I think I’m going to lay off the spider webs for a bit… I’m starting to argue with myself here 
Perhaps we are the aliens…
?
To answer Rob’s original question - absolutely not. There’s WAY too much evidence to support evolution. If you believe that then you have to at least support the idea that harry potter created us in hogwarts in the same situation. Which is obvious bollocks.
I also don’t believe there’s any evidence to support Aliens having visited us - random pictures on the walls of egyptian era (and before) walls, monuments etc is not evidence to me, it’s pictures on a wall.
I do however support the idea that there’s life out there. There’s more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on this entire planet. It’s too statistically improbable for there not to be in my opinion.
Whether it’s intelligent or not is another question. Sadly I don’t think we’ll ever know in our lifetime. If I was a little green man in the safety of my flying saucer, I’d be f*cked if I’d want to come down and visit this mess of a planet.
What? Subscribers?? :P
[quote]JamieinNC (23/06/2011)[hr]Perhaps we are the aliens…
?
[/quote]
ON A SIDE NOTE _ 100% OFF TOPIC:
That quote that Jamie did of me, is the 1st time on this site that I have seen a quote that hasnt hadsomewords stucktogether.
Must be one of the updates that SA have been working on 
:hehe: 
:w00t:
Maybe its just cos its one line? Hmm… Maybe we could try & figure this one out after we sort out the Aliens & whatnot?
[quote]JamieinNC (23/06/2011)[hr]Perhaps we are the aliens…
?
[quote]ICN (23/06/2011)[hr]I think I’m going to lay off the spider webs for a bit… I’m starting to argue with myself here :)[/quote][/quote]
Whoa! John! Calm down with the total change of direction! We can’t handle those kinds of shifts in the conversation.
J
[quote]ICN (23/06/2011)[hr]ON A SIDE NOTE _ 100% OFF TOPIC:
That quote that Jamie did of me, is the 1st time on this site that I have seen a quote that hasnt hadsomewords stucktogether.
Must be one of the updates that SA have been working on :hehe: :w00t:
Maybe its just cos its one line? Hmm… Maybe we could try & figure this one out after we sort out the Aliens & whatnot?
[quote]JamieinNC (23/06/2011)[hr]Perhaps we are the aliens…
?
[quote]ICN (23/06/2011)[hr]ON A SIDE NOTE _ 100% OFF TOPIC:[/quote]
Hold on… are you EVER on topic??!
ive made a mess of myself 
[quote]Bouffont (23/06/2011)[hr]To answer Rob’s original question - absolutely not. There’s WAY too much evidence to support evolution. If you believe that then you have to at least support the idea that harry potter created us in hogwarts in the same situation. Which is obvious bollocks.
I also don’t believe there’s any evidence to support Aliens having visited us - random pictures on the walls of egyptian era (and before) walls, monuments etc is not evidence to me, it’s pictures on a wall.
I do however support the idea that there’s life out there. There’s more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on this entire planet. It’s too statistically improbable for there not to be in my opinion.
Whether it’s intelligent or not is another question. Sadly I don’t think we’ll ever know in
our lifetime. If I was a little green man in the safety of my flying saucer, I’d be f*cked if I’d want to come down and visit this mess of a planet.
[/quote]
Totally, the theories always revolve around things that can’t be explained, rather than hard facts that can be explained.
Also I love it when the bible gang get involved and discount it all the alien theories as metaphor etc because it contradicts their belief, yet they take the word of their own ancient text as literal.
Even worse is when they say something can’t be true and use some event in the bible as proof, like ‘Moses said blah blah…’
You nut job, you don’t even know who wrote that!
“Clean-up in aisle six…!!!”
[quote]
Also I love it when the bible gang get involved[/quote]
I live in quite a Christian town so every now and then I get pulled into a theistic chat with people down the pub. I generally try to stay away from it though as it gets people pretty pissed off pretty quickly - I’m an atheist and am pretty adept at arguing my perspective, as religion and more specifically the argument against it fascinates me.
