDT), saint7pe...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > >the Pleiades. =A0Semjase claimed that the Pleiadians worship the
> > >Creation and NOT a Creator of any kind. =A0She regarded Jesus as the
> > >turf of humans in general and Billy Meier in particular, who in fact
> > >wrote a book called the Talmud of Jmmanuel, Jmmanuel being his name
> > >for Jesus.
> >
> > >There is much truth to the view of the Pleiadeans, insofar as the evil
> > >side of the Biblical God can be transcended by depersonalizing it.
> > >One can depersonalize God altogether, as atheists do, but that is to
> > >the detriment of humans, since a personal relationship with a truly
> > >good God is quite desireable.
> >
> .
> > A good and evil discrimination that differs from the next person.
> > Therefore personality is not perfection, not at all above error,
> > and the basis of continual human strife.
> >
> > Those who would approach God must abandon personality.
> >
> > "I knocked on the door.
> > God said, 'Who is there?'
> > I said, 'It is I'.
> > God said, 'There is no room here for me and thee.'
> > Again I knocked on the door.
> > God said, "Who is there?'
> > I said, 'It is thou.'
> > And entered into paradise."
>
> SPLAT!
MYSTIC FIGHT! MYSTIC FIGHT!!!
-- cary
SkyEyes
wrote:
<Snip article>
When the space aliens ask *me* about god, I'll just hand them a copy
of Daniel C. Dennett's book _Breaking the Spell: Religion as a
Natural Phenomenon_.
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding
skyeyes nine at cox dot net
SkyEyes
> In article <cd78b3cf-c7f1-486b-af38-cfcb47752...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com> Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com> writes:
>
> Space aliens?
>
> We'll never know, because immaculate and unfallen or not, conservatives
> will accuse them of coming here to steal our cars, spread disease,
> and go on welfare.
Not to mention the fact that they speak English with a funny accent!
;->
Brenda
Xan
"Sound of Trumpet" <soundof...@mailhaven.com> wrote in message
news:cd78b3cf-c7f1-486b...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com...
1) Aliens would avoid humans rather than have anything to do with them.
2) They could find out all they wish to know from WWW - TV - communications
without directly speaking with humans.
3) As they would be advance intelligence and their evolution and level would
be well in advance of humans - they would know about religion or deities and
these kind of things on a far more advance level than humans therefore would
have no requirement to speak with humans.
Xan
Wordsmith
Better not. The Tooth Fairy might take issue.
W ; )
Conspiracy of Doves
Dude, it's called 'humor'. Look it up.
Aliens are at least theoretically possible.
Hatter
>
We have an example of an inhabited world, it is called Earth. It had
more than one intelligent species on it(hobbit, erectus, sapience) We
have yet to find a deity.
Hatter
Cary Kittrell
> On May 15, 9:59=A0am, c...@afone.as.arizona.edu (Cary Kittrell) wrote:
> > In article <cd78b3cf-c7f1-486b-af38-cfcb47752...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.co=
> m> Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com> writes:
> >
> > Space aliens?
> >
> > We'll never know, because immaculate and unfallen or not, conservatives
> > will accuse them of coming here to steal our cars, spread disease,
> > and go on welfare.
>
> Not to mention the fact that they speak English with a funny accent!
>
> ;->
>
> Brenda
Yeah, just like that other bunch I told you about, the closest
they seem able to come to "Cary" sounds something like
"Chinga".
I don't think it's THAT hard to pronounce. Do you?
-- cary
Xan
"Hatter" <Hatt...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:dfef7e62-0c32-4795...@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
Hatter
There are stories of deities - myths - legends - Greek deities - Norse
deities - Hindu deitites - and Jewish and others.
There are stories of dragons - unicorns - giants.
Stories of King Arthur.
Stories of Elves - Dwarves.
But there is no categorice fact of one Jewish/Christian deity who is the
only deity that exists.
Although those who believe in this particular deity would like to think this
is so - there are many who either believe in other deities - or who do not
believe in a deity at all.
If you read Revelations in the Bible of this particular deity - the
suffering and prejudice and torment and rather ugly horrible nature of this
particular deity - and the stories of the condemnation and suffering foisted
upon Jews due to one woman eating of an apple - it would be better if he did
NOT exist.
Other deities such as Krishna - it would be very nice if they did.
As indeed it would be nice if Elves existed.
Xan
Gene
@newsfe10.ams2:
> Other deities such as Krishna - it would be very nice if they
did.
Why? He's like Hamlet, only not as smart. He kills his uncle,
behaves strangely, gets involved in a war on both sides, is
shot in the foot and dies. I can manage without it.
Conspiracy of Doves
More than one species doesn't count if they are all descended from the
same intelligent species.
