Research Programs and Religion

Yes, but my beliefs say the Earth is unique. Therefore, why would I go against my own beliefs and endorse public money being spent on that when we could cure a disease? I would rather help the sick.

That’s quite different. All of the universe praises God; increased knowledge is increased amazement of how God made the world.

Proverbs 18

An intelligent heart acquires knowledge,
and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.
16 A man’s gift makes room for him
and brings him before the great.
17 The one who states his case first seems right,
until the other comes and examines him.

Last verse sounds like science, doesn’t it? :grinning:

What I’m describing is more of a judgment call about a moral choice about what kind of science to invest in. If there were no limits, sure, go check for other life. When God makes all things new, there will be no limits to exploration or knowledge.

God considers is it to be good to ask for wisdom and knowledge.

2 Chronicles 1

In that night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, “Ask what I shall give you.” 8 And Solomon said to God, “You have shown great and steadfast love to David my father, and have made me king in his place. 9 O Lord God, let your word to David my father be now fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth. 10 Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can govern this people of yours, which is so great?” 11 God answered Solomon, “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked for possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked for long life, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may govern my people over whom I have made you king,

I don’t know, He’s referring to Gentiles…I like to think “Gentiles” includes non-human sentient aliens, but I like Science fiction too, so not quite theology that I would hang on to.

So why couldn’t that include intelligent alien species on other planets?

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Maybe you also want to find out whether your already held beliefs are actually true? Why would anyone jump on a boat and sail out into the Atlantic ocean to discover what’s on the other side? Why would we go to the Moon? Or the bottom of the ocean?

And money for helping the sick can come from innumerable other directions. Why of all things should money be taken from people studying the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe just because you’ve decided you believe, on nothing but blind faith (your holy book doesn’t say God only created life here), that there is none?

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I have, by studying the resurrection, as well as Islam.

I’m fine with that. It’s research that is purposed to find life specifically I would not be for. Yes, explore wherever else.

So can the search for ET. Get private funds.

It seems to emphasize it. It’s obvious from the book we’re supposed to be special in the universe. We haven’t found a similar planet yet, have we?

Because Genesis tells us humans were created as adam (Humans) from adamah (the earth). And the Bible gives us fairly extensive knowledge of angels - different types, their interactions with humans, etc. If it was really important to know there was life on other planets, I would assume it would be included in the Bible.

Therefore, if you gave me a choice, I’d never support public funding for that, and would put the money elsewhere where it would do more good. If you want to as a private citizen, go ahead. I think studying our immediate surroundings in the solar system is awesome, as well as the rest of the universe. Like I said, it could happen accidentally. But research that’s purposed just for finding ET, no thank you.

It’s the opposite of anthropocentrism. You may be referring to the principle of mediocrity. I see @pnelson has already mentioned it.

Then why do you keep trying to use it as one? And what does your opposition to SETI have to do with the bible?

What do your beliefs have to do with the bible, or with reality for that matter?

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That’s always my issue with the ‘funding space research’* discussion: take some from the billionaires so they can only avoid 3 x 100 million dollar yachts instead of 5. Or from the military budget! Or any of a huge number of other places. Rather than from medical care or support for the most vulnerable.

*and the vast majority of space research is not the search for ETs anyway… we learn an enormous amount in science and technology from the attempt that is beneficial for life on Earth

Not that it’s an uninteresting discussion…

…but aliens seem to have abducted the discussion of the naturalists/supernaturalists language. :wink:

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That’s a very dangerous precedent. Especially with medical research

There’s already way, way more money spent on medical research than almost anything else except maybe defense research. The budget for the National Institutes of Health is for example about $40 billion per year. There’s also tons of private funding as well as medical research by pharmaceutical corporations into. In contrast, most of the pure research on searching for ETs (e.g. SETI) is funded privately, although the NSF (I think) does fund astronomical research studying planets that may be habitable, but it’s nowhere close to $40 billion per year.

Well, one of the big questions is whether there could be life hiding in our solar system, such as in the oceans of Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. Studying the planet is part of NASA’s grand plans in the next decade.

