UFOs and Aliens - Do you want to Believe?

nikelbee,

I basically agree with your reply but...

It is possible to remove your own personal beliefs or desires from the task at hand.

I made that earlier statement because some people seem to be unable or unwilling to do as you suggest. (On many matters, not just about extraterrestrial life.) Just an observation for consideration.

Personally I do believe in extraterrestrial life, but for what I consider rational reasons. Specifically, I find it unlikely that life evolved exclusively on this planet given the vastness of the universe (in space and time). By the same reasoning, I find it unlikely that we are the only race to have advanced as far as we have and further. Anything beyond that, however, is speculation.

I am interested in knowing WHY people want to believe in extraterrestrial life.

The only thing I want to believe is the truth. That's equivalent to saying I don't want to believe, I want to know. (As other posters have said.)

That said, I would be more enthused about the existance of space-faring extraterrestrial life than I would be about its nonexistance. Ignoring other benefits for the moment, I would look forward to two possible effects on our psychology...

1. That we would be humbled by knowing that we are not alone. That we are not the sole creations of a divinity and therefore should not afford ourselves a special place in the universe above all other things.

2. That we would be inspired to achieve what they have, even if we don't know what that is.

When you look at what might laughingly be called the "intellectual history" of western thought (or the history of ideas, to put it another way), it is possible to discern a trend which for me is kind of heart warming: as time goes on, we get less and less anthropocentric.

First, God created Man in his own image, and we are the crowning glory of creation. At this point, the heavens revolve and the Earth stands still. The sun and all the planets revolve around the earth.

Then, after a GIGANTIC struggle, the heliocentric model emerges, though we are still the centre of the universe.

Then... it seems as if we're out on the edge of a galaxy and there are many, many other galaxies and stars. However, when it comes to life, WE ARE IT. There is NOTHING else because there is no PROOF of anything else. For some bizarre reason, it is regarded as logical to assume that, although one of our main assumptions is that the laws of nature obtain evenly throughout the universe, we are the only life within it. This contradiction goes unnoticed.

Then we have an inkling that we are not, to coin a phrase, alone. There are still many (of whom some may very well be paid debunkers) who claim that interstellar travel is impossible "because Einstein said so". The breathtaking arrogance behind this assumption, in view of the fact that Western science-as-we-know-it has been going on for rather less than two centuries, goes unnoticed.

Gradually the assumptions underlying this kind of logic are eroded and the idea that we are not alone in the universe becomes widespread. It would now be entirely ok to "believe" in aliens but for the fact that a very powerful cabal has decided that such beliefs are undesirable in the general population, and those who espouse it are routinely ridiculed. The phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" is bandied about as if it's actually sensible, rather than being sententious nonsense. The behaviour of the various visitors doesn't help.

A study - here I'm thinking of the utterly superb "UFOs and the National Security State vol1" by Richard M Dolen - of the way the US government has dealt with the phenomenon leads to the inevitable conclusion that they are hip-deep in something and pumping enormous effort into a combination of ridicule, disinformation and cover-up. How mucha and what is being covered up is open to dispute, but to me the conclusion that something is being covered up is unavoidable.

Therefore, the question of "belief" is not to do, necessarily, with the UFO phenomenon.

BUT FOR ONE THING...

One of the aspects of contact with aliens that strains the credulity of those people brainwashed by what we're smug enough to call a "scientific education" is the psychic element involved in these encounters. The world is definitely a stranger and more wonderful place than skeptics would have us believe... and the ACT of believing something has, I'm pretty certain, an effect on the world around us. It can be pretty minimal, or, if enough people believe something fervently enough, changes in the external environment can be wrought. Naturally this fact is something that powerful elite groups want to keep hidden from the hapless majority.

So nikelbee, coming back to your dream... it's about belief, rather than UFOs. From what you tell me, I suspect it may have to do with your religious upbringing... as you reject the trappings of conventional religion, you may still need a mast to which to nail your colours or a star to steer by. (Ohhhh... as I'm writing this, it's looking so trite... take it or leave it, it's just the ramblings of a senile fool...) Belief is important, faith is important, but the choice of WHAT to believe in is what marks us as spiritual as well as fleshly beings.

In a Taoist tradition, we have eight bodies or levels of existence. The first is the physical body. The second is the chi body. The third is the emotional, the fourth the intellectual, the fifth, the psychic, the sixth is the body of manifestation. Acting on the sixth level allows coincidences and synchronicities to occur and encourages them to happen along lines that we decree (consciously or unconsciously). This is why I say that beliefs are important. And it is something that you yourself intuitively grasp, I'm pretty certain. One way of framing this is to say, what is it I want to believe IN?

Hope this drivel helps ;D

Rich23

As usual your response is succinct and well thought out.

However – and excuse the brevity - I really wanted personal views on your own beliefs. Although you rightly nailed mine as being a happy (and sometimes not so happy) struggle between needing to believe and a more sceptical, doubting Thomas tendency.

