digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

We may be extraterrestrials after all

tgdaily.com — News of the day. You are an alien.

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • fluidfoundation, on 06/13/2008, -14/+330Si, senor.
    • andrewtheart, on 06/14/2008, -0/+64If I knew you IRL I would give you a huge high five right now.
      • nofrickenway, on 06/14/2008, -25/+1you greet like women
        • nofrickenway, on 06/14/2008, -3/+1I knew I was gonna get buried for that, but it was worth it. Watched that terrible movie last night.
        • fluidfoundation, on 06/16/2008, -0/+1And open mouth tounge kisses for the men..
      • DonnaNobisPacem, on 06/26/2008, -0/+0I, too, would give fluidfoundation a high five right now. I can't believe it took me a full minute to get it, though. =D
    • baylat, on 06/14/2008, -2/+3Amazing.
    • lava, on 06/14/2008, -4/+24ALT+164 is what you're looking for.
      • solidus636, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1Wow, I never new about that. Thanks.
    • Trax91, on 06/14/2008, -4/+15Hey, Jesūs, get back on the lawn!

      Extra info: This theory exist for quite sometime already. It's called Panspermia.

      Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
    • paradexes, on 06/14/2008, -1/+3E.T. Eddie Torres (Or Extra Testicle)
    • analreceiver, on 06/14/2008, -3/+9Si, señor.
    • ertz, on 06/14/2008, -0/+8Human After All

      Sí, señor.
  • MarkusX, on 06/13/2008, -25/+8Baby language always sounded extraterrestrial to me anyway! It makes sense now.:-)
  • jimmick, on 06/14/2008, -25/+2In the same way avid soccer fans are 'from' Greece
  • sc0rpi0n, on 06/14/2008, -49/+2You don't need to look further for any proof. IRS already is already taxing aliens [1]. US government has something called Criminal Alien Program to identify and jail aliens [2]. Lately, there was a news headline that said "Alien smuggler receives lengthy sentence." [3] 'nouf said, aliens are all around us.... hold on i know you want me to look up for "alien" in dictionary. Alien can't fit into a dictionary. You're a mad man! :D

    [1] http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/ ...
    [2] http://www.ice.gov/partners/dro/cap.htm
    [3] http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/ ...
  • Kryuel, on 06/14/2008, -18/+7I knew they'd find out sooner or later. Hope they don't deport me.
  • friendlyman, on 06/14/2008, -17/+3The Montauk Project is real I tells you! We are reptile human hybrids under the control by the underground reptilian race! *puts on tin foil hat*
  • Elliottx, on 06/14/2008, -13/+42Yeah, I thought there was something strange about Carrot Top....
  • ZodiacKiller, on 06/14/2008, -26/+44lol, can't wait to see what kind of outlandish backpedaling biblical explanation Christians will use to try and rationalize this, if it's proven to be true...
    • Efflux, on 06/14/2008, -7/+64They don't need to backpedal or make any explanations. Thats why it is so hard to argue religion. It was God's plan. God is unknowable. Aliens could come down and tell us every secret of the universe, and Christians could tell us that it was all God's idea.
      • FreeTalkLIve, on 06/14/2008, -4/+39Thats how they roll.
      • warriormonk, on 06/14/2008, -11/+4Or God himself could come down and show us who He is, and the non-believers would still ... oh wait.
        • praisethelard, on 06/14/2008, -3/+9Pssh...it's easily done with special effects.
        • h3lx, on 06/14/2008, -6/+11If he does, we'll be too wrapped up in our own little worlds to recognize him for who he is... he'll be tried, convicted, probably executed and the same ***** will propagate for another 4,000 years.
          --
          The thing is, we won't know he was the 'true' Christ Almighty for another 800 or so years after they kill him.
          That's how he rolls.
        • wolfofwar, on 06/14/2008, -3/+9If a giant being of infinite power came down and proved his existence to me, and not the cheap way by having some messenger thats just some dude who's a son of a carpenter doing parlor tricks, then I'd believe.

          Until then I'm content with my godless hedonistic lifestyle.

          Jaffre, more grapes! mmmmm...yess....
        • Pittance, on 06/14/2008, -0/+2Now it is such a bizarrely impossible coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God. The arguement goes something like this:
          "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
          "But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
          "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't though of that" and promply vanishes in a puff of logic.
          --THGTG
      • feshmania, on 06/14/2008, -3/+22doesn't this all just encourage the Scientologists that they're right?
        • MiddleOfNowhere, on 06/14/2008, -0/+9I'm sure you're joking, but please don't insult the Panspermia hypothesis (which has been around for a while and is backed by solid evidence; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia#Evidence%2 ... by bringing it even close to Ron Hubbard's retarded pulp story of a Galactic Emperor enslaving ET souls in Earth volcanoes ...
      • paradexes, on 06/14/2008, -3/+8So what the article is really saying is that we are the result of a cosmic random act of "seeding" I mean really they say it in so many words. But the bottom line is we as a world and a planet are an accident. Not really meant to live. Just kind of an accident.

        Do you think we as a species and a planet are an accident? It is definitely a question to consider. To be honest I am keeping an open mind. It is certainly not an easy thing to hear when you grow up hearing different, but hey what do I know. I am a dumb religious person as many diggers seem to be proud of declaring (that the religious are idiots/stupid/ignorant) and touting their intellectual superiority (while probably not even having read the article).

        None of this is certainly beyond the realm of possibility. But until more Scientists chime in on this to validate and vet this research in a peer review (as is supposed to happen in the scientific community, I will just remain neutral on the issue. Certainly interesting stuff tho. It could change the way we think as a society.
        • MiddleOfNowhere, on 06/14/2008, -0/+10If you read about the Panspermia theory (see above), you'll find that *if* this is true, we are as much of an an "accident" as every flower, every leaf of grass.
          Which also means that there are probably many, many more of those accidents out there.
          And this is one of the most encouraging things I can think of - that this seed has fallen on many worlds.
          Because it would make literally make us children of the cosmos, not (only) of the third rock from the sun.
        • rationalist, on 06/14/2008, -1/+8paradexes, your questions assume that "accident" is a bad thing, or at least not as good as an intentional creation.

          Why do you believe that is so?
        • BlacklabelSAR, on 06/14/2008, -2/+2It sounds like you are taking the Fundamentalist position that there are only two options. The first being that the Genisis should be taken literally vs everything is an accident. But if you would broaden your definition of God to something like positive energy then God and science are no longer in conflict.
          I've noticed that people with broader concepts of God tend to be less fearful and more open to new information, and are more accepting that they can only know so much from the human perspective.
          Hey, Life might be an immersive role-playing game where the entity that we think of as ourselves is actually a character being played our greater true selves.
          New from Universal Games......EARTH!
          IMMERSE yourself in dramatic incarnate challenges of life and death! EVOLVE over 100's of lifetimes through Mankind's progress!
        • ZigVicious, on 06/14/2008, -0/+5I was an accident too.
          :(
        • Efflux, on 06/15/2008, -0/+2An accident implies that it could have been avoided or prevented. This is an event that just happened. I am as well keeping an open mind about this and do find topics of this nature very interesting.

