Beliefs in UFOs no different from religious beliefs

Beliefs in "UFOs" as physical extraterrestrial spacecraft are no different from "religious beliefs".
It seems to me that they are primarily based on faith.

Religious beliefs are an intrinsic nature of human beings.
So there is nothing wrong or unusual about religious beliefs per se.

I am fascinated with a segment of the population's "beliefs in UFOs as physical extraterrestrial spacecraft" and "beliefs in physical extraterrestrial aliens that pilot or maneuver those UFOs".

People ask me: "so, what do you actually believe in?"
My answer to them is: "I believe that some people believe that we are being visited by physical extraterrestrial aliens in physical UFOs".

Then they ask me: "don't you believe that we are being visited by physical extraterrestrial aliens in physical UFOs?"

In that case, my favorite answers are:

1) The truth is out there!!.........(somewhere)

and

2) I want to believe!!........ (not "I believe")

(These are two great slogans from the X-files!!) (LOL!!)

Stephen Hawking, theoretical scientist and one of the most brilliant minds of our time, states that in this wide universe there ought to be civilizations somewhere else besides our earth.

However, at the same time Stephen Hawking also states that no aliens have ever come or will ever come to visit earth in UFOs.

(What Stephen Hawking was referring to was UFOs as physical alien spacecraft piloted or maneuvered by physical alien beings).

The late Carl Sagan, who was also one of the most brilliant minds of our time, basically said the same thing.

If I were given a chance to choose between Stephen Hawking and "ufologists", I would definitely go with Stephen Hawking.

Two of the greatest "ufologists" of all time (in my opinion), Dr. Jacques Vallee and the late John A. Keel, had long given up on the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ET hypothesis) of the origins of UFOs, which continues to dominate this entire UFO field.
(Are we slowly being "conditioned" to accept the ET hypothesis?)

Vallee and Keel basically came with a conclusion that this whole phenomenon goes beyond the physical and that it may be impossible to study it through the so-called "scientific" or "empirical" method.

In other words, we may be confronting a phenomenon no different than some form of religious manifestations.

So, back to square one: beliefs in "UFOs" are no different from "religious beliefs".

reply to post by Fastriver


There is a HUGE difference between believing in UFOs and religion.

People who believe in UFOs will not kill you for UFOs.

People believe in UFOs because of credible witness statements, photos and video evidence.....

People believe in Religion because of an old book.


Don't be retarded..

There is an extremely larger amount of evidence to back the idea of intelligent extra terrestrial life compared to the evidence available to back the claims of the religious.

Your post is delusional and defies logic.

Any object flying that has not yet be identified is a U.F.O, Some of us see them, Most of us think its military tech.

Exactly. The keyword here is "belief." Belief in one thing is no different than belief in another. I think all things are based on reference, like searching through wikipedia. You start off at the Big Bang, and depending on what you are searching for, you could end up on spoons. What you believe in depends on the terms of you of your search.

That being said, UFOs are too vague. We don't know if they are aliens, our craft, demons, angels, the boogie man or what have you. God on the other hand, I think we all know what we call God.

reply to post by Fastriver


Read Leslie Kean's book 'UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials go on the Record', and you will see how believing in UFOs is different than believing in baseless religious claims.

What do you mean? Priests probe little boys all the time. Hahah Sorry but there is more proof of little green men then there is of a god.

Hawking was wrong... think if we had just gotten the technology to travel to other stars... we would visit many different civilizations given the chance no doubt. other lifeforms would probably do the same.

reply to post by Fastriver


No they are completely different. One is the belief that some spiritual all knowing entity created everything, and the other is the belief that there is other life in the universe. While there is no physical evidence for either, we do not have any physical evidence for alien life because we have not explored the tiniest fraction of the universe. There are hundreds of billions, maybe even trillions of galaxies in the universe, each containing billions of stars. We are just one planet in one solar system in one galaxy, and the idea that we are the only one that is the right distance from the sun so our oceans won't boil/freeze that happened to develop the right chemicals for life is just ignorant. The universe is so incredibly massive that we cannot truly comprehend it's size. Our planet was lucky enough to be in the Goldilocks zone with liquid oceans, we were lucky enough to develop an atmosphere that can support life, so if there are hundreds of trillions of other stars with planets orbiting around them in the universe, why do you believe that we are the only one which developed life?

We have just recently developed the technology to search for exo-planets, and already hundreds have been found in the Goldilocks zone which may be able to support life. If we had the technology to travel across the universe in a lifetime, we would for sure discover extraterrestrial life, it's just a matter of knowing where to look.

