“No Action” for Gina Colvin

[Exiled]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

I have no doubt it would be interesting but I don’t do podcasts.  I’m fine being left to wonder. 

I hope your not "doing" podcasts isn't out of fear of non-mormons or of those who disagree. You seem like someone who is settled in her beliefs and podcasts shouldn't affect you in terms of faith. However, there are a lot of good ones that have nothing to do with mormonism and they are great to listen to instead of the mindless stuff found in mainstream news.

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, Exiled said:

I hope your not "doing" podcasts isn't out of fear of non-mormons or of those who disagree. You seem like someone who is settled in her beliefs and podcasts shouldn't affect you in terms of faith. However, there are a lot of good ones that have nothing to do with mormonism and they are great to listen to instead of the mindless stuff found in mainstream news.

Not at all. I just HATE podcasts. I much rather read something than listen to it, especially with 4 kids running around in the background. 

The last time I tried to listen to a podcast it took me three days to get through 59 minutes. No thanks! 😆

[flameburns623]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

No, it just seems weird to me that anyone would want to be a member of an organization that is as bad as she said the church is.   I don’t see the point. 

Gina is probably highly critical of how New Zealand treated aborigines, but she doesn't plan to become an expatriate.  She is probably critical of embedded patriarchy in various associations she has Involvement in, and yet remains associated.  

Just as a certain segment of Christianity sees the world as rotten with sin, so too do certain people of a progressive mindset see reason to view most of the world in a critical way.  All the better to advance "continuous revolution", the unceasing reform of a permanently imperfect world. 

I think the approach is related somehow to postmodernism.  I stand ready to be corrected on this point,  however. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

33 minutes ago, bluebell said:

The last time I tried to listen to a podcast it took me three days to get through 59 minutes. 

I can’t help but think that people who consume podcasts clearly have heaps more discretionary time than I do. I can read ten times faster than I can listen. And that doesn’t even touch on all the critical engagement that occurs when we read but not when we listen. I don’t think it’s an accident that podcasting appears to be the favourite medium of the apostate/critical community. 

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, Teancum said:

It's all am imaginary system as are all religions, nations, corporations and so on.

We need these as a species that when we went through the cognitive revolution needed stories to bind us together to cooperate and build civilizations.  Yet it is all imaginary.

It is normally subjective, as is every fairy faith and every belief system.  To say that a personal testimony is not inter-objective is no more than a logical and factual observation.  It tells us nothing about the truth or falsity of that belief.  So too, corporations are convenient legal fictions.  The borders of nations are likewise often legal fictions, though some are based on objective realities (rivers, seas, mountain ranges, deserts, etc.).  It is certainly true that most of civilization, ancient and modern, is a social construct.  However, none of that tells us anything about the ground of our being,  nor about the ultimate nature of reality.  That is the weakness of your absolute declaration -- which is reductionist.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I can’t help but think that people who consume podcasts clearly have heaps more discretionary time than I do. I can read ten times faster than I can listen. And that doesn’t even touch on all the critical engagement that occurs when we read but not when we listen. I don’t think it’s an accident that podcasting appears to be the favourite medium of the apostate/critical community. 

Podcast are for when I am driving or doing a boring chore that does not require a lot of mental effort. I prefer reading but the medium does have a few advantages.

[clarkgoble]

23 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I can’t help but think that people who consume podcasts clearly have heaps more discretionary time than I do. I can read ten times faster than I can listen. And that doesn’t even touch on all the critical engagement that occurs when we read but not when we listen. I don’t think it’s an accident that podcasting appears to be the favourite medium of the apostate/critical community. 

It's more that they have less discretionary time and can't read. So they listen to podcasts while doing other things like working out, cleaning, riding to work or so forth.

On 12/24/2018 at 12:29 PM, flameburns623 said:

This sense of fuzzy,  open borders between otherwise very different approaches to spirituality,  is at the crux of Gina Colvin's criticisms of the use of excommunication by the LDS Church,  I expect.  She sees churches as communities gathered around therapeutic myths, (in the full sense of the word  "myth": a story which might have some basis, or no basis at all, in facticity,  but which serves some purpose other than a recounting of historical facts), gathered around those myths in order to serve one another and the larger world.

Because faith communities are for bonding, healing, therapy, and opportunities for service, and are NOT, fundamentally, truth-seeking endeavors,  Gina feels that,  by the process of excommunication, the LDS Church does terrible harm to itself as well as to the subjects of disciplinary actions.  

