Some of these attempts to prove a biblical account are, however, not attempts to vindicate the bible, but attempts to prove that the event was entirely natural and not some supernatural miracle.

Your explanation about the flood, for instance, is watered down by the assertion that the evidence for a flood all over the Earth is actually evidences of multiple (local?) floods in various places over the Earth. This does away with the "global" aspect of the biblical flood.

The Red Sea parting explanation is another one that tries to make the event seem like it was an entirely natural event, whereas close scrutiny of the text shows that this is not possible. The event started after Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. This timing had to be a huge lucky coincidence if the event was really an earthquake. And you'd need double the luck because the return of the sea was also tied to Moses stretching out his hand over the sea.

But here is the death-knell for this earthquake/land-lift theory: In Exodus 14:22 it says "the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on their right and on their left."
A bit of the seabed raised above sea level would not result in a wall of water on their right and on their left. The description makes it clear that the water was miraculously held back from filling in the dry space where the Israelites were walking.

I think it is also a fallacy to use a natural explanation for an event as a way to exclude God from the scene. God can use whatever means He wants, to achieve His objectives, and that can sometimes include an otherwise natural event. The timing of the event, and the precision with which it targets the intended recipients, still lets us know that God directed that event.

A friend of mine and his brother (who is now a creationist speaker) went on a trip to the region where Sodom and Gomorrah once stood to investigate the site. They found lots of ash heaps, some with partially-burnt bits of wood still in them, and they also found embedded within the ash balls of sulphur. They extracted some of these and have them analysed at the DSIR (scientific research centre) here in New Zealand. They found that the sulphur was exceptionally pure, much purer than what is normally found in nature. But again, the timing of the event (waiting until Lot and his family had left the city) and the accurate targeting of the cities, and the prior knowledge that this event was going to take place, are all indicators that this was a miraculous event too.


Maybe so, but the biblical report suggests that Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt extremely quickly. So quickly, in fact, that she didn't even get a chance to fall over after dying, but remained upright to form a pillar.


This doesn't prove or disprove anything. Besides, Eden was more than just a pristine environment. It had two special trees there too. And when Adam and Eve were banished from it, there were two angels garden the place to prevent any humans from returning there. It all got destroyed in the flood though, so Eden simply doesn't exist anymore.



The theory of evolution can't be measured and tested. One cannot go back to a time when there was no life on the planet, and take measurements and observations to see how that first self-replicating thing came to be. You can't "repeat" the Jurassic period either. That means the theory of evolution is not scientific, because that would require testing, repeatability, falsifiability, observation, measurement, etc. It is, as you say, perceptional. Those scientists choose to see things that way, even when observation directly contradict it. It is a form of delusion.


What you are doing here is dictating how God should be preserving his word in your opinion: His original scrolls must be supernaturally protected from decay, unlike everything else in the world.
Faith is important to God. But what place would be needed for faith if there was concrete evidence of God's supernatural power sustaining something? Perhaps God also wanted people to learn the value of His word through having to carefully protect it from decay, and to read and re-read His word when creating new copies to replace the old worn-out documents. In the bible God promises to preserve His word, but by that He didn't mean the physical medium on which His word was written, nor the language in which it was/is expressed. Objects decay and languages evolve, but God HAS preserved His word for us despite that. When copies of scripture of different ages are compared, they turn out to be remarkably similar, with only extremely minor differences that do not affect the meaning.


WHen you look at the prophecies in scripture and compare them with their fulfillment as can be determined from history, it becomes obvious that the scriptures really are God-inspired, and therefore taking them on faith is quite a reasonable thing to do.


The bible can be tested too, such as by the prophecies, or by the accuracy of its historical information (names of towns, kings, empires, etc) and this is the reality that reinforces faith.


There are a number of very old biological structures on earth, such as certain trees, or coral reefs. They all tend to date back to the time of the flood though, suggesting they were the first to establish themselves after the flood and have been growing uninterrupted since then. Here's an interesting article about the oldest trees around the world: https://creation.com/patriarchs-of-the-forest



You can't actually measure the time directly. All one can do is measure the ratio of parent to daughter elements, and from this make a calculation of the alleged time period since the rock was formed or since the organism died. But this calculation involves a number of unprovable assumptions, and can therefore give highly erroneous readings.
Carbon dating isn't any less accurate than the other methods (they're all inaccurate) but it has a restriction due to the sensitivity limits of the detecting equipment. A sample that is 90,000 years or older has so little carbon 14 left that it falls below the detection threshhold of the measuring equipment. So carbon dating is suitable up to about 90,000 years, and only for samples that contain carbon, such as biological specimens, coal, and diamonds.

You should look into polonium decay and the radio halos it produces in rock. Dr Robert Gentry studied these and he concluded that their presence in the rock showed the rock formed rather instantly, instead of the evolutionary scenario of the earth cooling from a ball of molten rock over millions of years.


The presence of Uranium 238 is no problem for the young earth model. It is part of the material that God created to make the Earth out of. Uranium 238 is the parent isotope, so its billons-of-years decay rate is irrelevant to its presence on a young Earth. But, here's the thing... one of the products of decay is helium. At these decay rates, it forms very slowly. But helium, being a small and inert molecule, will leak out of the rock crystals quite readily. That means, if the Earth is truly billions of years old, there should be very little helium left in rock crystals. But analyses of the rocks has shown that the helium content in the rock indicates about 6000 years of helium loss from the rocks, not billions of years worth.


Yeah, so? What's your point?



Read the book "The authenticity of the book of Genesis" by Bill Cooper, in particular the section on flood legends from around the world. This section makes it abundantly clear that memories of the flood were passed on to the descendants of the survivors of the flood, who carried it with them after the dispersal at Babel, and down through the ages. The similarities among all those legends from (now) widely separated cultures shows that the flood was a real event. The world's geology testifies to it also. We don't even need the actual ark of Noah to know the flood really happened.



Exactly! So evidence for evolution should be sought by creationists, right? Because an evolutionists would be so biased that he'll find evidence for evolution no matter what you put in front of him. Well, I've looked at what creationists say about the alleged evidence for evolution, and their independent assessment of the data is that it does not support the notion of evolution at all. There is variation within a kind, and natural selection, but there is no particles-to-people kind of evolution.


God wants us to have faith in Him. He doesn't want us enamored with relics.



Passing an animal's genome through the eye of a needle is not the same as passing the animal itself through the eye of a needle. I think Jesus' intention was to say that it can be very difficult for rich people to enter the kingdom of God because they'd rather hold on to their wealth. It's not impossible, and some rich people don't actually care too much about their wealth so are happy to let it go if that's God's will, but many wealthy people fear losing their wealth and would rather trust in it than in God.


The thing is, your style of discussion kind of comes across the same way, like you're the only one with a grasp of the truth and all those religous folk are wrong and misguided and haven't got a clue what they're on about. There are plenty of very clued up people with impeccable scientific qualifications who are also firmly convinced (by the scientific evidence) that the Big Bang and evolution are nonsense and that a recent creation by God as per the bible is scientifically tenable.

well, you seem intelligent about what you've studied about your religion, but then you just stopped... Ust because science doesn't glorify your god or go with your beliefs doesn't mean it's wrong, it means religious folks tend to skip over scientific facts when it goes against your personal beliefs... People say god gives everyone their own choices, but most take the one choice, to accept god, then wall themselves in and turn off any logical/critical thinking, because God does all thier thinking for them...

You make some very compelling arguments on my responses. Certainly food for thought. I appreciate you taking time to address my statements. I find it interesting how each aspect can be slanted either way.

Some of these attempts to prove a biblical account are, however, not attempts to vindicate the bible, but attempts to prove that the event was entirely natural and not some supernatural miracle.

Why would I attempt to vindicate the Bible? Likewise, I made no attempt to vindicate the science either. My statement simply states that many aspects of the Bible CAN be proven using science.
I did not go find the actual science that proves, I merely gave my own understanding of how I see reality. If I had used actual papers and science I would have referenced my sources. I'm too lazy to do all that work over a simple thread reply on aliens.

Your explanation about the flood, for instance, is watered down by the assertion that the evidence for a flood all over the Earth is actually evidences of multiple (local?) floods in various places over the Earth. This does away with the "global" aspect of the biblical flood.

I recall many years ago watching a TV show (like In Search Of, but I don't think that was the show) where they examined the Biblical Flood and I remember them saying that a global flood was possible if a sudden release of a large aquifer were to happen. Part of the findings in this TV show stated that due to extreme pressure the water would have been forced up and into the atmosphere in great volume. It explained that it could take a month or more for the water to stop falling, which would flood the globe. Using my memory of that TV show, I recently looked into the aquifer theory and found scientific papers supporting current aquifers of similar size that have been mapped in present time. I even think I mentioned it in one of mightymoe's threads in the science section.
It is my own understanding of this geological condition that allows me to validate a Biblical Flood with reality.
In addition, It is evident that there are more civilizations in history that account for a great flood which also solidifies an assumption that a Biblical Flood did happen. Not all those accountings consider it a divine occurrence tho. Divine or not, there was a great flood as accounted by global reference.

