First of all, nobody has even proven aliens exists with direct data. This is not to say they do not follow logically from inference. But still there is no hard data. This is modern mythology, which is a natural aspect of the human mind. This is more PC correct than God. People wish to believe in something bigger than themselves but not too big or it is not fair.
"Insufficient evidence" is an arbitrary term. What do you consider to be insufficient? This is just a diversion. Okay, we get into the faith/works bit. The point is that faith either follows or leads works. Take your pick but faith is still key. This is obvious as one couldn't believe without making a leap of faith. If you have scientific evidence otherwise, then please present it. How about if you answer my question from the op first? Or are you avoiding that and trying to divert the discussion? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I've been trying to make sense of the whole thing for almost 30 years and I still don't know what to think.
Sorry, but the evidence says otherwise. http://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/Americans-Continue-Believe-God.aspx http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/12/beliefs-in-god-ufos-prevail/ And note that asking if UFOs are real, is a silly poll. Of course "UFOs" are real. The question is, "Does ET fly any of them?". Unidentified doesn't automatically mean "alien". So if one asked if ET is visiting, the results for the second poll would probably go down.
On a related note, this comedian chimes in with questions about the claim that God talks to Presidential candidates. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=2M5IeYt-JxA#t=757s Now, replace "God" with "ET", and what would the media coverage look like? So in fact this illogical bias extends well into the mainstream media. This isn't just about believers. So as a corrollary question to atheists, do you find belief in God more acceptable than beliefs in visiting ETs, in matters such as Presidential elections? If so, why?
In a Universe governed by laws, sufficiency of evidence cannot be arbitrary. If you want to insist on "faith is key," then you need to also explain what you mean by "faith." I see no reason to believe this. In fact, I think it would require a leap of faith to believe that "one couldn't believe without making a leap of faith." I am trying to get you to explicitly state some things that you are taking for granted.
In fact, I'll go one step further and provide an argument for atheists to work with. Being that I was raised with religion and have attended many churches, I know pretty much what to expect from the classical christian perspective. The reason even atheists accept beliefs in God is that deep down they know the truth of his presense. This goes back to Adstar's point about the spirit, and that sensing the presense of God is more than just a faith argument. Wynn, frankly, I think you're a troll. You refuse to answer the op, so you and I are done.
Just dropping in.. we have a basis for how or why aliens may exist. We know that almost certainly, aliens exist. UFOlogy is crap, astrobiology is not. Theology and religion, unfortunately, does not follow that correlation.
A) How do people justify this logic; belief in God while claiming belief in visiting ETs is silly? B) Then start out by what you understand by "God" and "ET". A) God has been domesticated. And B) ET hasn't—or couldn't conceivably be even if ET were proven to be authentic. But philosophy has refuted the concept of God -quite audaciously- without needing to sneer at Him first—or even afterwards; whilst science negates the idea of visiting ETs effectively by sneering from the outset, thereby terminating any discussion or conjecture at its roots.
Hey, Ivan Seeking, Nice lively little chat you've got going here. It's an old idea but you cast it in a nice refreshing coat of paint. I like your casual reference to the ETs having to overcome light speed, since that is the obvious prerequisite from our less-than-100-yr-lifespan point of view. A nasty little detail that the ET-philes never seem to grasp. So it nails that issue squarely on the head. What is amazingly similar about the CRAZY NUTTY and sometimes FREAKING PSYCHO ideation of ETs -and- the similarly COMPLETELY INSANE idea of this God of mythical proportions is: they arise completely out of stories we heard (generally in our youth when we were impressionable). Who even used the word "flying saucer" until it came up in some early science fiction? Let's see: there was Isaac Asimov and his Foundation series (all human knowledge is condensed into a sacred library, then hidden away on a secret planet where none of the PSYCHOS will come after it and burn the books). And of course you had Orson Wells and his magical mystery tour when "1100 kilo cycles on your radio dial" (or some such station) was the rage of the day, you know, to get Ma and Pa Kettle a little worked up after spending the day watching Old Blue yawn and scratch his ear. So those ideas were entirely planted in the public psyche by entertainers, nothing more, and yet people still gobble this stuff up like it's ambrosia from the PSYCHO-sphere. Then, as I said, the Thumpers, I mean the get-down-and-pound-that-leather-covered-Good-Book crowd... what did they do when Ma 'n Pa were warming up by the heaters in the radio set? Maybe a nice coloring book scene of this poor dude being tortured and mutilated, wow, don't let the kids watch dirty movies of Fred and Ginger when they could be in the world of their coloring book reliving the most HEINOUS SADO MASOCHISTIC story ever told. That and all the little lambs, and gentle stable animals that will be led to their SLAUGHTER or IMMOLATION in adjoining stories of this wonderful God who keeps involving people in the MURDER OF THEIR CHILDREN, not to mention He Himself taking a personal role in turning whole communities into PILLARS OF SALT and creating other incentives toward right thinking, by preparing a LAKE OF FIRE TO BE CAST INTO WITH A BRIMSTONE AROUND YOUR NECK. I think the worst of aliens were less scary, although monster movies like the Mummy and Frankenstein seemed to evoke a lot of ideas about RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD, still, the prospects for quality of life seem to have been rendered in a perhaps startling realism for a kid who may have until then believed heaven was rendered something like CANDYLAND. By the way, my use of caps is not to annoy the readers, but to effectuate the incantations I am making with each, so as to ward off the ETs who might otherwise track me down by my IP addr and come at me for my neural tissue. All seriousness aside. It's the same, isn't it? Tell a story, and if it's scary enough, it just never goes away. Amen, bro. Perfect call.
