Do you ever get disappointed that you live in this era?

[Spider-Dan]

Hoodie, that's a reasonable point, although I'm not sure how it could be verified or disproven.  I'm no biologist, but I recall reading some articles on some early-stage verification of the assimilation of amino acids from "primordial soup."

Pappy13, I think the belief in aliens is mostly borne out of math; it presumes that under similar conditions, life would evolve on other Earth-like planets.  And given the (literally) astronomical numbers of galaxies, each with billions of stars and potentially trillions of planets, extraterrestrial life seems like a mathematically foregone conclusion.

[Pappy13]

I don't find Adam and Eve any more believable than the Easter Bunny. 

Well I think Adam and Eve is a nice story to tell your children maybe to try to help them understand why we go to church on Sunday's or something along those lines. Pretty hard to describe to a child what I just described to you and have them understand it in any kind of meaningful way. Heck there's probably a lot of adults that would look at that as crazy too. My view of religion is you take from it what you can and don't necessarily subscribe to it 100%. Make it work for you rather than getting too caught up in the details which is probably just somebody else trying to make it work for them. I'm Catholic, but I'm also divorced and remarried. I don't think that's a bad thing, I think I made the most of the situation I was in. Got 2 great kids from the 2nd marriage, how can that be wrong?

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Well I think Adam and Eve is a nice story to tell your children

Not so sure about that.

In general young kids should not be told stories which include acts of fratricide.  It tends to make them nervous around other siblings.

Plus the moral of this story is....

a) knowldge is bad.  (not really consistant with what their kindergarden teacher tells them)
b) childbirth is painful because Eve misbehaved.
c) God is vengeful and spiteful.  (not sure how that explains your rational for going to church) 

[Pappy13]

Pappy13, I think the belief in aliens is mostly borne out of math; it presumes that under similar conditions, life would evolve on other Earth-like planets.  And given the (literally) astronomical numbers of galaxies, each with billions of stars and potentially trillions of planets, extraterrestrial life seems like a mathematically foregone conclusion.

Completely agree, however "life" doesn't have to be anything like Human life. Aliens may be so different from us that we might not even recognize them as lifeforms. They might be a lot "older" than us and further advanced then us and our primative brains. Perhaps we don't even understand things well enough in our current evolutionary state that we could even imagine how these lifeforms exist. They might "know" of Earth and the "really really primitive lifeforms there", but they might not even care. If these "aliens" were to come to Earth, we probably wouldn't have any other way to describe them other than "Supreme Beings". Is that really so hard to imagine especially given how many things we thought we once knew not that long ago and now realize was just plain wrong or simply the best way we could understand it at the time? There's still lots of things we don't really understand about ourselves and we've had a lot of time to study ourselves. Who's to say what it is that we don't understand having had no experience with it? Humans in general don't like to think about things that we don't understand. We want to find explanations for everything and when we can't we tend to be very skeptical despite our track record that there's LOTS of things that we didn't really understand or couldn't explain at one time or another.

I find it hard to believe that there aren't MILLIONS of things in the universe that exist that we don't understand yet.

[Pappy13]

Not so sure about that.

In general young kids should not be told stories which include acts of fratricide.  It tends to make them nervous around other siblings.

Plus the moral of this story is....

a) knowldge is bad.  (not really consistant with what their kindergarden teacher tells them)
b) childbirth is painful because Eve misbehaved.
c) God is vengeful and spiteful.  (not sure how that explains your rational for going to church) 

You're taking my response far too literally. I wasn't really trying to use the story of Adam of Eve to explain why we go to church, I was trying to imply that there are reasons that the story of Adam and Eve exist which have nothing to do with the story itself. It's merely a story.

By the way, I've never heard of B. I don't believe that's from the Catholic faith at least I was never taught that. Not that I was taught A or C either, but at least I've heard those arguments before, B is a new one. Who taught you that? And what does the story of Adam and Eve have to do with the story of Cain and Abel? 2 different stories.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

By the way, I've never heard of B.

I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labor you will give birth to children.

And what does the story of Adam and Eve have to do with the story of Cain and Abel?

okay you can consider it a different story...it is the next part. 

[Pappy13]

Catholics aren't big into quoting the Bible so I've never actually seen that verse before or at least I don't remember it. Another verse of the bible that is confusing to say the least. That's probably one of the reasons Catholics aren't big on quoting the bible.

[TonyB0D]

This is a fascinating statement especially since I think it's probably quite popular today. For some reason it's easier to believe that aliens are a foregone conclusion while ghosts and gods are just plain nonsense, but the principle facts behind them are pretty much the same, ie the fact that there's very little physical evidence to support the idea that any of them exist.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that aliens don't exist, actually I'm pretty sure they do exist although I don't think they've ever been to Earth. I just find it fascinating that many people find it easier to believe in the existance of extraterrestrials then in the existance of a supreme being. I wonder why that is? If you think about it the idea that humans were created by God is not that different from the idea that the human race was somehow "seeded" by aliens.