MarkA
In that our laws offer little protection to non-humans, regardless of
intelligence, they may well get their asses blown away by some patriot
with his shotgun.
--
MarkA
Keeper of Things Put There Only Just The Night Before
About eight o'clock
Xan
"Conspiracy of Doves" <mark...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:b543f2d0-
>> We have an example of an inhabited world, it is called Earth. It had
>> more than one intelligent species on it(hobbit, erectus, sapience) We
>> have yet to find a deity.
>>
>> Hatter
>
> More than one species doesn't count if they are all descended from the
> same intelligent species.
Humans intelligent?
Very very very few humans show "signs" of intelligence. The majority are
downright stupid.
Xan
Sea Wasp
"We killed him and buried him out back. You wanna be next?"
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
SkyEyes
> In article <8b670451-c86e-485b-919b-14355fec6...@l17g2000pri.googlegroups.com> SkyEyes <skyey...@cox.net> writes:
>
> > On May 15, 9:59=A0am, c...@afone.as.arizona.edu (Cary Kittrell) wrote:
> > > In article <cd78b3cf-c7f1-486b-af38-cfcb47752...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.co=
> > m> Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com> writes:
>
> > > Space aliens?
>
> > > We'll never know, because immaculate and unfallen or not, conservatives
> > > will accuse them of coming here to steal our cars, spread disease,
> > > and go on welfare.
>
> > Not to mention the fact that they speak English with a funny accent!
>
> > ;->
>
> > Brenda
>
> Yeah, just like that other bunch I told you about, the closest
> they seem able to come to "Cary" sounds something like
> "Chinga".
>
> I don't think it's THAT hard to pronounce. Do you?
Er...no. But then, I don't think "Brenda" is hard to pronounce
either, but I've known little kids and Greek citizens who couldn't do
it. The kid brother of my best friend calls me "Weena" to this day,
because he couldn't say "Brenda" when we were sprogs. (He's just
turned 52.)
BTW, you weren't named after Cary Grant, were you? Enquiring minds,
and all that.
Brenda
Howard Brazee
<soundof...@mailhaven.com> wrote:
>It turns out God made everything, not just Catholics
It seems that RC theology is thinking ahead with regards with
technology. They also have determined that clones would have souls
(but shouldn't be created).
I had a Lutheran pastor (Missouri Synod) in the Eastern Shore of
Maryland in 1966 tell me that there couldn't possibly be aliens - as
they weren't mentioned in the Bible. I thought about telling him
about all of the references to Maryland in the Bible.
Howard Brazee
>Humans intelligent?
>Very very very few humans show "signs" of intelligence. The majority are
>downright stupid.
What would you accept as signs of intelligence?
Smiler
"chazwin" <chaz...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5591949d-b5e4-4695...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> On 15 May, 15:25, Ed <solon...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> On May 15, 9:26 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> >http://markshea.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#2053232600063100285
>>
>> > It turns out God made everything, not just Catholics
>>
>> They won't come asking us about God, they'll come TELLING us about
>> God.
>>
>> Why would aliens do what humans have never done? Can you cite an
>> instance when Christians, for example, went to other peoples or lands
>> for the purpose of asking them about God? No, they sent missionaries
>> to tell those people about their God, never mind what those people
>> knew before the missionaries got there.
>> The missionaries came to convert, not to learn; the aliens will
>> probably do the same.
>
> The only difference will be that their god has 20 tentacles
20? That must make it difficult for them to walk.
Oh, Sorry! You wrote "tentacles".
I must get new glasses........
Smiler,
The godless one
a.a.# 2279
Uncle Vic
<soundof...@mailhaven.com> wrote:
> It turns out God made everything, not just Catholics
>
>
> Therefore, if life turns up on other planets, it's not a problem for
> the Catholic Church.
I'll bet you're too dizzy to see what a circular argument that is.
--
Uncle Vic
aa Atheist #2011
Separator of Church and Reason.
Convicted by Earthquack.
Bill Snyder
Kowtowing, jewel-studded idols in his image, gifts of large sums
of money, an Inquisition to demonstrate really fanatical devotion,
the usual stuff.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Xan
"Howard Brazee" <how...@brazee.net> wrote in message
news:icip241alpbe1j76q...@4ax.com...
Is is impossible to be both religious and intelligent.
If you have intelligence you would know why.
Intelligence is also not about memory recall.
It is also not about thinking you "know" something and then trying to get
others to agree. It is perfectly obvious if you had intelligence that if
there was anything to be "known" on Earth - any great Truth - then ALL
humans would know the same thing. So logically and obviously - no human
"knows" anything and there is no one Truth or great Truth on Earth. I say
on Earth. What I mean is among humans.
This has not answered your question I know.
But once you rule out all the above - who is left?
What would YOU accept as signs of intelligence?