The Red Sea parting explanation is another one that tries to make the event seem like it was an entirely natural event, whereas close scrutiny of the text shows that this is not possible. The event started after Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. This timing had to be a huge lucky coincidence if the event was really an earthquake. And you'd need double the luck because the return of the sea was also tied to Moses stretching out his hand over the sea.

Now I'm curious if it could be done in a lab, on purpose by scale? I wonder if anyone has ever cared enough to attempt a recreation? With all the tidal wave tanks and water related testing facilities you would think someone has tried to do it? Perhaps it just isn't important enough to dedicate experimental time to it? Still, I'd like to see the results.

But here is the death-knell for this earthquake/land-lift theory: In Exodus 14:22 it says "the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on their right and on their left."
A bit of the seabed raised above sea level would not result in a wall of water on their right and on their left. The description makes it clear that the water was miraculously held back from filling in the dry space where the Israelites were walking.

Yup, you're right. I wasn't thinking about the walls of water and the crashing back of the sea. Good point. Still, I would like to see if it could be replicated in a lab somewhere.

I think it is also a fallacy to use a natural explanation for an event as a way to exclude God from the scene. God can use whatever means He wants, to achieve His objectives, and that can sometimes include an otherwise natural event. The timing of the event, and the precision with which it targets the intended recipients, still lets us know that God directed that event.

Sadly, you think I am trying to exclude God from science. Most people can't have both, its either/or. Including science with God is somehow taboo? I have no problem with the concept of God, its religion that I have a problem with. My impression of God is just different, is all.

A friend of mine and his brother (who is now a creationist speaker) went on a trip to the region where Sodom and Gomorrah once stood to investigate the site. They found lots of ash heaps, some with partially-burnt bits of wood still in them, and they also found embedded within the ash balls of sulphur. They extracted some of these and have them analysed at the DSIR (scientific research centre) here in New Zealand. They found that the sulphur was exceptionally pure, much purer than what is normally found in nature. But again, the timing of the event (waiting until Lot and his family had left the city) and the accurate targeting of the cities, and the prior knowledge that this event was going to take place, are all indicators that this was a miraculous event too.

That is very interesting. What are the coordinates of those sites? I would really enjoy using Google Earth to have a look. Ask your friend's brother (the Creationist speaker) for the coordinates and post them back here, okay?


Maybe so, but the biblical report suggests that Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt extremely quickly. So quickly, in fact, that she didn't even get a chance to fall over after dying, but remained upright to form a pillar.

Thanx for acknowledging the possibility. The only issue I have with the flash burn pillar of salt idea is that absolutely no evidence remains. Perhaps you could ask your friend's brother to revisit the site and do a bit of archeology on the site where Lot's wife died to see if he can find a salt concentration that would match the mass of a woman?


This doesn't prove or disprove anything. Besides, Eden was more than just a pristine environment. It had two special trees there too. And when Adam and Eve were banished from it, there were two angels garden the place to prevent any humans from returning there. It all got destroyed in the flood though, so Eden simply doesn't exist anymore.

A convenient lack of evidence. As I understand the great rain forests, there are plants that have special properties that have been found in pristine places. There are acres of rain forest that have yet to be explored that could hold plants of miraculous properties. Miraculous for the uneducated but plausible for chemists. As for the Angels guarding the gates, why would God need Angels to guard anything from man? That just makes no sense to me at all? Were Adam and Eve such a threat that God needed Angels to guard the garden? To me, this is a conflict of empirical reasoning.


The theory of evolution can't be measured and tested. One cannot go back to a time when there was no life on the planet, and take measurements and observations to see how that first self-replicating thing came to be. You can't "repeat" the Jurassic period either. That means the theory of evolution is not scientific, because that would require testing, repeatability, falsifiability, observation, measurement, etc. It is, as you say, perceptional. Those scientists choose to see things that way, even when observation directly contradict it. It is a form of delusion.

First things first, I was not arguing the THEORY of evolution. If anything, I was pointing out the actuality of legends. I was pointing out that perception is individual. Two people can witness the same thing and gain different understandings. As the accounting gets passed from one person to the next, it changes the reality of the event because each person tells what it meant to them, personally. Over time, the reality of the event gets watered down, important information is lost and personal perceptions of the accounting are reinforced. Whereas, accountings of events that are measured and tested result in accountings that solidify reality. Atoms exist, we can't see them but we can manipulate them to create an atomic bomb, nuclear power plants and atomic submarines. Atoms are not legends, they are reality.


What you are doing here is dictating how God should be preserving his word in your opinion: His original scrolls must be supernaturally protected from decay, unlike everything else in the world.

Perhaps. My responses might be based on the tendency of actual written works that are distorted as they are copied. Ever heard of the term "Lost in translation"? My impression of God is most powerful. My understanding of God in religious context is that He is omnipotent. Perhaps I give God more power than He has? However, in agreement, I must also admit that I do not, nor can fathom the mind of God. I also admit that I do not, nor can fathom the mind of aliens. Lastly, humbly, I also admit that I do not, nor can fathom the mind of other people. What I can fathom is my own mind and the reality that I witness during my life experience.

Faith is important to God. But what place would be needed for faith if there was concrete evidence of God's supernatural power sustaining something? Perhaps God also wanted people to learn the value of His word through having to carefully protect it from decay, and to read and re-read His word when creating new copies to replace the old worn-out documents. In the bible God promises to preserve His word, but by that He didn't mean the physical medium on which His word was written, nor the language in which it was/is expressed. Objects decay and languages evolve, but God HAS preserved His word for us despite that. When copies of scripture of different ages are compared, they turn out to be remarkably similar, with only extremely minor differences that do not affect the meaning.

Faith is not what I witness thru experience. Reality is what I witness thru experience. It is usually my perception of reality that is delusional, not the reality. I have found that having faith does not change reality. Action changes reality. Faith is merely a delusional perception of reality to make reality fit my circumstances. My faith in others is an attempt to assign the consequences of reality to another. It relies on another to affect reality on my behalf. Which, in my life experience, is unreliable.


WHen you look at the prophecies in scripture and compare them with their fulfillment as can be determined from history, it becomes obvious that the scriptures really are God-inspired, and therefore taking them on faith is quite a reasonable thing to do.

So Nostradamus was inspired by God? Edgar Cayce was inspired by God? All the writers of predictions that have come to pass are inspired by God? Perhaps the hundreds of thousands of science fiction writings are inspired by God? Oh, and lets not forget that fantasy works that forecasted technology as magic.
All I'm saying is that if you put a million monkeys in front of typewriters, eventually you will get some Shakespeare.


The bible can be tested too, such as by the prophecies, or by the accuracy of its historical information (names of towns, kings, empires, etc) and this is the reality that reinforces faith.

The Bible was written to direct the morality of people. To have validity, it must have accuracy in reality at some point or people will not adhere to its instructions. I know, from creative writing research, that any story must have something in reality for people to associate with or the story becomes whimsical and lacks validity. People will not read it. Children's books are the exception. This is because children do not understand the importance of reality in the imagination. They haven't experienced enough reality to form a working baseline. Adults, on the other hand, look for reality in literature. It gives them a sense of truth in their thought stream.


There are a number of very old biological structures on earth, such as certain trees, or coral reefs. They all tend to date back to the time of the flood though, suggesting they were the first to establish themselves after the flood and have been growing uninterrupted since then. Here's an interesting article about the oldest trees around the world: https://creation.com/patriarchs-of-the-forest

Thanx for the link. I did research the oldest living tree years ago. Its an ugly old thing. I've also stepped on "Holy Land" when I was stationed in Lebanon. I have seen the trees native to that area and they are all ugly. How do you explain petrified redwoods in California? How do you explain fossils, not dinosaur fossils, fossils of anaerobic life? How do you explain rust? Continental drift? Mountain range lift? Look at any world map, how do you explain how the edges of the continents fit together like a jigsaw puzzle?


You can't actually measure the time directly. All one can do is measure the ratio of parent to daughter elements, and from this make a calculation of the alleged time period since the rock was formed or since the organism died. But this calculation involves a number of unprovable assumptions, and can therefore give highly erroneous readings.
Carbon dating isn't any less accurate than the other methods (they're all inaccurate) but it has a restriction due to the sensitivity limits of the detecting equipment. A sample that is 90,000 years or older has so little carbon 14 left that it falls below the detection threshhold of the measuring equipment. So carbon dating is suitable up to about 90,000 years, and only for samples that contain carbon, such as biological specimens, coal, and diamonds.

You should look into polonium decay and the radio halos it produces in rock. Dr Robert Gentry studied these and he concluded that their presence in the rock showed the rock formed rather instantly, instead of the evolutionary scenario of the earth cooling from a ball of molten rock over millions of years.