Drake Equation - # of planets with life

With God on the other hand, there are dozens of other religions out there, so how do you know yours is the right one? Religion is based on geography, people tend to conform to the religious beliefs of the people around them. Religion and the afterlife is just a coping device used for people who are scared to die, afraid that when their brain stops functioning, stops taking in information of their surroundings, perceiving language, sight, sound, stops thinking in general, that's it and they're dead. Religion is also contradictory, most if not all religions state that their God is the correct one and any other God is false, so they sort of cancel each other out. The Bible is flawed and filled with lies, and the basic idea that "some cosmic Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so that he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree" is delusional and borderline insane. If I started telling everybody around me I spoke to a ghost who told me I must talk him late at night in front of a mirror and cut myself as a blood sacrifice, and if they do not do the same they will be tortured and punished by the mystical ghost creature Zeebo, I would be slapped with a restraining order, and possibly thrown in a mental asylum.

Religion and the idea of a creator of the universe is also just a simple explanation for the creation of the universe, we don't know how it works, so we find a simple solution. I'm sure in a few hundred years, we will know how the universe was created, and I believe that everything, starting from the Big Bang, all the way to stars/planets forming, life developing on earth, etc., can be explained scientifically. Religion is filled with flaws, and it's also one of the most destructive parts of humanity, leading to countless wars and deaths, such as the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, fighting over Israel, etc.

There is no physical evidence of extraterrestrial life because we do not have the technology to find physical evidence. We can't even get humans to the edge of the solar system, so how do you expect us to discover other life out there? The only way we will have physical evidence is if dozens of UFOs hover above major cities for hours, then come down and introduce themselves on several media stations at once. You can spend every night of your life praying to God, and he will never answer, because he is just a fabrication of the human mind, sort of like an imaginary friend for adults who are stupid.

Originally posted by Dastardly666
reply to post by Fastriver

 

There is a HUGE difference between believing in UFOs and religion.

People who believe in UFOs will not kill you for UFOs.

edit on 25-5-2011 by Dastardly666 because: (no reason given)

This has truth^

and this thread once again..is pointless. i dont believe in ufos...i know they exist. to deny this is simple and pure plain IGNORANCE. i honestly cannot believe how many people are still skeptics. this is absolutely hilarious.

ONLY RELIGION asks for faith...NOTHING ELSE. lol im not longer wasting my time trying to respond to that. the question/comment of the OP doesnt even make sense. not to mention i find it hard to believe that anyone who believes in a religion MUST believe that EVERYTHING following that religion happened...LOL c mon really?

look how confused this entire world is. nobody knows whats right from wrong..not one person on this planet does. You may know right from wrong in terms with society and laws...but not personal respect for yourself and others. i dont like posting anymore cause i just simply monitor this site and it just blows my mind as to how people think. WE KNOW whats real and whts not...if you dont, you obviously have some work to do. because whether you like it or not...were ALL connected the "the source"

The Seed of everything, is IN everything.

reply to post by Fastriver


I think belief in alien visitation is slightly different. While you are absolutely right that they both require faith they are faith in two entirely different things. One is faith in the supernatural while one is just faith in the super-technological. From what we understand of the Universe it'd be much easier to make room for aliens than it would to make room for gods since aliens can just evolve naturally the way we did. Of course both beliefs are fundamentally based on faith.

You are right that there are striking similarities. For instance using aliens to explain UFOs is similar to a religious fallacy known as the God of the Gaps argument. Example: "We don't know what started the Big Bang therefore there is a God." In the same way they are essentially saying : "We don't know what these UFOs are therefore they are aliens." They are filling a gap in their knowledge with something fantastic that they have no real evidence for.

Star and Flag

My entire life I've been waiting for the bearded big guy to show himself, send me a burning bush, some sort of devine messenger, something. Hasn't happened yet, but I'm hopeful. In the mean time, I'll just keep watching UFO vids on the internet.

I do believe in a higher power. Don't get me wrong, but there's a huge difference between believing in a higher power and religion.
There is one similarity between the two though; the powers that be lie about both.

reply to post by Fastriver

I believe in UFOs, Because I've seen one.
I believe in God, Because I've felt him.
It's a lot more than just "faith".

reply to post by Fastriver

post by Fastriver
Stephen Hawking also states that no aliens have ever come or will ever come to visit earth in UFOs.