Xan
Howard Brazee
>
>What would YOU accept as signs of intelligence?
When deciding whether humans have signs of intelligence, I would use
similar criteria as I would in deciding whether humans had signs of
physical strength.
Sure, we don't always use strength nor intelligence, but that wasn't
the question. Signs of strength include the ability to pick up a
feather or the ability to hold a rock.
Signs of intelligence would include figuring out how to grow food or
how to avoid being eaten.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>> It turns out God made everything, not just Catholics
>>
>>
>> Therefore, if life turns up on other planets, it's not a problem for
>> the Catholic Church.
>
>I'll bet you're too dizzy to see what a circular argument that is.
I don't see it. I see an assumption and a conclusion, but the
assumption is not based upon the conclusion.
Shrik...@gmail.com
soliciting" sign up
on the moon?
On May 15, 6:26 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com>
wrote:
> http://markshea.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#2053232600063100285
>
> It turns out God made everything, not just Catholics
That means the bastard made colon cancer.
William December Starr
you do *not* want to know."
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Sir Frederick
>
>http://markshea.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#2053232600063100285
>
They would recognize any answer as a "figure of speech", human speech that is.
Similar are the words "mind", "soul", "personhood", etc.
They would have their own interesting "figures of speech", or at least
"figures of communication".
Jon Schild
And AIDS, and parasitic worms that eat out the brains of children, and
all the other evils on the earth.
--
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-- Galileo Galilei
William December Starr
In article <8d9f78f5-89cf-47ec...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
Hatter <Hatt...@gmail.com> said:
> Actually I think how things will go, they will be ill mannered,
> coo and giggle over our pecular primitve religions, take holophoto
> of our momuments, enjoy our resteraunts, buy a few handmade
> trinkets, and take our resources. And yet our lives overall will
> get better because the middle class of them can afford to hire
> Bill Gates for party entertainment.
>
> These earthers heh, I got one to be a maid for my vacation home
> for a year just by offering a few anti-cancer pills and a handfull
> of pocket 8 quatrawatt batteries...I tell you these human will
> work for nothing.
Okay , now I'm remembering a short story from a long time ago. Two
alien researchers are talking about the latest primitive specimen
that one of them scooped up and interrogated. End of conversation
goes approximately:
"Did you follow protocol and give it anything it asked for as
compensation for its time and trouble?"
"Of course."
"So, what did _this_ one ask for?"
"The universe, same as most of them."
"Ha. You know, one of these days they're going to wise up and start
asking for something *valuable*, and then we're going to be in trouble..."
Uncle Vic
But the assumption is what supports the conclusion, therefore the
conclusion is the premise. Woo-woo-woo-woo...
David Johnston
>
>"Howard Brazee" <how...@brazee.net> wrote in message
>news:icip241alpbe1j76q...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 15 May 2008 22:30:54 +0100, "Xan" <x...@home.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Humans intelligent?
>>>Very very very few humans show "signs" of intelligence. The majority are
>>>downright stupid.
>>
>> What would you accept as signs of intelligence?
>
>Is is impossible to be both religious and intelligent.
>If you have intelligence you would know why.
Ah so the definition of intelligence is "agreeing with you".
Wayne Throop
: Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
: When deciding whether humans have signs of intelligence, I would use
: similar criteria as I would in deciding whether humans had signs of
: physical strength.
So... Lenny is smarter than George?
"Don't call me George. My name is Sylvester."
"But I can't say "Sylvester", George."
--- Sylvester and Benny
( "and I will pet him, and pat him, and squeeze him..." )
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Mike Schilling
I was intelligent enough to know that would be his answer immediately.
Wayne Throop
::: intelligence you would know why.
I think it's because he's wearing the proof printed on his clothes
that only smart people can see.
johac
<dbc26d72-5ed9-486b...@w4g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
SkyEyes <skye...@cox.net> wrote:
> On May 15, 6:26 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com>
> wrote:
>
> <Snip article>
>
> When the space aliens ask *me* about god, I'll just hand them a copy
> of Daniel C. Dennett's book _Breaking the Spell: Religion as a
> Natural Phenomenon_.
>
And I'll hand them a copy of Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion".
--
John #1782
the Omrud
> There are stories of deities - myths - legends - Greek deities - Norse
> deities - Hindu deitites - and Jewish and others.
> There are stories of dragons - unicorns - giants.
> Stories of King Arthur.
> Stories of Elves - Dwarves.
> But there is no categorice fact of one Jewish/Christian deity who is the
> only deity that exists.
> Although those who believe in this particular deity would like to think
> this is so - there are many who either believe in other deities - or who
> do not believe in a deity at all.