I know almost nothing about Colvin beyond what I've read at her blog and her work in Mormon Studies. But I find the above to becoming a fairly common belief. It's certainly very much at odds with Mormon thought. While it has its origins in liberal Christianity, particularly liberal Protestant thought, I think it a fundamentally different way of conceiving of religion. I think it wrong, but I think it becoming a more common approach for those who maintain some connection to Christianity. Historically that sort of Christianity has been waning relative to more conservative religious thought in the United States. The more liberal sects have lost most of their membership over the last 50 years. It'll be interesting to see if that trend reverses, especially now that conservative religious identity has slowed and perhaps reversed.

[flameburns623]

39 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

.

. . . .  I know almost nothing about Colvin beyond what I've read at her blog and her work in Mormon Studies. But I find the above to becoming a fairly common belief. It's certainly very much at odds with Mormon thought. While it has its origins in liberal Christianity, particularly liberal Protestant thought, I think it a fundamentally different way of conceiving of religion. I think it wrong, but I think it becoming a more common approach for those who maintain some connection to Christianity. Historically that sort of Christianity has been waning relative to more conservative religious thought in the United States. The more liberal sects have lost most of their membership over the last 50 years. It'll be interesting to see if that trend reverses, especially now that conservative religious identity has slowed and perhaps reversed.

There is some research out there suggesting that urbanization and secularization within religious groups leads to fewer children. The so-called progressive denominations went into decline because they urbanized/secularized first, and stopped having children at replacement levels about two decades sooner than did the conservative/Evangelical sects.

Beginning in the 1980's and 1990's,  this trend caught up with conservative religious denominations. They, too, stopped having children at replacement levels, and this is why most of the Evangelical sects--as well as the LDS and a few other groups-- have also begun to experience declines.

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, flameburns623 said:

There is some research out there suggesting that urbanization and secularization within religious groups leads to fewer children. The so-called progressive denominations went into decline because they urbanized/secularized first, and stopped having children at replacement levels about two decades sooner than did the conservative/Evangelical sects.

Beginning in the 1980's and 1990's,  this trend caught up with conservative religious denominations. They, too, stopped having children at replacement levels, and this is why most of the Evangelical sects--as well as the LDS and a few other groups-- have also begun to experience declines.

I confess I'm skeptical of that. Looking at the 2001 ARIS study though the more liberal Protestant groups certainly skewed extremely old in their demographics. So there may be something to that. The 2007 Pew study, while somewhat problematic (IMO) relative to Mormons, found only 23.5% of Mormons were then converts. So if the birth rate drops that'll significantly affect our growth. And it certainly has dropped. While it's dangerous using Utah as a proxy for Mormons, clearly we dominant the population still even if it's dropping. The Utah birth rate while high relative to the country is now about what the US average was in 2007. 

[flameburns623]

12 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I confess I'm skeptical of that. Looking at the 2001 ARIS study though the more liberal Protestant groups certainly skewed extremely old in their demographics. So there may be something to that. The 2007 Pew study, while somewhat problematic (IMO) relative to Mormons, found only 23.5% of Mormons were then converts. So if the birth rate drops that'll significantly affect our growth. And it certainly has dropped. While it's dangerous using Utah as a proxy for Mormons, clearly we dominant the population still even if it's dropping. The Utah birth rate while high relative to the country is now about what the US average was in 2007. 

I had two articles saved on Facebook from about a year ago,  one of them pretty academic,  discussing the trend. 

I may have linked to at least one of those articles on this forum once before. 

A current search for at least one of those articles now turns up nothing. 

The churches experiencing growth,  IIRC,  are doing so among populations with high birthrates.  The Western nations,  with longstanding declines in births are also where declines in church membership are occurring.  Those churches which  were growing (as in the Bible Belt or in heavily LDS areas), were anomalous because those populations bucked the trend in terms of family size until the Las decade or so of the 20th century. 

There are two factors at play. First,  people in certain communities had more children than did those in more secularized/cosmopolitan area.

Second: children from those less secular communities remained faithful at a higher rate. Almost two out of every three kids in some areas would remain churched. As secularization reached the suburbs and more rural areas, retention dropped to about 50% or so.