          Having faith in a religion is neither dumb nor ignorant. As an atheist, I put my faith in fellow man. Yet, look what direction we seem to be going. Despite all the bad things man has done, I still feel there is alot of good we can do if we just open our eyes.

          As you said, none of this is certainly beyond the realm of possibility. I will continue to question everything science and religion throw at me until it is generally proven.
    • chaos7, on 06/14/2008, -9/+16religions are memes. they will adapt by comping up with some ridiculous explanation in order for it to be believed by people and survive.
    • jasonallthetime, on 06/14/2008, -6/+21Doesn't science also adapt and come up with different explanations based on newly discovered information?
      • ZodiacKiller, on 06/14/2008, -7/+17Yes, that is the definition of science. The ability to change preconceived notions when new information refutes them. It's called rationality, and it happens to be the antithesis of religion.
        • solid12345, on 06/14/2008, -6/+8If only scientists were rational, if you are a respected scientist who opposes the "accepted" theory in science from everything to global warming and childhood vaccinations, you are labeled a nut, a sell-out or worse even though there has been numerous times in history where the widely-accepted scientific consensus was wrong.
        • rationalist, on 06/14/2008, -2/+9solid, that is actually not only incorrect but the wrong argument to begin with.

          "Opposing" a scientific theory is an emotional reaction. Theories are refuted with evidence, not emotion. Theories only reach the status of "theory" (whose meaning in science is different and more precise than the meaning in common speech) after long review of a large accumulation of consistent evidence, repeatable experiments and building upon prior knowledge.

          Contrary to your assumption at the end, there have been relatively few instances where "widely-accepted scientific consensus was wrong" - and the fact that we even know about them is testament to both the open, collaborative, democratic nature of scientific inquiry, and the efficacy of the scientific method itself.

          More commonly, new theories expand our understanding, by explaining phenomena that were previously unexplained.

          For example, Einstein's theories of relativity did not invalidate Newtons Laws; they merely explained why newtonian physics seemed to be violated at extremely small and extremely large dimensions. Einstein's theories expanded our understanding, rather than overturning it.

          The discovery that stomach ulcers are apparently the product of bacteria, not stomach acids eating away at the lining as a result of stress, was a genuinely important discovery. However, there, too, the new explanation did not so much overturn as expand our understanding; it turns out that stress increases the favorable conditions which help this particular bacteria thrive. In any case, while important to ulcer sufferers, that new discovery was hardly a new, major scientific "theory".

          As science has progressed, our methods refined, our means of communicating and sharing information expanded, and our understanding deepened, it has become more and more rare for a major theory to overturn "widely-accepted scientific consensus".

          This does not mean it cannot happen, but it is precisely because science never eliminates that possibility, and because scientists are continually researching, examining, verifying and repeating experiments, that it will continue to become less and less likely.

          The scientific method of inquiry, aka "critical thinking", has proven to be the most successful method for gaining understanding of the universe we live in. No other method, religious, superstitious, instinctive, ideological or emotional, has proven nearly as successful.

          There are still people who insist the Earth is flat, the Sun revolves around it, the Moon is made of green cheese, Noah's Flood is a literal account, and it is "turtles all the way down". That does not mean that the mere present of dissenting views weakens the accuracy of the scientific consensus, when that consensus is based on reams of consistent, verifiable evidence.
        • theoriginalaks, on 06/14/2008, -1/+0Scientists are only ridiculed if they opposes an accepted theory without proper evidence to back up their own claims. Loosely collected statistics that only prove an unknown correlation and not a causation (such as childhood vaccines causing autism) do not satisfactorily refute the claim that the vaccines are safe. So if a scientist were to attempt to oppose it based on that set of data, he will be ridiculed because he will have shown that he is not a true scientist, but a person with an agenda.
      • arobicha, on 06/14/2008, -1/+6It's called changing an imperfect model until it works. We never said the model was perfect, we just said it's a reasonable approximation.
    • wilsonknut, on 06/14/2008, -12/+6lol, can't wait to see what kind of outlandish backpedaling scientific explanation idiots will use to try and rationalize this, when it's proven to be crap...

      Another example of humans trying to explain things that we can never explain. "Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly, Man got to sit and wonder Why, why, why..." - Kurt Vonnegut
      • rationalist, on 06/14/2008, -2/+2If you reject the scientific method, what means will you use to "prove it is crap", and how will you know the "proof" is real?
      • raptor000000, on 06/14/2008, -1/+4Seriously? Are you really that retarded, or are you just trolling?
    • Smurph0404, on 06/14/2008, -1/+1Mysterious ways.
    • TheSabre, on 06/14/2008, -8/+27Why does everyone on Digg feel the need to take the "first jab" at Christians? I'm a Christian, and I sit here minding my own business. As far as I can remember, I've never made a single post saying anything other than what I said in this post. I understand that the majority of Digg is not religious and I respect that. You have every right not to be as I have to practice religion.
      • MaverickAlex, on 06/14/2008, -20/+3And I have every right to mock you for your foolishness. Go back to talking to your Space Daddy.
        • dorkdork777, on 06/14/2008, -1/+15Lay off. Atheists who talk ***** about Christians are no better than Christians who talk ***** about Atheists.

          (I'm Atheist)
      • rationalist, on 06/14/2008, -6/+23If you, as a Christian, truly do not try to spread the "Truth" as you know it to others, and truly do not believe that you are in any way superior to nonbelievers, and truly believe that an atheist can be as moral and complete a person as a Christian - then you are violating some of the basic tenets of your faith as practiced by the overwhelming majority of your fellow Christians.

        Perhaps atheists, who form a distinct minority that shares zero power in the United States - where most diggers are from - feel threatened by the weight of historical Christian intolerance, and present Christian society's ostracization, marginalization, distrust and disrespect for atheists and our beliefs.

        Perhaps an explanation for the anger you see is based on the same impulses that cause some gays to lash out at heterosexual intolerance, some people with differing skin tones from the majority to lash out as discrimination based solely on levels of melotonin in the skin, or women to be upset at what they perceive to be unequal treatment based solely on the configuration of their reproductive organs.

        When a homosexual, an African-American, or a woman express anger at "straights," "whites" or "men", I don't take it personally - even though I am a straight white male who does not discriminate between people based on those criteria. I understand that their feelings are based in the real behavior of a majority of my peers, and, more importantly, by the power structure that excludes them.

        As an atheist, I try very hard not to be hateful or to assume all theists are bigots - but, since the very essence of your religion is based on prejudicial, divisive and exclusionary assumptions, and since, in practice, Christianity is authoritarian, hierarchical, and chauvinistic - perhaps it should not be so difficult for you to understand why atheists harbor negative feelings towards the acolytes of your faith.

        Of course, my understanding is that your faith teaches, above all, compassion and understanding, so I am continually puzzled by the remarkable lack of sensitivity, empathy and concern towards atheists expressed even by self-professed "enlightened" Christians like yourself.
        • BlacklabelSAR, on 06/14/2008, -2/+3Perfectly, and I mean Perfectly stated.
          If you are not a Professor, teacher, or professional writer, you should be.

