Atheists, are you "atheistic" toward extraterrestrial life?

Question

When someone asks "Why are you atheist?" most of us respond that it's the lack of evidence.

There is a complete lack of evidence of alien life existing, but I still maintain that it's possible.

Why are many of us atheistic toward God but agnostic toward other claims? Is it more than just a lack of evidence?

Answer 1

The chance of extraterrestrial life existing is far more higher than the existance of a God.

Answer 2

For me, it is a matter of probability.
For a start we know life exists on this planet.
The building blocks for life are scattered around the universe. If conditions are suitable, I see no reason why some form of life could not develop amongst the countless galaxies, star systems and planets.

The same cannot be said of an imaginary being, not one of which is there any evidence for.

Therefore I am atheistic towards gods but agnostic towards alien life.

Answer 3

I don't think that "lack of evidence" is necessarily a good answer. It's more along the lines of a lack of probability. The probability of a god or god existing, especially as humans depict it to be (having a personality and emotions, watching over us, and meddling in our lives when we ask it to).... is very very slim. The odds of there being life on one of the billions and billions of planets out there, besides the planet we already know there is life on, is very probable. Evidence is useful, but some people find evidence for their beliefs, where there really is none. It appears to me that, to some, evidence can simply be "their opinion". So, using it as a canned response has basically become useless, as we can see by the direction of your question.

Thanks for the insight.

Answer 4

Yes.

I will accept aliens as soon as you come up with some reasonable evidence.

The same applies to god.

So, I am consistent in my philosophy.

However, when I look at the probability that there is an infinite, omnipotent, omnicognizant, all loving being that created the universe from nothing - the probability that such a multi-infinite being would exist is pretty much 1/(infinity)^4.

Given that we are constantly finding more and more planets around stars would suggest that planets are pretty common. Given the trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions of stars out there ther are going to be a lot of planets. That some will have the right conditions for form life (either as we know it, or in some weird way that we have not considered) is pretty close to 1:1 IMHO.

For gods or aliens I want to see reasonable evidence to accept that they are real. But I will be a lot less surprised at the evidence of aliens than I would be at the proof of a deity.

Answer 5

An atheist by definition does not believe in a creator of the universe, the implication of this is that the universe, stars,planets, even life itself has it's root cause in the basic laws of physics and chemistry. (At a fundamental level evolution is a manifestation of fundamental chemistry and physics). Given that belief, it is not improbable that out of the billions upon billions of stars in our galaxy alone, some percentage of those were in the "life zone", and some percentage of those planets in the life zone evolved life, and some percentage of those planets that evolved life, evolved intelligent life. (Mars in the past was in the life zone, if you google it you'll find several articles on the martian meteor which has possible evidence of a martian lifeform from millenia ago). If one's belief does not include a creator, the same belief logically allows for at least the possibility of other claims. Your question is apples and oranges--the question of atheism or belief in God is a philosophical choice as the basic assumption either way is unprovable. Simple probability to an open mind at least allows for the possibility of life on other planets.

Answer 6

I'm agnostic in regards to extraterrestrial life.

Yes, it's more than a "lack of evidence", it's that the god concept is logically impossible. The concept ITSELF has no chance of being proven to exist in reality, no matter how long we wait for "evidence", because no evidence can exist for a concept that cannot possibly exist. It's like waiting for proof of the existence of a three-sided square or for proof that 2+2=79.

Answer 7

if you know anything about court proceedings, you know that a judge rules what evidence will be presented and what evidence will be excluded.

it has been my observation, that atheist (singular) prejudge what they accept and what they do not. atheists (plural) tend to all regard the same evidence in the same light. a form of circular logic and exclusion.

in this age of computers with all the fancy things that can be done it is possible to fabricate evidence for the cause of god or anything else.

while to fabricate evidence is criminal in the moral sense i am amazed that more zealous individuals have not attempted this fraud as some did on the evolutionary side in years past. i personally think that these frauds were money makers more than anything else and a way to cash in and i would like to see them removed as evidences against evolution which i reject.

i am seeing these photos supposedly from mars showing bones and buildings and i have seen the video with the retired director of the national observatory showing the evidence for now extinct life on mars and i honestly believe before the next 20 years pass, we will have confirmation of the prior or current existance of life on marst. at least i am hopeful of this, though i won't be here to see it.

as a christian i hope we do find life on planets in the cosmos. all of this exists, there is evidences of many varieties to prove many things,

i would suggest that you take the complete evidence, and examine it for yourself, in your own hands and with your own studies, not those of others who tell you how to think and decide for yourself

Answer 8

They simply do not believe in a God - any god.

Since aliens would not be gods then atheist can be free to believe or not believe as they wish.

I just wish that people on here would take just a few minutes to look up and understand what an atheist is. Sadly even then the ignorance would probably continue!!!

Surely Christians would not believe in extra terrestrial life though - they think they are the chosen few!!!

Are atheists really so strong that Christians fear them so? Or is it that Christians lack faith in what they believe?

Answer 9

Here's the difference. We have EVIDENCE to suggest there could be extraterrestrial life. Follow...

1) We understand what is necessary for life to occur on a planet, because we have the Earth as an example.

2) We know there are other stars with Earth-like planets in the universe.

3) Because of this, we can assume that if life happened here, it's possible it could have happened somewhere else.

If there were NO other stars in the universe, then we could reasonably deny the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

Gods are unreal beliefs. There is no evidence for them at all. There is no point in denying something unreal, hence atheism.

Answer 10

Extraterrestrials wouldn't be supernatural if they exist, the would be lifeforms and subject to the laws of physics. The discovery of any extraterrestrial life would be a scientific and universal high point.

I believe that life is possible outside of this planet and could be easily proved or disproved based on evidence.

The God thing is all myth, thousands of now defunct G/gods prove that only man creates Gods, there is no evidence of such beings existing except in the imagination of humans.

Answer 11

It's a BIG universe so it would be silly to discount the possibility of life else where. The "gods" on this planet tend to have books and those books are garbage written by ignorant, superstitious humans.

The odds of aliens visiting us are probably right up there with your odds of winning the lottery without having a ticket.