No James, my certainty is rational. Fermi was right for the wrong reason.
Got your attention didn’t I? ; )
[I want it to be true too, which is why it isn’t as well, and yeah Arrival is a wonderful fable. But a person as grounded and brilliant as yourself cannot possibly not know the eternal universality of sapience due to a faith position, surely? Forgive me for even entertaining the idea. I’m just the guy on the uniformitarian bus.]
I heard something about this earlier. Since it’s 2020, my first thought was hoping that maybe someone’s playing a joke on someone… have they had a chance to view any of our “historical documents”?
I think the fishiest thing about the whole story is that the aliens have signed contracts with “the U. S. government.” Why do we Americans not only think we’re the center of the planet but also of the cosmos? ; ) (in case it’s not clear, read this with a humorous lilt in your mind’s voice.)
I hope the aliens have a good lawyer to review their contracts. Things did not work out so well for the indigenous people who contracted with the U. S.
Isnt the only life outside of earth a few living organisms and a few germs that have been discovered?
Nope. Nothing at all. If there were, then that would be scientific proof of the rational fact that nature has done life from forever. Not just for our 13.8 Ga bubble. Which crawls with stuff.
Pretty sure i heard somewhere we found something . Ohh well
That would be the greatest news in two thousand years. It can never happen. I wish it could. We won’t even be able to prove it from spectroscopy of extrasolar planet atmospheres. Oxygen and water prove nothing.
But it’s there. We’re everywhere. Always have been.
Might I suggest that when Adam sinned, i.e. ‘the fall’ all of mankind fell, all of creation was subject to the fall. The Cosmos:has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8/22–23)
The implications are clear: if there are image bearers of God somewhere else in the universe, they fell in Adam. They would need to hear the Gospel. If on the other hand there are firms of life that are not image bearers of God…
Correction… Why do MANY Americans… (my compromise between some and most) I guess it would be the isolationist portion who don’t really want involvement with the rest of the world.
In this case, we would be the indigenous people.
Nonsense. There is a failure here to understand the relativity of simultaneity. The cosmos is not a motion picture composed of instantaneous frames strung together. The only now is also right here… such is the conical Minkowsky structure of space-time. The implication of this structure is that the rest of the universe is really none of our business and never will be.
Probably one of the more credible assessments: Trump Confirms Existence Of Aliens, Claims They Won't Reveal Themselves Until Humanity Has Re-elected Him | Babylon Bee
Although the universe is large enough to make life elsewhere quite plausible, and perhaps even intelligent life existing somewhere, our sample size isn’t really much to go on either way. We know of one planet with life and some signs of intelligence, innumerable unsuitable settings for life, and several places where life could conceivably exist. But we don’t have a great grasp on the stability of orbits and stars in a number of settings, for example. Given how close a planet would have to be to a red dwarf to stay reasonably warm, and the possibility of massive solar flares, would any planets there not be too fried for life? How ordinary or unusual is the sun? Can orbits in a multiple star system be stable enough to support life? Do ice moons consistently stay warm enough to have liquid ice inside, or is that a temporary result of varying orbital dynamics? A lot of headlines today exaggerate the probability of life. We don’t have grounds to say life doesn’t exist elsewhere, but overconfidence in its existence seems fashionable right now.
What does the election in one particularly stupid country possibly have to do with whether aliens reveal themselves? Isn’t it more likely they will simply remove the people of that country from existence as a favor to the whole world?
Talking about many Americans who think they are the center of the cosmos! Guess Trump is an example/representative of those who think that way.
measure of sanity? catering to every extremist group, trying to get them to tear the country apart?
Yes, one hopes that many can pick up on that aspect of the satire. Years back, there was a Bizzaro cartoon, with aliens emerging from the UFO declaring “We have captured all of your politicians and are holding them captive! Do as we say, or we will release them.”
I think this speaks to the question:
(Just because someone can imagine something rationally based on limited current knowledge and project it as being possibly true does not make it a “rational fact” just waiting to be proven, as some are presumptuous enough to claim.)
As soon as it rained, there was life. The universe is insanely, meaninglessly large, practically infinite. There are easily ten to the twenty five worlds. Life is normal. Why wouldn’t it be? And we’re average. Common as muck. It’s not plausible for intelligent life not to be everywhere. Not plausible at all. Not in the slightest. Utterly impossible. Unless you have to believe in nonrational stories. And luckily for you, if you do, we’ll never be able to scientifically prove the rational fact of universal intelligent life. In the eternity of universes.
Ah, the irony. Still, check the track record of anyone you make a treaty with.
Rational stories don’t have to be true. They can still be pure fiction and merely imagination.
Please rationally adduce an exception to uniformitarianism in all that we rationally know. No one here is imagining the fact of eternity of course. Denying it is a work of fantasy. Delusion.
Yes, those are called novels, even though they will tell truths about the human condition. Whereas rational thinking based on empirical observation cannot be.
Extrapolation using only two points (or even one! 
) misses reality by a mile (or several parsecs).
Shall we talk about the particularity and nonuniformitarianism of God’s providence.
In the summer of 2017, around the time of the total eclipse of the sun, I read where one secular astronomer called the fact that the disc of the moon in the sky so closely matches the disc of the sun “magic”. That would be particularity.
The universe was designed to be discovered – from here, with our special moon. Huge amounts of knowledge about how stars and the universe work has been discovered – and more is still being discovered – during total solar eclipses. And that is not to mention all of the other details about why so much of the cosmos is visable, unobstructed, from here, and during mankind’s occupancy of the planet.
It’s funny, but the expression ‘fine-tuning’ comes to mind.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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