{"id":2104,"date":"2011-02-16T10:41:34","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T15:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2104"},"modified":"2011-02-16T10:41:34","modified_gmt":"2011-02-16T15:41:34","slug":"invested-belief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2104","title":{"rendered":"Invested Belief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Christian asked me if I believe in aliens. I told him that I think alien life is probable, but that I am not invested in my belief. In other words, I believe there is probably some form of life somewhere in the vastness of the universe. My evidence is only based on statistics, so it is possible that I am wrong and neither my belief nor disbelief affects my life much if at all.<\/p>\n<p>While it is true that I demand strong evidence for a god and only statistical data for the existence of aliens, that is because god belief expects a greater investment from me\u2026 especially Christian God-belief. I am just not willing to become a jerk overnight based on no evidence at all. But I am willing to entertain myself with thoughts of aliens based off of statistical data alone.<\/p>\n<p>I should also point out that a claim of human-like life somewhere in the vast universe is a more believable claim than that of an all-powerful deity the likes of which have never been experience and are largely contradictory to itself and to what we know of the world.<br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"return addthis_sendto()\" onmouseover=\"return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')\" onmouseout=\"addthis_close()\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=dangeroustalk\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0;\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js?pub=dangeroustalk\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n <!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/r.zemanta.com\/?u=http%3A\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/science\/space\/8174040\/Life-as-we-dont-know-it-discovery-could-prove-existence-of-aliens.html&amp;a=29515119&amp;rid=f7c03bbc-b5be-49b1-97f8-73d3308403a1&amp;e=e193f1961fdb927a74340525a49a4866\">&#8216;Life as we don&#8217;t know it&#8217; discovery could prove existence of aliens<\/a> (telegraph.co.uk)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/r.zemanta.com\/?u=http%3A\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/8301-501465_162-20029464-501465.html&amp;a=33656726&amp;rid=f7c03bbc-b5be-49b1-97f8-73d3308403a1&amp;e=fe71d70d1a311e013e36077d06857af7\">Might Extraterrestrial Intelligence Sway Religious Beliefs?<\/a> (cbsnews.com)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=f7c03bbc-b5be-49b1-97f8-73d3308403a1\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><span class=\"zem-script more-related pretty-attribution\"><script src=\"http:\/\/static.zemanta.com\/readside\/loader.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2104\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Christian asked me if I believe in aliens. I told him that I think alien life is probable, but that I am not invested in my belief. In other words, I believe there is probably some form of life somewhere in the vastness of the universe. My evidence is only based on statistics, so [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1039,1587,9],"tags":[84,11,1349,1588,1589],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2105,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions\/2105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}