Lucifer and the angels were spiritual, not physical beings. They descended into 'veils of matter' (Origen). The fall led to physical existence.

Press two north poles of two magnets together. You will feel (close your eyes) something solid between the magnets. Solidity is only energy fields pushing/pulling each other.

The fall of creation happened before the physical universe was created. Life in the fallen universe is imperfect because perfection is spiritual, not physical. Perfection is life made free of evil.

Except extraterrestrials visiting earth wouldn't be a miracle. There's no violation of a law of nature. Why should we prima facie think alien visitation is a low probability event? — RogueAI

Hynek suggested they get here via the Astral Plane - what some call extra dimensions or, more traditionally, the spiritual world. Many of the reported sightings suggest they are spirits but many also suggest they are biological beings. Perhaps they are both.

The main requirement would be that the humanoid form is optimal.

I agree with all your points. The genetic stuff is a complete red flag. Why should alien life have 70% genetic similarity to life on earth? Seems implausible. — flannel jesus

Someone once said the humanoid form is universal. I think it was Orfeo Angelucci.

Some children are bad as soon as they learn how to express badness in a human context. Likewise with some good children. When consciousness loves something beyond the self it becomes light. Inward consciousness, that loves itself only, becomes darkness. Evil is synonymous with ego. Goodness is synonymous with love of something beyond the self.

Be careful not to confuse 'nurtured' with merely learning to express what is already inherent.

Well you can call it the source of all that is, if you want to avoid the religious. Personally I think the emergence of existence into being (life) is an intelligent evolution.

See my last answer.

It seems to me that (ontological) space has the potential for any number of dimensions. Physical matter can manifest 4 dimensions. I suspect that dimensions are an emergent property of matter. 4 dimensions is the limit that matter can manifest. If matter evaporates back into energy the 4 dimensional spacetime would evaporate and we would be in a quantum universe of X dimensions.

In the 'beginning' existence and God are the same thing. Existence is not a verb, it is a noun. God becomes/creates. Contingent creation is a property of existence. Imagine a lump of bronze representing existence; it is. The bronze can be shaped into a horse, an eagle etc. 'Horse' and 'eagle' are properties.
The verb for God is 'becoming' ie. evolving properties.
More than one apple? There is existence and it can have many apples as properties. Pantheism? No. Existence is eternal. It becomes creation.

Physical space is an emergent property of matter. It is a physical object just like a table or a chair. Physical spacetime has an extra dimension, time. If the physical matter in the universe evaporates back to pure energy, physical spacetime disappears and we are left with the spacetime of energy. We would no longer have a 4D space. We would have something more exotic. Scientists speculate that quantum spacetime has 11 dimensions.

But I'm not talking about imaginary existences.

When we ask 'where' a particle is we must specify which spacetime we are talking about, quantum or physical spacetime. Since particles don't exist in physical spacetime and we can't map quantum spacetime, we don't know where the particle is.
We can only detect trace effects* that the particle leaves on physical spacetime.
This is why Bohr said it is meaningless to ask where a particle was prior to detection because it has no location in 4D spacetime. 'Detection' is when a particle leaves a trace effect in physical spacetime.

*eg a spot on a photographic plate.

Do you understand what existence is? What a positive existence, as opposed to nothingness, means? If you don't you will not understand what I'm saying.
Assume X has the property 'existence'.
Now ask; does X exist distinct from its property 'existence'?

Two answers:
1. X does not exist. Therefore it cannot have properties, let alone 'existence'.
2. X exists. This makes existence as a property superfluous, since X exists anyway, whence X is existence.

This proves existence cannot be a property.

Existence is not a property of God. Existence IS God. All contingent things are properties of existence. Existence is what is from the beginning. It always is. Creation is when existence/God acquires properties.

Generally speaking 'space' is used in two senses; geometric space and ontological space. In physics there are two geometric spaces, the quantum spacetime of energy and the ordinary spacetime of material objects. Since these two geometries are different the universe consists of two spacetimes, two universes. Particles live in quantum spacetime and large objects live in physical spacetime. This is why location is so ambiguous in physics; where is a particle? It is nowhere if by 'where' we mean a location in 4D spacetime. It is elsewhere, in quantum spacetime.
In an ontological sense both spacetimes are 'here' in ontological space but being distinct geometries they are distinct universes.
The geometry of a space is determined by the objects that inhabit that space. Two different geometries can exist in the same ontological space.

The difference is merely semantic. Experience is knowledge.

Such as??? :chin:

(Please, no equivocating uses of "knowing". Thanks) — 180 Proof

There is abstract, intellectual knowledge. There is carnal knowledge. Eat an apple; you know what an apple tastes like. There is consciousness, there is art, music...many ways of knowing and many facets of reality to know.

An ode to blissful ignorance? — 180 Proof

There are different kinds of knowing. In one way I don't know but in another, I believe I do.

What do know of our nature and good laws? — Athena

One of the problems with modern thinking is that to 'know' usually means abstract, intellectual knowledge as if that is the only kind of knowledge. Spiritually, our knowledge is largely through experience and intuition. Our intellect tries to formulate this understanding in abstract terms, but not very well. So I don't "know" what we know, but it doesn't matter.

George Boole is your man . Computation is an analogue of logic.

