The search for Intelligent Life

That is not how I understand the Bible came to be...

but there is room for different perspectives on that.

Why do I get the feeling like I’m trying to discuss classical music with a bunch of Metallica enthusiasts?.......................Luca

Interesting points that are made. I guess I would respond by saying that Sacred Scripture teaches us that the creation of the Earth and of humanity in Adam & Eve was not an experiment or an act of curiosity by God, but was done purely out of sheer love that is beyond our ability to completely comprehend. The Incarnation of Christ is the "hedging" of God's bet on we humans, whose Fall was foreseen by God from all eternity.

As hard as it is for many to believe that the Word became flesh in a particular time and place (2,000 years ago in Israel), or what Christian theologians call the "Scandal of Particularity", the same logic may apply to this debate as well. From a purely rationalist perspective it seems astronomically improbable that the one true God took on human nature and appeared to one people in one region in a remote and dusty outpost of the Roman Empire. Yet, for the Christian, that is exactly what happened. Why only there and why only then? If God could defy our human expectations in such a surprising way, perhaps he has similarly defied our human expectations by creating life alone on this one seemingly inconsequential rock in one particular corner of the vast universe?

In arguing for the likelihood of other life forms in the universe, is there not a tendency to impose our thinking and logic on God's thought and activity?

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
my thoughts higher than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Of course I remain open to the evidence that may contradict my belief....just haven't seen it.

While this thread has been intellectually interesting, on a forum with so many devout Christians it's not surprising that it's been a little one-sided. I still believe that we've searched only one square inch of a park the size of Yellowstone, so when we proclaim "Despite all our searching, we've found no signs of intelligent life", that proclamation is of dubious value. The fact that we haven't found evidence of any such life is no indicator that it doesn't exist.

Perhaps we should look at it relatively. While the odds of finding intelligent life on some insignificant planet in a remote galaxy may be infinitesimally small, those odds are still much higher than finding intelligent life on OCConnect.

I suppose "devout" is both a subjective and a relative term. To me, a person capable of quoting relevant Bible verses at a moment's notice, and who perhaps looks to the Bible more than he does to science to explain the history of intelligent life and of our species, qualifies for the adjective more than he doesn't.

Oh, definitely yes!  I believe a sign of intelligence is admitting that one does not know what they don't know, and along those lines, there really is no way for me to understand God's thought & activity at his level.  I have to dumb it down to my level and then be realistic about my mental limitations & imagination.

I once tried to get into a discussion with Mr. Verhalen (sp?) about the Bible coming from a standpoint of pure imagination.  I asked him what if the Bible was a book of fiction, not unlike Star Wars (it was 1978) and had been written by others and inadvertently left here during their visit.  I know that is a silly premise, one that a 15 year old would entertain, but was interesting was that Verhalen just shut down the discussion instead of making a case showing how such speculation was incorrect.  When I look back at it now, i can only surmise that this one of those areas where there is so much that we don't know, Verhalen didn't want to walk through that minefield with a bunch of adolescents who might just be looking to distract him from giving that days homework.