> If you read Revelations in the Bible of this particular deity - the
> suffering and prejudice and torment and rather ugly horrible nature of
> this particular deity - and the stories of the condemnation and
> suffering foisted upon Jews due to one woman eating of an apple - it
> would be better if he did NOT exist.
> Other deities such as Krishna - it would be very nice if they did.
> As indeed it would be nice if Elves existed.
Of course he exists <indignant>.
Oh. Elves. I thought you said Elvis.
--
David
Hatter
> > have yet to find a deity.
>
> >Hatter
>
> More than one species doesn't count if they are all descended from the
>
Wel yes they have all one common anscestor, but it does show that
modern human isn't the only possible model, giving at least some
plausibility to some other model existing without common anscestry.
Not a given, or anything of the sort, but it help to give evidence it
is theoretically possible.
Hatter
Mark K. Bilbo
<snortle>
Okay, this is a *funny* post...
Cary Kittrell
>
> On Thu, 15 May 2008 16:59:19 +0000, Cary Kittrell wrote:
>
> > In article <cd78b3cf-c7f1-486b...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com> Sound of Trumpet <soundof...@mailhaven.com> writes:
> >
> > Space aliens?
> >
> > We'll never know, because immaculate and unfallen or not, conservatives
> > will accuse them of coming here to steal our cars, spread disease,
> > and go on welfare.
> >
>
> In that our laws offer little protection to non-humans, regardless of
> intelligence, they may well get their asses blown away by some patriot
> with his shotgun.
"They're a-tryin' to get their slimey tentacles on our wimmin-folk"
BLAM!
-- cary
Cary Kittrell
> On May 15, 1:53=A0pm, c...@afone.as.arizona.edu (Cary Kittrell) wrote:
> > In article <8b670451-c86e-485b-919b-14355fec6...@l17g2000pri.googlegroups.=
> com> SkyEyes <skyey...@cox.net> writes:
> >
> > > On May 15, 9:59=3DA0am, c...@afone.as.arizona.edu (Cary Kittrell) wrote:=
>
> > > > In article <cd78b3cf-c7f1-486b-af38-cfcb47752...@2g2000hsn.googlegroup=
> s.co=3D> > > > We'll never know, because immaculate and unfallen or not, conservative=
> s
> > > > will accuse them of coming here to steal our cars, spread disease,
> > > > and go on welfare.
> >
> > > Not to mention the fact that they speak English with a funny accent!
> >
> > > ;->
> >
> > > Brenda
> >
> > Yeah, just like that other bunch I told you about, the closest
> > they seem able to come to "Cary" sounds something like
> > "Chinga".
> >
>
> Er...no. But then, I don't think "Brenda" is hard to pronounce
> either, but I've known little kids and Greek citizens who couldn't do
> it. The kid brother of my best friend calls me "Weena" to this day,
> because he couldn't say "Brenda" when we were sprogs. (He's just
> turned 52.)
>
> BTW, you weren't named after Cary Grant, were you? Enquiring minds,
> and all that.
>
No, Cary was my mother's maiden name; it's my middle name.
And her middle name was "Peay", a prominent name in
Tennessee politics -- which I bring up only to reveal
that my ... great-uncle or something like that, was
not only governor of Tennessee, he was the governor
who signed into law the bill which was the basis of
the Scopes trial.
According to the Pulitzer-winning and highly-recommended
(by me) "Summer for the Gods", great-something-or-other
Austin Peay signed the bill with considerable reluctance,
predicting that it would make his state -- and mine -- a
laughingstock.
-- cary
Quadibloc
> Or, as James Michener succinctly wrote in "Hawaii": "The missionaries came
> to do good, and they did very well indeed."
I vaguely recall that something similar was earlier written of the
Quakers who came to the United States from England, although I think
it went on "and they ended up doing well" rather than "and they did
very well indeed", thus being not quite so emphatic.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> Very very very few humans show "signs" of intelligence. The majority are
> downright stupid.
They wear clothes. They use fancy gadgets - which were made and
designed by other humans. So we can indeed be confident that humans
are clever, even if there is very little evidence that they are wise.
For purposes of looking for "intelligent life", clever will do.
John Savard
Wayne Throop
: Wel yes they have all one common anscestor, but it does show that
: modern human isn't the only possible model, giving at least some
: plausibility to some other model existing without common anscestry.
: Not a given, or anything of the sort, but it help to give evidence it
: is theoretically possible.
What, you mean like, Vulcans or something?
Because any two earth critters whatsoever have a common ancestor.
Quadibloc
> And AIDS, and parasitic worms that eat out the brains of children, and
> all the other evils on the earth.
These were just useful parts of a beautiful self-regulating natural
system, and only became evils when we sinned. Absent the Fall, AIDS
would have just kept the chimpanzee population from becoming
excessive.
