The Blindness of Nitrogenman
In his post, Mister E continues his support for the concept that it is far more likely that somewhere in the universe there is an intelligent lifeform that breathes Nitrogen and lives in 300 degree heat than that God exists:
It is clear to me now that to the religious conservative, the idea of God requires less imagination than a man who breaths nitrogen. This is utterly absurd. First of all, we already have life forms on Earth that do that, secondly, our atmosphere is primarily oxygen, if it were nitrogen, I’m sure that is what we’d be breathing.
Really? The Earth’s Atmosphere is primarily oxygen? Mister E, that’s news to me. According to Wikipedia:
Earth’s atmosphere is a gay layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth and retained by the Earth’s gravity. It contains roughly 78% nitrogen, (normally inert except upon electrolysis by lightning[1] and in certain biochemical processes of nitrogen fixation), 21% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of other gases, in addition to about 3% water vapor. This mixture of gases is commonly known as air. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation and reducing temperature extremes between day and night.
The problem isn’t that more Nitrogen is needed. The problem is that on Earth, animal life breathes out Carbon Dioxide and breathes in Oxygen. Thus, what Nitrogenman would require would be that plants produce Nitrogen while Nitrogenman breathes Nitrogen and breathes out a material that the plant needs. In addition, this would be in the planet’s atmosphere to the degree that Carbon is in our own.
Keep in mind that a truly advanced society is going to require understanding of the stars for navigation and to be capable of space exploration, so they must be able to see, not to mention live. Our atmosphere allows the right part of the electromagnetic spectrum to get through to our planet:
Jay Richards
“In other words, there’s really just a very narrow part of the electromagnetic spectrum that’s going to be useful for living processes like photosynthesis. It’s not as if life could have evolved to use gamma radiation or x-ray radiation or something like that. There’s really just a narrow part of the spectrum that would be useful to life processes.
Well, as it turns out, that’s also the same narrow part of the spectrum that is the most informative about the various structures we discover in the universe around us.”
Narrator:
THESE SPECIFIC FREQUENCIES (THAT ENABLE PLANTS TO MANUFACTURE FOOD AND ASTRONOMERS TO OBSERVE THE COSMOS), REPRESENT LESS THAN 1 TRILLIONTH OF A TRILLIONTH OF THE UNIVERSE’S RANGE OF NATURAL ELECTROMAGNETIC EMISSIONS.FORTUNATELY, IT IS THE TYPE OF LIGHT OUR SUN PRODUCES IN ABUNDANCE…AND THAT MOST EASILY PENETRATES THE FILTERING SHIELD OF OUR ATMOSPHERE TO REACH THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH.
The argument that there’s some other atmosphere that would work with nitrogen just as well as ours requires far more proof. 1 trillionth of a trillionth is an incredibly tiny amount.
Just because we haven’t found them is in no way a valid reasoning for assuming they don’t exist, especially considering the number of planets in the universe.
So you renounce your Atheism? It seems odd to state positively that there is no God, while proposing a scenario for the existence of aliens on a Nitrogen based world that as far as I can tell is nearly impossible.
God is an omnipotent, omniscient, being that doesn’t exist in this physical realm (otherwise we’d see him), he doesn’t adhere to any natures of science or physics, he is logically impossible, and, according to the Christian bible, contradicts himself often…
Forgot omnipresent, which is important. As for your statement, we can understand in an elementary way by looking at our computer. Let us suppose for one moment that it were possible for computer programs to debate and that one insisted the computer had no designer and no owner and that it was far more probable that there was another computer made of wood down the hall than that this person who sat at a desk typed and made everything happened.
Such is the situation we’re in. If you believe there is no possibility of something beyond the computer, than it may be logical to conclude there is nothing outside of computers. If you believe there is nothing supernatural, then it is logical to conclude there is nothing outside the Earth. The question is that conclusion logical?
There is much we can’t understand, much we can’t explain, like why a religion that was founded in a Misogynistic era, relied on the testimony of women as the primary witnesses of the resurrection, and whose founder was executed as a criminal became the world’s largest and has spread from one corner of the globe to another.
But the idea that there are life forms on this planet that do survive extreme conditions outweighs any argument for the contrary. So… no cigar on that one.
No one’s arguing there aren’t lifeforms that survive extreme conditions. The issue is intelligence and advanced lifeforms.
So, Adam is a fan of Star Trek, but condemns EVERYTHING that Star Trek represents: freedom, love, peace, acceptance… I don’t get that. Well, thats social conservative contradiction for ya.
Actually the original Star Trek described itself as a "Gunsmoke" in space. Star Trek (particularly the older less-PC versions) were fun rides through space with high speed chases that saw a lot of fun explosions. Yes, galactic peace is nice, but the plot of Star Trek is no more plausible than the plot of Lord of the Rings.
The stories are valuable for fun and adventure in unusual places, and occassionally for what they say about our world.’
Saying an empty universe wastes space assumes some intelligence behind it.
Nope. Thats actually not true. Sorry. All it means is that the likelihood of us being the ONLY life in the universe is pretty gosh darn slim. Its incredibly selfish to assume that we are, and is a testament to the self centered nature of conservative religion. But it is good to know that finding intelligent life on other planets would damage Adam’s faith. It shows me more of the nature of this interesting phenomenon of blindly believing in some fascinating mystical tales. I know this because of how defensive he gets about the idea of other intelligent beings being out there, because I think deep down he knows that if we were to make contact with some communicating life force out there, it would be highly unlikely that they would have ever heard of Jesus.
The odds of a planet fulfilling all the things Earth does is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000. Those are pretty narrow odds. The idea of the existence of aliens didn’t threaten my faith before I began to study the odds of their existence and what it requires for life in the Universe. Again, the focus is not on Life, but intelligent life. If the question were whether there was some nitrogent-muching microbe on some distant world, I’d have a different answer, but let’s focus the question.
But certainly, why would finding bacteria on Mars not? After all, if evolution is bullshit and God created everything, then God created bacteria, and put it on this planet… right? So if we found bacteria on other planets, would it not seem strange that that was all there was on that planet? After all, isn’t the point of plants and bacteria to entertain god’s most important creature: humans? Why would he bother sprinkling them across the universe?
Suppose, he were plotting against you. As the omnipresent creator of the Universe, he planned thousands of years in advance to bring the hammer down by planting bacteria on other planets. When bacteria is brought back from dozens of planets that are estimated to be the same age as Earth, this really throws the whole theory of evolution into crisis, at least as far as an origin for the Universe, because it shows that Natual Selection is not on enough. If Mars has bacteria than shouldn’t Natural selection work just like on Earth? If as E argues we can have any type of atmosphere have life, hearty bacteria should be able to survive enough time to evolve into real-life Martians.
Also, it should be noted that God didn’t create everything for our entertainment, but rather scripture says:
The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever; the LORD shall rejoice in His works.-Psalms 104:31
Though, even if one were to assume that he did make it all for us, he knew we would find it, now wouldn’t he?
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