Do you believe in life outside the earth?

Where's the proof?!
no one can simply enter a conversation, fold his arms and say, "where's the proof," and expect that there will ever be definite proof of anything--at least in science. Where's the proof of string theory or theory of electromagnetism or theory of relativity or theory of evolution? There are endless mathematics, fossil records, and radiophysics that make these phenemena more than mere conjectures and into theories. However, it's quite difficult to actually prove these phenomena, because even if the evidence points in favor of the validity of the theories, there are always the "what ifs."
There is abundant evidence that prove that life HAS existed outside of earth. Take, for example, the meteor taken from antarctica that found fossil evidence of martian bacteria. Obviously, in the past, there has been life outside of our world...why not now? Take Urey's famous experiment that set up a microcosm of earth from eons ago in a bunch of beakers, and subjected them to environmental conditions evident of early earth...it was eventually deduced that life could have formed on earth given its specific environmental conditions at the time. It's been proven that those exact conditions exist in other planets today. so, it's quite possible that life could exist apart from us at this moment in time.
of course, there are a lot of controversial "proofs" of strange alien/ufo sightings in the past, which is a bit far fetched in my opinion. There are some really craazy things out there.. crop circles and wave frequencies unreachable by mankind's current technology that seem to float around in space... some people take that to be evidence of life outside of earth. Who knows?
In controversial settings like this, you kind of have to have FAITH. faith about the evidence and faith in knowing that the evidence is sufficient.
all in all, faith, unexplained phenomena, and some scientific evidence does point to the great possibility that life exists outside of earth.

It's just silly to claim that there can't be aliens. There is a near-infinite universe out there, to think that we are the only things that can evolve out of the primordial goo is just ridiculous. Unless you don't believe in evolution, in which case, you're the alien.

As for Nessie and Bigfoot. I'm not all that impressed. They're stupid little tourist attractions, nothing more, really.

And as for the Flying Spaghetti Monster... It's a joke. It's a highly amusing joke, but still a joke on religions in general.

Flying spaghetti monster....wow, what kind of books did you read as a child??

The truth is....we really don't know. Now I'm pretty skeptical myself about extraterrestrial life, but I don't want to completely shut the door on the chance that in another galaxy, in another solar system, there may very well be life out there. We just don't have the means to look that far. But like I said, I'm pretty skeptical about the whole "E.T. phone home" dealio

Where is the proof that aliens do not exist?

I do not believe--although I must admit I did not read every post thoroughly--that anyone in this thread claimed aliens definitely exist. I certainly did not, and for anyone to do so would be without any kind of evidence.

"Many of you think that aliens exist without any creditable evidence at all, that's is really quite amazing! Well if we can all make bullshit claims like that then, shit, the flying spaghetti monster must be real."

I am sorry but I really don't think this analogy applies. We aren't talking about a complete fabrication here--we know for a fact that life can and does exist somewhere in the universe. It exists on this planet. We have no evidence, however, of a flying spaghetti monster. It is quite a different thing to randomly imagine a creature and attempt to prove its existence than to infer the possibility that because we know life exists in this spec of the universe it might be possible that exists somewhere in the rest of it.

I do not believe I need to quote myself from earlier to demonstrate the size of the universe--we all know this but it is being overlooked. It is not a leap of faith to believe in a strong possibility of life outside of this earth. Life developed here--what reason do we have to believe that it could not have happened in the sextillion other solar systems in the universe?

"Here's my take: Evolution takes billions of years, and I am sure "aliens" will sprout one day but they will not come to fruition in our life time, our era of existence."

Claims like this are made and we are told that we have no proof? Let me ask you this question--why do you assume that "aliens" must be intelligent life? Ok, evolution takes over a billion years, but the question asked in this thread is not of the existence of intelligence life...just plain life. Bacteria could exist on another planet somewhere and that would qualify. If you wish to believe that because there is no solid proof there is not simple BACTERIA on one of the sextillion (conservative estimate) other planets in the universe, by all means go ahead. I would argue that is a hell of a lot less likely than the alternative, though.

I believe that a force called God created us and the Earth. And I say, if God created this planet and its inhabitants, why can’t it be possible for God to have done the same thing in a different galaxy?

No, we do not have proof of the existence of aliens, and hey, maybe we are never intended to find them. Don’t we have pets and keep them separated? We put the lizard in its box and the gerbil in its cage. I just don’t see any reason for there not to be life elsewhere, regardless of the absence of ‘substantial evidence’ that other life exists.

It just seems probable that if it is possible for this planet’s inhabitants to subsist, then it sure can be possible for the same thing to happen elsewhere in the far reaches that comprise space.

I've been looking at all the posts and people are very hopeful and I suppose the title of this debate could inspire hope the with words in the context of "believe", however for debating purposes I'll ask the obvious question: Where's the proof?

Many of you think that aliens exist without any creditable evidence at all, that's is really quite amazing! Well if we can all make bullshit claims like that then, shit, the flying spaghetti monster must be real. Yes I get it, space is big perhaps infinitely big so our logic tends to shift to...other organisms existing?

Here's my take: Evolution takes billions of years, and I am sure "aliens" will sprout one day but they will not come to fruition in our life time, our era of existence. The other thing is, I am sure organisms lived before us as well but because space is so vast, we will never come to learn about their existence. Could I be wrong about that statement...sure, but it's what I believe.

Do aliens exist outside the earth? Not in our lifetime, I am sure mathematical probabilities will back me up. Prove me wrong, I dare you, show me the evidence.

I've always considered the likelihood that other forms of life would exist on a vastly different time or size scale than our own. For instance, look at a rock. Perhaps the lifespan of a human is one rock's microsecond. Even if they were alive we would never know it because the beat of a slow-moving object's heart would take centuries of human time to be accomplished.

Taking the converse of this, I suspect that on an atomic level intelligent life exists that we will never perceive because a microsecond of earth time is a lifetime to them.

I think it'd be pretty naive of us to consider earth born organisms to be the only ones in existence, or to even consider our definition of life to be the only one.

We need to search for life with an open mind, not just limiting the criteria for life to what makes "life as we know it" possible.

So yea, I think there's definitely life outside of the earth, but given the vastness of our universe it's highly unlikely we'll ever come into contact with any extraterrestrial beings.

LIfe outside the earth is highly likely given the size of the universe. But for the same reason we are not likely to get in contact with alien life except maybe in the form of very simple organisms within our solar system.
Nessie is extremely unlikely, because no lake has been seached as much as Loch Ness and nothing has been found. Bigfoot could be real but I strongly doubt it. If you look for undiscovered big animals, the tropicla rain forests or what is left of them are the most likely place.

NO, that's not what the drake equation says. besides, it's pretty outdated anyway... but it does not predict the possibility of life of earth to be slim to none.
regardless, frank drake is actually a proponent of the existence of life outside of earth.