John Savard
Shrikeback
"Jon Schild" <j...@xmission.com> wrote in message
news:g0iu8i$23g$2...@news.xmission.com...
>
>
> Shrik...@gmail.com wrote:
>> No thanks, we gave at the office? And did we forget to put that "No
>> soliciting" sign up
>> on the moon?
>>
>> On May 15, 6:26 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>http://markshea.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#2053232600063100285
>>>
>>>It turns out God made everything, not just Catholics
>>
>>
>> That means the bastard made colon cancer.
>
> And AIDS, and parasitic worms that eat out the brains of children, and all
> the other evils on the earth.
And preachers like to point out what a painful way to go
crucifixion is. God should try a dose of colon cancer, Himself.
Crucifixion is too good for him. So, when the "space aliens"
come streaming across that great Rio Grande in the sky,
and they ask us about God, I guess we'll have to just say,
"that bastard better not let the sun set on him on this planet.
Talk about getting medieval on someone's ass!" Okay, that
may be trite, in itself, but it's the context that makes it original.
Shrikeback
"Quadibloc" <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in message
news:4618beb8-ff69-4f10...@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com...
On May 15, 10:16 pm, Jon Schild <j...@xmission.com> wrote:
> > And AIDS, and parasitic worms that eat out the brains of children, and
> > all the other evils on the earth.
> These were just useful parts of a beautiful self-regulating natural
> system, and only became evils when we sinned.
What do you mean "we," paleface? I wasn't even there.
I have an alibi.
And, anyway, I think a decent defense lawyer could have
won an acquittal. I don't even remember Adam and Eve
getting a fair trial. See, the problem in Jehovah's case against
them is that prior to eating of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil, the young couple had no knowledge of good and
evil. They didn't know right from wrong at the time. I move
for acquittal Your Honor.
> Absent the Fall, AIDS
> would have just kept the chimpanzee population from becoming
> excessive.
I had thought that the viruses from which HIV evolved were
benign in their simian hosts. I could be wrong, I haven't really
followed that subject in a while. I did hear the theory that the
chimpanzee virus may have been introduced into the African
human population during the jihad against polio, when vaccines
were harvested from the chimp's livers.
But God gave us polio. God gave us the mutation of the flu
that killed 20 million people in the early twentieth century.
God gives us new mutant viruses all the time. He's such a
fan of evolution that way. So, cheers to a self-regulating
system where populations are controlled by vicious parasitic
life forms and evolution marches on (without the need for
any hands-on god labor)! Thank God for his wise and
merciful design.
LC
Well, all things considered, I'd much rather have ended up with the holdings
that the various missionaries' offspring reaped in Hawaii, rather than those
held in Pennsylvania.
Mahalo Nui, great-great Grandpa!
Wayne Throop
: So, when the "space aliens" come streaming across that great Rio
: Grande in the sky, and they ask us about God, I guess we'll have to
: just say, "that bastard better not let the sun set on him on this
: planet. Talk about getting medieval on someone's ass!" Okay, that may
: be trite, in itself, but it's the context that makes it original.
Oh, not all that original. See Lester DelRey's "For I Am a Jealous
People", collected in the book "Gods and Golems". Space aliens come
to earth to conqueror the place, and are, it turns out, being supported
by Yaweh. Or at least somebody convincingly claiming to be (though more
in the old testament mode of speaking burning bushes and losing track
of Adam finite Yaweh). Seems he got fed up with humanity, and went to
find another client species.
Humanity does not react... calmly. More like "you picked the wrong
people to abandon". Though I suppose it would also be reasonable to be
offended if you thought it was an impostor.
Large cans of nuclear wup-ass are opened.
"Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn't ya?"
--- Burt Gummer to a graboid
"Grant me one request! Grant me revenge!
And if you do not listen, then the hell with you!"
--- Conan to Crom
Conspiracy of Doves
> : Hatter <Hatte...@gmail.com>
> : Wel yes they have all one common anscestor, but it does show that
> : modern human isn't the only possible model, giving at least some
> : plausibility to some other model existing without common anscestry.
> : Not a given, or anything of the sort, but it help to give evidence it
> : is theoretically possible.
>
> What, you mean like, Vulcans or something?
> Because any two earth critters whatsoever have a common ancestor.
>
My point was that the most recent common ancestor of all the
intelligent species that have ever existed on earth was, itself,
intelligent. Meaning that intelligence only arose once on earth.
Mike Schilling
> Or, as James Michener succinctly wrote in "Hawaii": "The
> missionaries came to do good, and they did very well indeed."
That was said by a character who knew nothing about Hawaii first-hand,
thought it led a character who was a descendent of missionaries to
wrestle with his conscience a bit before rejecting it as at most a
half-truth.