Why would life on other planets in a distant galaxy be important to be written in the Bible? After all, the main reason for the writing of the Bible is to reveal God’s plan of salvation for humanity on Earth. Even if there are rational beings in some galaxy far away, that doesn’t change the validity or efficacy of that message.

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One of the funnest lectures I do to my classes of beginning science teachers is “Where might we find life in our Solar System?” There are at least 4-5 candidates… and to date Venus had not been one of them, but the recent discovery of phosphine may mean I need to change my notes!

:unamused: If you read by earlier remarks, I said money SHOULD be spent on medical research instead of search for ET life.

OK.

Studying the planet would be cool.

See the other thread. I think I answered this there.

But “cosmos” does not refer to the whole universe; it refers to the world of people that the Bible is written for. If there are aliens in distant galaxies, then the creation account in Genesis 1 would not apply to them, and the Bible would not be written to them. We wouldn’t know whether these aliens also fell into sin like Adam and Eve. Perhaps they did and God provided them a different way to be saved over there.

We are talking about whether there is life elsewhere in the universe. It doesn’t seem to me the resurrection or islam contains any answers to that question. Could there be some kind of prokaryote still living in the Martian crust? In the oceans of Enceladus or Europa? I can’t find any Bible verses that say anything about this, much less whether life could exist in other solar systems or galaxies.

But you have no idea really, all you have is extremely dubious interpretations of Bible verses that in point of fact, make no actual claims about whether there is life on other planets in the universe.

We’re not talking about the search for ET, but for life. Just anything which can be considered alive. Even if that is just single-celled organisms like bacteria.

No, it does that nowhere.

We, as in humans? We’re not looking for other humans, we’re looking for life. Even though it’s not really obvious to me that the Bible says there is no other intelligent life in the inoverse.

That depends on what you mean by similar, doesn’t it? We have certainly discovered so-called “Earth-like” planets, that are roughly the same size and mass as Earth, and exist somewhere around the habitable zone around their local star. We don’t know whether there’s life on them, we can’t currently determine that. We’re not even sure how to determine that as the whole question of what is or isn’t a biosignature is a subject of ongoing research.

But this isn’t the time to start throwing the towel in the ring, on the contrary. Within the lifetime of my grandfather, we went from literally not knowing whether planets even existed around other stars in the universe, to having discovered thousands of them. This overview is from 2013:

As of 2018, here’s a list of potential Earth-like candidate planets:

We went from not knowing what the configurations of planets around other stars were like (how many planets do other stars have, if any? How big are they?) to now being pretty sure that most other stars also have multiple planets orbiting them, and the range and sizes of planets seem to be continously expanding. With every passing generation of telescope technology, we become better at finding planets, and better at deriving their size, mass, and composition from spectral lines in their atmospheres.

I’m pretty sure the Bible doesn’t say anything about planets around other stars. But as you say, it’s not a science textbook, so one has to wonder what makes you so confident some form of life could not exist on any of them.

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Well it’s rather odd that first you say
“For example, I see no reason to search for extraterrestrial life - it’s a waste of time and money from my POV because there’s no indication from the Bible that it exists.”

Then when it is pointed out to you that there are many things the Bible doesn’t point out exists (bacteria and viruses, DNA, uranium, other galaxies, ufathomable numbers of other things) you turn around and dismiss it all with “The bible isn’t a science textbook”.

We know, that’s our point! You can’t decide on what will or will not be a fruitful research program by consulting a book that doesn’t actually give any indication of detailing all that which exists.

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Why can’t we look for non-humans on other planets? Why isn’t that something you are interested in?

I believe I discern her argument: since the universe was created specifically for humans, there would be no point in having intelligent life elsewhere, since it wouldn’t be useful to us. I’m not sure what use other galaxies are to us, but doubtless there is some reason for them.

10 posts were split to a new topic: A Vision: If Adam Had Not Sinned

Have you studied the resurrection, or have you merely studied what people have said about the resurrection?

There’s a big difference.