Just because Hawking says it doesn't make it so , I respect Hawking for for his triumph over adversity but I wouldn't say he's one of the most brilliant minds of our time , there are many physicists that could lay claim to that crown .

post by Fastriver
If I were given a chance to choose between Stephen Hawking and "ufologists", I would definitely go with Stephen Hawking.

Why choose between Stephen Hawking and ufologists , It would make more sense to choose between Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku , comparing like for like makes more sense .

So believing in the concept of unidentified flying objects is the same as believing in a religion? No.

There is actual documented evidence supporting the notion that there is indeed unidentifiable objects that fly in our skies, where as there is just books with words written in them and powerful men who don't want to let it go so they act as if they are closer to the source, when it comes to religion.

Completely different.

Originally posted by Fastriver
Beliefs in "UFOs" as physical extraterrestrial spacecraft are no different from "religious beliefs".
It seems to me that they are primarily based on faith.

As indicated before, the biggest difference is that UFO beliefs generally don't carry with them any kind of specific moral or spiritual guidance. Seeing a UFO doesn't imply that you are good or bad. Except for a few contactee stories, UFOs don't tell anybody how they should act, either for their own good or in fear of divine punishment. They don't lay down the law.

UFO sightings are not particularly "religious" in terms of being "habitual," either, since UFO encounters are generally all different, and pretty unpredictable.

Why exactly intelligent beings similar to us wouldn't want to discover intelligent life on other planets just like we do right now. What makes you think that it isn't probable that there are far more advanced civilizations out there since our planet isn't that old compared to how long the universe has been here.

And the stupid claim of Hawking about alien robots/probes sent to colonize and etc is just not valid since there are far more efficient ways of getting resources rather than traveling to another inhabited planet, such as- getting resources from meteorites and comets or planets in your own solar system. And if they were sent to discover other lifeforms why wouldn't they be here already and why would they show themselves?

If Hawking is so smart he wouldn't do stupid claims as if he knew everything about everything because he has no idea of how the universe works and neither do any of the people that claim that there is no way to surpass the speed of light as if they know it all. There are theories but no evidence and facts. Just claims on assumptions that may turn out to be wrong.

Scientists have been wrong and relying on "experts" is exactly the same blind faith as the one in the bible. (Yeah smoking is good for you. "The Experts" know how to get money from big businesses. Trust us. But no now smoking is bad for you. Let us increase the costs so that we can win more money out of the addicted... uhm.. I mean protect ppl.. from... uhm... ah)

And exactly why wouldn't it be impossible for living aliens to visit us. I bet Hawking knows all of the ET races out there and for how long they live. He probably knows everything about the technology in the universe and can prove to you that there is none out there that can enable interstellar travel. I mean he can see the through the whole universe, right?

And I bet that intelligent beings that are be able to visit us wouldn't be dumb enough to land and cause panic after observing the human species for a while. I mean it would be smart to give diamonds to pigs right? As if we are ready to meet them when we can't get over racism and all of the religion propaganda, and would kill our own species in wars. I mean how would a warring civilization even reach the state of colonizing space before it self-destructs?

I bet Stephen has the answer he knows everything. Or maybe you OP. You know the answers to everything so you can dismiss everything...

Well unlike the majority of the responses thus far I actually agree with you to an extent OP. (Not to unnecessarily plug my blog) I did a post not too long ago about this very thing (entitled 'The First Church of Ufology'). Correct me if I am wrong , OP, but the way I understand it is that there is definitely a religion being developed behind modern day ufology. A lot of people 'want to believe' that UFO's represent ET presence on the planet, the truth is that is all it is. Namely a belief. There is, in my opinion of course, an underlying phenomena that is going on. I don't deny that people are in fact witnessing what they claim to witness, however when you begin to lump this in with the 'Commandments of Ufology', i.e; Roswell, Majestic 12, Dulce, Alien-Human Hybrids, etc, it simply becomes a matter of belief in these things as ideas rather than any kind of concrete knowledge of their reality. Just my 2 cents.

Originally posted by Dastardly666
reply to post by Fastriver

 

There is a HUGE difference between believing in UFOs and religion.

People who believe in UFOs will not kill you for UFOs.

edit on 25-5-2011 by Dastardly666 because: (no reason given)

Well, now hold on - that implies there are no extremists in UFOlogy and I'm not ready to make that statement. Every belief set has extremists and just because we haven't heard of anyone killing because their beliefs in UFOs wasn't taken seriously doesn't mean it hasn't or will never happen.