I am a self admitted atheist and agnostic combined.

But that's a contradiction.
Well I'm also wonder as many others.
My temporarily solution is to beeing agnostic at Sundays and atheist at weekdays:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS3hQxwHjys

I am a self admitted atheist and agnostic combined.

But that's a contradiction.
Well I'm also wonder as many others.
....

I'm not sure it is a contradiction. For me 'agnostic' means 'believe in what you can see' but even with the traditional interpretation 'unsure of the existence of god' it is not anti atheist.

I believe humans are dualistic. (Animal and Human. et al..)

Existing in dualism is the only way to properly explain our capacities.

(I also think we lack something else that would bring us together and away from harm..)

I could give myself labels such as atheist, agnostic, believer, religious, spiritual or such but any label or belief becomes a cap to our potential.

I would like to be just human (the best human I could be) but contradiction maybe our only way.

One day perhaps.

.. But then what is we discovered contradiction were the very thing that made us human in the first place?

Now if SETI discovered the solution to contradictions I suspect many governments (powers) would want to block or own the truth. :)

I believe humans are dualistic. (Animal and Human. et al..)

True.
Voting day here in next Sunday:)

What possible reasons would the American (or any other) government have to suppress news of a SETI discovery?

I think we have already answered that previously. My own opinion is that any discovering government WOULD want to keep it quiet for two main reasons.

1. If the USA made contact first, would they want to share that with Putin's Russia? I rather think not, they would want to reverse engineer any info they could get to obtain a military advantage.

2. In my opinion most of the worlds mainstream religions are based on flimsy foundations of self belief and non evidence. Some in particular only flourish because it is indoctrinated from birth, then reinforced in adulthood by family and societal pressures. Once belief in core life values is dented then civil unrest could well follow.

This is 1950's type thinking I suspect.

If a message was aimed at, or a craft landed in,

SETI wouldn't discover a crashed martian invasion craft as SETI looks out to the sky and only a segment at the time so the question of salvage is out of the window.

As to mainstream religion and that they may attempt to reinvent their stories.... That is just the same 1950s paranoid assumptions.

Judaism (therefore Christianity) have a belief that the 'world' came about about 6 thousand years ago... but god took 7 god long days... which might be a billion... to create the earth.

Islam (as far as I am aware) has a broad perspective on this.

Me since I am likely to have the 4% Neanderthal gene believes that there is so much more to discover.

There are only two reasons I can see for governments to suppress a SETI discovery.

One is to avoid panic.

Two is to ensure financial stability.

Though panic can often increase financial gain :(

Fear of the unknown.

Hey I come on to the SETI threads not knowing what responses I might have had..

It's scarey...

.... and worth it.

I wouldn't ban or suppress anyone though. (Unless they were aggressive.)

...
Voting day here in next Sunday:)

Who are the main candidates and what do they stand for?

...
Voting day here in next Sunday:)

Who are the main candidates and what do they stand for?

Oh dear.
We have many parties to chose from.
In reality it means that several parties have to make a coalition to make a majority.
No parties tell what coalition they will make before hand....
Like subscribing to TV channels. In order to get some good channels you also have to pay for many more s**t channels.

I am a self admitted atheist and agnostic combined.

But that's a contradiction.

This is a misconception due to the incorrect common usage of the words... theism/atheism is an affirmation of belief, whereas gnosticicm/agnosticism is a claim of knowledge or lack thereof. People who call themselves "agnostics" are usually agnostic atheists: they do not have belief in supernatural supreme being(s) aka god(s) (the atheism part)and also claim that it not possible to know either way with the current evidence (the agnostic part.) They usually self-identify as agnostics to distinguish themselves from the more assertive gnostic atheists who claim evidence/knowledge that god(s) do not or cannot exist.

Similarly there are gnostic and agnostic theists as well of course, the former being more assertive theists (ie fundamentalists) who claim knowledge that a supreme being exists, and the latter who are willing to admit they have faith alone and that is enough.