          I've had a partial out of body experience so I am agnostic, I know that I am more than my physical body and my favorite religion is Buddhism.
        • mvader, on 06/14/2008, -0/+5The very essence of Christianity is that you believe that Jesus is God's son, died on the cross for our sins, and then rose again in 3 days.
          How is that "prejudicial, divisive, or exclusionary"?

          Those people who call themselves Christians, but who go protest at a funeral are CLEARLY more of a cult than part of Christianity.
          Also. Christians do not HAVE to go bring in converts. That is NOT a tenant of Christianity. If someone wants to share their faith, it SHOULD be out of love, and a desire for the person being shared to to experience the same joy that we feel. If someone is beating you over the head just so they can say "I converted 10 people today" then they need to go reexamine their faith.

          As for "authoritarian, hierarchical, and chauvinistic". I fail to see those things in any portion of Christianity other than Catholicism or Greek orthodox. And the rest of us Protestants don't believe any of those "extras".
          "Authoritarian": There is no RELIGIOUS authority other than God
          "Hierarchical": (Assuming you mean social classes) There are no classes in my church (Baptist). We accept everyone from the bum off the street, to the ex-con (yes, we have a few of these), to the "middle class", to the people who make millions ("upper class"). No one is excluded or made to feel badly because of their social class.
          "Chauvinistic": Most of our Sunday School classes are taught by a male and female pair (others are male only, and still others are female only). Several of our most "revered" members are women (one of whom is an ex-con). They are all respected equally. If someone discriminates based on skin color, gender, or sexual preference, they are asked to leave. We do not tolerate it and those churches that do need to get out of the middle ages.

          I'm sorry you have had such a negative experience with religion. But please remember that Christians are not perfect (even the ones that get their panties in a knot and believe that they are :) ) and those bad apples do not represent the whole.
        • skinturtle, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1Yes..but you still never answered the question. Why take the jab? Ignore it if you don't believe it. Isn't that what any true atheistic should be doing?

          You're a hypocrite!!
        • TheSabre, on 06/15/2008, -0/+1Just a quick note:
          "If you, as a Christian, truly do not try to spread the "Truth" as you know it to others, and truly do not believe that you are in any way superior to nonbelievers, and truly believe that an atheist can be as moral and complete a person as a Christian - then you are violating some of the basic tenets of your faith as practiced by the overwhelming majority of your fellow Christians."

          I do not try to spread my beliefs to any one other than those who ask me. I do not believe I am superior to anyone: Christian or not. I do not even consider myself to be superior to a homeless guy begging for change. I consider myself lucky to have what it is I have, but I cannot possibly even begin to understand how that person's life is. Not every Christian has a superiority complex.

          But just because something is practiced by Christians does not make it a tenet of my faith or my religion. And what source do you have for saying that these things are practiced by an "overwhelming majority" of Christians? I am a Christian because I believe we should live our lives the way Jesus Christ taught. Some people may call me a fake Christian because I don't preach to the masses. But the teachings in the Bible, such as the story of the good Samaritan, are how I try to live my life. I honestly do not care if the Bible is literal or metaphorical. It's the contents and teachings that are important to me and how I live my life. Not how the book was written.

          I am also a very understanding and compassionate person. I support gay marriage. I harbor absolutely no ill feelings towards athiests, Muslims, or any other group of people. Perhaps my words may seem uncompassionate because they are in this medium and not spoken face to face. I'm not sure how I was remarkably insensitive towards anyone. I simply asked why people feel the need to take the first shot at Christians all the time.
        • rationalist, on 06/15/2008, -0/+2You choose to interpret Christianity in a way that is consistent with your liberal, progressive social beliefs.

          What hubris, however, to presume that *your* interpretation is the correct one, and that those who practice differently are not "more part of a cult than part of Christianity". Funny - they say *exactly* the same thing about you.

          The problem being, of course, that when you choose to decide on right and wrong based on idiosyncratic interpretation of a very old, ambiguously written text, rather than on human reason and critical thinking, you are inherently employing a divisive means.

          As for the rest of your post, you misinterpret "authoritarian", which refers to the religious worldview itself; hierarchical, which refers to the means of determining that worldview, not to social classes; and chauvinism, which does not refer specifically to gender, but rather to a belief in the inherent superiority of one's worldview.

          Finally, while you are probably well-intentioned, you employ a rather tired and disingenuous rhetorical tactic at the end, when you attempt to discredit the messenger by assuming that my arguments are based on "such a negative experience with religion", rather than taking them at face value and arguing their merit, as you did previously.

          My belief that religion is, on balance, a bad thing for human society is not based on emotional scarring or repressed abuse by a priest; I was never part of any religious order, and studied all the major religions carefully before concluding, employing my critical thinking skills, that religion was bunk.

          As for "Christians are not perfect", that is a straw man; however, if Christians are no better than anyone else - in otherwords, if all the noble sentiments, good intention and fine words lead to behavior that is no better - and, historically, worse - than non-Christians, particularly nontheists; then, perhaps, it is reasonable to ask if all the negative stuff that those you consider the "wrong kind" of Christians fall prey to is worth it.

          Maybe we would all be better off with less religion in the world.
    • solid12345, on 06/14/2008, -3/+4Well you can't condemn just the Christians on this one, Carl Sagan was ridiculed by the scientific community for years because he wanted to study UFOs. Christians are not the only close-minded people.
      • rationalist, on 06/14/2008, -2/+3False on both counts. Sagan supported SETI, which is not the "study of UFOs" but rather the satellite-based search for extraterrestial intelligence elsewhere in the universe. And, he was not "ridiculed" by the scientific community, rather there were those who questioned the value of conducting such as search using the means he proposed.

        The difference between science and religion is that any scientific idea can be disproven by evidence, whereas a faith-based worldview simply ignores inconvenient truths.
    • azncommunist198, on 06/14/2008, -3/+12You seem like a guy who bashes Christians for not being tolerate of others, when the only thing you know about that religion comes from Faux and other news sites. If you take the actual ***** time to learn about that religion, aside from news reports about the latest nut job, you might turn to realize that lots of Christians arn't as stupid as you think.
      • rationalist, on 06/14/2008, -2/+2Clearly, the whole turn the other cheek thing didn't work for you.
    • Kingoftherings, on 06/14/2008, -5/+5You don't have to believe that Humans just popped out of holes in the ground to be a Christian, the jist of the story is God created Man, it doesn't say how. Meteorites could have been involved, who knows.
      • rationalist, on 06/14/2008, -1/+4The gist of what story? Every religion I know of has a very, very specific creation story that specifies, in great detail, precisely *how* their god or gods supposedly created humans.