The Earth is cooling from a molten ball of rock over BILLIONS of years and is still in the process of cooling. There is what is known as a molten iron core inside the Earth. The Earth is cooling (present tense) not cooled (past tense). You are alive right now because of that molten outer core and solid inner core. The magnetosphere is a reality. Northern lights are a reality, compasses exist in reality.
Have you ever heard of magnetic directionality? It is the process in nature that locks the magnetic signature in rock to a pole direction. It happens when magma hardens. On a geological timescale, magma become rock at a fairly quick rate. It doesn't cool at the same rate. Different parts of the magma cools at different times. As it does so, the magnetic poles solidify in different directions. Our magnetosphere is a dynamic force that is constantly moving.

I found your mention of Dr Gentry's findings interesting, so I did some quick digging. I found this on wiki...

Creationist Robert V. Gentry looked at halos which he said arose from Po-218 rather than U-238 and concluded that solid rock must have been created with these polonium inclusions, which decayed with a half-life of 3 minutes. He believes that they could not have been formed from molten rock which took many millennia to cool because polonium decays in a few minutes. As a creationist, he took this as evidence that the Earth was formed instantaneously (Gentry 1992). However, Gentry's "polonium halos" are found along microscopic cracks in rocks that also contain uranium halos (Wakefield 1988)(Collins 1997) and Po-218 is also a decay product of radon which as a gas can be given off by a grain of uranium in one part of the rock and migrate to another part of the rock to form a uraniumless halo (Baillieul 2005)(Brawley 1992).

From my uneducated understanding, Dr Gentry's discovery is insignificant to the instant Earth hypothesis. I do, however find radio-halos interesting.


The presence of Uranium 238 is no problem for the young earth model. It is part of the material that God created to make the Earth out of. Uranium 238 is the parent isotope, so its billons-of-years decay rate is irrelevant to its presence on a young Earth. But, here's the thing... one of the products of decay is helium. At these decay rates, it forms very slowly. But helium, being a small and inert molecule, will leak out of the rock crystals quite readily. That means, if the Earth is truly billions of years old, there should be very little helium left in rock crystals. But analyses of the rocks has shown that the helium content in the rock indicates about 6000 years of helium loss from the rocks, not billions of years worth.

Helium is a by-product of the natural process of the Sun's existence. There are nine(9) known isotopes of Helium on Earth.
The abundance of 3^HE is 0.0002% while the abundance of 4^HE is 99.9998%. 4^HE atoms are bosons while 3^HE atoms are fermions)
Considering that science has not penetrated the crust of the Earth into the mantle, nobody knows how much Helium exists within the Earth. Without evidence, the amount of Helium present in the Earth is insignificant to determining the age of the planet.


Yeah, so? What's your point?

Exactly. The convictions of belief determines the validity of the reality perceived. If the existence of Uranium-238 is insignificant to a perception of reality, anything having to do with it are also insignificant. However, Uranium-238 is significant to science, which fits our understanding of reality. This means it's presence in off-world samples is significant. It shows a common age of the solar system.


Read the book "The authenticity of the book of Genesis" by Bill Cooper, in particular the section on flood legends from around the world. This section makes it abundantly clear that memories of the flood were passed on to the descendants of the survivors of the flood, who carried it with them after the dispersal at Babel, and down through the ages. The similarities among all those legends from (now) widely separated cultures shows that the flood was a real event. The world's geology testifies to it also. We don't even need the actual ark of Noah to know the flood really happened.

Again, I refer back to the accountability of legends and how it changes over time. In my life, I have come to understand that nobody is an authority on reality as I experience it. Everything I read, hear and watch is merely a perception based on somebody else's understanding of reality. Over time, it builds a plausibility to explain the reality that I personally witness. The plausibility is reinforced in the natural things I see and the devices that exist.



Exactly! So evidence for evolution should be sought by creationists, right? Because an evolutionists would be so biased that he'll find evidence for evolution no matter what you put in front of him. Well, I've looked at what creationists say about the alleged evidence for evolution, and their independent assessment of the data is that it does not support the notion of evolution at all. There is variation within a kind, and natural selection, but there is no particles-to-people kind of evolution.

I agree. I am not a genetic scientist. I do however, see the similarities of species. I've watched the videos that show a fetus going thru its evolutionary stages as it matures. I've read the papers of scientists that have mapped the genomes of plants and animals. I understand the significance of chromosomal mutation. I see the differences of generational mutation. I also comprehend the dangers of incestial reproduction over generations.


God wants us to have faith in Him. He doesn't want us enamored with relics.

Personally, I don't believe God wants us to do anything. Religion wants us to do. Wants us to believe. The way I see it, God sees everything as a process of existence within Himself. People are no more significant than plants, stars, supernovas or gas clouds. A process set in motion thru chaos and ruled by entropy. Cause and effect.



Passing an animal's genome through the eye of a needle is not the same as passing the animal itself through the eye of a needle. I think Jesus' intention was to say that it can be very difficult for rich people to enter the kingdom of God because they'd rather hold on to their wealth. It's not impossible, and some rich people don't actually care too much about their wealth so are happy to let it go if that's God's will, but many wealthy people fear losing their wealth and would rather trust in it than in God.

Wealth is entirely a man-made concept. Personally, I have no desire for gold, diamonds or money in the scheme of my existence.
Religion offers Heaven. Heaven is described as wealth, streets of gold, gates of pearl, all the things that man accepts as wealth and power. Also the devices of greed.
The way it was explained to me personally by Billy Graham in the 70's when he held prayer meetings at my local theater was that Heaven is being in the presence of God. No 72 virgins, no streets of gold and no pearly gates. The concept of wealth and poverty have no significance to Heaven. Who determines wealth? Man determines wealth.


The thing is, your style of discussion kind of comes across the same way, like you're the only one with a grasp of the truth and all those religous folk are wrong and misguided and haven't got a clue what they're on about. There are plenty of very clued up people with impeccable scientific qualifications who are also firmly convinced (by the scientific evidence) that the Big Bang and evolution are nonsense and that a recent creation by God as per the bible is scientifically tenable.

My style of discussion is based on my own opinion gained from what reality I have witnessed. Your style of discussion is confrontational. You think I am personally insulting you when I am merely discussing things the way I understand them.

I find all religions have a common thread.
They contradict themselves within their own doctrine.
They expect compliance despite common reasoning.

Example:
Man's free will. Man is allowed to have free will as long as it is in compliance with the religion. Believe and you will be rewarded. Don't believe and you will be punished.
If free will were truly free, there would be no rewards and no punishments. To me this is a conflict of reasoning.

In the past, people were not as educated as we are now. Those violations of reasoning were not as well understood. Taking something on faith was not questioned.
As people become more intelligent, more things in religions make less sense. What we witness thru our understanding of reality does not align with what religions tell us. That conflict causes stress. I find contentment with the reasoning of scientific processes, because I see its validity.
I dare to look at reality when religions tell me not to.
Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps not.

If aliens ever do come to Earth, I've a feeling that many religious people will have a rough go at life. I imagine new religions will crop up that include whatever alien race is encountered.

To get back on subject a bit.
Concerning "what would happen if aliens visited Earth" I have written some on the subject.
Here is my perspective...

Alien = For references in this discussion it describes a being not from Earth. A being that has mastered interstellar travel. A species that developed under different starlight, gravity, atmospheric pressures, radiation limits and physical attributes. A civilization that had different milestones, value systems and food supply. Their advanced technology may be older than the human species. It's heritage may be tens of millions or even hundreds of millions years old. Its lifespan may be counted in millennia or decades. Their population might exceed 100 billion or a trillion or more.

Mankind = Our current animal form is only about 2 million years old at best. Our entire recorded history is less than 10,000 years. Space travel is less than 100 years. Most people cannot trace their lineage back more than a few generations. Our society operates within the span of 3-8 years at best. Our technology is growing but as a people we have stagnated. We seem to be unable or unwilling to break the greed barrier. We refuse to think as a united people and act for the future.

Time is one thing that might make an impact on us if we encounter an advanced alien species. Our concept of time is based on our planetary and stellar movements. Time is measured by atomic decay but it is referenced on the second, minute, hour, day, week, month and year. Basically the movement of the Sun in relation to the Earth.
Keplar shows that there are a multitude of planets orbiting a multitude of stars. Those planets are not only different sizes than our Earth, they orbit at different speeds. I am willing to bet that their rotational periods are different as well. An Alien may not see time as we do. If it is an ancient species that lives for millennia they may not even acknowledge time as we do. If they reference time at all.
To us humans, an alien may take decades or more to respond or...They may operate so lightning fast we cant keep up. Their time-frame could be based on the lifespan of a certain type of star or the duration of a boson. In any case, the vast distances that they had traveled will have been manageable.

It all boils down to relativity.
The aliens could be tiny or huge. They could be structured or blobs.
We imagine aliens use technology based on machinery. They use a device, fly a craft and manipulate objects.
We imagine they have an agenda, value life and are curious. We would attempt to communicate based on our greed, curiosity and community socialness. Our mathematics system is based on the unit. We declare that it is a fundamental part of nature but an alien may not perceive units like we do. We might attempt to communicate with light but an alien may not register light like we do. Even here on Earth there are creatures that exist without light sensory apparatus. Our sequence of light flashes may not even be seen. The same with sound and touch. Imagine an alien that evolved on a planet where the composition of the atmosphere was caustic and it never developed the sense of touch. Not only can there be restrictions of senses that we take for granted there might be senses that are highly developed. Senses that we can't fathom. There might be shared senses but they could be so highly attuned our demonstration may seem out of focus to them.