Michael Alan Chary
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>"You don't want to know. No, really, just trust me on this,
>you do *not* want to know."
>
Have you ever read THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD?
--
The All-New, All-Different Howling Curmudgeons!
http://www.whiterose.org/howlingcurmudgeons
LC
"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:s7lXj.4762$nl7....@flpi146.ffdc.sbc.com...
Given the Hawaiian holdings of the LDS, the Roamin' Catlicks, other
religious organizations and their offshoots, I'd say that half-truth is
worth about half-a-trillion these days.
That's a lot of poi...
Howard Brazee
<mark...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>My point was that the most recent common ancestor of all the
>intelligent species that have ever existed on earth was, itself,
>intelligent. Meaning that intelligence only arose once on earth.
How do you know about all of the intelligent species that have ever
existed on the Earth?
Mike Schilling
How much of (for instance) the RC holdings belong to the missionaries
or their heirs? To a first approximation, I'd say "none".
LC
It's worse than that.
It belongs to (or was stolen by, pick your terms) organizations that came
with the stated intention of saving the souls of the "primitives".
You know how that turned out.
That their proxies appropriated said land in the name of Gawd (most,
certainly not all) was their heirs misfortune.
The bright side is that there's no Paris Hilton type to single out as the
profligate offspring. At least currently.
Otoh, the aforementioned religious organizations have profited nicely, and
will continue to do so.
LC~ Would be happy to discuss this further, but only after returning from 9
days of fun and frolic, albeit not in Hawaii. Signing off until Memorial
Day. Cheers!
"The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and
his own are the same."~ Stendhal
William December Starr
mch...@panix.com (Michael Alan Chary) said:
> In article <g0itif$pru$1...@panix2.panix.com>,
> William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> "You don't want to know. No, really, just trust me on this,
>> you do *not* want to know."
>
> Have you ever read THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD?
Nope. (I assume you're referring to something in the original,
though in fact I haven't read any of the three volumes.)
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Quadibloc
> But God gave us polio.
Polio was only a problem because we didn't design our sewer systems in
accordance with Old Testament hygenic principles. Plus, it was a
punishment for our pride in attempting to be more hygenic than set out
in the Old Testament: normally, until recent times, everyone was
exposed to polio in infancy, when it gave lifelong immunity without
causing paralysis.
> God gave us the mutation of the flu
> that killed 20 million people in the early twentieth century.
That only spread because of the chaos caused by World War I. Wars
aren't natural disasters, they're caused by sinful human beings; who
get to sin and hurt (relatively) innocent victims because Mankind has
rejected God!
And the problem is solved, of course, as any idiot can plainly see, by
humans repenting the sin of rebellion in the Garden of Eden, and
turning to blind obedience to the self-appointed representatives of
the Most High.
John Savard
saint...@hotmail.com
You're a liar. God ordered Moses to engage in wars, at least
according to Torah. God invented all the diseases and punishments
together with Satan, according to Job. But I guess you're making up
your own Orwellian version of things, including history.
loua...@yahoo.com
> On May 16, 12:17 pm, "Shrikeback" <hewpied...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > But God gave us polio.
>
> Polio was only a problem because we didn't design our sewer systems in
> accordance with Old Testament hygenic principles. Plus, it was a
> punishment for our pride in attempting to be more hygenic than set out
> in the Old Testament: normally, until recent times, everyone was
> exposed to polio in infancy, when it gave lifelong immunity without
> causing paralysis.
So polio was God's way of telling us that we should have stuck with
the typhoid and dysentery we had from the previous sewer systems, and
been grateful?
beelzebub
> If aliens ask me about god, I'll tell them the truth. God is a figment
> of primitive imaginations that holds back social and technological
> progress. It divides a society and drives people away from reason and
> logic, and the ideal of compassion and empathy for their own sake.
Irrational belief does all of those things, belief in atheism too.
The problem is that you aren't thinking logically, you are merely
reacting to illogic with your own emotional response. Both could be
true: simple minds could create comforting god myths, and "god" could
exist in some form that hasn't been conjured by said simple minds,
yours included.
saint...@hotmail.com
> On May 15, 9:01 am, Conspiracy of Doves <mark_d...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > If aliens ask me about god, I'll tell them the truth. God is a figment
> > of primitive imaginations that holds back social and technological
> > progress. It divides a society and drives people away from reason and
> > logic, and the ideal of compassion and empathy for their own sake.
Too bad your nature has been ruined by the false God of the Old
Testament and your own provincialism.
T Guy
David M. Palmer
<f8aa5933-964f-4564...@25g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>,
Conspiracy of Doves <mark...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> If aliens ask me about god, I'll tell them the truth. God is a figment
> of primitive imaginations that holds back social and technological
> progress. It divides a society and drives people away from reason and
> logic, and the ideal of compassion and empathy for their own sake.
