Apologetics, Creation, z4
Published on April 19, 2015

No infrared, no proof, but still most atheists believe in aliens

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No life here. Attennae Galaxies taken from NASA's Hubble space craft Photo: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center/Foter/CC BY-NC

No alien civilizations here. Attennae Galaxies taken from NASA’s Hubble space craft Photo: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center/Foter/CC BY-NC

[by Dean Smith] It is a strange irony. While on one hand atheists claim they can’t believe in God because there is no scientific evidence to prove His existence, yet polls show the majority of atheists believe in aliens even though there is no scientific evidence to prove their existence. Oh sure, there are YouTube videos of people claiming aliens abducted them for experimentation, but that is hardly evidence.

In fact, in a documentary produced by the Discovery Channel, famed atheist and physicist Stephen Hawking expressed concern about an advanced alien society plundering earth’s resources along the Hollywood theme of War of the Worlds or Independence Day.

Well, Hawking and other like-minded atheists needn’t worry, Penn State just released its analysis of 100,000 galaxies probed by NASA’s Wise space observatory. They were looking for evidence of advanced alien civilizations and found none.

In its news release, Jason T. Wright a professor at Penn State’s Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds explained their study this way:

“The idea behind our research is that, if an entire galaxy has been colonized by an advance spacefaring civilization, the energy produced by the civilization’s technologies would be detectable in the mid-infrared wavelengths.”

This was the exact type of energy source NASA’s Wise was looking for.

After studying a hundred thousand galaxies — Penn State came out empty. All the energy they discovered was natural in origin, they found no evidence of artificial energy in the mix.

Wright said:

Our results mean that, out of the 100,000 galaxies that WISE could see in sufficient detail, none of them is widely populated by an alien civilization using most of the starlight in its galaxy for its own purposes. That’s interesting because these galaxies are billions of years old, which should have been plenty of time for them to have been filled with alien civilizations, if they exist. Either they don’t exist, or they don’t yet use enough energy for us to recognize them.

We need to grasp the breadth of their search.

There is no such thing as a typical galaxy, but our galaxy — the Milky Way — is so large that astronomers can only estimate the number of planets and stars in our system. But they suspect it has about a 100 billion planets and probably more.

So Penn State was looking at the results of trillions upon trillions of planets.

Throw into that mix that evolutionists believe that the universe has existed for billions of years, in their way of thinking it is impossible that other advanced alien civilizations have not developed.

Now to be fair, not all scientists believe in aliens.

Brian Cox is a physic’s professor teaching at England’s University of Manchester. He is also very popular having hosted many TV programs on BBC. Though Cox still believes in evolution, he doesn’t believe in Aliens because what happened on earth was such a fluke —  borderline miraculous — he believes it would be impossible for it to happen again.

In a recent documentary, Cox said:

“There is only one advanced technological civilization in this galaxy and there has only ever been one– and that’s us. We are unique.

It’s a dizzying thought. There are billions of planets out there, surely there must have been a second Genesis.

But we must be careful because the story of life on this planet shows that the transition from single-celled life to complex life may not have been inevitable.

We still struggle to understand how this happened. It’s incredibly unusual.”

So if there is no scientific evidence proving the existence of aliens, why do atheists believe in them while derisively snubbing God. It makes one wonder if the problem of disbelief has anything to do with science.

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16 Comments

  1. Twisted Inspiration says

    I am sorry, but the amount of atheists who actively believe that aliens are going to visit us is pretty small. Do not confuse that with “Alien life seems likely, since it’s a big universe”, as that neither implies intelligence nor the possibility to visit us.
    Quote-Mining Hawkins does not help your cause here, as it’s just something intellectually dishonest people do.

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    • Dean Smith says

      Stephen Hawking is a very reputable scientist and atheist. If you believe the universe is billions of years old, and there are trillions of planets, you think evolution is the way it happened, then there should several advanced civilizations. If you don’t believe that, then you are left with the fact that what happened on earth is not only unique, but miraculous and we are back talking about God.

