Kristoffer wrote:
lest we bring them our perpetual ignorance and foolishness.
Is this your attitude towards humans in general, or towards human science? Our ignorance is not perpetual and even if it is it would be something we can overcome. Being human is about breaking limits not about yielding to them.
Albert Einstein once said,
"There are two things that are infinite: the Universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe."- and I'm not sure about the universe either. Don't take anything I say as supposed to be an insult, but there are so many things that humans
don't know, that when we think we
do know, and then start treating it as
utterly undeniable and fact, that goes a little too far, and stops people from questioning and thus seeking out answers. Many people, both on the sides of Christian apologetics(the subject, not the group), and Evolutionary science are often quite guilty of this sort of thing. Both assert their beliefs, often far too zealously, going so far as to make the large majority of people who read their works(not the Bible, and The Origin of Species; I mean things
aside from those), which are more propaganda than education, unquestioning, and thus unwilling to test the merit of either. It is this sort of obnoxious self-assured, and hollow kind of faith that makes both mainstream types of Christianity and Evolutionary science warring factions that are more akin to political ideologies than what either is meant to be.
To state both of those ideas in quick summary, Christianity is a Jewish sect, or continuation if you will that states the Son of God came, died(as a sacrifice), came back to life, and left so Humans wouldn't have to kill animals to atone for wrong doing- Evolution is a science, arguably more or less(take your pick), that states that more fit animals become more fit because others aren't. Both of these beliefs are so radically different that they shouldn't so much as touch each other- but making them into mainstream ideologies has turned them into such arch rivals in much of the World, with all their reiterations that have so little relations to their base ideas, that they're actually quite similar, and thus, are opposed as they say entirely opposite things on the same subjects they both dwell on, even if it's utterly illogical or unfitting.
In summary, these "creation/ evolution" debates
shouldn't be happening- at the very least, not so commonly as seen on this website, and that's why I mentioned the "perpetual" ignorance of our species, as we like to pretend all too often that we know more than we really do, and even when we do learn more about something, we like to present our ideas of what moral implications something we don't fully grasp might have, or what else it may have to it. That doesn't make either view necessarily wrong, but that people shouldn't be so quick to jump to saying either is utterly incorrect. Most people I've met associate themselves with either "fundamental", if you will, Christianity or Evolutionary Theory- not because they honestly believe the case of one of them over the other, but because they'd belong to something that does the reasoning they're too afraid to do
for them.
...
That wall of text being out of the way, now onto something more relevant. First of all, God, and angels don't really count when people are talking about aliens unless specifically mentioned ahead of time as they're not even from this universe in the first place. If they actually were counted as aliens, the vast majority of Creationists and Evolutionists might actually agree on something for once. Have mercy if that happens, though, because then two subjects that should be logically unopposed would go their own merry ways, and science might actually be going along a little faster instead of being selectively used for arguments.
If someone wants to search for(mortal, I assume) alien life, I'm fine with that. I don't think it's so far fetched as some may say, and I really would not be ashamed to be proven wrong as I don't strongly assert there is no life in the universe other than Earth's. But while I doubt the universe is here
for us, that doesn't rule out the possibility of the ecosystems on this planet and humans being all there really is that's native life in this universe. In comparison, let's say someone made a machine because mechanics are a hobby of his, then he adds... I guess an ant farm. Just because the ants are the only living creatures within that machine, and they can observe/explore it however they wish doesn't mean it's there
for them, or they're the only life there is. That means they're the only life
native to the machine. Conversely, and speaking
hypothetically, if Earth is the only planet with "intelligent" life there is in this universe, that doesn't rule out there being other life in other universes,
multiverses, etc.. If you take God and so on into equation, there's at least God's place of dwelling(heaven?), and wherever any other such "supernatural" beings live. I'm certain that universe is a primitive way of describing heaven, however.
Thing about that is, though, you supposedly need to be dead in order to have a clear picture of that, and corpses don't do very good jobs at writing accounts of things. Not very many
live people have given detailed accounts of such places, either, and even then they have to resort to metaphor most of the time. Not that you can't trust them ever, but that makes it very hard to give a scientific account, especially when you consider how small everything we do is in comparison with the big picture, which is hardly even the size of a pixel on the big picture that's on, which is immeasurably small with any words we have on the big picture that's on. So yes, I think when it comes to the entirety of
every single mortal thing that has ever exhibited intelligence, I doubt we're alone. It'll probably take millions of years for humans, or what's left of humans to ever make contact with them, however.
But when it comes to "little green men", If they do exist in
this universe, I would like to ask them, openly, to stop probing us and performing these ghastly experiments on hobos and rednecks. You just wait until humans invent flying saucers that don't crash when they turn any more than five degrees and build death rays that do more than burning through cardboard.
That'll show you.