Let's get our story straight before contact.
God is a supreme bad-ass high-beyonder who has taken a particular
interest in our well-being, which is why he gave us corbomite for all
our starships. If you treat us well we can put in a good word for you,
otherwise...
--
David M. Palmer dmpa...@email.com (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)
Smiler
"Sound of Trumpet" <soundof...@mailhaven.com> wrote in message
news:cd78b3cf-c7f1-486b...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com...
>
You want us to consider what we would tell an unevidenced hypothetical being
about another unevidenced hypotheical being?
Sorry, but my mind doesn't work at that stupidly low level.
Smiler,
The godless one
a.a.# 2279
Conspiracy of Doves
> On Fri, 16 May 2008 11:50:30 -0700 (PDT), Conspiracy of Doves
>
> >My point was that the most recent common ancestor of all the
> >intelligent species that have ever existed on earth was, itself,
> >intelligent. Meaning that intelligence only arose once on earth.
>
> How do you know about all of the intelligent species that have ever
> existed on the Earth?
Alright, fine. All the intelligent species that we are currently aware
of.
patmp...@gmail.com
wrote:
> http://markshea.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#2053232600063100285
>
> It turns out God made everything, not just Catholics
>
> the Catholic Church. I've never understood how somebody could think
> that a religious tradition which already accepts the idea of non-human
> created intelligences (namely, angels and demons) would have a crisis
> if ET turned up. That's not to say he will. Along with Enrico Fermi,
> my main question to believers in the Billions of Civilization is
> "Where is everybody?"
>
> But I think it would be hilarious if ET did turn up, was unfallen, and
> proceeded to instruct the secularists in search of the ET Eschaton
> that there is one God, the Father, the Almighty, Creator of Heaven and
> Alpha Centauri Prime. Of course, if there are unfallen creatures
> capable of space travel, they would probably, in their divine wisdom,
> stay far away from us. On the other hand, if ET turns out to be fallen
> like us and capable of interstellar flight, then I think it would be a
> fine time to re-read The War of the Worlds.
>
> Alternatively, we could find that ET is here because he is a sort of
> unfallen pagan who saw a Star in the Gamma Quadrant 2000 of our earth
> years ago, and he seeks to meet the race Maleldil has so honored that
> he became one of us.
>
> ET: People of Earth! Our Oyarsa have told us that Maleldil, whom you
> call in your language by such names as "God" "Dios" Gott" "Dieu"
> "Allah" and so forth was actually born on your world as a member of
> your species! We come here full of wonder and seek to know you better.
> Our Oyarsa have told us not to assume too much from this fact and we
> shall try not to, but we must say that we eagerly anticipate getting
> to know you better since your race now stands by virtue of your
> peculiar relationship to Maleldil, as creatures who are higher than
> even the Oyarsa themselves!
>
> So please, tell us of the mighty celebrations you held when Maleldil
> walked among you! Recount for us the worship and honors you crowned
> him with. Let us hear the wonderful stories of how you welcomed him!
>
> Who among us would want the job of shifting uncomfortably in his seat,
> coughing, and with burning cheek having to explain to a
> technologically super-sophisticated alien with the innocence of a
> saintly child just how our race welcomed God in the flesh? The look of
> sheer horror on that alien face would be the worst indictment we ever
> face apart from the face of our Lord himself. Only the power of the
> Resurrection would over come it. The safest thing to bring with us to
> any encounter with an unfallen ET would be a Host. For we would have
> good reason to hope that, being unfallen, he would discern the Lord
> present there and find the power necessary to forgive us rather than
> vaporize us on the spot.
Wow! I think this is the most bizarre thing I've ever read in 20
years Usenet. Sound Of Trumpets, you've outdone yourself. You are
the unchallengeable king.
Quadibloc
wrote:
> Who among us would want the job of shifting uncomfortably in his seat,
> coughing, and with burning cheek having to explain to a
> technologically super-sophisticated alien with the innocence of a
> saintly child just how our race welcomed God in the flesh?
Human is the new Jewish.
What a delightful imagination.
John Savard
mimus
Oy.
--
It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then
when you don't need it anymore you tell them another lie and tell them
they're progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of
laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all
the lies they'll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the
unacceptable. Amazing.
< Pratchett
Smiler
<patmp...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:44a38a9d-1c84-4d6a...@k10g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
Being the unchallengable king of bullshit appears to be his aim in life.
But there are others also aiming for that crown.
SoT hasn't quite won yet, but will finish, at least, a close runner up.
Smiler
> On May 15, 7:26 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Who among us would want the job of shifting uncomfortably in his seat,
>> coughing, and with burning cheek having to explain to a
>> technologically super-sophisticated alien with the innocence of a
>> saintly child just how our race welcomed God in the flesh?
