"It’s common in atheist circles to mock believers in God as having an “imaginary friend” that gives them comfort like a cosmic teddy bear. Well, how about
those who believe in billions of invisible friends? That’s the faith that keeps atheists willing to spend time and effort looking for them. It launches many a book and article about what these imaginary products of evolution might be like.
How do you talk to an alien? What language should you use? Try mathematics, says Leonard David. Even aliens know math, he says at Live Science. It’s not just his idle speculation; this idea got serious discussion by experts at a recent astrobiology conference:
In Nature, Andrew Robinson reviews a new book on cryptograms: messages in mysterious ciphers that have never been solved, some for centuries. One of them, the medieval Voynich Manuscript, draws 16% of online traffic to the Yale Library where it is stored, but has defied solution by the best code-breakers in the business. Chances are slim to none we could crack an alien language, even their version of math. And think of the trouble aliens will have trying to figure out our Voyager Record.
Ross Pomeroy from Real Clear Science, in an article posted on Live Science, thought up “12 possible reasons why we haven’t found aliens.” A similar list could be drawn up for why we haven’t found the gnomes, leprechauns, or fairies that Richard Dawkins is fond of referring to when mocking believers in God.
Pomeroy’s list for evolutionists about their imaginary friends:
Years) than our solar system. Given those presuppositions, it seems unlikely that we can’t see the signals, or they don’t have technology, or they aren’t transmitting.
How to respond to the atheist who calls God your ‘imaginary friend’: Ask, “Do you believe in space aliens? Where’s your evidence? Doesn’t scientific empiricism demand that belief be grounded in empirical observations?
As for me, I have evidence: a collection of 66 books, and a Creator who appeared on earth like one of us, who died and rose from the dead, and was seen by over 500 eyewitnesses, and who changed history so that we number our years from the date of his birth. So I agree with Michael Faraday, the greatest experimental physicist of all time. He said, ‘Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties. I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day’ [see II Timothy 1:12].”
CEH
How do you talk to an alien? What language should you use? Try mathematics, says Leonard David. Even aliens know math, he says at Live Science. It’s not just his idle speculation; this idea got serious discussion by experts at a recent astrobiology conference:
The idea is that mathematics is as much a part of our humanity as music and art. And it is mathematics that might be understandable — even familiar — to extraterrestrial civilizations, allowing us to strike up star-speak repartee.
Carl DeVito, an emeritus faculty in the mathematics department at the University of Arizona in Tucson, has proposed a language based on plausibly universal scientific concepts. He recently detailed his work at the Astrobiology Science Conference 2017, held from April 24 to April 28 in Mesa, Arizona.
In Nature, Andrew Robinson reviews a new book on cryptograms: messages in mysterious ciphers that have never been solved, some for centuries. One of them, the medieval Voynich Manuscript, draws 16% of online traffic to the Yale Library where it is stored, but has defied solution by the best code-breakers in the business. Chances are slim to none we could crack an alien language, even their version of math. And think of the trouble aliens will have trying to figure out our Voyager Record.
Ross Pomeroy from Real Clear Science, in an article posted on Live Science, thought up “12 possible reasons why we haven’t found aliens.” A similar list could be drawn up for why we haven’t found the gnomes, leprechauns, or fairies that Richard Dawkins is fond of referring to when mocking believers in God.
Pomeroy’s list for evolutionists about their imaginary friends:
- There aren’t any aliens (he finds this unlikely given the number of stars)
- There’s no intelligent life besides us.
- Intelligent species lack technology.
- Intelligent life self-destructs.
- The universe is a deadly place.
- Space is big, so signals haven’t reached us yet.
- We haven’t been looking long enough yet.
- We’re not looking in the correct place.
- Alien technology may be too advanced.
- Nobody is transmitting.
- Earth is deliberately not being contacted.
- Aliens are already here and we just don’t realize it.
How to respond to the atheist who calls God your ‘imaginary friend’: Ask, “Do you believe in space aliens? Where’s your evidence? Doesn’t scientific empiricism demand that belief be grounded in empirical observations?
As for me, I have evidence: a collection of 66 books, and a Creator who appeared on earth like one of us, who died and rose from the dead, and was seen by over 500 eyewitnesses, and who changed history so that we number our years from the date of his birth. So I agree with Michael Faraday, the greatest experimental physicist of all time. He said, ‘Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties. I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day’ [see II Timothy 1:12].”
CEH
