Is there life on Mars?

I love all the astronomical stuff, I find the science behind it fascinating and which leads to an amazing amount of other things including for me at least, why there is no such thing as a God and therefore why religious beliefs of any type are just man made to control the masses.

Anyway today the Americans landed a space probe on Mars, our nearest planet.

Maybe such things aren't your cup of tea but please spend just a few moments watching this short video explaining just how brilliant people have been to design, build and deliver the probe just to land on Mars - never mind any of the complicated tasks it will be carrying out now it is there.

Really clever stuff as I'm sure you will agree.

Sluffy, 

I love all the astronomical stuff, I find the science behind it fascinating and which leads to an amazing amount of other things including for me at least, why there is no such thing as a God and therefore why religious beliefs of any type are just man made to control the masses.


Some would argue that it was a god that put all the planetary elements together. Also, religion was in existence a long long time before it became a form of man management and bullying. 
having said that, being a child brought up on the moon landings etc, i am also fascinated with the whole space story. I've been to Canaveral (as was) a couple of times, and absolutely loved it.

gloswhite wrote:Sluffy, 

I love all the astronomical stuff, I find the science behind it fascinating and which leads to an amazing amount of other things including for me at least, why there is no such thing as a God and therefore why religious beliefs of any type are just man made to control the masses.


[size=12]Some would argue that it was a god that put all the planetary elements together.

And who put god together?

I'm loving "MARS" on National Geographic about the first human settlers on the planet, it puts the absolutely awful "The First" (another Mars thriller) on Channel 4 to shame.

Did you know that if a baby was conceived and born on Mars it would have great difficulty living on Earth?

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Did you know that if a baby was conceived and born on Mars it would have great difficulty living on Earth?

 It wouldn't be allowed to come here post brexit anyway, bloody martians coming in and stealing our shit jobs.

A martian can wash twice as many bed pans as you.

I'll have you know i'm the fastest bed pan washer in the North West. I've won awards and everything. I'm known as the King of shit shifting in NHS circles.

Norpig wrote:I'll have you know i'm the fastest bed pan washer in the North West. I've won awards and everything. I'm known as the King of shit shifting in NHS circles.

Well at least it’s an honest job unlike Nat where she lies on her back all day long for £40 for 40mins!

I lived on Mars for three weeks in the sixties. I went down a storm with the locals.

They'd never seen anyone with only two eyes.

Sadly, my teleportation machine was destroyed in 1970, after a suspicious chip pan fire.

gloswhite wrote:Sluffy, 

I love all the astronomical stuff, I find the science behind it fascinating and which leads to an amazing amount of other things including for me at least, why there is no such thing as a God and therefore why religious beliefs of any type are just man made to control the masses.


Some would argue that it was a god that put all the planetary elements together. Also, religion was in existence a long long time before it became a form of man management and bullying. 
having said that, being a child brought up on the moon landings etc, i am also fascinated with the whole space story. I've been to Canaveral (as was) a couple of times, and absolutely loved it.

Well how do we define 'God', if we agree say that he is the sole creator of the universe and everything in it, and lives and looks over everything within it ever since and is and always has been omnipresence (everywhere at once) - then he (she) is at least 13.8 billion years old, looks over at least over a hundred billion stars in our galaxy (of which our Sun is just one) but also at least over a hundred billion 'known' galaxies, each of which containing at least over a hundred billion stars in each one of them!

If that isn't enough from what we know at the moment it is estimated that the majority of those billion, billion, billion stars will have multiple planets orbiting them, where an unknown number of them will have unquestionably have some form of life on them - and as such would have 'our' God watching over each and everyone of them at the same time he's doing that for us on planet Earth.

Not only that the area he has to be ever present in, is at least 46 billion light years away in any direction from Earth (light travels at roughly 186,000 miles per second, which is about 671,000,000 miles per hour) so I'll let you do the maths to calculate how far that amounts to in a light year, then multiply it up by 46 billion to calculate how far in just one single direction that is, then use that as the radius - or double it to find the diameter - to calculate the area of the sphere centred on the Earth to which this supreme being is omnipresent in.

If that isn't enough, we are only basing that area upon what we can see based on our current technology - our 'observable' universe - it is without question vastly larger than what we are able to see - maybe even is infinite.