The dream was a perfect illustration of that – but what a powerful surge of emotions to enable me to do away with all logic and rationale! Unfortunately once awake again I reverted back to my cautious self. I feel however that an experience like that (even if it was in dream form) cannot be forgotten.

I wanted to hear more about whether or not your intellect gets in the way of your beliefs, if you feel this is a strictly faith issue or if you have found a happy medium between the two.

Thanks again for the great response.

I guess I'm a natural agnostic.

I have also learned from Illuminatus! (how are you getting on with that, btw?) that it can be really good to try and hold more than one mental model of something in your head.

I started out thinking UFOs were definitely spacecraft.

In the seventies, I read a lot of John A Keel and Jacques Vallee and got into the idea that there's a psychic component, and became unsure as to what they were.

Of late, I've moved back to an extraterrestrial hypothesis but modified to include psychic components.

I tend to choose things to believe in on a rational basis, or at least to try to do so: and the things I choose to believe are not the kind of thing that is open to rational argument. For example, I try to believe that the world is a good place and that God/the Universe/whatever loves and supports me. I do this in order to try and activate that sixth level Taoist body in a helpful rather than destructive way, and because it's emotionally more helpful. I think that the universe is kind of reflexive and if you have negative beliefs the universe will mirror those to you. This is another way to express that stuff about the sixth body, in a sense.

There are opinions/beliefs that I have that run counter to the prevailing reality - my acceptance of the reality of chi, for example - but I have come to these opinions through specific experiences that have forced me to discard the orthodox view of the world as it fails to handle sense-data that I know not to be illusory.

I am, for myself, suspicious of the kinds of experience you describe. However, for other people, they can be crucial in the process of that person forming opinions/beliefs about their own life, and I am not suspicious of them in other people.

I used to be rather down on the fundamentalist Christian thing. Then I worked with a guy who was born-again. He was actually kind of messed up, but we had a really good talk at one point and I realised that his beliefs were exactly right for him at that point in his life in view of everything he had experienced up to then. This, I think, is why Taoists tend not to proselytise, and probably why Taoism has kept going for around 4000 years. They leave all the pious, prescriptive stuff to Confucianism and Buddhism, basically.

There's another quotation that I can only half-remember that informs my thinking on belief... from Aleister Crowley, as relayed by Robert Anton Wilson in one of his books. It goes something like, "I slept with the beauteous virgin Belief, and woke with a wizened whore: I slept with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning." I don't necessarily endorse the metaphor, but I think it gets something across...

Do I beleive in UFO's though some would say otherwise I do from my own experiences. As for this whole abduction ET visitation thing or even further the conspiracy theories I think not. I however know with about 98% certainty that ET life has to exist and it is only a matter of time before we find a class E planet like our own. Or some other type of planet that contains life forms beyond our wildest dreams in many respects. There is proof of life in outerspace that many people overlook and that is our own planet. If our planet exists and we have found 233 or more extrasolar planets around distant stars. I think that once we begin to explore our universe we will encounter many lifeforms however I could see most being primative or non-sentient as we are.

There is however no proof that ET has or ever has come to earth besides a few obscure refrences and heresay. Even UFO's are not proof because we cannot tell who or what the pilots of these things might be. As for abductions I think there are theories and experiments that have been put forward as not only plausable causes and effects for abductees but for many ghostly sightings and experiences as well.

Originally posted by rich23
I guess I'm a natural agnostic.

I have also learned from Illuminatus! (how are you getting on with that, btw?) that it can be really good to try and hold more than one mental model of something in your head.

I started out thinking UFOs were definitely spacecraft.

In the seventies, I read a lot of John A Keel and Jacques Vallee and got into the idea that there's a psychic component, and became unsure as to what they were.

Of late, I've moved back to an extraterrestrial hypothesis but modified to include psychic components.

I think in many ways we are saying the same thing. I have no reason to believe (personally) in abductions, ship landings, sightings of strange beings, never having seen the darned things with my own eyes. Like you, I also don't disbelieve it in others; although to be honest, doesn't this sound just a little patronising?

Like someone saying, "I see a table." And responding, "That's nice. I don't see anything, but I don't doubt YOU do."

Psychically - and this includes my own dream experience - there is something there. I can't pinpoint what it is, just that this is enough for me to believe in the presence of something other than ourselves. Is this extraterrestrial? Or God or a collective unconscious? I'm not sure.

I am also aware that between physically and psychically or instinctively, I would believe the physical experience first. So I don't expect most ppl to accept or believe my odd dream as more than just that.

I'm happy to have a had an experience that challenges the way I think - It has given me ideas/things to ponder for years to come. Although regarding the question of 'Do you believe' - I could be a little child again in terms of stripping away the years of education, knowledge, opinions and research - which a lot of times just get in the way of the search for truth.



[edit on 13-6-2006 by nikelbee]