[quote]yet they take the word of their own ancient text as literal. [/quote]
I’m probably getting into dangerous territory here and I don’t want to annoy anyone but I have to tell this story. Hopefully it doesn’t offend anyone! I will accept any form of abuse if it does / I’ll remove this if it’s against the rules.
So I currently have a mega christian fck buddy who asked me if I believe in God the other day. I said no and got a massive lecture about how the bible is the truth etc. She then proceeds to tell me how EVERY word in the bible should be adhered to as it’s the truth, the light etc. I replied with:
Timothy 2:12 - I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.
I totally said it as a joke but unsurprisingly I got an earful and she left. As she did I said “Good luck with the no sex before marriage thing”.
Welcome back internet prn, I’ve missed you!
Great story Bouffont
Personally I have no problem with people who have faith so long it is not ramed down my throat - I do have problems with religious institutions though who dictate how one should run their lives
Another thing that really confuses me is gay Christians, can not understand the whole breaking one of the 10 commandments is justified - but I suppose faith can be manipulated in ones own way
As with do we come from aliens - depends what your definition is - as we all come from a single cell from the comos
Cool story bouffont, i think it’s fair to say that people take what they want from the readings and interpret it how they best see it.
Do i believe the alien theory, i’m not sure, i find it an interesting concept and there seems to be really valid evidence to back up previous visitations. I think we have been visited before, if not by aliens then definitely our future selves (perhaps time travel gets invented?)
It’s easy for most people to pass things off as sci fi mumbo jumbo but every turning decade see’s pasts science fiction turned into reality.
[quote]slender (24/06/2011)[hr]Great story Bouffont
Another thing that really confuses me is gay Christians, can not understand the whole breaking one of the 10 commandments is justified - but I suppose faith can be manipulated in ones own way
[/quote]
Don’t think there is anything against going gay in the commandmants, apart from that one about coveting your neighbours male slave.
Professional men are fair game though.
I got pounced on by one of these bible guys while outside Miss Selfridge in Bromley (Rock n Roll I know).
I think he was expecting some mild mannered polite acknowledgment, but so happens that I too have strong ‘questions’ for people that take the bible literally.
None of which he could properly answer (so who wrote it? If non of them ever met jesus, how do we know its factually correct? Why are dinosaurs not mentioned if you insist they man walked at the same time etc ).
He did have some fluffy answers, but typically derived back fromt he bible itself.
“There can’t be evolution, because so and so said blah blah, thus denying it could ever happen” Right, good luck with that line of evidence in court.
As you can possibly tell, I’m less worried about offending people’s beliefs, but only when they are unhelpful/harmful. Vanilla christianity is ok.
Concerning time travel - I watched a documentary what proved to me that time travel can be achieved but only to go forward in time and not back - something to do with some obscure law of physics and not changing the past - of course the energy to produce such an event is way beyond our technology
But if you think about it it makes sense because we would already know about visitors from the future - the trouble would be a time traveler would never be able to return to their own time
I am pretty much sceptical that we have been visited by aliens as I would think there would be more evidence and since we have yet to pick up any definate sounds from space in our universe - unless the said life form is so alien to us that we would not be able to recognise it as such
But it’s the whole question of why we exist and how did it all start which can transform itself in a religious. sci-fi or a scientific perspective it could be a combination of all 3 or something we have purposely engineered that we will never know - as much as an goldfish has no knowledge of the world outside it’s bowel
The question that will never be answered is…
How can something come from nothing?
Haha! Great story Bouff!! Nearly spat my weetabix over my laptop
___________________________________________________________
I did a year of Theology & Philosophy in College after school. Idea was that I’d become an english teacher & have religion as a 2nd “thing” that I could teach. I had to go there due to my results & figured it would be a way to getting what I wanted.
Now… It was probably a tad naive of me to do so, considering that I did not believe in God whatsoever… but I thought that it could be approached as a normal subject.
I presumed that the educational system would present it as a subject that could be learned, as in facts / figures / dates / events… etc… after all, it is college / university.
We’d have a philosopy class. Upon leaving, our brains had been flexed & we were feeling logical.
Straight after, we’d have a theology lecture. Fks sake: Talk about entering a cult.
Leave your brain on the hanger outside the door please.
