ManTimeForgot
Temporally Challenged
Here is secular America's "Bible".
Ask a Question
Do Background Research
Construct a Hypothesis
Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
Communicate Your Results
One thing about this "Bible" is that it makes us feel very safe. We only have to believe in what we can taste, touch, smell, etc. The problem is our ears can only detect soundwaves within 20 Hz to 15 000 Hz. Our eyes can only detect wavelength of 380750 nanometers. Even scenthounds can detect smell one- to ten-million times more acutely than a human. Would it be so hard for the big guy to remain undetected from senses such as these?
Certainly, our sensory faculties are almost certainly primitive on a cosmic scale. I mean we lack the capability of sensing alternate universes or the emission of virtual photons. The problem with this argument is that it stems from ignorance. Even if we had telepathy, sensitivity to virtual particles, could see into the temporal dimension, and could look into alternate realities we would still be left with the question of: "What if the senses we have is not enough to find X?"
Just because we might be limited in some way is no reason to suppose specific existence of something outside our ability to detect. Otherwise the question might as well read: "Is it any surprise we can't detect "invisible plushy unicorns" with our obviously inferior sensory faculties?"
Is it likely that there are things outside our ability to detect currently? The answer to that is that the probability that there things beyond our ability to currently detect is so high as to approach metaphysical certitude (99.9999999999999999%). But since we don't actually have any evidence of what those things might be the probability of any specific thing's existence outside of our ability to detect approaches metaphysical impossibility (.00000000000000001%).
Example: Take some random planet in the andromeda galaxy. Now lets assume that there is actually life on this planet. Now with these assumptions comes some evidence (we do know some things which are likely to be true about the andromeda galaxy; and life as we would recognize it has to have some features to it that would allow us to detect it). But for sake of argument let us say that we lacked any evidence at all (We knew nothing about the elemental composition of the galaxy and life didn't have any rules we knew about).
If we were to try to guess what "life" would look like on this planet, then the chances that one of us was right would approach zero. Life is a product of its environment. Planetary matter gets energy from its core and from the nearby star. What orbits do the planet(s) have? There are just so many influences that just about anything we could conceive of could possibly be right.
And that is precisely the problem. When anything is possible you know precisely nothing. Something is defined but what it is not, by what it cannot do. Why posit the existence of something that can do anything you say it can and is invisible in every way except when it wants to talk with "faithful" individuals?
MTF