This may have begun to affect Islamic and Hindu subcultures in the United States and Europe as well, as those populations Westernize and become less insular. Ethnic isolation may slow the process down, but as those populations assimilate,  they also seem to be having fewer babies and a decline in religious commitment. not simply a Judaeo-Christian phenomenon. 

So: in Western nations, whether one is raised in a religiously progressive or religiously conservative community, the members of that community average fewer children per household AND fewer of those offspring will remain part of that community as they reach adulthood.  

This is my summary of those articles, which I still cannot find. I will share them when I locate them. 

 

EDIT: I may have found one of the articles. The format and first few sentences ring a bell. 

http://www.religioninsights.org/denominational-decline-related-birthrates-societal-changes

Edited December 31, 2018 by flameburns623

[Teancum]

On 12/29/2018 at 6:09 PM, bluebell said:

If I don’t know something, I find the best approach is to ask questions. Then others who do know can share their knowledge with me. I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that only people willing to listen to hours of podcast should ask questions, so I probably won’t follow your instructions on the matter. 

Very well.  

But I think you may find her interesting and thoughtful and this because I usually find you interesting and thoughtful.  You may find you have much in common with her.

 

 

[Teancum]

On 12/29/2018 at 6:47 PM, mfbukowski said:

So what's your point?  Nothing new here- that is how things work.

It is human consciousness creating  organization from Matter Unorganized.  If you want to  call  corporations "imaginary" then is all your retirement money under the mattress?

Where did  you say you lived? 

We live in a man-made world.  Go and fix the thermostat- it's getting cold in here. 

Are the  laws of thermodynamics "imaginary" to because we created them to describe regular subjective experiences like when you light this thing  called "fire" it gets warm?  And then one subjective experience follows another and then the guy who harness fire showed it to others and it became "objective truth" because all humans could do it too.  Good thing he shared all that stuff he made up, huh? 

 If whales had hands who knows- maybe we would all live in "Whale World" where we all squeaked at each other to communicate with our Whale Overlords who flipped us a fish with their fin if we squeaked correctly, or did tricks in our air-filled tanks underwater for their entertainment.

We create the world s we need to survive.   Does that make them "imaginary?"

This is nothing new.  It is called "social constructivism" if you want a name for it.  It all goes back to the tree falling in the forest.  It's only a "sound" if a person hears it otherwise it is some other human description like "vibrations in the atmosphere".

What makes "sound" NOT imaginary if we have to hear it to make it a "sound"?

No not new at all.

 

 

Ok nothing new.

no my money is not all under the mattress. The corporation, US Constitution, religions, etc that are all imaginary work because we all agree to cooperate under these social constructs.  Aren't national borders imaginary?  Yes.  But we agree to them, till some war starts over these imaginary boundaries and changes the imaginary lines.

By imaginary I do not mean they don't have meaning or value. Or that they don't work. Though they do change.

The laws of thermodynamics are not imaginary because they are part of the physical world.  Just like gravity,

I agree we create the worlds we need to survive.  Again I don't mean imaginary as a negative thing.

[Teancum]

On 12/29/2018 at 10:49 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

It is normally subjective, as is every fairy faith and every belief system.  To say that a personal testimony is not inter-objective is no more than a logical and factual observation.  It tells us nothing about the truth or falsity of that belief.  So too, corporations are convenient legal fictions.  The borders of nations are likewise often legal fictions, though some are based on objective realities (rivers, seas, mountain ranges, deserts, etc.).  It is certainly true that most of civilization, ancient and modern, is a social construct.  However, none of that tells us anything about the ground of our being,  nor about the ultimate nature of reality.  That is the weakness of your absolute declaration -- which is reductionist.

I am probably not describing oit well.

The ideas come from two interesting books by the same author.

 

This one:

https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens/

And this one:

https://www.ynharari.com/book/homo-deus/

I don't think Harari would disagree with your comments.

[bluebell]

37 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Very well.  

But I think you may find her interesting and thoughtful and this because I usually find you interesting and thoughtful.  You may find you have much in common with her.

