Literature- extraterrestrial life debate

This is just a discussion question. I will attach the slides for the weeks lecture and several posts for you to choose from for a response. Its due this Sunday May 26th at 11:59pm est. Its the following; In this week's lecture, we discussed Leibniz's theodicy and his use of extraterrestrials for solving the problem of Evil. Can you connect Leibniz beliefs to some of the modern ideas about extraterrestrials? Post an original contribution of at least 200 words and then post a response to one of your classmate's original posts. Your response must be at least 100 words. Remember that posting a response of "This is very interesting" or "I like your answer" merits no mark at all. Discussion 3 - Jov Bournas by Jov Bournas - Wednesday, 22 May 2024, 12:51 PM Number of replies: 1 Gottfried Wilhem Leibniz was a very religious man who sought to answer the question many atheists or non-believers of God tend to ask even today, “if God exists, and he is benevolent, why does such evil exist on our planet?”. Leibniz’s theodicy for this question is that despite living in an imperfect world, among the millions of other habitable planets that God has created, we live in the best possibility. The fact that we live on a planet where God is praised as a being at all is a miracle, says Leibniz in his theodicy. Additionally, he believed that the suffering and pain we experience on Earth is simply another part of Mother Nature taking her course; it contributes to the entirety of existence. Nowadays, the general image of intelligent extraterrestrial life has been most commonly painted as advanced and detrimental to the human race, however, despite these dangers, a lot of modern sci-fi literature still includes the existence of God, a being not just overlooking the human race but the entirety of the universe. I believe this connects back to what Leibniz was saying about how although evil exists on our planet, it could manifest in a much worse form elsewhere in the universe, and therefore we should be grateful. That being said, Why Should Theology Take SETI Seriously, an article from 2018, touched on the suggestion from Douglas Vakoch that “theology may help us in thinking about the nature of extraterrestrial life or indeed our assumptions about the nature of ETI” (Wilkinson, p 432), so I believe that should we ever make contact with extraterrestrial life, it should be approached with caution. Since God can create evil on our planet, it can be created in a much worse form elsewhere in the universe and should be approached with caution. Wilkinson, David A. “Why Should Theology Take SETI Seriously?” Theology and Science 16.4 (2018): 427–438. Web. Discussion 3 - Valentina R by Valentina Rodriguez Bautista - Friday, 24 May 2024, 9:18 PM Number of replies: 0 In this week’s lecture, the topic of Leibniz’s theodicy was discussed. We delved into how this relates to de idea of extraterrestrials. Leibniz uses pluralism to confront the problem of evil. Being a religious person, he had complete faith that God is supreme and has power to create what we have today. Therefore he states, “this supreme wisdom, united to a goodness that is no less infinite, cannot but have chosen the best”. According to him, our world is the best of all universes because God created despite there being evil in this world. He states that we cannot know if the world would be better with certain instances of natural or physical evil. Leibniz illustrates that extraterrestrial might have a different idea or belief of what evil is compared to ours. To put it simply, Leibniz's theories and theodicy as a whole make the following main claims: that our world is the best, even with evil; that moral evil is distinct from natural evil because it arises from things that are beyond our control; that the concept of perfection and the existence of evil in the world lead to complexity. In modern society, the topic of extraterrestrial life is filled with theories and ideas. Today, we have people with wonderful critical thinking that provide well constructed arguments. As well as many movies about such theories and science. However, some people defend the idea that God is all powerful, rejecting the idea of extraterrestrials. This creates a complex crash between beliefs. Leibniz's viewpoint, however, provides a method for handling this complexity. He says that since God is a wise and good entity who is beyond human knowledge, it is possible that the presence of many worlds and species, including extraterrestrials, is a part of God's larger plan. At the end of the day, we do not completely know what is out there in the universe, therefore, it is important to be open minded about the different ideas and beliefs. References Leibniz’s theodicy (1706): The challenges of defending god. Leibniz’s Theodicy | Dr. Philip Irving Mitchell | Dallas Baptist University. (n.d.). https://www(dot)dbu(dot)edu/mitchell/worldview-literature/post-colonialism/theodicy/leibniztheodicy.html#:~:text=Leibniz%20answers%20the%20Socianian%20version,of%20natural%20or%20physical%20evil. Discussion 3- Kristen Realejo by Kristen Realejo - Tuesday, 21 May 2024, 11:30 PM Number of replies: 1 In this weeks lecture, we discussed Leibniz's theodicy and how it relates to the idea of extraterrestrials and how he uses pluralism as a means to question the problem of evil. Leibniz was a very religious man who believed that God knows holds power and knowledge, giving him the opportunity to create an ideal world that we know as our home today. As per Leibniz's theodicy, we understand that our "perfect" God plays alongside the existence of bad and evil. Despite evil being present in our world, Leibniz states that our world is "the best of all possible universes", even in the face of evil. Due to God being a praised being by Leibniz, theodicy also includes believing that God chose to create our world, meaning that it is phenomenal. In Leibniz's theodicy, he implies that extraterrestrials will presumptively have their own perspectives on what evil means to them compared to humans today. Leibniz's perspective of evil and belief that it must only exist on Earth is something that fascinated me, as he was so confident in this belief. To sum up Leibniz's theories and theodicy as a whole, the main arguments include that our world is the best including any evil, the difference between moral and natural evil is that moral evil comes with God's gift of free will and natural evil consists of things that we cannot control, and how the idea of perfection and how having some evil in the world creates complexity. When looking at modern day ideas about extraterrestrials and connecting them to Leibniz's beliefs, there are many similarities. Modern ideas related to extraterrestrials incorporate their different perspectives, such as their morals and ethics differing from our own. There are many discoveries that suggest intelligent life existing outside of the Earth. Extraterrestrials may be able to combat our ways of thinking and introduce solutions to the evil that we experience. Modern opinions often derive from the internet or in this case, religion. We tend to base our beliefs around extraterrestrials and intelligent life closely to religion based thinking. In this day and age, we tend to believe that the evil that occurs in our world will have its way of benefiting us and a chance for growth. Leibniz seemed to be ahead of his time, as his ideas closely resemble modern day perspectives. References Leibniz’s theodicy (1706): The challenges of defending god. Leibniz’s Theodicy | Dr. Philip Irving Mitchell | Dallas Baptist University. (n.d.). https://www(dot)dbu(dot)edu/mitchell/worldview-literature/post-colonialism/theodicy/leibniztheodicy.html#:~:text=Leibniz%20answers%20the%20Socianian%20version,of%20natural%20or%20physical%20evil.  Discussion 3 - Markisha Smith Flemming by Markisha Smith Flemming - Thursday, 23 May 2024, 7:43 PM Number of replies: 1 In this week's lecture, we discussed Leibniz's theodicy and his use of extraterrestrials for solving the problem of Evil. Leibniz was known for his theodicy, that the idea of our universe is the best of all possible universes despite the existence of evil. Leibniz argued that our planet is the worst of worlds but how are we so sure without discovering beyond what we see now. Quoted from Leibniz in lecture 3 he states: “it may be that all suns are peopled with blessed creatures” and our Earth “is almost lost in nothingness”… “since all the evils that may be raised in objection before us are in this near nothingness [our earth], haply it may be that all evils are almost nothingness in comparison with the good things which are in the universe.” In addition, Leibniz 'claim to the problem of evil is how can evil exist in a universe that is created by an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God. According to his claim, there is a possibility of what we don't know of evil and why we don’t know beyond our own knowledge of how good and evil may be preceded in another way other than God in our universe.