Ancient Alien Astronaughts

[nailit]

After reading Theland's thread below (who or what created the universe) and the debate that developed between Naomi and others regarding ancient aliens visiting Earth, I thought that it may deserve a thread of its own.
I read von Daniken's books as a teenager and later found out that much of what he wrote was fabricated. *BUT* there have been other authors who have had the same ideas without Danikens fancies.
Myself, I'm open minded about it all, but still a fascinating subject to discuss.

[naomi24]

Khandro, it's there in the OP. It's about the possibility that aliens visited earth in the dim and distant past and were mistaken for gods.

[Khandro]

But you said that talk of the nazca drawings was off topic when I pursued it, although the Swiss writer Erich von Däniken had suggested that they are proof that the Nazca Civilization had possessed high level technological knowledge and believed that the lines were ancient runways for alien spacecraft.

[naomi24]

Khandro, I didn’t say that. If you read my post at 23:08 Tue, you will see that I said //the lines are potentially relevant to the theory, but an on-going discussion on scale is utterly superfluous.//

[EDDIE51]

Plans are being drawn up to build a telescope that is powerful enough to directly view the planets around alpha centauri
https://www.universetoday.com/137618/project-blue-building-space-telescope-directly-observe-planets-around-alpha-centauri/
If this comes off it will give us a lot more information as to the potential habitability of planets outside our solar system, and therefore the possibility of alien visitation.

[naomi24]

According to NASA there are between 100 billion and 400 billion stars in our galaxy, and therefore potentially countless planets. Plenty of scope.

[Theland]

So the more planets the more scope for enlightenment? Methinks you lost the plot.

[Zacs-Master]

Well, you’d know.

[naomi24]

Yes, I know you do. Never mind. I'll cope.

[Theland]

Even considering this concept only proves one point. You are daft.

[naomi24]

Theland, bearing in mind your perception of proof, I'll take that with a pinch of salt. Poor Theland.

[EDDIE51]

Theland , it has been confirmed that there are many planets outside our tiny & insignificant solar system ,over 1500 confirmed so far and that's just the very closest ones!. So, logically there are infinite billions of planets out there. If just 1 planet in 1000 billion has life that means there are infinite other life forms out there. So did your 'One God' create all these infinite billions of life forms over infinite galaxy's or are there other Gods for other galaxy's? As I understand it The Bible only mentions life on Earth? I am looking for your own personal view , not what you think the Bible tells you to say.
Or don't you 'do' logic and self awareness?

[jim360]

What in blazes does "infinite billions" mean? It's one or the other.

[Old_Geezer]

:-)
It has infinite tens of things too ?

I still can't work out how folk think that this universe is infinite (or has infinite whatever in it) when we believe it started very small and expanded. A finite volume can not become an infinite volume without either infinite acceleration or infinite time. And I can't bring myself to believe either of those has happened. It may be infinite to all intents and purposes, maybe, but surely not actually infinite.

[jim360]

That's a topic for a separate thread really, OG, but loosely speaking the thing that's expanding isn't so much the Universe itself, but the way we measure it.

[naomi24]

Jim, that's misleading. True the way we measure it has changed, but the universe is nevertheless expanding. As you say though a subject for another thread.

[jim360]

The thing that's expanding is the metric, though -- that isn't the physical Universe, so it's actually rather more misleading to say that the Universe is expanding. As OG pointed out, if the Universe is infinite but also started off very small, that would make no sense. The answer then is that, if the universe were infinite to start with, then it's still infinite, but with distances defined differently now as opposed to in the past.

[douglas9401]

So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
Cause there's ***-all down here on Earth. :-)

[naomi24]

Jim, //it's actually rather more misleading to say that the Universe is expanding.//

I suggest you tell NASA.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-s-hubble-finds-universe-is-expanding-faster-than-expected

[naomi24]

douglas, I like that. :o)

[jim360]

Wait -- you're disagreeing with me because of something you read in an article written for the layman?

Very often people will talk about the "expansion of the universe" because it's fairly easy to understand that way. But it's also accepted that this is misleading. The expansion, as I say, is of the metric -- is of space and how we measure it -- rather than the physical universe itself. I've used that description myself a few times, either because it saves having to explain what a metric is or because I don't think that explaining it usually adds anything much to explaining what's going on in general terms. Obviously, that changes when someone questions the explanation.

NASA articles -- like any other public science articles -- written for the general audience are not, usually, going to go into technicalities, and will occasionally therefore be a little misleading in the interests of avoiding getting too bogged down. Using them as authorities on how things work is a bit dodgy because of that.

You could say "the Universe is expanding" and everyone will know what you mean, as long as they also knew what a metric is. If they don't, then you are being misleading. It doesn't apply the other way round.