        Without a creation story, "god" is just a euphemism for "don't know".
        • Kingoftherings, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1I haven't read the bible in a while, but I don't recall reading exactly how Man was created other than God made it happen.
      • Charnoble, on 06/14/2008, -0/+5Everyone has got to understand that the bible isn't a-cultural. The bible was written at a certain time, for various people groups. It's main purpose is to describe who God is and will through devices that that readers can understand. It was never intended to be scientific or have great chronological accuracy. That was beside the point. If the bible documented evolution, carbon dating, fossil record, quantum and relativistic cosmology, it would be beside the point and unreadable. The bible is still subject to the culture and stylistic choices of the writers of the time.

        Christians and non-Christians alike run into problems trying to read through the bible from an a-cultural or modern or simply wrong viewpoint.

        It's like criticizing poetry that describes say a "dusk sun setting the sky on fire " for not accurately describing how light reflection and refraction works.

        Other than that I was hoping that at least a whole piece of DNA came down from a meteor, but sadly no =( *Disappointment*

        • meells, on 06/14/2008, -1/+1A poem about sunset doesn't claim to be written by the rightful master of my destiny, which I must obey and subjugate myself to or be punished. An all-knowing and wise inspiration WOULD have and SHOULD have included things about the sciences you mention. The fact that it doesn't reveals it as an esoteric history-cum-philosophy for the crowd at hand (who were rightfully in dire need of a unifying and stable transition of oral history into portable form), and nothing that was meant to be held in the regard it has been for this long. Even the Constitution...could we call it a political Bible of sorts?....has ways in which to reinterperate and alter it when the ideas need to keep up with reality. Even though there are Christians who dont believe in an infallible Bible (which I dont see how they are Christians anymore at that point) there are enough who do...and thier influence has directly or indirectly murdered millions over the millenia. The Bible is due a little more dissection than a Dickenson collection.
        • rationalist, on 06/15/2008, -0/+2Isn't it a bit presumptuous of you to decide what parts of the Bible are literal and which are not - and to insist that only your interpretation is the correct one?

          A majority of Christians in the United States believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, just as a majority of them believe in creationism - by rather large margins, by the way, in both cases.

          In my experience, contemporary Christian apologists tend to dismiss all the politically incorrect parts of the Bible as "metaphor". Of course, the contemporary notion of "politically incorrect" changes over time, and depends on ones political ideology.

          Thus, during slavery, Christians chose to interpret passages in the Bible as favoring slavery; during segregation, as favoring segregation. Also, opposing women's equal rights, and, today, the equal rights of non-heterosexuals.

          Other Christians find justifications for the exact opposite positions in the Bible.

          Interestingly, each side uses virtually identical language when describing why the other is wrong: they are not "real Christians", they misinterpret "God's Will" as expressed in the Bible, they are merely using Christianity to promote their political ideology.

          That is why secular humanists (starting with Enlightenment thinkers) believe it makes more sense to base society's moral and ethical codes on critical thinking, defining core human principles that all can agree upon, regardless of religious beliefs.

          That is why I say religion is inherently divisive. Conservative and liberal Christians both say, "do X because Jesus wanted you to". Therefore, if I either interpret what Jesus says differently - or, don't believe in Jesus at all - then there is no common ground for agreement on socially constructive behavior. Worse, there is a built in value system in Christianity which says that nonchristians lack certain things, chiefly the ability to act completely morally without a god to guide them.

          For millions of Christians, including a significant majority in the US, the Bible is not mere "poetry", it is a set of marching orders from a supreme authority.

          Perhaps this points to the failure of your religion. If, in practice, few people seem to live up to the principles you think it is about, despite thousands of years to try and get it right - then perhaps it is time to try a different system.
        • Charnoble, on 06/15/2008, -0/+2"Isn't it a bit presumptuous of you to decide what parts of the Bible are literal and which are not - and to insist that only your interpretation is the correct one?"

          Where did I say that? Some parts of the bible are literal and some are not. It's a book, analyze it like a book, there are varying arguments to be made that are are conclusive or inconclusive. Yeah, I'm wrong - often.

          I didn't mean to say that the creation story is metaphorical, but I can see how that may seem to be implied. If that was the you meant by me saying which books are literal or not?

          "A majority of Christians in the United States believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, just as a majority of them believe in creationism - by rather large margins, by the way, in both cases."

          Yeah, I agree. Sadly most Christians who say they take it "literally" don't actually read the bible (that's most, in my experience). It's way too simplistic and lacks critical thought. Although, if you mean that they believe it was inspired by God, then I also agree.

          "In my experience, contemporary Christian apologists tend to dismiss all the politically incorrect parts of the Bible as "metaphor". Of course, the contemporary notion of "politically incorrect" changes over time, and depends on ones political ideology."

          Yeah, I know. It's sad. Christians can be a terribly inconsistent bunch. It's also sad that people who call themselves Christians are more dedicated to their political ideology. It would be easier to find out what groups are doing this wrong or right if they identified themselves correctly (if only people weren't as complex as they are). And I'll be the first to admit that there are politically incorrect things shown and even encouraged in the bible - sex, polygamy, violence, murder and war. Mary, mother of Jesus, was probably around 12 when she had Jesus. God called for wars and called for peace.

          Regardless of arguing whether something is "metaphorical" or "literal", evidence should be provided as if writing an academic paper (have a mentioned it's a book yet?). But political climate does not count as good evidence. So I agree.

          "Thus, during slavery, Christians chose to interpret passages in the Bible as favoring slavery; during segregation, as favoring segregation. Also, opposing women's equal rights, and, today, the equal rights of non-heterosexuals.

          Other Christians find justifications for the exact opposite positions in the Bible."

          Christians are definitely guilty of this. Not gonna lie.

          "Interestingly, each side uses virtually identical language when describing why the other is wrong: they are not "real Christians", they misinterpret "God's Will" as expressed in the Bible, they are merely using Christianity to promote their political ideology."

          No one can judge who "real Christians" are. Even when I'm tempted to disown my brothers when I see them do something cruel or unloving, it isn't my place. So it seems the real cause of the problems you have presented isn't Christianity itself, but when it is used as a manipulating tool to promote political ideology. But if it against Christianity itself and I just misinterpreted (which like I said, could be the case), then so be it.

          "That is why secular humanists (starting with Enlightenment thinkers) believe it makes more sense to base society's moral and ethical codes on critical thinking, defining core human principles that all can agree upon, regardless of religious beliefs."

          You may hit a dead end trying to find core human principles that everyone can agree on.

          "That is why I say religion is inherently divisive. Conservative and liberal Christians both say, "do X because Jesus wanted you to". Therefore, if I either interpret what Jesus says differently - or, don't believe in Jesus at all - then there is no common ground for agreement on socially constructive behavior. Worse, there is a built in value system in Christianity which says that nonchristians lack certain things, chiefly the ability to act completely morally without a god to guide them."

          People manipulating others by using Jesus' name is terrible. Though, if possible, I encourage and love open discussion of people's deep convictions (such as these examples you bring up, and you yourself discussing with me). I don't think it is good if these discussions start harboring malicious feelings. Having deep convictions, thoughts, and critiques are great.