Existence. All created things are properties of existence.

We are properties of it and perceive other properties/creations.

I agree. 'Nothing' is no (created) - thing, which can be a positive existence.

... and because "nothing" causes it to be. — 180 Proof

If nothingness has a power to cause anything, it is not nothingness. Nothingness is not even there. 'It' is not even an it; 'it' is entirely absent.

I'm not trying to prove anything, just provide food for thought.

Mind is necessary for anything to evolve beyond a primitive level of complexity. Thought comes before all else that is created. Thought is more real than matter.

I cover this same ground on my TPF profile but conclude everything is self-organizing, evolving, dissipating and not "created". — 180 Proof

i. "Why is there anything at all?" Because
(A) 'absence of any possibility of anything at all' – nothing-ness – is impossible.
(B) the only ultimate why-answer that does not beg the question is There Is No Ultimate Why-Question.

There is something because there is nothing to prevent it???

ii. existence in its entirety is the ultimate, unbounded brute fact; therefore, every existent (facts events things persons) is necessarily contingent.

Existence/God contains all possibilities. The real is what has been made real from this potential of possibilities.

iii. the real (e.g. existence) encompasses reasoning (e.g. naturalism); therefore, reasoning cannot encompass (i.e. causally explain) the real.

The power of reason in our minds is God. All mind is ultimately God's Mind.

To argue there is an entity without form or attribute, but who has the power to create, is to define a non-physical, propertyless powerful creator.

How isn't this theism? — Hanover

Well, it is theism. Does existence/God have attributes even before creation comes into being? I don't know.

EnPassant's description suggests acosmism even more than theism. — 180 Proof

Yes, properties of existence (contingent/created things) inherit their existence from existence/God. They are made out of existence.

There is something rather than nothingness. This eternal something is existence. Either we have something or nothingness. Clearly there is something there. But the things we see are, for the most part, temporal. They have been created. What was there before all created/contingent things? There was existence. This eternal something, from which all things came, is eternal and IS existence.

It is really just semantic. I hope my use of the word existence is clear. As for quantum fluctuations; nothingness is profoundly 'empty'. It is the pink elephant that is NOT standing on your kitchen table. It is utterly absent. There cannot be fluctuations in something that is not there. Nothingness is not even an 'it' because if it was 'it' would be something.

Clearly existence (the uncreated void) contains possibilities since existence became many things: tables, chairs, elephants, stars, planets...
These things exist because they are properties of existence. A horse made of silver IS the silver that makes it. Created things exist because they are made from existence. All this is possible.

My argument is that if God exists, existence is God. Now this brings up the question; How/Why did existence become being/life/consciousness/creativity? Does this seem like an intelligent process?

This is an example of how being and existence can be confused. I see existence as a primordial, eternal, positive. An analogy is a lump of lead representing existence; it is simply there. The lead can be reformed into the shape of a horse or an eagle; it becomes. The lead is existence, the horse is being, it is what is created.

Is existence something that has properties? It is clear that things that exist have properties, but existence is not something that exists. — Fooloso4

Existence, as I am using the term, is not a verb nor is it a property. It is the eternal positive, as opposed to nothingness, that is. It is what is there before 'creation'. See below-

In philosophical theology, this is the rationale behind for example Paul Tililch's insistence that God does not exist - that while God is, God is not 'an existent' which reduces God to a being, one being among others. — Wayfarer

Different philosophers use 'being' and 'existence' interchangably which is woefully confusing. I see existence as the eternal positive. I see being as developed existence: something that is closer to life and activity, consciousness.

Assume X has the property 'existence'. In this respect we see X and existence as distinct entities. Now ask 'Does X exist?

1. X exists. This makes existence as a property of X superfluous whence X is existence.

2. X does not exist. It is incoherent to say as non existent X has properties. Whence existence has properties but is not a property of anything.

God and nature are not identical. Temporal Nature is a property of God. God/existence becomes.

1. If there is no empirical evidence for something, then belief in that something is based on faith and personal beliefs, not fact. — Thund3r

There is no problem with evidence. The entire universe is evidence. The question is; evidence for what? That is, it is our interpretation of the evidence that matters, not the existence of evidence.

3. Therefore, the existence of a deity is based on faith and personal beliefs, not fact. (1,2 MP) — Thund3r

It is often based on personal experience too.

quantum fluctuations can produce matter and energy out of nothingness and could have led to the creation of the universe. Of course, one could ask how those initial “quantum laws” were created and end up in a similar causal regression as a theist trying to explain who created their deity. The difference between them, though, seems to be that theist is making positive claims that they know what’s at the end of that regression – and that seems problematic. It seems like the atheist is in a better situation here. — Thund3r

What matters is the fact that there is existence. Existence is not a property of things. Things are properties of existence. Existence is not a property of God. Existence is God. Existence is that which is. All contingent/created things are properties of existence and are made out of existence.

I'm a follower of an excellent chess channel on Youtube, hosted by an ebullient Serb, Agadmator. — Wayfarer

Yes, I have looked at some of his videos. V. good.

We might combine these two questions, to ask what does it mean to say that potential is real. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think chess is a good analogy. Once the concept of chess exists all possible chess games are given potential. Once a chess game is played (even in one's mind) that chess game becomes real.