Edit: Well, I scrolled down and saw that Chris already answered this. This will teach me to post before I've had my morning coffee. :^)

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Once Nikita Kruscev said "Thanks God I am an atheist".
Tullio

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The bible.....

i believe "days" has been a very wrong word/traduction for what it was intended to try to describe the "time" it took.

It is arguable that the bible we have today has many many mistranslations and errors of remembrance within it.

The idea of the 'soul' for example is a Greek philosophical belief.

The thought of Jesus spending most his early years in the desert is just bizarre.

In Pakistan \ India there are notations that he spent quite some time around North Pakistan (as we now know it.)

At that time Gandharan Buddhism still had sway (along with Hindu traditions.)

It's no wonder Jesus came back with the beliefs he had.

Major things are missing or perhaps mistranslated or even 'mis-traduced.'

Not that I am complaining... I think the general concept of 'love ones neighbour as one would love oneself' is a primary value.

i think "periods" would have been a better translation. ......

This is where Islam wins. It has less uncertainties about it's translation from it's profit.

billions of years was a very difficult concept 2-10,000 years ago and didnt had proper words for that.

Vedic writing going back some 5000 years talk of primary matter particles.. (Atoms.) as well as sub atoms parts.

(I think Einstein learnt a few things from Vedic ideas??)

I suspect if you understand a particle toward near nothingness you can also understand the concept of a billion.

(Obviously the majority of surfs wouldn't have the time or education to reflect upon such concepts between the beatings and drudgery of life... but I suspect the concept of vast numbers were understood even if little used.)

Many of the writers in the Bible had Greek, Egyptian or Roman levels of skills.

In Egypt and Alexandria they were already calculating the distance between the earth and moon and soon to know the sun was the centre of the solar system and not the other way around.

The problem with the Bible is that it didn't finally come together until Rome had split.

The bible developed in the primarily European side of Rome... A tradition that took Euro-Roman values near a thousand years to look up at the sun and realise we were circling it..

The bible is a part of my heritage so I won't knock it too much.

When someone reinterprets 'the word' though it seems odd. If the bible is the word of god then there surely can't be any mistranslations.

Have you ever wondered if the Bible is simply a construct of the devil and the word of god is a truth that need not be written.. ???

Now if SETI discovered a box floating in space from 1600 years ago with a hand written copy of Constantine's bible in it that would truly be worth government suppression..

It would break the world.

In this area I think SETI has more chance of findings aliens than discovering humanities truths...

The SETI board however are challenging (by idea and persona) and that is worth something..

Have to agree with Chris, an interesting flurry of posts. :-)

Practically all posts are assigning E.T. similar thoughts & concepts to Man. What if theirs are different?

For example: After having our religious & political beliefs explained, E.T. thinks, then replies:

Yes, based on your beliefs, it can be said we have a "God" - It is science.

Yes, we do have leadership. They only serve a 5 year term then return to their careers. Once served in a leadership role, they never serve in that capacity again, we prefer fresh blood & fresh thoughts.

What would that do to those listening?

When you look at all the people that say they don't believe in religion, how may times a day do you hear OMG when something happens???

It just shows you how infiltrated religion is into society.

Perhaps Religion, meaning a codified belief in the existence in a Deity(s).

I wonder what the several billion who grew up in communism say..

OML = Oh My Lenin.
OMM = Oh My Mao.
OMS = Oh My SETI.

OOPS = "Well You All Can Fill This One Out :)"


I swear, curse and grumble. Sometimes to gods or forces I never knew.

Is just the need of humans to believe that they and their thoughts doesn't cease to exist upon their physical death. Include a need to believe that their personal existence has more meaning than that of a rodent.

I don't think that using a cursive is more than expressing a deep disappointment towards what we have been told or learnt or accept as a major force.

All evidence suggests we are hard wired for the concept of 'other' and 'external' forces.

By part that is our social nature or our desire to belong.