Why Here...Why Earth?
In our vanity we think we have something that an alien might want, covet or cherish. We think that we might make a good food source, our water or mineral content is needed or we are unique and worth studying. Its all based on our own thinking. Speculation of an alien's motives for visiting our planet makes for good science fiction.
Would the aliens be here to pass judgement on our species? Are we a threat to interstellar space? Do they care if we destroy our planet? Is it a humanitarian effort because they want to harvest our star? Are they responding to our radiation signals from radio or TV? Did they find the voyager record and decipher its contents? All this is based on concepts that we humans have. Are we on a navigation chart? Do aliens navigate?

Happenstance and Chaos?
Chaos is part of nature. There is a pattern to it in macroscopic and microscopic detail. An alien's motives, if they even have motives, might be based on chaos. Chaos does not mean destructive. Chaos is neither bad or good. Chaos is random interaction. Might a species that is a billion years old embrace chaos?

Few people on Earth today could understand an alien presence let alone deal with their actions. Whether hostile or benign we would be driven insane by their visit. Our preconceptions of the Universe and natural laws would be crushed and many people would not be able to handle it. Some of you might say that is why they remain hidden. Do you hide from a tree? Do you hide from a worm and try to understand what it thinks? These questions are even incorrect. They are questions based on human motives and references. They may not even acknowledge us.

What if baby aliens can split atoms as easily as playing with blocks? Their kindergarden vastly surpasses quantum physics? Its difficult to comprehend a lifeform that is far superior and of alien origin. We are locked into analogies that have been evolved into our grain. But all of our anologies have one thing in common. They are all from the Earth.

A mechanical based alien is possible. I guess anything is possible including things we currently think are impossible. The mechanical part may not even be something we think of as mechanical. Wires and circuts may not be the best way to use energy. Even Tesla discovered that. Tesla had a system invented that harnessed free energy. Aliens may be far more advanced. Aliens may be able to manipulate matter on the sub-atomic scale as easily as we convey our feelings with a look of approval or dismay. Advanced science resembles God-Like powers.

We are aware of the concept of mind-uploading. It could be possible for an alien culture that is 500 million years old to upload themselves or a piece of themselves to anything. With spooky theory one alien might explore 100,000 worlds at the same time with 100,000 constructs and be instantly aware of each one at all times. From micro devices to megastructures. Kinda like Von Neumann Probes but living entities and of various sizes, functions and attitudes. But again I am limited to assuming aliens have attitudes.

We base our ideas on what we know and can imagine. Its all based on life on Earth. It's all born of Earth. It's all created from one tiny planet circling an average star. Just the right temperature. Just the right radiation. Just the right size moon. In just the right place in the galaxy. The Goldilox Zone is more than just our distance from our star. An alien may be from a different Goldilox Zone.

Think about if Mankind made it to an alternate Earth. Lets say it has the right pressure, atmosphere and gravity which is very unlikely. Does it have a moon? Our Moon is more to us than just something to bark at. Does it have an Iron Core? If that core is more dense or not as dense it will affect us. The thickness of the mantle, the radiation wavelengths of the parent star or nearby stars, Elemental composition of the topsoil and crust. So many variables and each one in very little differences will affect us. Our minds, concepts and bodies evolved from the conditions of this planet in this star system at this time/place in the galaxy. An alien from another star system will evolve under those conditions. Their minds, concepts and bodies may not evolve even closely similar to ours.

It's tough to imagine a truly alien being. Tougher still to try to imagine one that is more advanced than us. If we can even detect their presense I think we would be hard pressed to even understand what we were seeing.

Everything changes. Planets, stars, asteroids, galaxies and the Universe itself. In living things (of which we can only reference life on Earth), evolution is variations in the lifeform's genetic code. Bacteria, plants & animals evolve over time as their genetic code changes. Life itself is an evolutionary change of the planet as well as the Sun.

The way I see it, the atmosphere and other natural conditions like radiation levels, temperature and gravity dictate how, when and where life evolves. It's been proven that life does not need oxygen to exist, no sunlight either. Archeology can date a time on Earth when there was no oxygen and life existed. The oxygen was the by-product of that life and it saturated the planet. It not only killed most of the life on Earth it caused Iron to rust.
We define life by a set of specific parameters based on what we have learned about our planet. Just because we have not witnessed other factors that lead to life doesn't mean they don't exist.

We know of multiple forms of water. H2O is only one form of water and the form that we need to survive. There could be a planet or moon somewhere that has more heavy water than what we are accustomed to. Life that forms based on heavy water will have different qualities than life on Earth.

Our Star burns at a specific temperature. It has a specific amount of gravity and emits a specific range of radiation.
A Star that is larger than the Sun might have more gravity and thus not emit the same radiation. It might not shluff off key elements needed for our type of life. The temperature might be higher causing different types of emissions. It's density may have a different pull on its celestial neighborhood. This would change the atmospheric weather conditions for its planets and moons. Bigger storms or a lack of storms might elevate atmospheric generated electricity or decrease it significantly. The composition of the Sun is also an evolutionary factor for life on Earth. A blue giant star will have different effects on any life in its reach.

Our Moon dictates life on our planet as well. We have deduced that our moon is the result of a collision with our planet. It is unique to Earth. It's size, orbital speed and distance dictates our evolutionary path. Try to imagine life that exists with no seasons. The planet instead has zones of habitat. Migration habits would change, fertility might be based on something besides cycles, weather patterns might be predictable and zone specific. Now, with those changes in mind, what affect would they have in the development of intelligence.

For humans and higher forms of life on Earth, intelligence seems to be the ability of an organism to gather, store and utilize experiences. Human are set apart from others because we can imagine, predict and plan. We can act on predictions and construct apparatus to achieve a goal. Our imagination allows us to go beyond simple tool usage to allow us to modify behaviors and tools to result in more efficient systems. A beaver uses a rock to open a clam for food. We don't see the beaver farming its food or making a better opener. It is intelligent enough to know that it can use the rock and does, but it is not superiority intelligent to go any farther.

Given the size and density of the Universe it can be assumed that there are a multitude of beaver type life out there. With beavers showing up on this one planet where humans also exist it is then feasible to think that human level life is also abundant. As humans we are ever expanding our designs as we gain more knowledge. This leads me to believe that there is also an abundance of higher-level intelligence in the Universe.

Life is just life. We humans wrap all kinds of glory around it but an alien may not even consider life at all. Try to imagine a society that has no value of life. It is almost impossible for us to fathom. If life were not in the thought process then neither would death be a consideration. With no death, no need for a God. Try to imagine a society with no God, ever. Not the absence of God, No God ever. Our religion is meant to do one thing. It is a way for some humans to control other humans. An alien culture that has no God will be very different than what we understand. Flip the coin and you may have an alien culture that takes religion to different extremes. Plus, there are 360 degrees of the edge of the coin that can result is even stranger iterations of culture. Variations are endless.

While trying to imagine that condition my mind needed to first imagine what that alien encounter might entail. The more I thought on that, the more I realized that we have no idea what actual aliens will be like. All references my mind grabbed a hold of to consider the question were based on the imaginations of other human minds. For something to be truly alien it will not have any frame of reference.

There would be fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of loss and fear of extinction on our part. Upon seeing something truly alien we would assign what we know to its qualities. We might call it a ship but is it really a ship? Are those things that look like legs really legs? Are they communicating or is that just a physical trait? Is that an entity or a construct? Are they really here or are they in orbit or still on their homeworld. The possibilities are endless, the reality unfathomable.
Even if they visited and left right away, our world would be forever changed. Concepts we hold onto to try to justify our existence would shattered as the knowledge and impact filtered through our minds. Our common delusions would be supplanted with new realities. New delusions would form and with our limited immature intelligence new religions and beliefs would arise. Our value systems would change. We might become a planetary culture or fragment drastically. Science might veer to new paths. Priorities would change.
Society is ruled. It is dictated and controlled by other humans. The communication industry would attempt to control the masses. Just like it does now. You will be told how to think, how to act and what to like. Just like now.
Your opinions will be swayed to support the elite's agenda, Just Like Now. Your internal turmoil and stress will be higher because society will dictate it. Your mind will be in conflict over what you are told and what you witnessed. There will be revolts against society, against religions and against nature. Trusts will be broken.
There will be a lot of people pacing. Unsure of anything they held dear.
Eventually, we will embrace it and things will become normal. Normal may not be utopian or dystopian but it will flatten out. I believe we could survive a visit but our concept of life would be forever different.

Imagine for a moment that you are walking in the woods and come upon an anthill. Most of us will be preoccupied with our own agenda and may not even notice it despite its complex structures and activity. Others may take notice and pause to examine it.
Do you take a moment of your time to try to communicate with it? Does it communicate with you? If you step on it the communication comes in the form of a hostile retaliation. You either stomp on it to try to kill it or you move away and continue your journey. You may never go near that anthill again or you may return and burn the thing from existence. You certainly did not have any two-way communication. This is based on human concepts with human abilities. To assume an alien has similar concepts is a delusion.

