From what I said in the other thread, which this thread is a "spin-off"
of:
It is very unfortunate another one of these "Skeptic-Believer Battle Threads" have popped up again. I am not entirely sure what the OPs of these
"battle threads" (or non-online skeptic-believer ufological belligerents for that matter) had in mind when deciding to start this thread. I would
like to believe it was purely a miscalculated, misguided, and fallacious expression of the overwhelming frustration we all feel right now towards
ufology.
We have a very real phenomena that has been going on in our very skies for the last 70 years (possibly much longer), countless cases, many solid
cases, but still no proof or unambiguous evidence. What we still have however, is the human aspect of this subject matter deferring the propagation of
the very core aspect of our very faltering field of research, which is the acquisition of truth and a solution to the very enigma which we are all
arguing about at this very moment.
The human aspect of which I speak is of course our primitive, emotion driven urge to force our own ideologies onto others with opposing viewpoints.
The fact of the matter is that in reality the term "skeptic" and "believer" should not exist in a pure scientific inquiry, which is what ufology
is supposed to be, but sadly is not right now, and hasn't been for sometime. The biased stereotypes of human labeling need not be applied to any
legitimate and serious investigation.
What I fear many fail to understand is that we are letting our very passion for our goal, which is driven by different perspectives and philosophy but
still aimed at the same target, defeat our our very aim, causing our field to fail from a cancer within, which is us. While we continue to engage in
circular arguments completely irrelevant to the goal of our subject matter we are losing valuable resources, time, and efforts that could be spent
elsewhere in productive attempts to progress our field.
Of course these ideological arguments almost always mutate into personal battles, as we are seeing in this very thread and so many others. This is an
important fact to understand, because when this happens we elevate the situation from the already bad ideological argument to the much worse personal
scoffing and ridicule, which then creates enemies, enemies which due to their own selfish ego to "prove someone right or wrong" will further disrupt
the field by doing anything they can to defeat their "enemy", which further destroys our field.
How can we ever hope to be taken seriously when we can not stop bickering amongst ourselves like children or animals? How can we ever hope to find the
truth when you have one side publishing literally anything as "proof" of alien life when we don't even know what UFOs are? The other side is not
without fault however, this side will attempt to push any mundane explanation they can into anything to make it fit their paradigm of reality, which
we all know is limited since humans do not understand hardly anything about our reality.
This must be resolved, and quick. Both ideologies ("sides") must meet in the middle and drop the entire arbitrary "side of the fence" and work
towards a common purpose, which is what ufology is all about. This can not be achieved any other way, and if it is not done then we will all be doomed
to forever run around in circles, and if that is the case we all might as well forget about ufology, or any science for that matter. We might as well
only worry about who's ego is right and who's ideology of an unknown and ambiguous idea is right.
We all understand that the very nature of our subject matter is mysterious and always leaves nothing more than probable conclusions, so the
frustration we all fell is expected. However, we will never be able to gather enough meaningful research, evidence, and public support to even have a
chance of investigating and proving that one case that does it, that one case that is the summation of all we do, all the work, all the lost time, all
the frustration, and all the ridicule.
Maybe the very field of ufology has no solution to be gained, maybe we are chasing a question that has no answer, or can not be answered. I certainly
hope not, and as intelligent, curious, and open minded human beings we at least owe it to ourselves to try our best to find a answer. Maybe there is
nothing to any of these UFO or alien reports, maybe there is. Maybe we will have to wait until "they" show themselves to us to get our answer.
Either way if we are going to waste our time arguing over ideologies, research philosophies, and beliefs, instead of doing actual research to attempt
to solve quite possibly the greatest question for all mankind then we might as well all quit right here, right now.
We all should be in this together, there should be no "sides", only one common collective working towards one goal. As the old saying goes "It
doesn't matter what you know, it matters what you can prove." I personally, and my one voice has little value, ask that we all stop the egotistical
and primitive ideological games and start working on proving something, something that has the potential to forever change our species in ways we can
not imagine. I know I will continue to try to do just that.
Best Regards,
Justin
Minor edit to reflect this thread.
[edit on 10/18/2009 by jkrog08]
