Readers' Feedback

Extraterrestrial

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Generated : 9th December 2024


008

Russell Neal

Russell_Neal@Dell.com

I honestly feel that Christianity would suffer more than any other religion due to the doctrines of original sin and redemption through Christ's vicarious sacrifice.

If humans are indeed sinful creatures who required the death of God to redeem them, then aliens would have to be either sinless according to Biblical standards or they would be hopelessly lost.

KryssTal Reply: Perhaps they'll do to us what the Spaniards did to the Aztecs: call us Heretics and impose THEIR gods onto us!!

Christians believe that Christ died once and only once for sin. There is no room in Biblical teaching for Christ to have gone to other worlds, incarnated there, and died for other races.

Therefore, if there are other races, and if they they did sin as the Bible teaches that humans did, these beings are hopelessly damned because there would be no way to have their sins atoned for (and evangelism to other worlds is rather limited now, isn't it?)

The proven existence of extraterrestials who had no hope of redemption would cause many to question the justice of a God alleged by the Bible to be loving and merciful (i.e: Why would he place the only hope of redemption in the hands of a race hundreds, if not possibly thousands of years, away from space travel).

KryssTal Reply: I'm sure that people who want to beleive will find a way of beleiving.

I think this would probably force most Christians to rethink their beliefs in original sin, blood sacrifice and redemption, and the existence of eternal damnation in a literal hell.

KryssTal Reply: It would all make it very interesting though, wouldn't it!


007

Larry Thornton

thornton@cadvision.com

Hello,

I would like to know if you can direct me to any information on the Internet (or anywhere else) that would constitute a critical analysis of Fred Heeren's religious agenda as it applies to his criticisms of the S.E.T.I. search, and his book "Show Me God". The centuries-long war of religion against science seems never-ending. As a person of wide reading on science and in agreement with the philosophal thinking of people such as the late Carl Sagan, I have become disturbed by Fred Heeren's heavy-handed attack on science (both fringe and mainstream) through his religious preachings via his books, quarterly magazine, and Internet web presence. The man's technique of pitting "science against itself" in order to promote the maintream religious cause, must, I feel, have its share of scientific critics.

KryssTal Reply: I've not read the book or heard of the author. If I find anything I'll let you know. If I was a betting man, I would keep my money on science!

I agree. I just had a long debate with an astrology/religius adherent and it was quite an experience. Many such people are militantly anti-science and anti-skeptic....

Thanks for your kind reply.


006

Arthur D'Alembert

artis@mypad.com

Hello and sorry, I read your WWW page and noticed you perhaps would like to know about my book (it is about alien contacts) Into my page you'll find some very honest comments on it

http://www.goplay.com/aalembert

Thanks


005

Chris Halvorsen

chal24@geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7380/

In determining how many planets have life you must take into consideration the amount of time it lasts. It could only take up a small fraction of the history of the universe and be gone before we were here.

KryssTal Reply: This is true - a million years is a very short time on a cosmic scale.

Life contains these requirments -

Reproduction - Abitlity to produce more of its own species
Transport - Ability to move substances through itself
Movement - Ability to walk, swim, fly, crawl, etc.
Growth - Increase in cell size and/or number
Regulation - Ability to adjust to outside conditions
Response - Ability to respond to stimulai
Excretion - Ability to get rid of wastes
Nutrition - Ingestion, Digestion, Egestion

KryssTal Reply: We have to keep definitions simple as we only have one example of life - our planet's.

Thanks for your comments - I'll be checking your web site soon.


004

Simon Johnson

simon@bpgraphics.co.uk

Dear Kryss,

I read your essay "Are we alone in the universe" with great interest.

I wanted to expand on what you said slightly by adding a further comment.  Like you, I believe there must be other life in the universe but that we are never likely to meet it and that it has never visited us here.

The reason for this is the limited time a life form has to become independent of it's parent planet.  If we follow your argument that life will take around 1000 million years to form on a suitable planet, we then have a further period (as with our own Earth) of very unstable geology where life forms which evolve and develop, then become extinct through environmental changes beyond their control.  As the planet becomes more stable (again as with our own Earth) life forms have a chance to develop further. This allows for the growth in intelligence of the dominant life form.

The next problem however, is that the planet has a finite life and, as with our own species, the process of development of intelligent life will be full of "social" hurdles which delay the development of technology for the good of the species.  If we could go back and divert all the resources invested in non-productive (war, greed and leisure) development, we would probably be far, far further advanced in areas such as health (life span) and travel. Now if this had been the case, I believe we could argue that this would actually spell the end of development of a species because from our own evidence, almost all our technological advances have come through conflict. It is also the case that the only time we as a species genuinely pull together is when we are all faced by conflict.

With the clock ticking on the life span of the planet and the risk of partial or complete destruction of our planet or civilization from external, natural causes (asteroid, volcanic etc) for which we can have no control, growing more probable with time, we and other life forms in the universe would appear to be caught in an introverted development which will never allow galactic exploration.

In reality , as animals ourselves, we are still predominantly driven by the Darwin element of our genetic makeup (reproduce and better ourselves). if we arrived at a Utopian state of civilization which should allow the united development of the technology required for inter galactic travel, we wouldn't bother because we would have no incentive!

In summary:

The life cycle of a planet, capable of developing life, is probably to short for intelligent life to escape and travel beyond it's local space.

The fastest developing forms of intelligence will probably face so much conflict on their own planet that they will divert all there energies introspectively and never leave their planet.

Inter galactic travel therefore could never happen.

Sad...


003

Gretz

Gretzsk1@aol.com

I read your essay... and was wondering if there is anymore "hard evidence" that supports the opinion that there is no life elsewhere is the universe...

i am writing a report... and would like to have your input... thanx..

KryssTal Reply: That's a difficult one to prove because we are only familiar with a very tiny part of the universe. The solar system is one of 100 thousand million in our galaxy. There is a larger number of galaxies. It's a bit like trying to answer a question about carpets without leaving your bedroom!

The only way I can think is if you have evidence that conditions on the earth are unique. Water, one of the pre-requisites of life, is a common substance in the universe.

Good luck with your report.

thank you for your suggestions.... i have lots of information that supports my side.. (that is...intelligent extraterrestrial life does exist) soo i think that i will do fine..

thank you ohh so very much.. and best wishes with your cause..


002

Gustavo Viola

casa / home: gustavo.viola@pobox.com
trabalho / work: gv.palhares@novanet.com.br
http://www.pobox.com/users/gustavo.viola

I read most of your site and was very fond of it.  I had read a lot of the presented material in popular science magazines and books, but had never seen it all together before, and in such a concise and simple way. Thank you for putting your site up!

KryssTal Reply: obrigado (thank you)

I also would like to tell you of Seti@home -- youīve probably heard of it, but I donīt see any harm in telling you about it anyway. Itīs a very interesting dristibuted computing experiment, which attempts to find radio transmissions from extra-terrestrial intelligence amidst data collected at the Arecibo radiotelescope. More info can be found at

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

KryssTal Reply: conhoso (I know)


001

Alan M. MacRobert

macrobert@skypub.com

Hi!

I noticed your list of SETI links on the Web. Might I suggest you add Sky & Telescope magazine's SETI section? It's at

http://www.skypub.com/news/special/seti_toc.html

The articles there include what I think is the best examination of the Drake equation as it stands today, and the most complete comparison of all the SETI programs now operating worldwide, with their strengths and weaknesses.

KryssTal Reply: You're absolutely correct. The link has been added. Thank you.


© 2024, KryssTal

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