the longer I am here, the less I believe

reply to post by munkey66


This is totally the nature of everything. Even murderers walk free, and the innocent get put to death. Imagine if your life was riding on a jury of your peers.

The good thing about ATS is that our cases are never closed. They can go on forever without anyone getting the gas chamber.

Some just come to entertain, make others feel inferior, or to debunk. I'm not sure I believe the paid disinfo powers, but I wouldn't totally cast it out yet.

You have to find your own truth, regardless of how you must find it.

I've never seen a UFO. I may have seen a ghost, but I'm iffy on that.

I did see a Bigfoot though. Saw it with my own eyes. Bigger than Dallas.

Because of what I did see I know there are things stranger in this world than I have been taught. There is more than what I have been told.

Because of that I keep an open mind.

I want to see a UFO, I want to see a ghost with no doubt, I want to know why these things happen and the meaning behind them.

All I can say is if your mind is closed, you will not grow.

Always be open to the possibilities and wonder that this world has to offer.

Sometimes it can amaze you,

wupy

reply to post by mrwupy


I have seen my UFO's
I have experienced what I would describe as a ghost, I have seen strange things that I could not easily explain, But when someone throws up credible evidence to explain something, it gets a little annoying that it keeps popping it's head up.

Chances are, UFO footage which is on youtube which is older than 6 months old has made it's way here, that gose for any video, over 6 months old would have been discussed at least once here.
I like new videos and think that the newer ones are the ones that require discussing.
Jusbecause someone says it is a reflection does not make it true, just because someone claims it is a ufo does not mean it is true either.

How many times have we heard, it's photo shopped. look at the pixles, they don't match, I don't agree with that as debunking, but I also don't blindly accept a picture as proof either without more evidence.

you are right that we all must find our own truths, but we need more truths and not just speculating.
I could point at a few current threads that has had someone show reason and cause which is getting over looked, another using mis quotes which some prefer to use to further their cause and again another animal which was discussed 6 months ago, although that topic back then had more pictures.

I don’t know. I like ATS just the way it is.

Yes, you do have to way through a lot of “stuff” to find something that clicks with you but I think that’s the whole point. Everyone’s beliefs are different just as everyone’s reality is different.

I read ATS for more than a year before I actually joined. It took me so long to join because I was afraid that people would ridicule what I had to say. Now I don’t care.

People shouldn’t be afraid to share their ideas no matter how far fetched “you” think they are. Isn’t that the whole point of ATS? I find that I learn more about myself each and every time I read something here whether I agree with it or not, or how silly I find the subject.

I don’t think it really matters as long as you’re learning.


W

remember what john lear said about ATS

he said something along the lines of ATS is a breading ground for Dis-info and ATS being a collection of info on UFO D.U.M.B's or whatever for the CIA or w/e powers that be. i mean if its all true and the government is really covering it up then they prolly would have some dis-info agents out there...

ALSO if john lear flew for the CIA. Wouldnt that make him a dis-Info agent?
once CIA always CIA
isnt that how it goes?

reply to post by munkey66


This is exactly the reason I decided to abandon a thread I was interested in yesterday. Questions are asked or speculations made and you try to give documented explanations and your are totally ignored in favor of someone who has another way out theory or wants to raise the fear level. It was the rare person who was really interested in understanding what was happening and why.

I have had many experiences that have pushed me to believe all is not as we were raised to think. However, sometimes there are real explanations that need to be considered first before we can determine if it is indeed conspiracy. You can miss the real conspiracy when you don't arm yourself with knowledge and question everything.

The best way I have found to deal with posts that are fairly unsubstantiated and are followed with a bunch of parrots handing out stars, is to read each one until I come to a dissenting view that isn't just lashing out or arguing for the sake of argument. Then I think about it, and if I feel I am in need of more opinions to form my opinion, then I keep reading. If not, then it's on to the next interesting thread.

I am right there with you - it gets frustrating when there are fifty threads all discussing the same thing or when someone's thread gets put on the front page just because it is full of people commenting on how old the topic is and reminding the OP to do a search before posting. But, such is the life of a traffic-driven site. We have to take the good with the bad.

reply to post by munkey66



Oh ya lol! ...and how 'bout the one where Dick Cheney and a bunch of people get rich by owning a large part of the pharmaceuticals company that produces vaccines! Then the media blows something WAAY out of proportion so the company's profit goes up 500%!

and in conjunction they pass Mass. Senate Bill 2028 to allow the government to enter our homes without a warrant and give us a vaccine without our consent!

Agenda, ya right

[edited to add this:
the above is SARCASM for those who don't know me. I feel the above is true]



[edit on 5-5-2009 by notreallyalive]

It sounds to me like your issue is with the posters on ATS, not conspiracy theories.

The thing is, you were one of those new members at one point too. At some point, you were just getting into the info, and you passed on "disinfo" without realizing it, only because you were new to the subject and didn't know better.

What I don't understand, is if you feel so negatively about the poster's and/or topics on here, why do you participate?

I was along the same lines, until I thought about it a bit. Once I got here, I considered myself pretty open-minded. I do believe in UFOs (as being not from our neighborhood), the paranormal, etc. But I've always just believed in what had some solid proof. I didn't believe in 98% of crop circles, most abduction cases, and so on. But I still believe in all these things, I think we are not nearly as smart as we think we are, and that we'll find later that we are laughable in our actual knowledge, and our inability to accept certain things as being true.