Once life is found someplace other than on our planet (even microbial) we may have the ability to project possible evolutionary paths. Genetic sequences and environmental parameters could be fed to a supercomputer and possible evolutionary paths might be forecast. The forecasts will be very flawed but it might give some insight into what is possible. A sample mission might provide hard evidence of genetic sequencing variations to extrapolate possible evolutionary variations. The problem with that would be that the evolutionary paths of such an organism will be affected by Earth's gravity and other planet specifics. It's likely we will find at least microbial life in our Solar System. That life will be alien. Alien to our planet but not to our Star System. I think it will be a panspermia scenario due to the Solar wind. We will probably find that it has more in common with Earth life than not. Such a discovery of life elsewhere will open concepts in science that are only theorized at the moment. Even evidence of life that is dead would do that.

5,000 years ago we did not send out any radio emissions. No TV, no signals of any kind. Did they just gaze at their sky one night and say "Lets go to Earth and mess with them"? Did their scientists build a craft and send their crew to a random nearest star? Did their advanced sensors detect Gold in them thar hills? Are we just a refueling stop for a distant destination? It's just plain silly to think that we can fathom the minds of aliens.

If they were here for mining resources why did they leave in the first place? Are they curious to see how that primitive mankind is fairing? Is interstellar travel so commonplace for them that light-years is a quick jaunt to the store? Are we so special and unique that they just can't get enough of us? What do we offer that everything in the light-years between us doesn't have?

What is our commonality?
Life?
Are we the only life they have detected within their reach? Right now, with what we know, life is unique to our planet. If we find any life anywhere else it will indicate that life is common. Especially if we find it within our own star system. If that is the case, life nay not be unique at all. Their star system may be abundant with life.
Comprehension?
Who can say if we comprehend anything the way they do? It's possible that they know something that we don't. Maybe the fact that we share the same galactic orbit as them makes us 'Brothers of the Orion Arm' or something?

The appearance of aliens might also have a very good outcome for mankind.

We would KNOW that there is life beyond our planet.
We would know that interplanetary/interstellar travel is possible.
Depending on how much we get to see, some fundamental scientific beliefs may be justified.

If they come in a ship:
It tells us many things;
At least one other lifeform in the Universe uses constructs
The configuration of the ship's hull can reveal many things including
Possible relative size of the occupants/builders
Aerodynamic needs for the ship's primary function
Acknowledgement of orientation (top,bottom & sides)
Surfaces that are smooth vs multifaceted or jagged may indicate the concept of workmanship
The presence of operating lights or language markings might indicate a social structure, a society or fleet and could also mean that communication is needed at some point. Any type of systematic marking system indicates that they use a language system in their communications. Specific lighting apparatus indicates that they have visual abilities based on wavelengths at least similar to us.
If the craft has landing legs or landing apparatus it might indicate that the concept of legs is common. It will also indicate that the craft is meant to land so terrestrial excursions may be commonplace. Stability may be a consideration to them.
Its atmospheric propulsion can indicate things as well. Is it reactive to gravity like a rocket? What does it do to structures? Does it burn the ground like something energy based or does it flatten things. Is there excessive heat or cold? Does the propulsion create a wind from atmospheric displacement?
The absence of these types of things also tells us something.

When We See Them:
Do they emerge from a door or hatchway?
Are they wearing an apparatus?
If they have legs & arms and eyes and a head is it bi-lateral?
Bi-lateral symmetry might indicate that it is common in life structures.
Do we see a construct or the aliens themselves. Or is it a projection of some type?
Is there a command structure to a group? Do some aliens have objects on them that the others don't?
Is one alien doing anything different than the others? Taking readings or samples?
Do they emerge from their craft in waves or as a force? Are there also airborne units?
The number and compliment of their initial contact may indicate their power or motives.
A far superior alien may only require one entity, where a show of force may indicate their superiority may not be as powerful. Even if they are hostile to us, how they appear may indicate many things about them. Do they need to come and seek out individuals or structures or can they just target all from orbit?
One more thing to consider is did they come to us or bring us to them?

There are multitudes of variables that will indicate many things about them without us knowing the details. Every bit of information we get get from the encounter will either justify or debunk our concept natural laws. Our concepts of science could be changed even if we were right about it just because we now have outside proof of it.

Even if the aliens just visit and leave, humans will be forever changed in their comprehension of the Universe. Such a major change in reality will affect each person on the planet in one way or another.

As for aliens already here who can really say absolutely. But then who can dispute a walking, talking rock if enough people try to justify it? One thing that TV shows are good at is twisting something mundane into a question. Its done all the time anymore. If we were to search the globe, evidence of that walking, talking rock could also be found. Combined with "eyewitness" accounts, fragmented scientist comments and blurry photos and recordings a great deal of "evidence" can justify anything.

Here's the kicker - I fully believe that there are far superior alien cultures in the galaxy let alone the entire Universe. I just don't believe for one second that they have been here, are here or about to come here. It just doesn't make sense to me.
The elements found on and in Earth are more abundant all through the Galaxy.
Life, while we have no proof it is elsewhere, the building blocks of life are abundant as well.
Human qualities are not so special that it would warrant a special visit. Especially from an alien that is able to cross the vast distances involved.
Slavery of the human race is unacceptable because a culture that can do the things required to make the trip can certainly do anything a slave could do. And much more efficiently.
Chances are that an alien culture able to cross the distances and actually come here are harnessing the power of their star or greater. We can't even harness the power in our own planet yet.

Is there ever any news about ET abducting plantlife? Its life? Perhaps there isn't news because abducted plants can't really be sensationalized? What about a worm? Worms are alive...so are gazelles, elephants, bacteria and viruses. Aliens come all this way and only want humans? Not chimpanzees or apes or dolphins or eagles, Just humans. Oh, and cattle. LOL I guess they like beef? They are not hacking our supercomputers or abducting advanced weapons. The are not siphoning off our oceans or atmosphere.

If we ever find ourselves superior over an alien culture we will be controlling and brutal.

If we find life that is not sentient I believe we will take samples and do studies. We will imprison some specimens for behavioral studies and sample some for food source. We will dissect, contaminate and dilute the entire biosphere. We will destroy to understand.

If the life is sentient and civilized we will still imprison, dissect and sample as a food source. I doubt we will hide from them. We may not divulge our technological secrets but we will attempt to learn their systems and understand their motives. We will study their science, their philosophy and their communities. We will use our advanced science to appear as Gods among them and control their impression of us. We might teach them our communication or show them how to better their lives with better crops and food production. I doubt we would show them any technology that could hurt us. We will not give them the secrets of the atom. If they have technology that can hurt us we will subdue them ASAP.

The Universe may not appreciate creativity and art. The Universe may only acknowledge Order from Chaos and direct, undeviating paths to knowledge. Creativity and art may be the embrace of Chaos. Since Chaos is rampant in the Universe only discipline and decisiveness may rule. Just because we value something doesn't mean an alien culture will.

Everything everyone can know, dream or fantasize is IN THE UNIVERSE. Yes, That means The Universe thinks, dreams and knows. At our level of consciousness we are unable to fathom the Universe's level of awareness but perhaps that is not so for aliens species that have developed for a million or 100 million years. Its a tough concept to grasp and most people can't even go there but with some discipline we can touch the edge.

Creativity is all around us. From atoms to galactic super-clusters. Art is a concept that is rooted in our perceptions and associations. Art is a learned appreciation. If we put the whole concept of art to the entire spectrum of life as we know it. Art is not a common thing. You can teach a chimp to paint a picture. You can teach it to look at the picture and enjoy it. What chimp, in the wild paints pictures, makes music that is repeatable, sculptures their parents likeness out of river mud? That is just a chimp, What about the other billion or so life forms that are on our planet? What kind of pencil sketches make worms take notice? Do the trees get excited over the sunset colors? Which termite mound is a sculpture of their God? Do birds sing for the same reason as humans create music? My point is that just because we perceive art in nature doesn't mean it was intended as art.

Creativity is such a common thing in the Universe an alien mindset may not even acknowledge its existence. If it does, It might not place as much value on it as we do. It's possible aliens may not be able to perceive beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Aliens may not have a need for eyes as we understand them. Perhaps they appreciate patterns or as a beauty to behold, the absence of patterns.

We have programmed our thinking with bounding boxes. To think outside the common delusions is considered insanity. At our level of development perhaps it is insanity. It's a hard discipline to even attempt to fathom reality.