          When you say "then there is no common ground for agreement on socially constructive behavior" I agree. There isn't. Doesn't stop at Christianity or even religion. Simply a product of Multiculturalism. Which is both a blessing and problematic.

          And if any one says non-Christians lack other than by definition Christ, don't listen to them. Everyone has great equal value.


          For millions of Christians, including a significant majority in the US, the Bible is not mere "poetry", it is a set of marching orders from a supreme authority.

          Marching sounds so militaristic. But sure.

          Perhaps this points to the failure of your religion. If, in practice, few people seem to live up to the principles you think it is about, despite thousands of years to try and get it right - then perhaps it is time to try a different system.

          Did I accidentally say what religion I was? Did I say what I thought my religion is all about? Is there a quote that you can provide for me? I may have mentioned it in another post, so you win. But I argue against Christians way more often than I argue for them.

          I love tangential discussions. To bring it back - meteorites are cool.
        • Charnoble, on 06/15/2008, -0/+2Dang, couldn't I have indented the quotes to make my last post more readable? Sorry, guys.

          Oh, being presumptuous makes you feel good about yourself! Everyone should try it sometimes. I personally think its best to be presumptuous about yourself And others at the same time.
        • rationalist, on 06/16/2008, -1/+3Kudos to a thoughtful reply and points well stated, Charnoble. Makes me regret once again how utterly lacking Digg is in community-building features - we can't even carry on an ongoing conversation easily. It's all transient hit-and-run opinionating, which amplifies divisions and doesn't help build understanding (and also, incidentally, seriously limits the economic potential of this site, but that's a different conversation).

          In any case, on the odd chance you will see this reply (no one else will) - I would suggest that you not give up so soon on the possibility of finding common ground based on more or less universal principles that might transcend religion and sectarianism.

          We can all agree that 2 + 2 =4, no matter what religious belief we hold (well, except for a few politicians in Iowa who tried to pass legislation a 100 years ago that pi equaled exactly 3). We can all agree that self-defenestration from a tall building never results in falling up. And, we can all agree that snow is relatively cold. That is a good foundation to begin from. Logic, observation, shared experience and peer review, all characteristics of critical thinking aka the scientific method, are reasoning tools available to all humans. When we are taught to use them, they tend to lead us towards common conclusions on the most fundamental things.

          I doubt there are many individuals outside the fringiest of fringes who would find anything objectionable in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - particularly if they actually read it, rather than judging it based on political ideology about the UN or Eleanor Roosevelt or whatever.

          I believe, in fact, that most of the free world - and most individuals in the non-free world, in instances when they can act freely - operate on common assumptions so deeply embedded in what it means to be human, that we are scarcely aware of them.

          Nonetheless, historically, organized religion has, ironically, been at the forefront of combating the notion that there are core principles we can all believe in that transcend any religion at all.

          I suspect at least some small part of the resistance to such an idea comes, at least for some folks, from a fear that it will, in fact prove religion as superfluous as Laplace suggested*.

          After all, if humans can be as virtuous, socially constructive, and deeply and sincerely good without organized religion - then why put up with its inevitable shortcomings (chief among them being, as you readily admit, the fact that few adherents to organized religions seem to actually, well, adhere to their principles).

          2 +2 =4 seems to me a more universal basis for constructing an understanding of the world than, "Jesus is the Lord our God, also his own son, also a man, who died for our sins - so we wouldn't have to - and then came back to life (but not as a zombie), and, you should do what this book says he says you should do, only no one is quite sure what part of the book is real."

          *(When Napoleon was informed about Laplace's nebular theory of the origin of the Solar System (that is, the assertion that ii was formed by slow accretion of a swirling gaseous disk around the young Sun), and, furthermore that Laplace had written an entire book about it without any mention of a Creator, Napoleon summoned Laplace to ask, in essence "and what about God?" Laplace famously (and perhaps apocryphally) replied, "I have no need for that hypothesis".)
    • hazard99, on 06/14/2008, -2/+5It still amazes me that most people on this site think that the only way to interpret the creation story of Genesis is for it to be 100% scientific, historical fact. Amazingly, not every Christian, Muslim, or Jew believes the "traditional" view of Genesis.
    • StrykeBlade, on 06/14/2008, -2/+1Sorry to break the news, but neither religious or atheist sides have enough firm ground to consider themselves a complete authority on the existence of God....... The only thing either side has is their "human" perception on the issue which is by far very limited due to either sides extreme nature and limited information. The truth is we have "only begun" to understand the very high possibility that God exists, but in no way near the way our little minds have been perceiving it! Has anyone ever even considered that God is some extremely advanced intelligent entity?

      The only reasons why I believe in this possibility is because for one their is a similarity or relationship in everything we see around us, some things relate more than others, some less. To be more definitive you can look at the human race as little gods (children) growing up to be like God (Dad or Mom), but because of our limited perception of everything around us we have the tenancy to see things in childish ways. So consider the human race as a teenager going through growing pains yet marching towards the day they will mature and not think with a childish mind

      • rationalist, on 06/15/2008, -2/+2For someone who says that no human has enough information or understanding to weight in on the existence of a god, you seem to have no problem pontificating on what you "know" to be the truth.
    • Disregard, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1I'm sure some Creationists will jump on this as proof that science got it all wrong. But of course this doesn't affect evolutionary theory at all - no-one is claiming that anything but the most primitive pre-Eukaryote life could travel through space.
    • LavaWarrior, on 06/14/2008, -1/+3I just don't understand how people can believe that everything that is on this earth it totally random. Everything works out so perfectly, humans are the ones messing it up. Just think of the food chain, how it works out perfectly, how can you believe that just happened randomly? Animals eat other animals, but then can repopulate so the animal eating them doesn't run out of food.

      If scientists can take a part of a tooth and make it out to be a strange 30 million year old human, then figure out that it was just a pigs tooth, i don't think i can trust them.
      • FreeTalkLIve, on 06/15/2008, -1/+1Did God create pigs 30 million years ago?

        I thought the earth was only 6000 or 8000 years old?
      • rationalist, on 06/15/2008, -1/+2Evolution is not random. You are surrounded by orderly processes produced by random forces. When you blow into a balloon, the motion of each individual molecule and their collisions and the way they bounce off one another is basically random, yet it produces an orderly, even pressure on all parts of the balloon, causing it to inflate.

        When you pour salt out of a shaker onto the table, the path taken by each salt grain is random - yet, together, they form a neat pile of a predictable shape.

        That's the first fallacy you employ, the assumption that random variables equal random results.

        The second is to assert that "everything works out so perfectly", when, in fact, that is not at all the case. Equilibrium is quite fragile, and many times in the Earth's past, there were near-extinctions of all life - not to mention the fact that many, many, many - in fact, the overwhelming majority - of forms of life that have ever developed on Earth failed and are now extinct, testament to the profound imperfection of biological evolution. Then there are the many flaws in every creature on Earth, including humans, flaws which are completely understandable if they are the product of the biological evolution via natural selection, but make little sense if they were "engineered".