I get where you're coming from.  I'm not sure if aliens exist, and if they do, if they're been to earth or not.  However, it is certainly more conceivable that out of the millions of planets in our galaxy (not to mention the others in the other millions of galaxies) there would be other intelligent beings as compared to some all powerful vengeful magical space-zombie.

As for the origin of life, we simply don't have enough data at this point in time to draw a correct conclusion.

[Thundergod]

This is a fascinating statement especially since I think it's probably quite popular today. For some reason it's easier to believe that aliens are a foregone conclusion while ghosts and gods are just plain nonsense, but the principle facts behind them are pretty much the same, ie the fact that there's very little physical evidence to support the idea that any of them exist.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that aliens don't exist, actually I'm pretty sure they do exist although I don't think they've ever been to Earth. I just find it fascinating that many people find it easier to believe in the existance of extraterrestrials then in the existance of a supreme being. I wonder why that is? If you think about it the idea that humans were created by God is not that different from the idea that the human race was somehow "seeded" by aliens.

^
Ha! Never thought about that, oh hell I'm using this the next time. Good call Pappy.   

As for the OP I'm extremely happy I live in this era. Yeah, it would be nice to live in the future and all it has in store for us but I'm not too concerned with it either, just enjoying what we have now. What if things suck later on? Wars? Aliens wipe us all out? Disease that wipes out the planet? Nah, I'm ok with now. And F living in the past. Thinking of living without all the conveniences, technologies and entertainment of the present, hell no.

[Garrett]

Catholics aren't big on quoting the bible because they know they would sound stupid.

[CF DolFan]

Not so sure about that.

In general young kids should not be told stories which include acts of fratricide.  It tends to make them nervous around other siblings.

Plus the moral of this story is....

a) knowldge is bad.  (not really consistant with what their kindergarden teacher tells them)
b) childbirth is painful because Eve misbehaved.
c) God is vengeful and spiteful.  (not sure how that explains your rational for going to church) 

You are funny!

The moral of the story is the fall of man, the consequences of that fall, and finally the retribution of a loving God. Things were great, we screwed up and have to suffer the consequences, and God made a way for us to get back to things being great again because He loves us.

Adam and Eve lived forever in paradise and walked in the presence of God until they they decided to do the one thing he told them not to do, eat from the tree of knowledge. God warned them that they would die if they did. At the point they ate they became spiritually dead and thus, separated from God.

Secondly they were punished. Labor would now become painful for women, work would now become toilsome for men, and snakes would now crawl on the ground and become more cursed than any other animal.

Lastly, he made a promise that a child born of a woman would come along and defeat sin and pave the way back to God. To show His love and to give a sign for things to come God sacrificed an animal to cover their shameful nakedness.

[Pappy13]

Catholics aren't big on quoting the bible because they know they would sound stupid.

I'm not sure I understand your point. Is your point....

a) Catholics don't have a clue about the bible.
b) The bible is stupid so anyone quoting from the bible would sound stupid.

If it's a) from above, then you're at least partially right. I was not taught to memorize the bible, instead portions of the bible were read to me, but then explained what was meant via a nun or priest for example. So no I can't quote the bible to save my life, but that doesn't mean I'm not familiar with what the bible teaches. Every religion has their own way of interpreting the bible and teaching what the bible says.

If it's b) from above, then you are welcome to your opinion, but I can't agree with you there.

[Dave Gray]

Sometimes I get frustrated that I live in a time where science is not as respected as I'd like and we still have a large percentage of the population that looks to faith for answers, in regards to things like gay rights.  I don't mean to start an argument, but I believe that there will be a time when society looks back at things like limiting gay rights and creationism and shakes its head at the way that our society handled it.

As someone who feels like that, I feel ahead of my time -- and that sucks.

[CF DolFan]

Sometimes I get frustrated that I live in a time where science is not as respected as I'd like and we still have a large percentage of the population that looks to faith for answers, in regards to things like gay rights.  I don't mean to start an argument, but I believe that there will be a time when society looks back at things like limiting gay rights and creationism and shakes its head at the way that our society handled it.

As someone who feels like that, I feel ahead of my time -- and that sucks.

There have been numerous societies that have denied God throughout history. Even Israel itself has turned their backs on God at different times.

[Sunstroke]

Adam and Eve lived forever in paradise and walked in the presence of God until...

You do understand that the moment the word "until" hit that sentence, the word "forever" obviously became inaccurate.

Shoot, my bad...I forgot that we were talking about the Bible, where accuracy and reality are abandoned in favor of establishing and enforcing the Church's rules for human behavior through ridiculous stories and threats of eternal damnation.