Statements like this are generally based in faith and ignorance. What the US governement has said is UFOs pose no known risk to our defense, so it got out of the business. How can ufology be tested, and claims of God, not? Please explain how one claim is falsifiable, and the other is not.
Alright, I don't want to make this about UFOs in particular, but in order to gain some perspecttive, you folks should learn a few facts before forming opinions. Actually, that would be Kenneth Arnold, in 1947. The term was actually coined somewhat inadvertantly by the press. The Air Force later produced the designation UFO - so named by Capt Ruppelt, who ran Project Bluebook for the Air Force, specifically. Where did Stephen Spielberg get some of his ideas for Close Encounters of the Third Kind? He contracted Allen Hynek, who was the consulting Prof, of Astronomy, from Northwestern, to the Air Forces investigation into UFOs. In fact the police chase scene was based on real events [according to I think three police departments and about five cruisers]. Please don't treat the subject like you can just make up facts. This stuff is all elementary. And this isn't religion!
You use the term "based on real events" loosely. I have no doubt some yokels saw some lights and didn't know what to make of it, but it wasn't an alien craft they were chasing.
Yeah I wasn't specifically worried about the term flying saucer. I was addressing the cultural aspect, that notions of alien visitors, popularized by folks like the early sci fi writers (before we had an Air Force) planted this idea into the public psyche. You are certainly right, the military added a sense of urgency to the fear of aliens, as we were now also subject to the alien threat of the USSR, so no doubt this is why alien movies were so popular in the early Cold War era. Asimov may not have be THE first, but he was certainly one of the very first Sci Fi writers to capture the public attention. He and Orson Wells would seem to have given a few Bible publishers a run for their money. In case you didn't notice, I was firmly assenting with your OP. My point that I put forward in support, is that both the notions of God and ET are entirely based on lore. In both cases there is a primordial fear of a threat, against the entire race of humans, by God or an ET. And here I would even add that Revelations vaguely resembles an alien invasion.
I may have mistakenly assumed you were taking comment on the silliness of believing in God or ETs. For what it's worth, I didn't snap to your religious view until now. Now I'm pondering the above statement you made. If an atheist knows "deep down" "the truth of his presence", then we don't refer to that person as an atheist. So what gives? I presume you understand that deep down, atheists are resolute that there is no God. So how do you come up with your reframing of their position? Even agnostics, who would allow for the possibility of a God, are not experiencing any "deep down" ideation about "the truth of his presence". As for your prior statement - 'this is not about religion' - I'm not sure what you mean. The thread area you opened under is 'Religion'.
It really would depend on what kind of Believer (UFO kooks get the big "B", right?) and believer (little "B") we're talking about. Casual UFO believers probably haven't given the idea much thought, but assume there must be something to all the hoopla. This is comparable to casual, non-churchgoing believers. I think both are benign, and I doubt either's decision-making would be impacted by their belief. However, if we're talking about ultra-pious religious wingnut--ala Sarah Palin or Rick Santorum--or a whackadoo "There are UFOs being reverse-engineered at Area 51 as we speak" conspiracy nut, then we're not talking about someone who would ever get my vote. I'm not sure there's really a preference here, Ivan, because both are potentially dangerous in very different ways. The religious nutbag would doubtless try to set society back 60 years by eroding the role of women in the military and erasing all progress gays have made in the fight for equality, as well as sanctioning religious indoctrination in our public schools (ala the Alabama Insert and the new Indiana law allowing Creationism taught in flippin' biology class). Of course I'd also be worried about their stance on foreign policy, and fear for a similar event such as the one that lead to George W. Bush publicly stroking Vladimir Putin because he wore a crucifix around his neck. With the Believer, I'd be concerned about their capacity to make rational decisions. The brand of gullible it takes to be a Believer in visiting UFOs is that of your ardent conspiracy theorist (in fact, I can't recall meeting even on Believer who wasn't also a believer in some other conspiracy, be it the Truth movement or some similar nonsense), and I'm not sure that kind of person could lead effectively. So while the concerns are different, it amounts to the same thing: I'd want neither in office. If I encountered a situation in which those were my only two choices, I'd have to abstain from voting.
Of course they dont. Most, if not all, of them dont we know about us. They both are. By point was- Ufology = Crap. Theology = crap. Astrobiology = not crap. But, religion = crap too. Hence I said that the correlation doesn't apply, the point being that God is much more incredulous than ETs.
Aliens ARE a big point of discussion in science. A fair part of astrobiology does that. The reason there is not much discussion is because we have no data on ETs. Visiting ETs would not be sneered upon had their spacecrapts been large enough to travel the distances they must have and therefore detected many hundred million miles out to space. Then, it is not stupid to say aliens came. Of course, alien tech might be able to circumnavigate this, but then the UFOlogist must give evidence that this has happened. Then and only then does the claim become respectably reasonable. Until then, anyone who isn't intrested in just speculation would indeed terminate the discussion.
@aaqucnaona -- As I like to say, anything which can be asserted without evidence can be just as easily dismissed without evidence(thank you Hitchens, you will be missed).