        As to "scientists" mislabeling a tooth, that is like indicting all religion because Popes once insisted the Sun revolved around the Earth. Difference is, scientists changed their conclusions when presented with contrary evidence, while religion continues to do battle with reality.
    • diggrific, on 06/15/2008, -1/+2You aren't taking this as some new evidence that disproves Creation are you?

      What was found was a couple of the chemicals that are needed to produce life, nothing more.

      There is no evidence of RNA/DNA/Genetic Coding here. There is no theory that can be made on such little information. And there is nothing in this article that contradicts the Christian faith.

      When it IS proven, then you can serve crow, but not until then.
      • rationalist, on 06/15/2008, -3/+2Always amusing to find someone who rejects the scientific method and disbelieves in evolution citing "evidence of RNA/DNA/Genetic Coding" as a requirement for anything.

        The most remarkably consistent thing about Creationists is their willingness to use dishonest and deceptive means in pursuit of their propaganda ends.

        In essence, "bearing false witness". Hmmm, didn't I read somewhere that doing that was a no-no?
      • diggrific, on 06/15/2008, -1/+2I'm not rejecting the scientific method, in fact I'm embracing it. The poster was criticizing Christians for their beliefs because of this article. Well, using facts and critical thought, this article in no means proves that life came from outer space. Without RNA/DNA, where is there genetic code, and where is there life? They merely found chemicals needed in building, nothing more. Those are facts that you can't deny. That is to your first point. In addition it fits nicely with your second. You are twisting my words, and the facts of the article to suit your propaganda.

        As to your third point, you have no idea what you are talking about.
        Reply
  • trackerbishop, on 06/14/2008, -13/+6which coincides with the bible of Jesus leaving to the heavens "above" and since God isn't terrestrial but extraterrestrial
    • omikun, on 06/14/2008, -0/+3I totally thought God must be an alien! I bet we're his alien science fair project!
      • MaddieCakes, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1Actually that's my one of my mom's theories on our existence. Except there is no God, just the aliens. And they're waiting for some opportune moment to harvest us.
        • Nitesmoke, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1But that would only explain "human" existence. Where did those aliens come from, did they evolve from lower forms of life or did God create them.
  • yayintertubes, on 06/14/2008, -3/+143It seems pretty obvious to me that planets are seeded by other planets. Meteorites are like macro-sperm sharing materials and information just like on the molecular level. It's a fractal universe people - as above so below and all that malarkey.
    • praisethelard, on 06/14/2008, -3/+30So...our creation counts as bukkake?
      • EricSchC1, on 06/14/2008, -0/+5No wonder we all seem to enjoy it so much...instinctual to the sub-atomic level.
    • Wakuko, on 06/14/2008, -0/+9Earth was terraformed!
    • Borgcube, on 06/14/2008, -2/+13Its a valid theory, for sure, but there is no proof for it. And besides, life would have to evolve somewhere else for this to be true anyhow.
    • sakuraz, on 06/14/2008, -2/+12so....in other words....

      Big Bang = The Day I Came
      • BearinG, on 06/16/2008, -0/+1No, you popped out a few months AFTER the gang-bang..
    • wiggs08, on 06/14/2008, -2/+2"Malarkey"?
    • mokayogi, on 06/14/2008, -1/+21So if Meteorites are Macro-sperm then that means the Earth is a Macro-ovary and we're all living inside a Macro-vagina.

      And somewhere out there is a Macro-penis waiting to shoot another load and create life as we know it.
      • th3heretic, on 06/14/2008, -1/+910 internets to you sir.
      • clokworkfromage, on 06/14/2008, -2/+0there is a macro penis , and he is called dick , and he wants to screw us all , or at least to shoot it in our faces and hes even our presidents most trusted advisor
      • ohgr, on 06/14/2008, -1/+5You just blew my mind. Bravo!
      • SilverBack101, on 06/14/2008, -0/+3So, in essence...we should look to the sky for a gigantic penis if we want to figure out how life started?
    • yotsukado, on 06/14/2008, -0/+0This is what I thought while I was reading the article!
    • 4ntigravity, on 06/15/2008, -3/+1so diggers are scientologists after all?

      I don't understand how believing life on earth came to be because of extraterrestial life, makes more sense than believing God.
      Isn't this explanation just the same a creationist conclusion, only candy coated with sci-fi theories?

      Discuss:
      • yayintertubes, on 06/15/2008, -0/+3It's more about how planets are formed. It's pretty much accepted science. Remember the 'aliens' here are just the building blocks of life. No sci-fi required.
    • Contajeerus, on 06/15/2008, -0/+2Thank you, I couldn't agree more.
  • JGib, on 06/14/2008, -10/+66ಠ_ಠ
  • kimrules, on 06/14/2008, -11/+3Ha, less "News of the day" than "News of the World."

    Note the use of the word "apparently" in this article; that's there because even the reporter suspects (and is correct) that the uracil and xanthine found in the Murchison meteorite were a result of contamination when the meteorite landed on Earth.
  • MendotaLee, on 06/14/2008, -1/+20Francis Crick, of Watson and Crick, the guys who discovered DNA, talked about how he thought life came from outer space in seeds, that were all over the universe.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Crick

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
    • 1337chic, on 06/14/2008, -5/+3Watson also talks about how black people are genetically inferior, so let's take this with a grain of salt.

      Also, Rosalind Franklin was a huge contributor to discovering DNA.
      • djk21108, on 06/14/2008, -2/+4Maybe their chromosomes are a little better at basketball, but not so great at calculus?
    • AstralAutomaton, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1They discovered the structure of DNA, DNA itself had been isolated some 80 years before.

      Sorry, I'm a bio geek.
    • 4ntigravity, on 06/15/2008, -0/+1*cough* Xenu *cough*
      It's the same ***** guys...please realize that.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu
  • birdcity, on 06/14/2008, -8/+9reptilians !
  • Psiplex, on 06/14/2008, -1/+22It has to start somewhere. Why not bombardment by precursor DNA? I thought of that after sniffing, rather than drinking my coffee to wake up. Just as good you see.
    • Sverre, on 06/14/2008, -1/+8Well, it would still raise the question of where the precursor DNA came from and how it was formed, so this doesn't actually answer how it started...
  • adml_shake, on 06/14/2008, -3/+18I'm waiting to hear what Tom Cruse thinks, or who ever is holding his leash.
  • mikephimikephi, on 06/14/2008, -13/+6I think 'aliens did it' is the new cope-out statement for society.
    Just as 'God did it' was used in the past to explain everything from sunrise and reproduction to illness, etc.
    It now seems like everytime science has difficulty explaining a phenomenon, they turn to outer space.
    /Indiana Jones 4 view of the world
    • yayintertubes, on 06/14/2008, -0/+9The article doesn't assert that 'aliens did it'. It says that life on Earth isn't 'native' to Earth since it was seeded from elsewhere. Saying 'we are the aliens' is a pretty scientific way of looking at things, and it also means (if true) that there are more of 'us' out there (evolved from the same seed to suit their own conditions).
    • FreeTalkLIve, on 06/14/2008, -2/+7If I had to bet on which one is most likely to exist, God or aliens, I say aliens.