1. We are all made up of elements that are in the Universe - Thus we are part of the Universe, not the entire Universe but part of it all the same.
2. When a distant star supernovas, even if we don't see it the supernova happened in the Universe. Every particle of carbon, wisp of gas and area of void is also part of the Universe.
3. Being inside the Universe, Every thought, dream, idea, language, work of art and feeling is part of the Universe. Everything that can be understood or imagined is in fact the Universe doing so.
It's a difficult concept to wrap your head around and humanity is bred to think otherwise. It still doesn't change the facts. Being within the Universe makes us the Universe. When we try to imagine ourselves outside the Universe the imagination that creates the reference is also inside the Universe. Thus the Universe expands By its imagination. The Universe is everything we are and more. Physical and meta-physical, spiritual and scientific. It all sources from within its boundaries. If any one boundary is pushed, its the Universe that pushes and any new ground that is had, whether it be solid or imagined, is engulfed by the Universe.
Many people think the Universe is only the 3d solid reality stuff like stars and planets but everything within its existence is within it. Including all those things that can't be quantified.

What if humans are the only life form that thinks of itself as outside the Universe?
What if all other life, known & unknown, automatically knows what we dismiss?
What if an alien, a worm or a tree knows all the secrets of the Universe that we can't/won't see?
What if the unknown can be revealed by just removing the delusions we teach ourselves?

Once the delusions start to fall, clarity begins to take shape. Since the delusions are a taught trait, reinforced by generations, that trait can be overcome.

Some alien culture that may visit us may not be deluded at all. Their ways and reasons may be so clear that we will not be able to cope because it breaks the delusions that we hold dear. Delusions we don't even know we have.

If someone strips a delusion from you it is scary to experience. A violation of your comfort zone. You respond to it as a threat, getting mad, sad or uneasy. Once the delusion is revealed and you understand that you were deluded you can exist in that clarity and you wonder how you deluded yourself in the first place.

The delusions that we experience are not all bad when considering humanity. Society, laws and commerce are all built on delusions that benefit our species. Rights give us balance and integrity. Ownership drives understanding and fuels expansion. Love & Hate dictate our path in sociability. Sociability creates unification. And So On...
The delusions make us who we are and what we will become. ON THIS PLANET.

Aliens may have different delusions or none at all.

Since probability is rooted in Chaos and possibility is rooted in imagination I agree that anything is possible. Its even possible that aliens changed the human genome 2 million years ago to create sentience in us on purpose. I even think its probable that aliens contact us regularly with transmission methods that we can not yet fathom. It's probable that aliens do exist both more and less advanced than we are.

I know this is a lot to read and it was written by me over a long period of time in spurts.
It all relates to an alien visitation and how it would impact people.
The main thing to remember is we just don't know all the facts.
We think we can fathom the repercussions but all our speculation is based on what we understand, under our own unique circumstances of life.

Aliens will be alien.

Science actually does glorify God. True science does. But you have to understand there are two types of science, although one of them isn't technically science.

Type 1 is operational science. This is the type of science that produces instant glue, and expanding foam, and LCD televisions, and rockets to the moon, etc. It is the type of science that discovers some new thing, which is then tested and repeated in the laboratory by lots of other scientists in the peer review process, and analysed and formulated until it is well understood and can be applied in practical applications. Here we have access to measurements, to observations, we can change conditions and test what happens to prove or disprove a correlation between various factors. This is proper science.

Type 2 is historical science. Some examples:

A rock is dug up and we want to know the age of it. So we use measuring instruments to determine the quantifies of radioactive parent and daughter isotopes in the sample. (So we're using a scientific method up to this point to obtain some data about the sample.) Then we use these figures in a calculation to determine the age of the rock sample, and in order to do that we have to throw in a bunch of assumptions that we cannot know to be true but we assume them to be true. The result of the calculation is then believed to give us the age of the rock sample. This, however, cannot be tested. (Except in some rare cases where it actually shows the result is severely wrong!)

Or a geologist looks at land forms, such as the Grand Canyon, and concocts a story about how it formed, saying that the Colorado river carved the canyon over millions of years. Contradicting factors are swept under the carpet. Catastrophies are denied, uniformitarianism is the only explanation allowed! (Although more recently, catastrophism has gained acceptance, especially after the eruption of Mt Saint Helens.) Mt Saint Helens proved that multiple sedimentary layers can form quickly from a single event, and that canyons can be carved quickly by the power of lots of water, and that trees can be ripped from the soil and carried elsewhere and buried upright and petrified in a short space of time - thus disproving the story concocted for Yellowstone's petrified forest. But most of the time uniformitarianism and long ages are invoked to explain various geological features, while a global flood is denied to have occurred on a planet covered 70% by water.

Or, a scientist might dig up a bunch of bones, assign them an age based on the rock layer they're found in (involves circular reasoning) and make up a story about those bones and what both the ancestors and the descendants of that once-living creature were. (saying they evolved from this to that.)
Or, a scientist might dig up a single tooth, and proudly announces that he's found the earliest homonid ancestor of man, gets an artist to draw a picture of (not only) what the tooth's owner looked like but also what his girlfriend looked like(!) and makes up a story about how that man lived his life in a primitive age. (And months or years later another scientist finally realises that the tooth found actually belonged to a pig!)
This is what historical science is all about. Finding bits and pieces here and there, and speculating and making up stories about them, without the ability to test the validity of the speculation, or to prove what the ancestors or descendants of that creature were. It is not true science.

Actually, cosmology falls into this category too, because the Big Bang is just a speculative exercise. It cannot be repeated, tested, or observed today. And that theory has so many flaws that they have to keep bolting on ad-hoc explanations, to the point that now they postulate a universe filled with 96% dark matter and dark energy (entirely theoretical constructs, never seen or measured by anyone) to explain the remaining 4% real matter and energy in the universe!

So, to get back to your original point that religious folks ignore science because it doesn't glorify God, I can tell you that is just not the case. I have watched the growth of the Creationist movement, and I read a lot of creationist materials, and I'm sure many others do too. Within the creation camp are many highly qualified scientists from all sorts of scientific disciplines. Many of them are "heavy weights" in their field, and indeed if you look at the birth and history of science you'll note that most of the founders of the various branches of science were bible-believing creationists. Their modern-day counterparts look at the evidence in the world through scientific eyes and see no conflict with Genesis. In fact, they see things that confirm Genesis, such as created "kinds" of creatures reproducing "after their kind", and signs that the world is young, and signs that a global flood really happened, etc.
These scientists share their discoveries with us, showing how God is glorified through the things that He made. The sheer brilliance and genius of His handiwork displayed in all manner of creatures and at all levels from the ecology down to gross anatomy, and on to micro biology and molecular biology and genetics. Science is discovering all these things and therefore it absolutely glorifies God.

I was so ready to let this fade away but you bring up a lot of good discussion points. I actually enjoy a good discussion.

One thing I think is important is not to devalue the participants views. To look at the points that interest me from a curiosity viewpoint instead of needing to defend my views as 'gospel'.

There are a lot of religious scientists in every scientific discipline there is. Separating religion from science is not feasible. People exist both in reality and spiritually. Both are vital to understanding the nature of the Universe in which we live.

Personally, I don't subscribe to the Big Bang theory. I have my own theory of how everything came to be. I've written a lot on it over my years.

True that speculation and artist renderings dilute the actual science. I can see that too.
Its the imagination that drives curiosity. Curiosity initiates discovery.

If we hold the 6,000 year Universe as reality, it stifles our curiosity to find out more. It erects a barrier to our imagination. Stifles curiosity.

The nature of man is to be curious about the 'world' in which we live. We endeavor to understand that which we witness during life. Our entire society is based on improving our conditions for life.

There is truth in what you write about the two types of science. What I fear you may not distinguish is it is really not two types of science.
There is science, which you describe quite effectively as Type 1.
Then there is theory (your Type 2 science)which you classify as science but it really isn't, its speculation based on scientific principles.

At one time I wanted to know what classifies theory as a theory and why my imagination isn't classed as theory. I found out that theory is a process of speculation that is adopted from imagination but supported by the scientific community because it has the potential to be reality. People work to try to prove theory.

Take quantum theory as an example. Quantum mechanics is no longer a theory because people worked science to reveal it is reality. We now have many examples of quantum mechanical principles that result in real examples of those properties. From teleportation to time travel. People are even working on quantum computers.

Our future is a long way from full understanding of the Universe. Much of the theory we have now may or may not be accurate to reality, but we are looking. We have not stagnated our imagination or our discovery. Its a work in progress.

We can look at our planets oil reserves and understand that the oil and natural gas is a process of decay of living things. We can mine lime from the remains of sea life where no seas exist today. To me it isn't important how old the products we extract are as it is the fact that we know how far down to look to find it and where to look. It is the science we understand that directs our drills.

Science measures the rate of sedimentary deposits. Science measures the rate of continental drift. Yellowstone can be tracked as the hotspot moves with the continental drift. We know it does because there is evidence that can be seen, plotted and deciphered. We know Hawaii moves with continental drift. We know because we can plot its coarse over time. These things are still moving.

Jeepers Tom! You've posted an entire book!
I read through about half of it before I gave up. It's just too much to read.
Much of it is just lots of questions and speculations. I'm not really sure what your purpose and message in all that was supposed to be.

Anyway, from your post before that I see that you believe in "God", or at least in whatever concept you personally have of what God is, and that you dislike organised religion. You also have (what I personally believe is) an unrealistic faith and confidence in the not-science of evolution.

We will likely not ever agree about these things.

