Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
Interesting, if a skeptic is someone "who habitually doubts the authenticity of accepted beliefs" then the people who believe in visiting aliens are the skeptics as most polls say less than 50% of people think this is the case.

Yes, that's true, the only difference is that the people who believe in visiting aliens are sceptic about some things but not about other things, so they are not really sceptics.

So by rights someone who does not believe in visiting aliens should not be called a skeptic because its not the accepted / popular belief and especially if they dont automatically disbelieve any other known fact they are presented with.

I guess the word Skeptics has been wrongly used all these years by people with an alien agenda writing books / lectures & documentaries to discredit people who disagree with them and make it seem that the visiting alien theory is the accepted belief in the world today.

Beliefs..get in the way of learning.

During Galileo's time, the clergy refused to even LOOK through his telescope because of the belief they derived from scripture that the earth was the center of the solar system.

Beliefs will color and distort the ability to reason. Further, because beliefs are so emotionally charged owing to their ties to people's secure world-view, the result is a double-whammy on critical thinking.

Interestingly, some of the worst offenders are scientists themselves who ought to know better but are so married to pet theories (beliefs and emotions again) that they can't help themselves. Indeed, sometimes the old generation has to die off before new ideas can unfold.

To know and not act, is to not know.

well my username might suggest that I don't but I'm actually a firm believer in ET life and other civilizations. Science has played a great role in minimizing the "Doubts" and "Disbeliefs" but I'm sure with the passage of time we'll all become believers sooner than later ....

Your initial part of your post was well written until the last part. It appears almost like a contradictory to what you previously said. Please give me name of one authentic scientist who is so convinced of their own "beliefs" that they vehemently refuse to open their mind to see new possibilities. No educated person will allow themselves to look into something they believe will not yield provable outcome. On the contrary I can find you many religious people who refuse factual reality everyday of the week. I think going to church every week is just one example of the delusion we human being are still engaging in. And even if there was a separate creator to our universe, I personally highly doubt it would look kindly upon such malarkey displayed by "his" own creation.

Originally posted by gguyx
Beliefs..get in the way of learning.

During Galileo's time, the clergy refused to even LOOK through his telescope because of the belief they derived from scripture that the earth was the center of the solar system.

Beliefs will color and distort the ability to reason. Further, because beliefs are so emotionally charged owing to their ties to people's secure world-view, the result is a double-whammy on critical thinking.

Interestingly, some of the worst offenders are scientists themselves who ought to know better but are so married to pet theories (beliefs and emotions again) that they can't help themselves. Indeed, sometimes the old generation has to die off before new ideas can unfold.

To know and not act, is to not know.

It explicitly states in your username that you want to believe (even though you spelled it wrong). That is what so many new age types are engaged in. Make belief, wishful thinking etc ... They want to believe even if their beliefs lacks of any evidence, unless you want to count in anecdotal evidence which is no evidence at all but a hearsay.

So when someone can't find definitive evidence but they still wish to believe, what do they do? They start looking for them in all the wrong places. They assume that if a lot of people have a lot of stories about seeing aliens, coming into contact with them, that this must be sufficient enough to convince them of its validity. They also assume that their own alien experiences prove to them that the phenomena must be real.

I have had my own share of experiences and I can honestly tell you that I simply do not know what they were. I can only speculate at this point but nothing else beyond it.

Originally posted by Iwanttobeleaf
well my username might suggest that I don't but I'm actually a firm believer in ET life and other civilizations. Science has played a great role in minimizing the "Doubts" and "Disbeliefs" but I'm sure with the passage of time we'll all become believers sooner than later ....

Originally posted by stanislav
Like I said in my previous post , it is my believe that even so called hardcore skeptics , atheists and such would definitely change their opinion if there were evidence as I think most people who follow common sense do not just disbelieve something to fit their agenda however religious people like OP, are.

Real sceptics are always updating their opinions based on the information they get, that's why they (we) are always asking for more information.

PS: I'm an atheist because I don't see a reason for the existence of one or more gods, but, as with anything else, if someone shows information about it/them being real it's possible that my opinion will change.

Originally posted by LoveisanArt
Im calling out all the Non-believers and skeptics personally; to understand why they do not believe in Extraterrestrial and other unknown phenomena.

Why dont you believe starships, extraterrestrial life, energy, mind power, and multiple dimensions of reality? What makes you belive these things do not exist in all of creation?

I at some point believed there was something more behind the UFO phenomenon. After countless of "UFO documentaries" and books I was left with nothing concrete: just same repeating rumors, innuendo, testimonies, stories, blurry photos and more or less elaborate hoaxes - most disappointing one being the Disclosure Project ran by Mr. Stephen Green.

Also I got tired of the whole UFO cult with abductions nobody ever saw or alien races which no-one had similarly ever any proof of. Did not get anymore interested about endless stream of pictures of something that looks like a lampshade and debating have the pixels of that poor-quality photo been altered or not. Got exhausted of hearing the implausible explanations of why "they" are here - but we cannot show that "they" are - or why the UFO's never fly over any major cities so everyone can see them and end all doubt.

Believing in UFO's is much more exiting than not believing - but the evidence is overwhelming. And despite what the believers say latter is unfortunately not favoring the UFO community.