      We are proof that life can exist. It's not much of a jump to think life exists in many forms throughout the universe.

      I have never seen a God, not a single one. If I did see a God, then I would wonder if there are more Gods.
      • charm803, on 06/14/2008, -1/+1Actually, this is just more proof that the Flying Spaghetti Monster made us.

        buahahahahahaha!
    • piradians, on 06/14/2008, -0/+7This isn't even a new idea, just more observational evidence that supports it.
  • TecK415, on 06/14/2008, -4/+104So it's kind of like earth is one big egg, and the universe shot a big fat load all over her. This makes sense actually.
    • majestichazard, on 06/14/2008, -1/+76Abiogenesis has nothing on the Cumshot theory.
    • yayintertubes, on 06/14/2008, -0/+54We are galactic bukakke. No wonder we lack self esteem.
      • Viend, on 06/14/2008, -1/+10No we are the products of an accident which occurred during an inter-galatic bukkake party.
    • linuxpenguin, on 06/14/2008, -1/+8Maybe Father Sky isn't the real father after all. . .
      Find out next week on Maury Povich.
    • DigitusAnonymus, on 06/14/2008, -9/+2Dude, that's like so making sense to me now, I believe your theory is so chill it could actually like rewrite the science books. You could be the new Einstein, bro.
    • ZachTorpy, on 06/14/2008, -1/+1Human After All?
  • majestichazard, on 06/14/2008, -2/+9I lol'd at the larry king link story. Experts my ass. Is this a tabloid or something?
  • Sidzilla, on 06/14/2008, -5/+86*anal probes himself*
    • ortucis, on 06/14/2008, -4/+3DON'T DO IT! You have too much to li.. oh wait, we are on Digg..

      *helps Sidzilla*
    • EvoPsy, on 06/14/2008, -4/+3Comment of the day.
    • KMartSheriff, on 06/14/2008, -0/+2*gets out the video camera; will promptly submit to digg*
  • moocowrat, on 06/14/2008, -2/+27watch out! i'm gonna be poking my head up in people's windows now...
    • Echomote, on 06/14/2008, -0/+4we better be ready with a bad quality camera.
  • sickanimations, on 06/14/2008, -3/+37Old new is old. Planets are formed from "extra terrestrial" suprnova particles. Everything terrestrial has once been extra terrestrial.
    • Gudeldar, on 06/14/2008, -0/+2We were all part of the big bang at one point too.
  • flipdoubt, on 06/14/2008, -2/+21We are all made of stars.

    No, really. This has nothing to do with Moby.
  • ninavicci, on 06/14/2008, -2/+2Looks like Helena Blavatsky was right.

    ---See - 'Isis Unveiled' and 'The Secret Doctrine'---

    (They are books.)
  • FUR10N, on 06/14/2008, -9/+3someone needs to stop getting their sources from the Onion
  • almk, on 06/14/2008, -2/+29Yes, but are you the last cylon?
    • TracerMan, on 06/14/2008, -0/+4I'm still mad about last night's fraking cliffhanger!!! (in a good way of course. bsg pwns).
    • AZTriGuy, on 06/14/2008, -0/+4This has all happened before . . . and will happen again . . . oh, frak it
  • 32bytes, on 06/14/2008, -9/+3So Ron Hubbard was telling the truth after all, time to join scientology.
    • yayintertubes, on 06/14/2008, -0/+12no.
      • farfromperfectx, on 06/14/2008, -2/+4[This comment has been removed due to a Copyright claim by The Church of Scientology.]
      • solid12345, on 06/14/2008, -1/+1Still a better option than Christianity or Islam, and judging by the wealth of Hagee and Joel Osteen, trust me, scientology is cheaper!
    • 32bytes, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1Diggers do not understand sarcasm...
  • ejpusa, on 06/14/2008, -5/+10This does provide an insight into why certain psycho-pharmaceuticals, AKA 'shrooms', DMT, etc, often have their users "chatting" with "alien" type beings. Want an easy way to send an "email" across 200 light years? Just wrap it up in our DNA. I assume lots of people think along the same lines right? It's not just me? hmmmm, exactly how many time did Steve Jobs indulge? Food for thought. :-)

    For the newcomers, Terrance McKenna did some amazing ground breaking research. Start your journey here:
    Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was a writer, philosopher, and ethnobotanist. He is noted for his many speculations on the use of psychedelic, plant-based hallucinogens, and subjects ranging from shamanism, the development of human consciousness, and the novelty theory.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna




  • funkydude101, on 06/14/2008, -3/+225I for one, welcome myself as an overlord.
  • Kristijan12, on 06/14/2008, -3/+13I guess that`s the reason why we treat this planet so bad.
    It`s because subconsciously we knew it isn't ours. :)
  • novenator, on 06/14/2008, -2/+3The organic molecules embedded within some meteors *may* have seeded life on this planet, but that is far from proven. I find it much more plausible that life originated based on the nuts and bolts that were already present here, but remain open minded about other possible origins.
    • warriormonk, on 06/14/2008, -2/+1I appreciate your skepticism. Here's some food for thought:

      Assumption: The meteor did NOT originate from Earth in the first place
      Assumption: The Earth is billions of years old
      Assumption: Meteorites represent left over materials from the formation of the solar system (they're all originally from Earth; see Assumption #1)

      If any one of these assumptions is wrong then the conclusion is wrong.

      • Borgcube, on 06/14/2008, -0/+2I'm sorry, but I didn't quite get your explanation.
  • banido, on 06/14/2008, -3/+13What a Twist.
    Earth is like a Shyamalan movie.
    • covertbadger, on 06/14/2008, -3/+4If Earth was like a Shyamalan movie it would be a) much duller, b) make less sense, and c) be easier to manage due to extreme predictability.
      • ortucis, on 06/14/2008, -2/+5At least he does something new instead of making another superhero or video game movie..
        • solid12345, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1I admit I am a fanboy for the string of superhero movies but as a movie fan I am also annoyed that is all the studios are putting their money into them nowadays.

          It would be nice if the hero movies were treated more like a separate entity and sold straight to DVD freeing up Hollywood to make other movies.
      • Jaydo, on 06/14/2008, -2/+2B & C don't really coincide. That makes me think you're too stupid to understand what's going on in a simple movie to really predict it.
        • covertbadger, on 06/14/2008, -1/+2That would only apply if the man had made just one movie. Averaging across them all however, there's no contradiction. Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were predictable; Signs and Lady in the Water made no sense. Furthermore, things that don't make sense aren't necessarily unpredictable. Astrology, for instance, or US foreign policy.

          I won't comment on the level of stupidity you display by failing to recognise this.
        • Jaydo, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1If his movies don't make sense to you, you ARE stupid.