I put it to you though that "God" the creator is an intelligent being (not an impersonal force) and one who desires to relate to other intelligent beings, which is why He made us in His image (so we are not like the unfathomable totally different aliens you wrote about) and why He left us with His word to inform us of the nature and state of the world/universe we live in and how to connect with our Creator. IF (and that remains a big IF to me for now) this Creator also made sentient beings on other planets, they would almost certainly also be made in God's image, and therefore able to relate to Him the way we relate to God, and this would mean we would be able to relate to these other sentient beings in ways similar to the way we relate to each other and to God. I don't think they would be quite as different and unfathomable as you think they would be.

There are people around the world who report having had contact with alien beings. These beings sometimes spoke to them. (Some are, reportedly, in regular and even cordial contact with these aliens.) For some, these beings emanated a tremendous feeling of evil, and invoked a tremendous fear in the experiencer.
WHatever it was they experienced, it's an experienced shared by thousands of other experiencers, so it is definitely a real phenomenon.
But the research shows that these are not interstellar travellers but interdimensional travellers. These beings also react negatively to the name of Jesus Christ, which wouldn't be the case if they were merely from other worlds, but does suggest this is a spiritual phenomenon and that these beings are actually demonic in nature. Research also suggest they have a deceptive and nefarious purpose here.

I am inclined to believe the word of our Creator God rather than the musings of men who are fallible and have limited access to knowledge. Since the bible warned about a powerful deception that was to be brought against mankind in the end times, I'm inclined to be cautious about these alleged "alien" beings and what they're gonna tell us about themselves when they finally do anounce their presence publicly.
Because of the beliefs you hold, you are more likely to be deceived into believing these "alien" beings when they tell you who they are and where they came from, and this deception may turn you even further away from God.
I advise you to watch the "Alien Intrusion" movie and arm yourself with this knowledge. It may help you to sift truth from error when the time comes.

Y'know, I like science fiction and fantasy as much as anyone but my solitude has proved one very important thing to me.

Reality doesn't care who believes in it, it just is.

just where exactly do you think the words from your almighty God are from?... Men, every last word was written by a man....

Men held the pen, but God inspired them as to what to write. Many of them even say as much in their writings, that God told them what to say or write.

If the scriptures were really just the words of men, that wouldn't account for the many prophecies that they contain and which have subsequently come true.
Nor would it account for the cohesiveness of the bible as a whole, even though it was written by around 40 people from diverse cultures, regions, languages, social statuses, professions, and time periods.

Read in the gospels the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, for instance, and then go read Psalm 22 which king David wrote several hundred years earlier, and in which he is describing Jesus' crucifixion experience well before crucifixion was even conceived as an execution method. And the psalm finishes with the triumphant exclaimation "for he has done it!", foreseeing the importance of the event and the awesome victory it represents.

I enjoy a good discussion too. But these days I'm wary of just how much time they can consume, as these posts can get extremely long.



I am firmly convinced of the truth of what I know and believe, and feel the burden of Jesus' commission to "go and make disciples of all nations", so I guess that shows through in how I write. I feel it's my duty to show people the way to the truth.


Even though science was established mostly by religious people, many scientists today unfortunately try to divorce science from religion. Maybe religion isn't the right word to use here. I don't exactly mean the set of rules by which to live and the institutions which promulgate them, but the general belief in a omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient deity - like the Creator God of the bible. If the universe wasn't created by a God of order (the bible says God is a God of order, not confusion) but instead arranged itself out of some primordial chaos, how can we have any faith in our observations, in our ability to reason, and in the soundness of our logic and conclusions? How can we have any faith that the universe is orderly, and consistent, operating by definite laws that act the same way everywhere in the universe? Science actually depends on the assumption of an orderly universe rather than a chaotic one.
Science and faith in God are not enemies. As you acknowledged, there are plenty of people of faith who work in scientific research, and who find no contradiction between true science and what the bible teaches.


Here are some good videos to watch on the problems with the Big Bang. I watched this series on TV a while ago, and at the end of it you're left wondering "how the heck can anyone still believe in the Big Bang theory?".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzyQbOQ0dv0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E66409i-yn4
(They're both over an hour long documentaries, so save it for when you have them time to watch.)


It's a pity that they present such things as "science" though, when it isn't. I don't think in this case that curiosity initiates discovery. These artists' renderings are heavily based on the scientists' own preconceived notions, and this shows in the areas where there is not data and where speculation is required. In fact, even in areas where there is data, sometimes that data is overruled because it does not agree with evolution. For instance, I was rather annoyed to discover a model of "Lucy" at my nation's natural history museum, but the feet had been made to look human, even though they were actually ape feet. They were trying to paint Lucy as the missing link between man and ape. Lucy has since been designated as fully ape, not a missig link.


I don't see the connection here. Why would a 6000 year old Earth stifle curiosity? It's like you're saying we need a fantasy idea about the world in order to explore it, and that the actual truth would be too boring to explore.
But what if the Earth really is 6000 years old? As more and more evidence comes to light in support of that view, would science eventually stagnate because a young Earth isn't exciting enough to study?
You may want to buy a book called "Busting Myths", which is available from https://creation.com and which contains 30 articles interviewing PH.D. scientists who accept the bible's account of origins. The curiosity and excitement of these scientists is certainly not stifled by their belief in a young Earth.
By the way, the Earth is around 6000 years old, but the rest of the universe can be much older. It all depends on the frame of reference. Several of the creationist cosmological models incorporate time dilation effects brought on by the concentration of matter (and hence gravity) at the beginning of the universe. It is known that gravity affects time, so while 6 days went by on Earth during creation week, distant parts of the universe may have experienced thousands of years in their frame of reference.


Hmm, not sure if I can agree with that. Some of what man does is rather destructive to the quality of life, whether his own and/or that of society around him.


Maybe my meaning didn't come through clearly. I agree that type 2 isn't really science. But there are many people who think of it as science. They would be both the evolutionists and Big Bang cosmologists who practice and preach this not-science, and the lay people to listen to the evolutionary propaganda which tells them it's science. Even the media are guilty of this, tending to portray a debate between creationists and evolutionists as a debate between science and religion, thereby equating evolution with science and belittling creationism as merely some religious musings that have no scientific value.


In science, theory can have an additional meaning that it doesn't have in regular use. In science, it can mean a body of knowledge that has been well investigated and for which laws and equations and such have been well established and proven by experiment. (particles-to-people evolution, which can't be repeated and proven by experiment, fails to meet this defition of a scientific theory, so the theory of evolution isn't actually a scientific theory.)


This is a limitation of science. It is always searching for truth, but it's hard to tell when it's arrived at the truth, because next month some new discovery may put today's truth in the rubbish bin. In the case of religion, or the Christian religion at least (and the Jewish faith), we have the sure word of God which we can rely on and which won't change. In the book of Job, for instance, it is written that he (God) "hangs the Earth on nothing", and science eventually caught up and confirmed that the Earth indeed is not suspended or supported on anything, but orbits freely through empty space.


Science is practical and useful that way, for sure. But the question of how old those things are is important, because what you believe about the age of the Earth affects your paradigm, which will ultimately affect your destiny.


The unfortunate thing is that scientists are often blind to other realities. They measure rates of sedimentary depositions as they are now and use those figures to extrapolate into the past to say that this or that geological feature took 20 million years to form. For a long time they were unwilling to take past catastrophes into account, which would dramatically affect age calculations. They also assumed other wrong things, such as that each pair of ice layers (dark, light) represented one year in the past (summer + winter), and that each pair of tree rings likewise represented one year. These days we know those ice layers merely represent changes in weather (warm, cold) and that trees can actually produce more than 1 set of rings per year.
The continental drift movement is likely an after-effect of the flood. The creationist models of the flood involve very rapid movement of the continents (meters per day) during the year-long flood, after which they rapidly slowed down.

Since I updated my firefox browser my bbcode editor has been disabled. All bbcode I do now has to be typed. Forgive my lack of markup to provide clarity.

