Musings on being fucked: Christian millennialism and the Fermi paradox

[tacit]

When all the world's armies are assembled in the valley that surrounds Mount Megiddo they will be staging a resistance front against the advancing armies of the Chinese. It will be the world's worst nightmare - nuclear holocaust at its worst. A full-out nuclear bombardment between the armies of the Antichrist's and the Kings of the East

Comments

[fin9901]

I know and have listened to quite a number of Christians, and not a one of them think that it's their responsibility to bring about the End Times. Post-millenialism has pretty much been marginalized if not disappeared in the last century (belief that the Church will bring about the New Millennium and that Jesus will return after it) among active belief,; the general consensus among evangelicals is that the Church will be raptured before the seven years of the Great Tribulation, at the end of which is the battle in the valley of Megiddo as described in the book of Revelation, commonly known as Armageddon

[fin9901]

There's no need to be insulting. The author seemed to be propagating a misconception and I provided another point of view.

[tacit]

What misconception? I'm not saying this kind of millennialist is common, if that's what you mean.

[peristaltor]

Very Greg Bear, though Brenden Nyhan did a good treatment of this theme as well.

There are more options for the Fermi Paradox, of course

[fallingupthesky]

1. Earth's radio-wave communications probably can't be detected even from Alpha Centauri because they disintegrate into faint static by the time they get only a few light-years out. If humans are nothing special, why would we expect aliens to use super-powered blaster waves which can be detected hundreds of light years away to communicate with each other? That would be the equivalent of using nukes to send smoke signals

[khall]

Yeah, my thinking is that FTL travel is a physics impossibility. And...the assumption that every civilization would use similar technology is not necessarily true. They could have a magnetism based power-grid (or something) rather than electricity. There could be something post-electricity too. That we haven't stumbled across yet. A more advanced way of doing it.

My thinking is...we need to use a satellite to communicate with distant planets. Like the telescopes we use. Also, it's possible alien life doesn't have eyes or ears or something we take for granted and so their use of technology is wildly different than ours.

K.