Another Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[Elminster_Amaur]

Actually sensing the world in a different way. Literally having different information coming in than everybody else.

I see. That's almost the same thing, but instead of having different information, the mind just interprets the same information completely differently. It's virtually the same result, since you only know what your mind has interpreted of the world around you anyway.

If only .0000000000000000000000lotsmorezeros1% of the planets life had evolved beyond single celled organisims, that is still an near infinte number of planets that have life.
I heard a formula that was....And I can't remember exactly.
10 trillion capable, 10 billion beyond single celled, 10 million with multicellular capabilities, 10,000 with intelligent life.
And that was for our galaxy.
Not sure on that.

Near infinite and infinite are not the same thing.

And even if those numbers are true, you have to consider stages of development, and proximity to Terra. I mean, it's taken us, what, 6 - 10,000 years or more (depending on who you ask) to reach our level of development from the point when we were considered intelligent life. And of those 10,000 planets in our galaxy, how many of them would have survived past the development of nuclear technologies? How many made it past each stage of technological development? You must realize that for us to have survived thus far is near miraculous for being so hell-bent on killing each other.

Plus, these numbers you have mentioned would ONLY work, under 1 of 2 conditions:
1. Abiogenesis or some other theory of beginning life from nothing proves true.
or
2. The same intelligent creator that created us, created them.

I'd have to assume that if the 2nd were true, then if 10 trillion were capable, then all 10 trillion would have been seeded at some point in time, especially if that intelligent creator weren't a god, but was a physical being doing a science experiment or being megalomaniacal. Assuming a deity did it, then more than 10,000 would have evolved intelligent life at some point in time, but just enough to not overcrowd the galaxy.

If the first premise is true, then the numbers are still off, because we don't know the actual probabilities.

The point is, numbers like those are not really much of a refutation of mine, because they're both really just guesses based on what information we have.

I'm not saying that life outside earth doesn't exist. I'm saying that intelligent life would probably be the exception, not the rule at any given time. I'm not ruling out the possibility that this may be the 1 in a howevermanytrillions times that multiple intelligent beings are living simultaneously.

That's not even throwing intelligence into the mix. Intelligence and free choice tend to skew probabilities. Assuming your numbers are right, half of those with intelligent life could conceivably wipe themselves off the faces of their respective planets just as easily as the US and Russia could have done so to humanity in the cold war. Just because it's human nature to not want to destroy all of humanity doesn't mean it's in the nature of other intelligent species.

The point is, these numbers are virtually meaningless, especially if intelligent life is involved.