The thought of me being worth more than a rat is not a universal tradition.

Maybe I'll be a rat next time around.. (If there is a next time.)

I don't know what animals think but I do worry about what happens at the end of my time.

I've spent a fair amount of time amongst youngsters (as an educator.) I can tell you one of the common questions or worries of a 5 or 6+ year old is about death. (Or their loss of existence.)

I don't think we are exactly physiologically programmed to wonder about our demise. I just think it is an inevitable consequence of being 'self aware' with the ability to express and the idea that we can act upon our world.

People are strange.

This is all getting a bit religious really and straying from the thread title. it always used to be that 90% of the world believed in one religion or another. But it seems in the 21C that Atheism is growing. ....

So Atheism is the new religion :)

We are straying but the thread subject to be honest only had two or three possible answers.

So what do we do now?

Some interesting thoughts...

One day ago on the New York Times there was a travel article describing the Dolomiti region and its beauties. I had to post a comment correcting it because the reporter said that Messner had climbed all 8000 feet peaks. They were meters, not feet. But another commenter said that after visiting it he believed in God as its author.
Tullio

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When you look at all the people that say they don't believe in religion, how may times a day do you hear OMG when something happens???
It just shows you how infiltrated religion is into society.

Yes:)
Same here in the Nordic countries despite that we are among the most secularized countries in the world.
And most all of our cursewords are related to the devil.
For example Herre jävlar in Swedish, Jumalauta in Finnish.

Perhaps believing in Science also have the same approache...

Guess what, but apparently still not any such thing as Theism, when only that of science is being concerned.

So, is perhaps any such thing as fate part of your life, cRunchy, like also a possible destiny as well, for at least the path for any trail you could walk,
except for perhaps also Certainty as well, when it also could be that of just in the air, for also open minded, when perhaps such a thing as science?

You see, but next making it at least one thing here, it also could become the other one as well.

UFOs, like a couple of other things, could perhaps be related to the supernatural, but here perhaps tending to the idea,
that this should not necessarily be any superstition either, like also that of a Myth.

If such a type of phenomenon could be defined in a single, or separate class, for that of its own meaning, possibly still a common term,
for only its meaning, except for perhaps the fact that each could be that of separate things.

You could also end up making it perhaps even Pseudoscience as well, for a couple of these things, but personally I find still the process of death,
one perhaps only related to that of life as well, in that such a thing as the "Alien Interview", could be making for such thing as death being only a Construct.

If only such a thing as waking up from sleep, for next cleaning off the smudge from your face, perhaps is not the same as any captivity either,
where you could be having the option of running against the electrical fence, for next only the gas chamber, it also could be the little Hymn being heard,
for only that of a candle being lit, for only that of making the journey into Eternity.

Sweet dreams perhaps, except for not any Atheist, or Agnostic standing at my side either, for only giving me a call to next wake up,
but rather letting the dream ending in such, for only fading back to the realities of yet another morning.

H'mmmm Yup..

Adding the little hat, it did not look that pretty at the start, so excluding it here.

But next rather the question of what comes first, for next also being still science, when at least that of Rationality could be telling about ourselves,
except for perhaps not the world surrounding us either.

Could it still be both Mysteries, Magic and Miracles here, or could you rather pretend it to be science, for always letting the Method of Proof going first,
when perhaps also the Scientific Method as well?

Depending on the precise subject in question, we still have the Method of inclusion, for as well exclusion, if perhaps more of the latter, when we also could be
making it Facts out of fiction, only for that of the precise answer, except for still only the Method of Proof.

Perhaps also being mentioned, namely that science is not necessarily always a precise subject, for what also perhaps meant, or intended to be,
for next also the meaning of a subject which could also be included, and next also concluded, by means of the answers we might be able to obtain.

Sorry MP but you have lost me in your poetry :(

Anyway only need to look at ancient hieroglyphics of the past that show UFO's and it's through out the world..