If you question the creation of the world - or anything similarly fantastical & nonsensical… you get “You’ve just got to have faith” thrown back as a defense.
If you use the low literacy levels of the time, lack of communication networks etc… and a general dependence on oral history / storytelling… as something to consider RE: the authenticity (of even SOME %) of the info in the Bible - then its:
“You’ve just got to have faith”.
WTF! Thats even before you focus on the BS & double standards in regards to who is running the Organisation since the big fella floated up into the sky.
Needless to say… I left. It wasnt for me.
I was also working & the time and starting to get a v.good wage, so I bid them adieu. An interesting experience though.
BTW… that magazine - the wa tc hto wer, which is written by the Je h ovas - is hilarious.
We got 2 copies of it last year. One of the covered subjects was “the real deal on evolution” for Young People.
The way it was done was:
Young person: Hey- I hear that there was a dude called Charles Darwin who said that God didnt create us. Is that true? What does God have to say about that?
Wa t chto wer - Oh well, God loves you. Charles Darwin had some interesting theories, but over time, most have been dismissed by experts as they cannot explain the evidence in scripture etc…
There were others - cant remember them now. I was in fkn stitches laughing… in a pool of tears.
One thing all cultures have in common is that nutters congregate around religion.
This is really the issue…
[quote]ICN (24/06/2011)[hr]
If you use the low literacy levels of the time, lack of communication networks etc… and a general dependence on oral history / storytelling… as something to considerRE: the authenticity (of even SOME %) of the info in the Bible - then its:
[/quote]
Since the printing press wasn’t invented by Gutenberg until the mid-1400s, people had to simple “trust” their religious leaders that what they were saying was the truth. It is so much easier for the powers-that-be on the upper echelons of knowledge and society to exercise “people control” if the masses are kept as confused, frightened, and let’s just face the facts here… uneducated as possible! If everyone had known how to read, people could have taken their OWN time to interpret the book as THEY saw it, not a power-hungry deacon or prelate who is at the mercy of the local governmental body or wealthy aristocrat.
This, of course, changed in the 1600s Humanist movement when people DID begin to learn reading, study science, explain mathematics, travel to foreign lands, and ultimately test theological tenets with hard, empirical evidence that perhaps man and ape are related. Up until that paradigm shift, only the wealthy or those raised and committed to the church could read. And when people started using their brains to interpret that book in different ways, that’s when about 1000 years of complete control began to crumble. I mean, look at Martin Luther! Sick of all the bull**** with the corruption and treatment of people all throughout the Crusades and such, he just took the book, translated it into German for all the northern Papal States, and you suddenly have a branch of Christianity where if you simply believe, that’s good enough for entry into heaven! No buying your way in or fearing a cruel God… But this is all beside the point.
It is all about the access, interpretation, and understanding of information that causes one to question their place, why they exist, what happens before or after, and so forth. Quite frankly, science has gone a heck of a lot further in explaining what we are and why we exist than religion has, despite the fact that no REAL questions have been answered yet by either side. I think, looking back, that Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press is the single most important event in human history. I say this because it was at that point where people became ENABLED. They could seek answers on their own without the skewing of meaning and intent by individuals seeking power or influence over everyone else.
Because of that machine, YOU can decide for YOURSELF what YOU believe… But we will never truly be free individuals until we can make those decisions without being judged, socially quarantined, or perhaps even killed for it.
P.S. I never understood why it is so much easier to call one who might believe in aliens “crazy,” as opposed to calling someone the same thing who believes in a ghost that happens to look just like us but older and hairier. 
J
Interesting too that theres been so many Gods / Movements in the past.
Either it reflects a need to have a safety net after ya die
-or-
one of the oldest confidence tricks in existance.
Its the big money game.
Fkn cnuts here after all the abuse scandals… they had the cheek to ask the members of the parishes to give €$£ to special collections to pay for the abuse compensation.
FK RIGHT OFF!!
The amount of robbed sh!t they have in the vatican from all over the place. If they weren’t set up internationally, individually… like terrorist cells, you could get them to take responsibility. But they’re businesspeople. Fkn lizards.