In article <1168368622.026481.118250@i56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
 "gpsman" <gpsman@driversmail.com> wrote:

John A. Weeks III wrote: <brevity snip>

In article <Oytoh.42957$wc5.25613@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net>,
 "BogusID" <BogusID@YesItIs.com> wrote:

Interesting...
Life elsewhere has similarities to religion, in that both involve faith
without conclusive evidence :-)

Not true at all.  Life elsewhere can be conclusively proven.  All
we need is one such example.  Religion cannot be proven.

Prolly not, but Jesus -could- come back, if he were the son of God.

Actually, Jesus has come back.  Several times.  You just need to
read more history.  The Jews certified a savior in about the year
100.  They didn't recognize Jesus, so that was the first coming for
them.  Another example, in the 1840's, the Catholic church certified
a person as the 2nd coming of Jesus.  He toured Europe for years as
the son of god.  Then one day, he took off with some women and a
bunch of money, and was never seen again.  That is the kind of thing
that god people did back then before they discovered having male on
male sex with drug dealers and children.

There
is evidence to suggest that life elsewhere does exist.

What the hell is it?  I don't keep up on these things.

The fact that we are here is a key piece of evidence.
The fact that we find many other stars like our sun means
that similar solar systems are possible.  The fact that we
are finding planets, and every smaller planets, means that
other solar systems are possible.  The fact that our solar
system has 2 other planets that were near misses for life,
or more importantly, we may find that 2 other planets did
have life at one time means that life is very common with
the right conditions.  The fact that we are seeing the right
kinds of hydrocarbons in space means that the ingredients are
there.  The fact that life appears to have died out and restarted
several times on Earth, and that we have survived several mass
extinctions means that life is very robust if conditions are
right for it to take root.  The vastness and large numbers in
space suggests that even if something is very rare, it would
still have a large number of occurrences.

At this point, nailing down the life question on Mars would
go a long ways towards showing that life is common.

Someone who believes in ET's without proof is guilty of faulty logic,
just like someone who believes in a god without any evidence.  But
someone who believes that ET's are possible has not violated any
rules of logic.

I am unfamiliar with the rules of logic that might lead to the
conclusion a god is not -possible-.  What force might prevent a god's
existence?

I didn't say that god wasn't possible.  Rather, given the total lack
of evidence that there is a god, and no missing area of science that
shows a need for a god, it would be totally unexpected that a cosmic
grand-poobah would exist.

-john-

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John A. Weeks III           952-432-2708            john@johnweeks.com
Newave Communications                         http://www.johnweeks.com
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