So even if God really did exist, then would he/she be really bother themselves with everything and everything that is happening (and has happened) since the beginning of time as we know it in and area so big it is beyond comprehension?  Do we really think they are watching over each and every living thing everywhere and which ever existed, weighing them up over their entire lifetimes (all at once and across everywhere at once remember) to judge tham if they go to Heaven or Hell?

Somehow I doubt it.

So does God exist - or is it simply some man made concept created right here on our little planet?

I know what I think.

Sluffy wrote:

gloswhite wrote:Sluffy, 

I love all the astronomical stuff, I find the science behind it fascinating and which leads to an amazing amount of other things including for me at least, why there is no such thing as a God and therefore why religious beliefs of any type are just man made to control the masses.


Some would argue that it was a god that put all the planetary elements together. Also, religion was in existence a long long time before it became a form of man management and bullying. 
having said that, being a child brought up on the moon landings etc, i am also fascinated with the whole space story. I've been to Canaveral (as was) a couple of times, and absolutely loved it.

I know what I think.

Bloody hell Sluffy, a fine piece of research here. I believe there is something, but what it is, I don't know. Some put the name 'God' on it, but I haven't done that.

gloswhite wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

gloswhite wrote:Sluffy, 

I love all the astronomical stuff, I find the science behind it fascinating and which leads to an amazing amount of other things including for me at least, why there is no such thing as a God and therefore why religious beliefs of any type are just man made to control the masses.


Some would argue that it was a god that put all the planetary elements together. Also, religion was in existence a long long time before it became a form of man management and bullying. 
having said that, being a child brought up on the moon landings etc, i am also fascinated with the whole space story. I've been to Canaveral (as was) a couple of times, and absolutely loved it.

I know what I think.

Bloody hell Sluffy, a fine piece of research here. I believe there is something, but what it is, I don't know. Some put the name 'God' on it, but I haven't done that.

People are free to believe what they want but for me it is simply ridiculous to think that some being/spirit/entity has watched over us (and everything else) in the unimaginably vast universe, since the beginning of time.

I mean even if something that could do that existed, why would they waste their time doing so - to what end?

Do people really believe that this divine spirit we label God created the universe, then watched over it for the best part of 14 billion years, just to answer someone's prayer that they'll win the lotto this week, or Parkinson will be sacked - or both!

Seems more like a punishment to me if God really existed, having to spend an eternity waiting for an intelligent species to develop then watch their feeble attempts to fail to even set foot on their next nearest planet after all this time and watching them wreck the planet they are on just for their own greed and self-enrichment (of the few!).

I think if I had been God I would have found something better to do with my time long before now.

Sluffy wrote:People are free to believe what they want but for me it is simply ridiculous to think that some being/spirit/entity has watched over us (and everything else) in the unimaginably vast universe, since the beginning of time.

I mean even if something that could do that existed, why would they waste their time doing so - to what end?

Do people really believe that this divine spirit we label God created the universe, then watched over it for the best part of 14 billion years, just to answer someone's prayer that they'll win the lotto this week, or Parkinson will be sacked - or both!

Seems more like a punishment to me if God really existed, having to spend an eternity waiting for an intelligent species to develop then watch their feeble attempts to fail to even set foot on their next nearest planet after all this time and watching them wreck the planet they are on just for their own greed and self-enrichment (of the few!).

I think if I had been God I would have found something better to do with my time long before now.

Good luck getting through the Pearly Gates.

Hope you don't trip into a parallel universe Sluffy, where all these things might be happening, as we speak 

I've been enthralled by the landing of Perseverance on Mars, isn't it just fantastic!

This picture they've released today of the rover about to land on the surface of Mars is incredible. And the promise of a live video of the landing (with sound!) to come in the next few hours/days.

Agreed Natasha, another brilliant achievement by mankind.

If we could just forget trying to kill each other and fucking up the planet, we'd be a brilliant species.

Maybe we will learn to go forward one day rather than continue to shoot ourselves in the foot as we do now.

Here's hoping anyway.

There's more chance of finding intelligent life on Mars than there's been on the Bolton News these last twenty years. So where's all the intelligentsia gone then?

And to think not one but three probes were sent. That's unbelievable.

And to think not one but three probes were sent. That's unbelievable.