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  2. religionerased says

    The reason is simple. The universe is quite possibly infinite, the belief the world was specially created in a week shows that we underestimate the vastness of space.
    When we are told that a God loves us and cares for us, you shouldn’t struggle to prove his existence, this should make you think a little more.

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  3. Allallt says

    I know I commented on your last related post, but the question is worth repeating: are you sure that the claim “55% of atheists believe in aliens” isn’t actually “55% of atheists accept the possibility of atheists”? To answer that question, you would need to see what the exact question Weintraub asked in his survey. Can you find it? I can’t.
    Until I see the exact question, I don’t accept the claim that 55% of atheists believe.

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    • Dean Smith says

      Hi I remember you. Thanks for dropping by again. I rechecked the source material and that is what he said. I suppose I could change the article, but then it wound’t be accurate. That is what he said.

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  4. myatheistlife says

    Nice try but you still fail the intelligence test. half of Americans belief in aliens so that means 75 percent or so of theists believe in aliens. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/21/alien-poll_n_3473852.html They also believe in ghosts, the supernatural and many other things which are not provable. In fact, among all Americans, theists are most likely to believe in any kind of BS you give them, including the things mentioned and that megapreacher Z needs 1.2 million for a new satellite dish.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dean Smith says

      You should be a politician, it is classic case of deflect. Trying to move the topic away from what we are talking about. What the article was about is that atheists claim to use science as their reason for not believing in God and then the majority turn around and believe in aliens without any scientific evidence to support their position. Inconsistent even a bit hypocritical.

      But have to give you an +A for effort on that one. Slick move.

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      • myatheistlife says

        You mistakenly seem to think that all atheists use the same world view and reasoning. You’re wrong. The ONLY thing we have in common is the disbelief in gods or the supernatural. The majority of theists belief in aliens so your statement means nothing useful. People believe in aliens. That’s it. What you’ve said seems to say that theists believe in aliens without any scientific proof but that’s okay for them… sure, irrational belief is ok for them. Keep going with that logic. It seems to be working out really well for you.

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      • Dean Smith says

        Again the article is about what Atheists believe. Atheists do have faith. Without any scientific basis, they choose to believe in aliens. I just want some consistency here. If you don’t believe in God, fine. Just don’t turn around and tell me you believe in aliens, when their is no scientific evidence and then mock Christians for their faith.

        Anyway we will agree to disagree on this.

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      • Dean Smith says

        This article is about the inconsistency of atheists. They require scientific evidence to believe in God, but then turn around an believe in aliens without scientific evidence. It looks like to me the issue is not the science.

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      • myatheistlife says

        Well, hell, why don’t we talk about the inconsistency of children, first they believe in santa claus then they turn around and don’t believe.

        You still failed to answer a direct and relevant question. You claim that atheists believe as a group. They do one thing as a group… disbelieve in gods. If you can’t get that in your head your argument will fail always. The majority of Americans believe in aliens and that majority cannot be more than 10% atheist. You do not have to be a scientist or uber philosopher to be an atheist. There is but one requirement – no belief in gods or the supernatural. Aliens do not qualify as supernatural or is that something that escaped your mind?

        Still, you have failed to define a cornerstone of your belief – evil. Do you or do you not have a definition of what evil is?

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      • Dean Smith says

        Well the issue here is the inconsistency of the atheists. If they don’t believe in God, fine. That is really up to them. But let’s don’t pretend it is about the science because if it was just about the science then they would not believe in aliens either because there is no scientific evidence for their existence. But the majority of atheists do believe in aliens, which tells you that their rejection of God is also not driven by science. There are other issues at play here.

        As for your comment about evil. To explain man’s treatment of fellow man — we only have to look at our sinful nature. It drives most of the evil in the world.

        But that doesn’t explain all the evil in the world, I also believe in the existence of satan:

        Read: Was Karl Marx and the rise of communism influenced by satan?

        Thanks for your comments, but I am closing comments on this article.

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