          They're not ***** complex, he's not intertwining quantum ***** mechanics into his story lines. If his movies are difficult for you to understand, you're an idiot and probably don't pay attention.
  • rl41, on 06/14/2008, -1/+6We should all flip our perspective like that, I've been thinking way differently ever since I read the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, any Douglas Adams fan knows what I mean.
  • Nick22, on 06/14/2008, -3/+4I dono about you, but this seems sort of obvious to me. All the materials required for life couldnt have just been here magically to start with, they had to have come from somewheres. Millions of years of bombardment from meteors has to bring some kind of new material.
    • 1337chic, on 06/14/2008, -0/+2Ok, but where did they come from originally?
  • RetroGamerBruno, on 06/14/2008, -1/+24I always liked the theory provided by the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, earth was populated by the unwanted and stupid inhabitants of another planet. I figured that this would explain a lot about society.
    • farfromperfectx, on 06/14/2008, -0/+12They did the same thing with Australia.
      • MiserJ, on 06/14/2008, -0/+3I like that:

        Earth: the Australia of the Universe!
  • AsylumAleikum, on 06/14/2008, -2/+2This may explains why my neighbors are extraterrestrial.
  • crashingechelon, on 06/14/2008, -2/+9This isn't anything new or interesting. All of the astronomy classes I've taken in College have taught this idea. Based on how the earth was formed there wasn't water or anything like that here. Water and the building blocks for life were brought here by comets, well water mainly, the proteins could have come from comets and other impacts. Of course this is still a theory on all counts.

    And also someone said that we are all children of the stars. That to an extent is also true based on what they teach you in class. Since only the first 5 elements on the periodic table would exist if we didn't have Super Giants and other large stars of the like. So if all those different types of stars didn't exist we wouldn't have the proper elements for our life to exist.

    The things you learn in College if you pay attention :)
    • Chalks777, on 06/14/2008, -0/+2Things I learned in college while paying attention:

      Nobody pays attention.
      • sethorama99, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1Also: Bounce + toilet paper tube = smoke 'em if you got 'em.
  • Risingashes, on 06/14/2008, -2/+12Scientology was right all along. Repent! Repent nonbelievers and write cashier cheque so you may be saved.
    • farfromperfectx, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1Who do I make it out to?
    • BlacklabelSAR, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1Yeah it's like Scientology except no-one is asking you for thousands of dollars.
  • msevely, on 06/14/2008, -3/+36I come in peace
    • farfromperfectx, on 06/14/2008, -0/+9"It's bringing peace, don't let it get away, break its legs!"
  • msevely, on 06/14/2008, -2/+4Tom Cruise is not so dumb after all....Yeah right!
    • LetsGo2Vegas, on 06/14/2008, -0/+0this has nothing to do with scientology moron
  • niksad8, on 06/14/2008, -6/+1OMG!! We are all meteor freaks!!!!
  • thechannelc, on 06/14/2008, -3/+6We are the matrix! Why won't anyone listen to me?
  • willb285, on 06/14/2008, -6/+1Finally someone mentions the obvious that nobody seems to realize, kudos. The only thing I don't like about the concept of meteorites, comets, and asteroids carrying life to other planets is: How often if at all do those things travel in interstellar space and it would be a crapshoot trying to get to another system even if they did, with HUGE odds of them just floating around forever. If science is about odds, more odds are that it originated here on earth.
    • alzeih, on 06/14/2008, -0/+0Yeah, but the universe is generally regarded as very large. This brings the odds down significantly.
  • Chalks777, on 06/14/2008, -3/+4Telling humans we're aliens is like telling a child who was adopted that his parents are not his REAL parents. Regardless of whether we came from this planet originally or not, it is our home now.
    • EricSchC1, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1overreact much do we? mind-boggling or not, you could just potentially accept this as a new layer of truth to the existence you already know...assuming of course it is factual.
    • elDud3rino, on 06/14/2008, -0/+0I, for one, accept our new alien overlords.
  • XHashmeerX, on 06/14/2008, -3/+5I'd like to know if this researcher is receiving some funding from L. Ron and Friends.
  • KevenM, on 06/14/2008, -2/+10It makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

    Imagine several hundred (or thousand) years from now - we choose to spread out and live beyond this planet. Given the distances to other potentially habitable planets, a crapload of energy would be required to get there, thus instead of transporting whole people on conventional spaceships, we instead send out basic building blocks of ourselves (carbon, chemicals, all the goodies required) along with a system capable of seeding this package upon landing on these planets.

    The whole thing would be so small physically (less than a gram), we can not only ensure that only reasonable amounts of energy are required for making the trip, but we can take it a step further and send hundreds or thousands of these packages out into space.

    The end result: we end up seeding humans all over the galaxy (or further out). Granted, the eventual people that grow from these packages have no clue that they originated from elsewhere, and so I ask - what's to say that WE are not the descendants of one of these packages sent out already? It's not that far fetched if you think about it.

    After all, if the universe is over 10 billion years old, and modern humans have been here for only a few million, isn't it very likely that we started long before? It's not that far fetched if you think about it.

    PS - this has nothing to do with Scientology, I don't even have a clue what Scientology is about, so please don't label this as such.
    • paulzov, on 06/14/2008, -2/+1SOUNDS GOOD TO ME!
    • theodokomodo, on 06/14/2008, -0/+5i'm going to start a cult using that
    • CharlesDance, on 06/14/2008, -1/+9Why would you say don't label it Scientology if you don't even have a clue what it is? And what if it was exactly like Scientology? You wouldn't know it was yet you would stifle people from saying so, trying to withhold information about some ludicrous science fiction *****. What the hell are you, a Scientologist?
      • KevenM, on 06/14/2008, -1/+2Nice one. I only put in that comment as I saw many references to Scientology earlier in the comments.

        btw, can I convince you to take a free Stress Test?
    • linuxpenguin, on 06/14/2008, -1/+4Hundreds of years later, everything in the Universe hates Earthlings for bombarding the galaxy with tiny spaceships full of bacteria.
    • sethorama99, on 06/14/2008, -2/+2Uh... you really have no idea about how evolution works, do you?
      • KevenM, on 06/14/2008, -0/+1I do, but please enlighten me.
        • sethorama99, on 06/14/2008, -2/+2The idea of seeding humans across the galaxy in tiny packages of the basic components of life is ridiculous. Nothing even closely resembling a human would arise from such a venture.
        • KevenM, on 06/14/2008, -0/+2Growing out of a primordial 'soup' sounds just as ridiculous, no? Flying to the moon? A round earth?

          Sure, it sounds silly today, but at the pace that technology grows, I wouldn't discount it within the next thousand years (assuming we don't kill ourselves first)
  • happyseamonster, on 06/14/2008, -6/+1Lou Dobbs is all over this.
  • TheMadPoet, on 06/14/2008, -3/+5Space seed... Khaaaaaaaaaaannnn!! But seriously, didn't we all come to the conclusion that the best explanation for the behavior of most people, most of the time is that they came from Uranus?
  • Obamasadisaster, on 06/14/2008, -19/+2We all know Obama is from an alternate universe.....

    WTF..... how does a great country like ours nominate such a ***** head to be president. It's mind boggling.
  • greatname, on 06/14/2008, -1/+1take me to your leader.

    or

    uh

    our leader.



  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 99 of 99 discussions
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.