Quote:
Egor wrote
Astronomers have found a planet within the zone of possible life circling its star.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknap...itable-planet/
You all don't believe in that do you? In fact, I'm sure you would all completely disregard such fantasies as space aliens, right? I would suppose atheists, in fact, remain quite certain that earth is the only planet with life on it in the entire universe--just like medieval people believed.
I am right about that, aren't I?  |
There was another one of these a
few months ago and when I first heard about it, I thought it was pretty cool. It becomes slightly-less-cool (or even more cool, depending on your viewpoint) when you realise there are about 54 rocky Earth and Super-Earth planets discovered in so-called "habitable zones" so far. (yes, I realise just being in a habitable zone alone is not enough to sustain life, but it's the first key step)
So, yeah, this is pretty old news. There are plenty of other planets out there that may be like Earth.
As for your comment about automatically dis-believing in aliens, you were about half right. As far as I'm concerned anyhow. I can only talk for myself here, but follow my logic -
Any atheist who doesn't want to be a hypocrite would be an idiot to say they believe in aliens when there is as much credible evidence for aliens as there is for a god: none.
However, to automatically categorize the idea as false would be as much as an error as to automatically categorize the idea as true. The evidence must be looked at, and then the possibility of aliens must be approached in accordance to the evidence.
So I would say that as for the likelihood of aliens, given the number of planets found in habitable zones in our galaxy
alone, we should not treat the idea as out of the realms of possibility (rather I believe it is fervently
inside the realm of possibility), however we do not have enough evidence so far to treat the idea as definate.
For all we know we really are alone in the universe. Chances are good we may never know.
Still, it's a really cool idea though. And that article was charming, with the superman allegory.