 

 

I probably do have a lot in common with her and I don’t doubt she’s a good person. 😊

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, flameburns623 said:

EDIT: I may have found one of the articles. The format and first few sentences ring a bell. 

http://www.religioninsights.org/denominational-decline-related-birthrates-societal-changes

Thanks. I appreciate that. I'm a bit hesitant applying it to the LDS tradition but I think it may still apply. It seems to me that there was a slight drop from 1995 - 2005 but the big drop appears to be 2008-2018 in terms of birth rates. At the same time missionary conversion typically more than made up for losses as people born in the Church left the Church - to the point that our growth rate was able to keep up with national growth rates. (I assume immigration of members from outside of the US into the US contributed a bit as well) Retention had a modest drop from around 70% where it had been for a long time to between 62% - 65%.

In recent years, particularly since the age drop for missionaries, conversion rates have dropped a fair bit. It'll be interesting to see if our growth rate is able to maintain its relative population compared to the US as a whole.

Edited December 31, 2018 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

28 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Ok nothing new.

no my money is not all under the mattress. The corporation, US Constitution, religions, etc that are all imaginary work because we all agree to cooperate under these social constructs.  Aren't national borders imaginary?  Yes.  But we agree to them, till some war starts over these imaginary boundaries and changes the imaginary lines.

By imaginary I do not mean they don't have meaning or value. Or that they don't work. Though they do change.

The laws of thermodynamics are not imaginary because they are part of the physical world.  Just like gravity,

I agree we create the worlds we need to survive.  Again I don't mean imaginary as a negative thing.

Ok we are closer

Now how do we know the "law" of thermodynamics is part of the "physical world" which we can only KNOW in our minds?

Where is "knowledge"?  Is it in the physical world or in our "minds"?

If it is in the physical world, why don't we just go to where it's kept and then we will have it all right now?  (seriously- no joke!)

I think knowledge is a mental state- that is why some "have" knowledge and others don't.

Religion works within its sphere to give us a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives just as thermodynamics works because it gives us, among other wonderful things, heat pumps which keep us warm in the winter and cool in summer.

But why do we want to be warm sometimes and cool other times?  Because of our mental states.  All the practical service that the "law of thermodynamics" provides us is due to OUR mental states and desires.

And it "works" just as religion does in serving our mental needs.    Just different needs. 

 

 Thermodynamics warms our bodies and religion warms our hearts.   Same purpose, different mental states but still all mental states!

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

............................https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens/

..........................https://www.ynharari.com/book/homo-deus/

I don't think Harari would disagree with your comments.

Of course he wouldn't.  You are quite right.  The problem as foreseen by generations of scientists and scify writers is that Prometheus always oversteps his bounds, and there is always a high price to be paid for that mistake.  As with the figurative Great Tower which humans built in order to get to heaven, hubris is nemesis.

Most astrophysicists have known for some time that beings likely exist in this universe who are technologically "godlike," and who are quite capable of amazing genetic engineering or even the creation of life.  Harari realizes that intelligent design is real.  The dangers have been portrayed in such films as "This Island Earth," "Forbidden Planet," and the recent "Prometheus," and "Prometheus: Alien Covenant."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHcHYisZFLU .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBrrU5VXw6Q .

 

Edited December 31, 2018 by Robert F. Smith

[The Nehor]

31 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Of course he wouldn't.  You are quite right.  The problem as foreseen by generations of scientists and scify writers is that Prometheus always oversteps his bounds, and there is always a high price to be paid for that mistake.  As with the figurative Great Tower which humans built in order to get to heaven, hubris is nemesis.

Most astrophysicists have known for some time that beings likely exist in this universe who are technologically "godlike," and who are quite capable of amazing genetic engineering or even the creation of life.  Harari realizes that intelligent design is real.  The dangers have been portrayed in such films as "This Island Earth," "Forbidden Planet," and the recent "Prometheus," and "Prometheus: Alien Covenant."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHcHYisZFLU .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBrrU5VXw6Q .

 

“Most astrophysicists”? I doubt it. It is food fodder for entertainment but while astrophysicists are willing to admit it is possible the idea that it is likely? Not so much.

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, The Nehor said:

“Most astrophysicists”? I doubt it. It is food fodder for entertainment but while astrophysicists are willing to admit it is possible the idea that it is likely? Not so much.

Astrophysicists generally treat the matter as statistically likely simply based on the number of stars in each galaxy, and the number of galaxies in the universe.  In addition, what we now have are literally thousands of exoplanets being discovered and surveyed as best we can, some of them actually Earthlike.

