Cosmological Principal: We're NOT located in any particular place in the universe. Experiments and observations prove this over and over.

Fundamental concept of religion: we are special and we are located in some special place in the universe.

We are just a tiny dot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q

You must have missed the whole story about the "catholic church vs galileo" geocentric debacle...

Catholics were firm promoters of Geocentric theory (earth is the center of the universe)  quoting various verses from the holy book. Psalms or proverb, I recall.

We are at no place special at all. We are in fact on the more outer rims of the Galaxy, the Boise, Idaho of our own Milky Way.

Where you are wrong...

No where have I ever seen the Bible mention we were the "only beings" created (will stick with my religion for this debate). No where have I seen it claimed that we were the center of everything...

How do you not know that on some other planet, half way across the Milky Way, there is not some other race with 12 tentacles and 6 eyes who hold in refernce the book they call the
HOLY CJDYRSVCDYFMEEDSVTS  

You dont....

You are quite right. I firmly believe there is other life out there, even intelligent life, and with the size of the universe, it is very likely that there are many other intelligent civilizations, all with their own holy books and fairy tales about their particular imaginary friends in the sky.

However, there are those who believe, for some reason I cannot fathom, that the existence of aliens would disprove the existence of God. I have even heard the theory that flying saucers and the little green men in them aren't from other planets. They are demons, sent by Satan, masquerading as aliens to convince us that there is no God.

"One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." Robert A Heinlein

asianelvis"One of the most basic and fundamental concepts that cosmology is built upon is the "cosmological principal", it states that we're NOT in any special location in the universe... contrary to what all these self-important religious zealots try to brainwash us into believing."

  If we were not in a special place there would be no one here.
On other known planets, it would be too hot or too cold, gravity would take us away or crush us like pancakes, the atmospehere would be lethal, or hundreds of other reasons why, we are in a special place in the cosmos.
Those are facts scientists should realize, until they prove otherwise.






-- Modified on 4/9/2011 4:40:10 PM

It's just fundamental astronomy. Youtube was only used because it's the easiest way to show some video clip.

One of the most basic and fundamental concepts that cosmology is built upon is the "cosmological principal", it states that we're NOT in any special location in the universe... contrary to what all these self-important religious zealots try to brainwash us into believing.  

Note that this principal came from hundreds, if not thousands, of rigorous scientific experiments... some of which cost congress to the tune of billions of dollars. I won't get into the details of why they came to that conclusion but the evidence is certainly there: We're not as special as we might think...  Anyone who can read now knows that Earth is not the center of the universe and that our solar system is just one of many billions among billions in our galaxy. Lets not forget that our milky way galaxy itself is also just one of many billions of galaxy clusters out there. Of course, there are billions of clusters too.

Certainly, we are "unique"... just like every creature that exists on earth, every stars and planets formed in outerspace, each and every one of us are unique like snowflakes... but this is different from saying we are the "only one" or that we're somehow prejudiced receiving special treatment from some divine creator.

Observations strongly suggest that we are certainly NOT "specially designed" with any preferential treatment or even situated in any special place.  In other words, god didn't have much of an intervention in where we are located.. any more than the thousands of exo-planets (extra terrestrial planets) recently discovered by astronomers.

If you choose to believe in the "accuracy" of what someone claims, then I'm happy for you. But it doesn't make that belief somehow more unique or special to any other belief.

Oh the irony.

The irony is that there IS no need for faith in the presence of evidence because it would then become a fact which does not require faith.

If u look at Earth from satellite photos and see that it's round/oval, that's a factual evidence... not a belief.  One does not need faith to be convinced that Earth is of spherical shape.

if you look at surveys of galaxies, and see that we aren't in any particular special location, that too is a factual evidence... which does not require leaps of faith or belief.

on the other hand, if you say 'earth is the center of the universe and we're at some special location in the universe....  because God put us here! Amen~'...

now that's a profoundly delusional Belief which requires leaps and bounds of faith, based on nothing factual but merely one's belief.

These are just planets in outerspace that scientists found using keplar telescope.
note that our technology is limited so we can not probe much farther than that,
this does not mean there aren't any more planets.... just that we can't see them with our technology

http://www.rdmag.com/News/2011/04/NASA-Spacecraft-Keplers-winnings-all-in-a-row/


We just happen to live in ONE habitable planet... among thousands of possible planets out there...
what's so special about that.