I don't exist in a need to prove science over religion. To me that is all based on the semantics of pride. I exist in a solitary life.
My beliefs are based on my ability to recognize reality around me.
I had a health crisis years ago that made me look at mortality and life. My fight for survival caused me to start looking at my delusions and trying to remove them to make sense of my existence.
I WAS suicidally depressed. I needed to change that thinking or I would be dead. I started removing delusions and it resulted in a better understanding of my existence. My clarity of thought removed my depression.
I started examining my assumptions. The beliefs that were taught to me by others all my life. I compared those beliefs with my actual experiences. The taught beliefs did not match the actual experiences I had, or have. So I looked at the sources and tried to determine why such beliefs were taught. I figured out that others, thru my life, used their beliefs to dictate my behavior, my mindset. Their validity was based on someone else's perceived experiences.
While I have never seen an atom, I have seen the result of the atom's existence. I have never seen an alien. But, I have also never seen any evidence that an alien has existed. I have seen other people's beliefs. Pictures that might be anything that some people claim is evidence of aliens but never anything real and actual. The same goes for religion. When I was on the gurney with my heart stopped and EMTs were trying to get it started again, I didn't sense anything except a fading as my brain became starved for oxygen. If I hadn't been revived, I know I would have faded to nothing. There was nothing divine about it. It ran smack-dab directly opposite to what I was led to believe. I consulted the church. My preacher gave me some story about how it wasn't my time and that God is mysterious and all that jazz but he never explained what I experienced because, he didn't know. I was to pray for clarity and give thanx for another chance. Not enough.
So I started looking at the real physical properties of death. I learned what happens to the body when something dies like I did. I learned how the brain doesn't just shut off, it fades out as oxygen enriched blood is starved from the brain cells causing them to stop working. I experienced such a fading. Death is not a next step, it is an end. There is no you when you're dead. No experiences, feelings or emotions. It can't be scientifically proven but it is experienced. This understanding, based on my own experience, put all my beliefs in question. From the religious teaching I had embraced for nearly all my life to the cause and effect of day to day endeavors.
The more I compared belief to experience, the more I realized my delusions. So, I started removing delusions in favor of experienced reality. The inner conflicts I always felt were going away. The world I was experiencing started to make more sense. The clarity gave me contentment. Conflict between belief and experience started to disappear. I finally felt the peace of mind that had eluded me nearly all my life.
Now I look at everything I tend to believe with subjective doubt. I enjoy science and scientific theory as an entertainment. I explore my imagination as a fantasy. But, I exist in reality.
I'm no longer gullible to the beliefs of others.
I do acknowledge that others take comfort in their beliefs. I'm not so clinically cold that I dismiss their beliefs, I just don't adopt them as my own. To each his own and all that jazz.

There is something to be said about the act of trying to make someone believe your beliefs. It is an attempt to control someone else's perception about life to provide unity. Its the very foundation of the concept of society. Religion is merely one rendition of it.

All the talk on religion, science and perception is merely entertainment. A person can exist in the reality they experience or they can adopt a belief to explain it all. For me, my beliefs did not explain my existence. Reality grounds my experience.

It doesn't matter if the Earth is 6,000 years old or 4.5 billion years old. From my point of view it is 57 years old. Everything else is a delusion based on someone else's perception. Everything.

My truck is a machine, it doesn't have a personality, when it won't start it isn't mad at me.
Alligators don't have **** because mammary glands are unique to mammals. I have **** and I am a mammal.
People are animals, all the pomp and circumstances of their existence cannot change that. When I see someone, I see the animal first then I see their pomp and circumstance.
I have never seen an alien, they do not exist within my life experience.
I have never seen a ghost, they do not exist within my life experience.
I have never seen an atom, they do not exist within my life experience.
I have never seen an angel, they do not exist within my life experience.
I have never seen a flying spaghetti monster, they do not exist within my life experience.
I have never seen a demon, they do not exist within my life experience.
I have never seen another dimension, they do not exist within my life experience.

I have seen a prism refracting light into a rainbow of colors.
I have experienced solid objects.
I have witnessed the birth process of the human animal.
I have felt electricity...Its shocking.

The things I have experienced have been explained by others adequately enough for it to make sense to me.
There are some things I have experienced that have not been explained enough to make sense to me. For those things, I tend to not concern myself. Or, I search for an explanation that does make sense to me.

Religion is based on perception without reasoning experience.
One can read the Bible and apply it to their experience based on their perception of what they read or one can experience something and search the Bible for an explanation that perceptually fits their experience. Each aspect depends upon the other.
My pastor once told me that everyone gets what they need from the Bible and that each person gains a unique meaning from the passages as they pertain to them. The question was initiated from my question of how some religious icons have done such heinous deeds. I was trying to figure out why Christians murder in the name of their religion even tho God told us we cannot kill. I was trying to justify the actions of some church groups that go against the religion I was taught. It just didn't make sense.
He told me that God gave man free will. That just didn't make sense either.
The more I questioned for clarity, the more befuddled religion became. It didn't fit with the reality I was witnessing thru my own life experiences.
Right now, I believe in God. However, the God I believe in does not match up with the God I was taught by religion.

I stepped out of the conversation for a while to be ill, thanks to 'god's' inferior design work.

Why does the pope, or any other corporate CEO need bullet proof glass, if 'god' is loving and all powerful ?

If 'god' is all powerful, why do religious groups need to give it money donations and tithes all the time?

If 'god' is all powerful, why do the books consist of excerpts from over 5000 years old Mesopotamian fairy tales/religions, showing their ignorance of the world at those times ? Meat breeds worms !

The epic of Bilgamese - Gilgamesh, written in cuneiform, has the 'Noah' story, but the boat builder was called Uta Napashiti way back then.

If 'god' is all powerful, why do paedophiles not get erased, or are they all part of the 'mysterious ways'.

Wait by the river and watch the bodies of your enemies float by - so godly.

Join with us by getting circumcised, (but while you can't defend yourself we will kill you all). Again - so godly.

I personally have abused 'god' and his son, and his ghost, and got the same result as abusing Buddah, and Mithra, and Ishtar, and Moroni, and the man in the moon - nothing !

Just because we perceive something exists doesn't make it real, and much less that it was 'created' except by our own selves in our mind.

Thousands of years ago, without 'police' and drug squads, many of the 'religious cults' would have used Soma, and Hashish, and laurel, and alcohol, and many other drugs to help them do their divinations.
I say they were probably high as kites when someone (a human) first started to scribe notes about their invisible imaginary friends. Then when somebody took notice and thought it was a novel idea, they ran with it, much like the idiots we see on social media these days, making a living from completely fabricated 'fake news'.

And what of truly ancient beliefs tens of thousands of years old ?
Don't they count, since if there was a god, it 'created' them much earlier in time than Abram - Abraham, and of course 'god' is infallible, so who is anyone to 'dis' the work of any 'god' from any time frame ?

Follow the 'gourd', no follow the 'sandal'. (Life of Brian)
Follow us or we will kill you - Catholics and other Abrahamic myth based 'religions'.

Pretty flowers are the work of 'god', and ugly, disagreeable things are the work of the 'devil', and anyone who disagrees is shunned, or excommunicated, or stoned, or burnt to death, or nailed to a T. How enlightened.


Back to ufo's and aliens - , If I was an alien, (with advanced technology), I would present myself as 'god's' messenger, and then proceed to do whatever I wanted to do, blame bad consequences on 'mysterious ways', and claim all the good stuff as my own work, much the same as what 'god' botherers do now.

= It's all B.S.

Tom and Notbeold, you've both written interesting comments, to which I will reply. But I can't do it right now because it's late in the evening here and I've had too many late nights in a row already. I'll write replies in the next few days.

FOR ANYONE INTERESTED, Look up a website called

itssymbologystupid

This quite extensive text explains (some of) the misinterpretation of ancient texts and designs relating to calendars and dates, and how they were changed from figurative explanations (for ancient minds to grasp) into declarations of reality to be followed religiously, and then enforced by zealots, with the power to kill 'non-believers'.

eg. the bull in heaven : there was no bull in heaven, it was Taurus dominant in the sky - as per the ancient calendars, before Roman destruction.

There was no fish in heaven: it was Pisces.

And so on . . . Bulls, Rams, Fishes, Water Bearers, are all from the ancient calendars.

Hello all.. I'm new here.. my name allister Delson and I'm 29yrs..

hey Allister, nice to meet you... Do you believe God was an alien?

Hi Tom,
you mentioned your experience of nearly dying on the gurney, and how it didn't match what religion taught you.
I'm gonna guess here that religion taught you that you would be going to some afterlife, either heaven if you'd been good, or hell if you'd been bad.
Sadly, a lot of religious people believe this even though the bible doesn't actually teach this!

In the bible, death is often referred to as "sleep", as this selection of verfses shows:
then let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust. Psa 7:5

Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; Psa 13:3

You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning Psa 90:5

And while we're dead and in this "sleep", we don't actually do or experience anything:

No one remembers you when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave? Psa 6:4-5

Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? Psa 88:10

It is not the dead who praise the LORD, those who go down to silence; Psa 115:17

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten. Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun. Ecc 9:5-6

It would not make sense that those who die go straight to heaven or to hell. Jesus commanded his disciples to heal the sick and raise the dead...
As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.'Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Mat 10:7-8
... which might be great for one who went straight to hell, to be rescued from death, but one who went straight to heaven would be rather disappointed to be dragged back to this earthly existence again.

But there will come a time when the dead WILL awake from their "sleep". First, there will come a resurrection of the righteous, who will rise to meet Jesus Christ as He returns to Earth to collect His followers:

According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 1Th 4:15-17

Those who are not among the righteous will be resurrected much later, but only to have their case judged and for them to understand why they don't qualify for eternal life. These will then experience the "second death", which is a permanent death from which there is no coming back:

I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. Rev 20:4-6

This second death does not consist of burning in hell and being in anguish for ever and ever. It is a fire from God that consumes the sinners fully. The fire cannot be quenched prematurely, but it will end by itself when it has done its work. The result of the fire's work is permanent, eternal. These people cease to exist.

i cannot agree w you more

hi