Quote

A new result from ESO's HARPS planet finder shows that rocky planets not much bigger than Earth are very common in the habitable zones around faint red stars. The international team estimates that there are tens of billions of such planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and probably about one hundred in the Sun's immediate neighbourhood. This is the first direct measurement of the frequency of super-Earths around red dwarfs, which account for 80% of the stars in the Milky Way.

This first direct estimate of the number of light planets around red dwarf stars has just been announced by an international team using observations with the HARPS spectrograph on the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile [1]. A recent announcement, showing that planets are ubiquitous in our galaxy used a different method that was not sensitive to this important class of exoplanets.

The HARPS team has been searching for exoplanets orbiting the most common kind of star in the Milky Way -- red dwarf stars (also known as M dwarfs [2]). These stars are faint and cool compared to the Sun, but very common and long-lived, and therefore account for 80% of all the stars in the Milky Way.

"Our new observations with HARPS mean that about 40% of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet," says Xavier Bonfils (IPAG, Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble, France), the leader of the team. "Because red dwarfs are so common -- there are about 160 billion of them in the Milky Way -- this leads us to the astonishing result that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone."  “Many Billions of Rocky Planets in Habitable Zones Around Red Dwarfs in Milky Way,” ScienceDaily, Mar 28, 2012, online at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120328090937.htm .

* * * * *

Astronomers have used ESO's HARPS planet hunter in Chile, along with other telescopes around the world, to discover three planets orbiting stars in the cluster Messier 67. Although more than one thousand planets outside the Solar System are now confirmed, only a handful have been found in star clusters. Remarkably one of these new exoplanets is orbiting a star that is a rare solar twin -- a star that is almost identical to the Sun in all respects.

Planets orbiting stars outside the Solar System are now known to be very common. These exoplanets have been found orbiting stars of widely varied ages and chemical compositions and are scattered across the sky. But, up to now, very few planets have been found inside star clusters [1]. This is particularly odd as it is known that most stars are born in such clusters. Astronomers have wondered if there might be something different about planet formation in star clusters to explain this strange paucity.  “First Planet Found Around Solar Twin in Star Cluster,” ScienceDaily.com, Jan 15, 2014, online at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140115075402.htm .

Quote

Astronomy is often described as the oldest science and there can be no doubt that a view towards the majestic Milky Way band of stars - as it stretches across the sky on a clear night - must have been an awe-inspiring sight to people of all ages and cultures. Today, astronomy stands out as one of the most modern and dynamic sciences, using some of the most advanced technologies and sophisticated techniques available to scientists. And these are exciting times for astronomy: technology now allows us to study objects at the far edge of the Universe and to detect evidence for planets around other stars. We can begin to answer a fundamental question that fascinates every one of us: are we alone in the Universe?
*    *    *    *
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the largest ground-based astronomy project in existence, is a revolutionary facility for world astronomy. ALMA will comprise an array of 66 giant 12-metre and 7-metre diameter antennas observing at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths. Construction of ALMA started in 2003 and it started scientific observations in 2011. ALMA is located on the high altitude Llano de Chajnantor, at 5000 meter elevation — one of the highest astronomical observatory sites in the world. The ALMA project is a partnership between Europe, East Asia and North America, in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ESO (European Southern Observatory) is the European partner in ALMA. The Chajnantor site is also home to the 12-metre APEX millimetre and submillimetre telescope, operated by ESO on behalf of the Onsala Space Observatory, the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and ESO itself.  http://www.eso.org/public/about-eso/esoglance.html .

Even scientist Richard Dawkins spoke matter-of-factly about the existence of "godlike" beings in the universe.   Tom Bethell, “Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the Search for God.” American Spectator, Nov 2011, online at http://spectator.org/archives/2011/11/08/extraterrestrial-intelligence . 

“Alien Planets Revealed,” NOVA, PBS-TV (DSP/WGBH, 2014), broadcast Jan 28, 2014, online at http://video.pbs.org/video/2365149642/ .   Re NASA Kepler space telescope results; Kepler 22b, 72 (KOI 701.03) earth-analog in another system.  Goldilocks zone.  Trillions of planets in universe?  Very likely (statistically) that life exists on other planets.
Also deals with what would alien life be like?  Must be subject to the laws of chemistry & physics.

Michael Walsh, “NASA discovers Earth-like planet in ‘habitable zone’,”  YahooNews, July 23, 2015, online at http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-discovers-earth-like-planet-in--habitable-zone-192512073.html .

