Intelligent life on Mars?

There is an interesting and well written book entitled, 'The God Part of the Brain'. It explains that religion is a device to cope with our existence as we are the only (or at least one of the only) beings on Earth with enough reasoning to explore our past and future. It also gives some details and proof to support this conclusion.

We recognize birth and death, and to deal with this, religion is nature's safety switch to ease our apprehensions.

Existentialism is indeed such a lonely existence...

As far as is there life on Mars, no there isn't (at least as far as what we can find on the surface), but was there? Yes. This has been proven due to the fact that we have found bacteria on Mars. It isnt exactly intelligent life, but Bacteria IS a form of life. So yes this proves that there is or was life on other planets, but for some reason not everyone has heard about this or realizes that it means there WAS at least life on other planets. And if we found bacteria on Mars then that either means there was life on Mars, possibly still is under the surface somewhere, or it is even possible that fragments from other planets landed on Mars along with bacteria and that bacteria from another planet is what we came across.

And yes, as Rick said, the Big Bang Theory does not at all disprove any religion whether there is one or not. Let's say we know that it is true that there is a God and that he said "let there be light" and there was. Well, the Big Bang may have been part of that creation, after all it is well known that in the Bible before God said "let there be" this and that, nothing existed, just as nothing really existed before the Big Bang. So don't make the assumption that the Big Bang in any way dissproves any religion.

As far as Time, us humans created Time. It is only a perception of what we believe a passage of change to be. We are but a blink in the eye of existance and existance has existed for at LEAST billions of years, and that billion years is only what we can estimate. It is IMPOSSIBLE for us to estimate anything beyond that with science or our own imaginations, or anything that we possess, because we only know what we have seen and perceived things to be in our life. We could exist for another billion years and still not understand the past because we will only know those few decades that we were alive. We can't improve on the thoughts of others because they are not our thoughts, so no matter how long we live we can never figure these things out. We are a simple species, and I am sure that all species in existance are also simple and plain just like us because of the fact that they are nothing but a species and not some higher existance. Unless maybe we eventually evolve to something like that but I highly doubt it, but that is only because of what I know. I can't possibly imagine and began to understand the things that can, have been, and will be possible. This leads me to believe that I can not disprove, or say that anything isn't possible because how can I or anyone else really know.

We all believe what we believe because our small minds learn from our experience and that experience is nothing extroidnary. Then during our small insignificant lives we are influenced by others small minds and experiences and beliefs, and even though some of us choose to be influenced by some things, we are also influenced and changed by things that we dont even know influence us -- from a simple breeze that makes us shiver, to a toilet we heard flush down the hall, to War's that we think we understand. We experience only a blink in the eye of the universe's existance. How can we know anything more? We think that we can imagine anything that we wish to, but we can't.

Also, never belive that you can disprove anything outside of this world and/or in the past, because you would only be fooling yourself. There are ALWAYS some ways to prove the past (actually we only THINK we can prove these things), what might happen in the future and what is outside of this world but there are always ways to seemingly disprove what we believe.

The only real truth we will ever know is what we find in ourselves, and to be true to who we are, to never change because of another human beings influence because they too are nothing but a blink in the eye of existance just as we are -- so they too cannot possibly know the past, the future, or of anything outside of this world.

So you say why believe religion? Well I say it is up to you what you believe. No one can prove anything. What counts is that you make your own decision. No one has the answers for you, in any form and never will. You will never know the truth until the day that you die. If you blink out of existance forever then you will not know anything but if your Soul rises into some other "dimenision" and you are facing God then you will immediately know the truth about religion, but until that day all you can do is trust in your self and make the decision you believe that YOU should make. Don't rely on anyone else's beliefs or what they think is true or false.

*insert 2 cents here*

acid: Have you been drinking perchance?

If you really sit down and read what I said without just skimming through it and really kind of think about it, it would make a lot of sense to you.

..and no I haven't been drinking. What I said above explains a lot about the way that I think and I saw the chance to put in my opinion on something that most of the world never even thinks about, that is part of my daily life because it is how I perceive the world in many ways, and put in my 2 cents.

It's only my perception of things though. What you think I am sure is MUCH different.

I understood everything you said. I just made that comment because your post rambled on a lot, as if you had been drinking. Opinions are what makes each of us reconsider our own thoughts, and as such are always welcome. Some people might lose the plot when reading such long posts, and fail to absorb what it is you are saying :=).

Yea I know , but I had a lot of a point to get across and didnt want to explain bits and peices of it overtime because I had the idea in my idea that I wanted to get across and didnt want to forget what I was going to say later on.

"Opinions are what makes each of us reconsider our own thoughts" <-- I like that. Well said.

Exactly. Exactly true. On top of that, religion is faith, and, you CAN'T PROOVE FAITH. Just like the discovery of the two possible cities, Sodum and Gamora (I know I must have spelled em both wrong) that were destroyed because of corruption. Even if they were the two cities that were in fact biblically true, you CANT prove faith.

tWo cENts

Yes, in religion faith is all that you have, and faith is what will decide your fate at death. Faith is what will count the most. At least that is what I believe. Say, if you chose to believe Christianity, I think if you died and there was a God then he would weigh most of his decision of where you go on how much faith you had through your life, no matter what obstacles you came across that made you want to not believe.

If God existed, and if he was fair, then he would know that it is unfair to judge someone based on 'faith', which is really just another word for 'lack-of-evidence'.

I think that the most reasonable theory is the Big Bang Theory.

BUT, I have another thought.

What if we (humans, almost all of us....) don't have the capacity to understand the answer. Let's say we have the answer in front of our face buy we are not capable of assimilating because it's beyond our "intelligence".

you know, we are the most intelligent life form of the earch (humans, some of us...) but that doesn't mean we are enough intelligent to understan all the stuff that happens arround us. Evolution went all the way till here, and it will not stop now.

Plus, I think dreaming is good, cause we are not going to know the answers for this questions, not in this live at least... we only live a little insignificant part of a infinite timeline, the existence of the universe

On the whole timeline and the existence of the galaxy and the universe and everything else out there, out of a 24-hour time scale, humans haven't even been around for a second!

Far less than that, young one, FAR less than that...humanity's existence in the universal timeline is so small it cannot be measured by human standards of time.

This speculation is all very interesting, but I believe we are dealing with something out of our realm of understanding.

As for intelligent life on Mars, so what if there is, right now, a gigantic colony of intelligent beings living under the surface? Would we ever find out? Would they ever reveal themselves to us? If there are, it's almost certain that they know we're here. So what if they do know we're here? Have they seen what we did to this planet so they're trying to stay out of our way? Are they studying us? Are they hostile? Maybe they're hiding their existence from us, for some reason...

Who knows??

Veh: I didnt make actual intelligent life under the surface when I said 'under the surface' I meant micro-organisms and things of that nature. Possibly worms or something that would live in the dirt or deep beneath the surface. I wouldnt think it would be anything large. Although who knows there could be a huge 5000 ft. long worm under the surface with 5,000,000,000,000 children. Or maybe even worms such as in the movie Dune? Who knows., but I seriously doubt it :-D

It's possible though. Possibilities are in no short supply, however.

I heard the finding of bacteria was actually contamination and not really life from Mars. Confirmations or protests anyone?

I can confirm that Rick. Or more accurately, I also heard that the bacteria was possibly due to contaminated samples. There was a TV documentary about it a few years back, and I think there was some scientist claiming that the fossilised bacteria wasn't actually bacteria, but gold samples or something that just happened to look like bacteria under those conditions. Can't remember much detail about it though.

I didn't think about that. That is a definate possibility.


Darn. That sucks