On Saturday, September 15, 2018 at 7:38:33 PM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Sat, 15 Sep 2018 09:53:03 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

On Saturday, September 15, 2018 at 9:15:34 AM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Sat, 15 Sep 2018 06:11:53 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

No, it's rigorously defined. It means accepting as true that
which is not supported by evidence. In many cases (for instance
most religion) it means accepting as true that which is
contradicted by evidence.

Ignoring evidence is practiced in both religion AND science. As
P. Pilate said, "What is truth?"

No, it is NEVER ignored by science.

NEVER? You are sounding like an absolutist. :-)

Sure, by individual scientists, who are fallible and never operate
with perfect reason.

Sometimes by the whole scientific community. But you are right because
it tends to be self-correcting.

Never.

Are you saying it NEVER self-corrects? :-)

But by science itself? Never. Which is why science never fails to lead
us closer to truth (and in so doing, isolates more and more religious
dogma as objectively false).

And that's a good thing since "dogma" is a creation of man, not of God.

Of course, since there is no reason to believe in a god. It's an
absurd belief for anybody living in our times. A belief that removes a
person from credibility.

I've given an excellent reason why God must exist.
Consider 10^18 planets in the visible universe (never mind those in the
parts we cannot see), consider 1% of those being earth-like, consider
0.0001% of those having developed civilizations billions of years ago,
that still leaves 10^10 civilizations out there. All that is needed is
ONE of them to reach this point:

“There may be millions of inhabited worlds circling other suns, harboring
beings who to us would seem godlike, with civilizations and cultures
beyond our wildest dreams.” -- Arthur C. Clarke

You are betting on the VERY short end of tremendous odds.

And you yourself have expressed "faith-based thinking." You believe
(without evidence) that all alien civilizations destroy themselves
before they can become god-like. Remember? :-)

I don't "believe" this. I offer it as a plausible hypothesis to answer
the Fermi paradox, based on observation of human behavior. That's all..

And why would "human behavior apply to aliens?

It may not. But we can observe the things that allowed us to become a
technological species, including our tribalism, which is currently at
the core of our potential extinction, and recognize that this could be
characteristic of most species that follow our path. Again, a
hypothesis only needs to be plausible.

But it becomes irrelevant when a MUCH more plausible hypothesis is
available.

As this "ONE" advanced civilization developed a few billion years ago,
they would have reached technological, sociological and ethical levels
that would prevent them from destructively interfering with developing
civilizations, but would still be constrained to guide them on an upward
path. Why would they do it in the form of religion? As ersatz dad in
"Contact" said, "This is the way it's been done for billions of years."

In the same vein as you said, I don't necessarily believe this particular
scenario, but it IS plausible, and MUCH more plausible than believing
that there is No One out there.