Michael Tabb, “Billions of Earth-size Planets,” Quartz, video, online at https://player.vimeo.com/external/166130374.hd.mp4?s=7e8c42961c3fbfc5692cba75fb0207be342f5956&profile_id=174 .

Edited January 1, 2019 by Robert F. Smith

[The Nehor]

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Astrophysicists generally treat the matter as statistically likely simply based on the number of stars in each galaxy, and the number of galaxies in the universe.  In addition, what we now have are literally thousands of exoplanets being discovered and surveyed as best we can, some of them actually Earthlike.

Even scientist Richard Dawkins spoke matter-of-factly about the existence of "godlike" beings in the universe.   Tom Bethell, “Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the Search for God.” American Spectator, Nov 2011, online at http://spectator.org/archives/2011/11/08/extraterrestrial-intelligence . 

“Alien Planets Revealed,” NOVA, PBS-TV (DSP/WGBH, 2014), broadcast Jan 28, 2014, online at http://video.pbs.org/video/2365149642/ .   Re NASA Kepler space telescope results; Kepler 22b, 72 (KOI 701.03) earth-analog in another system.  Goldilocks zone.  Trillions of planets in universe?  Very likely (statistically) that life exists on other planets.
Also deals with what would alien life be like?  Must be subject to the laws of chemistry & physics.

Michael Walsh, “NASA discovers Earth-like planet in ‘habitable zone’,”  YahooNews, July 23, 2015, online at http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-discovers-earth-like-planet-in--habitable-zone-192512073.html .

Michael Tabb, “Billions of Earth-size Planets,” Quartz, video, online at https://player.vimeo.com/external/166130374.hd.mp4?s=7e8c42961c3fbfc5692cba75fb0207be342f5956&profile_id=174 .

Yes, they have spoken about it theoretically but vastness does not make life or (especially) something we would recognize sentience very likely.

[Robert F. Smith]

33 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Yes, they have spoken about it theoretically but vastness does not make life or (especially) something we would recognize sentience very likely.

The assumptions among astronomers is that many of these systems are very old, much older than Earth and Sol.  Any lifeforms thereon would have developed far beyond us.  Thousands of years beyond us.  Given the frequent presence of water and of organic molecules nearly everywhere in the Universe, life seems to astrobiologists to be a common features in billions of galaxies.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The assumptions among astronomers is that many of these systems are very old, much older than Earth and Sol.  Any lifeforms thereon would have developed far beyond us.  Thousands of years beyond us.  Given the frequent presence of water and of organic molecules nearly everywhere in the Universe, life seems to astrobiologists to be a common features in billions of galaxies.

It has yet to be proven that sentience has survival value and that development naturally goes that way.

And we have evidence of life in our own solar system. It is way too early to decide if our system is normal or an anomaly.

[Robert F. Smith]

20 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

It has yet to be proven that sentience has survival value and that development naturally goes that way.

And we have evidence of life in our own solar system. It is way too early to decide if our system is normal or an anomaly.

It's purely a statistical matter.  With billions of galaxies, with all the basic ingredients of life everywhere available, scientists simply posit the likelihood of life everywhere.  The likelihood that it only occurred once here on Earth seems to them absurd.  Proof is not regarded as necessary.

[carbon dioxide]

On 12/29/2018 at 3:57 PM, Teancum said:

Oh my! What a horrible thing!!! It must be the end of the world as we know it.

It seems pretty clear that anyone who wants to remain LDS, but has serious and valid questions about its truth claims, is generally not welcome. 

The LDS Church leaders want an echo chamber.  How sad.

Its a good training ground.  Does one really believe that God puts up with a lot of people questioning him and his authority in the Celestial Kingdom.  Satan and a bunch of his followers tried that.  Did not work out for them well. 

Edited January 2, 2019 by carbon dioxide

[carbon dioxide]

On 12/29/2018 at 7:32 PM, bluebell said:

Not at all. I just HATE podcasts. I much rather read something than listen to it, especially with 4 kids running around in the background. 

The last time I tried to listen to a podcast it took me three days to get through 59 minutes. No thanks! 😆

I am there with you. The only time I do a podcast is if I am on a long trip and need something to listen to in the car.  Other than that, I don't want to listen for a hour to get perhaps 5 minutes of useful information.  At least with reading, one can quickly skim through the material to find things that one might find interesting.