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I do not have any other predictions to make about the nature of alien civilization. They could be silicon based octopoids with IQs in the 2 and a half billion range but some of them will believe in the bogeyman.
I am certain that any intelligent species can only exist as a direct or indirect result of evolution. They must have either evolved or been made by entities that evolved. Given that basic premise I also think that it is inevitable that memetic evolution will have occurred. Ideas will have spread because communication is inevitable within an intelligent species. Ideas will spread because the vectors for those ideas feel reasons to spread them.
Religion is inevitable once a base level of communication skills and intelligence has been achieved. The memetic adaptations required to keep an idea going within a particular community will arise. If the community has an IQ of 80 then a simple religion will emerge with simple memetic hooks, simple rewards and simple defences against contrary ideas. If the community has an IQ of 180 then the brighter minds will be able to come up with better ideas, more fiendishly complicated religions with more cunning reasons to believe in them. Ideas like the afterlife, religious tolerance, freedom of expression, faith.
I see no reason to believe that brighter minds in a brighter community would be free of religion. Their religions would be much more infectious and powerful, they will have developed better defences against logical arguments than we are capable of thinking of. There is one little fly in the ointment of all this religion, it is all bullshit. In every community infected by religion would be intelligence capable of appreciating the power of religion and also capable of resisting it. The pendulum will swing between belief and doubt across the aeons but neither will be able to win in any community, at any given level of sophistication.
That is my contention. And I'll put money on it.
Reply
I'm ready to wage all my money against you.
Unless these aliens have found FTL drives without basic cosmological
knowledge (which is rather improbable), they will have as much proof
of the non-existence of gods as we have, if not more. How much you
wanna bet ? He he he.. this could make me rich ! Taking advantage
of idiots is always a good way to get rich, I guess.
Franc
I think you have misunderstood the point of the exercise. We do not have any proof of the non-existence of God, that is impossible. You cannot prove a negative.
We could drain Loch Ness and show it contained nothing but fish but some lunatics would say the monster heard us coming and slipped off into the fifth dimension or something. It is impossible to prove religion wrong. You and I both know that god, angels and the like is total crap but my point is that it is unprovable that it is crap. And however clever we are in talking it down they will be equally clever in keeping it going. I am just going one stage further and speculating that this Mexican Standoff will exist at any given level of intelligence and sophistication. Religion, once started, will never be extinguished, neither will it ever win over every thinking man, or thinking small lump of slime for that matter.
You could invent a spaceship powered by black holes or anti-matter but you wouldn't be smart enough to outwit another member of your species who does believe that there is a God and he created the home planet out of earwax in seventy days and four nights.
We can't do it and our opponent are stupid. What chance have the aliens got against the forces of thousands of years of intelligently generated lies? I am not saying that we cannot put up good arguments against religion that any reasonable neutral observer would grant wipes the floor with religion. We can and do. But the religious never give up.
My ultimate nightmare would be to make contact with aliens from another planet and find them sending missionaries to us. I would prefer them to eat us.
Just think, somewhere out there may be a being that is seventy times more intelligent than you (potentially) but he is as screwed up as John Boatwright.
Five words, weakie. "There are no square-circles" Wake
up and smell the coffee.
Franc
Oh how clever. I thought intelligent life had already been discovered on this planet. Perhaps I was misinformed. There is no god, there never has been but there is a thriving church and we have been to the Moon and back. My point is that the church will never give up and every intelligent species will be infected by religion. Do some research on memes and the way ideas travel or perhaps look and see that fundies do not listen to argument. Do yourself a favour, never reply to a message you have not read and never reply to a message without showing you understand what the author intended. If you break those rules you look like a moron.
Why do you still refuse to put your money where
your mouth is ? Are you afraid of losing ? Or do you know that you're
wrong and are just fillibusting ? We human beings are barely space-faring,
let alone beyond the speed of light (heck, everyone still thinks
we can't).
Franc
No problem. One week's income. Yours or mine, whoever is wrong. Just send me whatever you earned the week before the big event. I think it is unlikely either of us will have to pay up. I certainly hope that those who make contact with us will be STRONG ATHEISTS, like me, but I fear that some of their kind will believe in some form of a god or creative force. It is just the nature of belief and transmission of belief. Regrettable but, I wager, inevitable. I would love to lose the bet.
Can I have an official contract for this ? I
want to make sure I get my money, or that I can sue you otherwise.
Franc
Gentleman's agreement. Yes, I'll stand by it.
Contact with an alien culture is the hard part to define. It hasn't happened yet, I hold no truck with conspiracy theories. Alien contact must be agreed by consensus among respected western media, I think that a reasonable definition is that the BBC and CNN both carry the story and do not retract it within 24 hours.
Defining intelligent is tough too. They must be smart enough and interested enough to have defined their own story of the formation of the universe and a story to account for their own existence. If by the time contact is made this story contains no element of the supernatural then you look like you have won the bet, HOWEVER, it is not enough to show three little green atheist men and claim victory. We must know that no sub-culture of religion exists within their community. That is my contention, that religion, once started (which I fear is inevitable) cannot be stopped. For me to win will require me to show that there is cultural transmission of religion through time within the alien community. I DO NOT have to prove that it is the majority view. And I certainly hope it is not.
I have no intention of running away from the bet. If you think you have won just E-mail me on the day. The day the biggest event in our history happens. When we are clear whether all the aliens are or are not atheists we can pay up accordingly. By the way; if one lot of atheist aliens turn up and I pay up, I'll want the money back again if a second lot turn up to save our souls.
OK? Fair bet? Martin Willett Cheadle Hulme Cheshire England
I accept :)
Franc
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More on this fascinating subject Since this time I have come around to accepting that I am a weak atheist, not a strong atheist. |