>
> Human is the new Jewish.
>
But the Jews didn't welcome him as 'God in the flesh'.
That's a Christian idea.
saint...@hotmail.com
> "Quadibloc" <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in message
And you love to divide and conquer, don't you, satan? All real Jews
did and do welcome Him. We don't need the false Jews or their false
God. We got the true God, the living God.
Mark K. Bilbo
Except that he writes *nothing*. He swipes the work of others without
any indication that he has permission to distribute.
Yet he thinks he's morally superior...
saint...@hotmail.com
Shut up cocksucker.
Mark K. Bilbo
Oh you're just jealous...
saint...@hotmail.com
>
> Oh you're just jealous...
Of your gay lifestyle? You wish.
Smiler
<saint...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:91315d5c-c3a0-439c...@u6g2000prc.googlegroups.com...
On May 23, 10:13 pm, "Smiler" <Smi...@Joe.King.com> wrote:
> "Quadibloc" <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in message
>
> news:37f83854-f53a-439a...@59g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
>
> > On May 15, 7:26 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com>
> > wrote:
>
> >> Who among us would want the job of shifting uncomfortably in his seat,
> >> coughing, and with burning cheek having to explain to a
> >> technologically super-sophisticated alien with the innocence of a
> >> saintly child just how our race welcomed God in the flesh?
>
> > Human is the new Jewish.
>
> But the Jews didn't welcome him as 'God in the flesh'.
> That's a Christian idea.
And you love to divide and conquer,
-----------------------------------------------
I couldn't give a damn what you and others believe, as long as you don't
rudely push it in our faces.
-------------------------------------------------
don't you, satan?
---------------------------------------------
Satan doesn't exist, except in your warped imagination.
-------------------------------------------------
All real Jews did and do welcome Him. We don't need the false Jews or their
false
God.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Look who's trying to 'divide and conquer'.
-------------------------------------------------
We got the true God, the living God.
---------------------------------------------------
Your evidence for this is, what exactly?
Clue: ....Zero, nada, zilch, none, 0, bugger all, nought. Take your pick.
Kate
wrote:
>On May 24, 6:43 am, "Mark K. Bilbo" <gm...@com.mkbilbo> wrote:
>>
>> Oh you're just jealous...
>
>Of your gay lifestyle? You wish.
He don't have to wish. You obviously are.
Mark K. Bilbo
He's just wishing he could find a way outta that closet...
Don Stockbauer
When Space Aliens Ask Us About God, What Will We Answer?
***********************************
That God and The Universe are identical.
saint...@hotmail.com
No, because the universe runs automatically, by definition, while God
does not. If we have free will it is only through God, who is the
principle of free will.
pba...@worldonline.nl
Indeed the universe would exist just as easily without us humans,
wheres figment of our imaginazion can't surive withoutn us:-)
You are getting there!
Love,
Peter van Velzen
May 2008
Amstelveen
The Netherlands
saint...@hotmail.com
wrote:
> On 25 mei, 21:18, saint7pe...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > On May 25, 10:19 am, Don Stockbauer <donstockba...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > When Space Aliens Ask Us About God, What Will We Answer?
>
> > > ***********************************
>
> > > That God and The Universe are identical.
>
> > No, because the universe runs automatically, by definition, while God
> > does not. If we have free will it is only through God, who is the
> > principle of free will.
>
> Indeed the universe would exist just as easily without us humans,
> wheres figment of our imaginazion can't surive withoutn us:-)
Yours is just a value judgement, which you may come to find does not
best fit the facts. Perhaps "the reality" is not just the universe,
but rather a child of the universe and God, with God intervening in
limited but not scientifically insignificant ways. As a humanist, you
may then realize that it is very much in our interest to increase the
presence of God in our reality. Then we may be brothers in God, my
friend.
Smiler
<saint...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e21563b5-c7fa-4a15...@p39g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
On May 25, 12:48 pm, "pba...@worldonline.nl" <pba...@worldonline.nl>
wrote:
> On 25 mei, 21:18, saint7pe...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > On May 25, 10:19 am, Don Stockbauer <donstockba...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > When Space Aliens Ask Us About God, What Will We Answer?
>
> > > ***********************************
>
> > > That God and The Universe are identical.
>
> > No, because the universe runs automatically, by definition, while God
> > does not. If we have free will it is only through God, who is the
> > principle of free will.
>
> Indeed the universe would exist just as easily without us humans,
> wheres figment of our imaginazion can't surive withoutn us:-)
Yours is just a value judgement, which you may come to find does not
best fit the facts.
------------------------------------------------------------------
What facts, and how may he find what you assert?
I ask for "the facts", not your usual "value judgements".