How I lost my faith (x post with Atheists Agnostics)

[intaglio]

25. Now let me give you my answer that isn't

"It's midnight, I have to work and this person has made a really foolish comparison," reply.

Firstly
There are a multitude of graded positions about the concept of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

Secondly
Belief in a deity is not like being overweight; dependent upon a multitude of small differences in build, bone structure, metabolism and doctor; it is more like being pregnant -either you are or you are not. Do you believe in a deity? It is a yes or no answer although you can put in all sorts of caveats about either answer. You might be scared of your answer (I know I was). Your stance (if you are truly what you say) is "I don't believe but I can believe." I have pointed out elsewhere that is just a rational position and that even Dawkins says it is possible he might be wrong. This does not make Dawkins an agnostic but means there is an element of agnosticism about his atheism

Now examine your points one by one:

Why do you presume that deities require belief? The existence of a god or gods may or not be. If they are, then belief makes no difference.

Because if they do not require belief of us then they, or it, are not deities, just higher lifeforms that constructed our universe. If we constructed a world, even a little one on computers, would that make us gods? The answer there is no, it merely makes us competent humans, despite what people like the infamous internet troll Mabus believe. We would only become as gods to our creations if we required that their belief, without evidence, dictated our actions towards them.

Deities may not be hiding, but perhaps they have a laissez-faire attitude towards the whole thing.

The point above applies. If a deity has such a laissez-faire attitude then they are not deities and indeed they are, as far as we are concerned, not there.

Are we afraid to reveal ourselves to possible other intelligent life? If not, why would you presume that other intelligent life would be.

There is and has been a great deal of discussion on this subject in the scientific community. Essentially it boils down to "If a spacefaring creature is like us (humans) then we'd better be very, very quiet and hide because look what we did to less developed cultures amongst our own species." The flip side of this coin is best shown by the oft ignored "Prime Directive" of Star Trek; less developed cultures are likely to take great harm from contact with more developed cultures, think cargo cults. Please do not take refuge in the petty statement that "God is not a culture," that is nit-picking.

Essentially you have ignored the false equivalency of your initial argument, which depends upon intelligent lifeforms being equivalent to gods and moved onto making assumptions about gods that might render them equivalent to non-godly, intelligent lifeforms.