"The space observatory had added an impressie 500 possible planets to its count, of which 68 were Earth-sized planets. Also, 54 of the discoveries were in the so-called Goldilocks zone, the area in which water could exist in a liquid state, raising the possibility of alien lifeforms."

If we had much better instruments and the ability to see the entire universe with clarity, not just from the point of view of Earth... the estimate of habitable planets = order of billions.  

The Bible argument

From antiquity, the majority of educated people subscribed to the Aristotelian view of geocentrism that the earth was the center of the universe and that all heavenly bodies revolved around the Earth. Despite the use of Copernican theories to reform the calendar in 1582,[8] this agreed with a literalist interpretation of Scripture in several places, such as 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, Ecclesiastes 1:5. Further, since it was believed that in the incarnation the Son of God had descended to the earth and become man, it seemed fitting that the Earth be the center around which all other celestial bodies moved. Heliocentrism, the theory that the Earth was a planet, which, along with all the others, revolved around the Sun, contradicted both geocentrism and the prevailing theological support of the theory.
One of the first suggestions of heresy that Galileo had to deal with came in 1613 from a professor of philosophy (what we would now call a professor of scientific theory), Cosimo Boscaglia, who was neither a theologian nor a priest. In conversation with Galileo's patron, Cosimo II de' Medici, Boscaglia gave the opinion that the telescopic discoveries were valid, but the motion of the Earth was obviously contrary to Scripture. Galileo was defended on the spot by a Benedictine abbot, Benedetto Castelli, who was also a professor of mathematics and a former student of Galileo's. This exchange, reported to Galileo by Castelli, led Galileo to write a letter to Castelli,[9] expounding his views on what he considered the most appropriate way of treating scriptural passages which made assertions about natural phenomena.[10] Later, in 1615, he expanded this into his much longer Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina.[11]
Tommaso Caccini, a Dominican friar, appears to have made the first dangerous attack on Galileo. Preaching a sermon in Florence at the end of 1614, he denounced Galileo, his associates, and mathematicians in general (a category that included astronomers). The biblical text for the sermon on that day was Joshua 10, in which Joshua makes the Sun stand still; this was the story that Castelli had had to interpret for the Medici family the year before. It is said, though it is not verifiable, that Caccini also used the passage "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?"[12]

but unless you can point to scripture, you a wasting your time.

asianelvis
"We just happen to live in ONE habitable planet...   among thousands of possible planets out there
what's so special about that. it's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of experimental evidence."


 A possibility is not proof.
 Until there is proof of  habitable planets suitable to us, claiming they are out there is a scientist hypothesis .
Until there is proof otherwise, claiming there is no God is hypothesizing.
Unless proved not true, there is a possibility of God, and Planets we could easily thrive on.

you are talking about how men interpret the scripture.

That's fine, but just goes to show that differing people interpret the bible differently. It still does not make the statement that we are the center of the Universe.

The regument of Jesus us also false. According to scripture, he did come here, but who is to say he has not visited others as well....

You're using a false analogy which is kinda like throwing an egg up in the air and saying "you can't prove that it will shatter or that it will stay in one piece" but probability/likelihood is where science comes in. And it points highly to the likelihood that we're not in any special location.

Certain religions so strongly thought that earth was the center of the universe and never bothered to budge due to religiously biased beliefs, whether falsely interpreted by man or not. Back then, science too thought that it was the center but evidence started to hint that it was not. Further more, scientists couldn't prove this new discover at the time, cuz they didn't have the technology to prove it.

However, those who were able to use logic and reasoning / interpret new data and understand it, already were in the know.

300+ years later, when scientists took photos of the solar system and had plenty of overwhelming proof that geocentric theory was false, Catholics finally apologized for their mistakes.

Just saying, it's not wise to make that same mistake again by clenching on to outdated religious beliefs when there are thousands of new evidence staring at us as we speak.

Ignoring the evidence and refusing to comprehend them (even though they no doubt possess the intellectual capacity to do so) is precisely the reason why religion is a very dangerous thing, going against the natural flow of advancement of collective intelligence

why read the bible at all.


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

if varying people interpret government actions differently, why do you post on this board?

The same reason I do I suppose, because you like to form your own opinions ??

Because goverment is real and exists,
bible is a work of fiction...  No real evidence and dubious in validity too.