But once I got here, I was astounded by the sheer... scale? of some of these ideas. The 9/11 theories, the NWO theories, fema trains, alien lizards in huge bases, you name it. And many of these ideas, which SHOULD have mountains of evidence to prove they were true IF they were true, did not. Yet people believed them. This surprised me honestly. And I found I went from being a 'believer' to a debunker, more often than not.

My responses to most threads were a polar opposite of what I thought I'd be involved in when I first arrived. It was surprising. And to be called a disinfo agent more than once made me chortle. Many of the posts I read were vastly lacking in common sense. I mean, pages and pages supporing things like... huge planentary objects in our solar system, caught on a cellphone, yet no single telescope or other witness saw it. And it was apparently gone the next day, since not visisble to anyone. I boggled at the lack of plain common sense. So I feel compelled to respond to these threads, because in my mind, it doesn't help things like ufology when such radical and inane theories get serious discussion.

And while that surprised me, and I found myself taking a different tack here, I decided that: this is the focal point for all ideas, from more serious ones to very farfetched ones. So it stands to reason we'll see a lot more of the ridiculous here. Here, you'll see more hoaxes, and more ridiculous ideas, supported wholeheartedly. But I still think this is the best place to be on the forefront of both breaking info and obscure cases. I've found some things out here I had no idea about previously.

I'll continue to support the things I believe in, but will also 'debunk' that which I feel is ludicrous. I still think it's hilarious that I go from 'believer' to 'disinfo agent,' something I never pondered. But it's hard sometimes to not reply to such (in my mind) hilarity and outright ridiculous ideas. I do feel there is an abundance of people who will believe anything without a real shred of proof. There is also a healthy population of people that think everything is explainable. And they will debunk absolutely everything, no matter how outlandish the debunking theory. I guess you can expect that here... the extremes at both ends.

Still a fun place to be, I do like it here.

[edit on 5-5-2009 by fleabit]

I believe that the 'TRUTH' will always hide in shadowy corners, dusty. While, 'LIES' will be beautiful and shiny. The 'TRUTH' always outnumbered by 'LIES'. If it were the other way around it would be no fun, now would it?!

Here's a little something I've been applying lately that may help. Instead of searching for the truth, I have recently turned my attention to blatant UN-truths. The simple reason being, that it gives me a starting point from which to research. For example: IMO, this auto industry bail-out has some ulterior motive(s), therefore I decided to start looking into that topic on a very basic level. I employed 'real life' resources to argue myself, such as a friend in the financial industry, to try and find the holes in my theory. Then I will patched those holes and so on... Nothing ground breaking, I know. But, it does make things more interesting at times. Start with maps or something broad, you'd be surprised to know how OLD some maps we have discovered really are.

Cuauhtemoc

Isn't there anything else that you could come up to post besides a rant of being skeptical or believer?

I swear it seems like they're always on the front page at least once per week.

Blah, blah...if you don't believe, then go somewhere else or do your own research instead of reading about some of the loonies from the internet.

Everyone that has a change of their beliefs in conspiracies is normal, but damn, do you have to create another post just to discuss why everything isn't fair about evidence? We have enough posts on the subject as it is.

I think the longer you are alive the more experiences you have (hopefully) and the "truth" is whittled down to its bare essence.

When I was young, 16 or so, I actually believe most everything I read/heard in the newspaper, or on the radio or TV. I think I really came out of the hypnosis watching Fox News/CNN during the Persian Gulf War.

I now watch my kids take apart the falsehoods about the financial markets. They seem to be much smarter than I was at their age.

Originally posted by munkey66
It isn't so much which side to put ones logic in, my main gripe is when a poster has his question answered by someone with sources and quotes as well as a legal document signed by a judge just 2 or 3 posts down from the OP with 500 stars and someone still claims it is a manbearpig and then gives reasons why it is with no sources and then gets 300 stars.

Thats why I stop giving any stars to anyone. Only flag a thread if it will have or have a good potential for a good discussion. (Like this one)

I agree with you about the title, yes the longer I read theories, thoughts and "evidences" in ATS the less I believe.
Most of it are full of crap, crazy and idiotic ideas, and I'm not a skeptical, so see how bad can threads/posts goes.

I think stories and info are always going to be re-cycled. Some poeple are just starting the ATS journey, so some info or thing they find on 'u-tube' will be new to them.

Then they post and get flamed for it being old news.

I agree with Seany "it might help you if you look at ATS as a Chat Room with a conspiracy theme"

Originally posted by munkey66
It isn't that I don't believe in any of it, what makes it hard to swallow are the 300 hundred experts who cannot see the obvious explenation.

You would not want to live a few hundred years ago, then. Some nut would be trying to convince people that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and all the "experts" (and of course "common people") couldn't understand what he was on about; he was obviously deranged.

Masses of people are incredibly stupid. This is like my mantra on here. The number of people who believe something, is absolutely no judge of its objectivity.

The longer I am here, the less faith I have in society, and the more hope I have for individuals.


"the longer I am here, the less I believe"

Reminds me of a song!



"The more I see, the less, the less I believe"

I also quit "believing" a majority of things awhile back. There are simply too many people who blatantly make things up. And there stories end up making very little logical sense.

And yes, it does seem like the most silly topics get all the stars, and it's very discouraging to see it. I hoped into a thread the other day, and the OP had like 40 stars for the thread and it was a new thread, only been up for a few hours. I'm thinking cool, this must be a great thread. Start to read the thread and it's a bunch of obviously biased crap. Why did the person get all the stars? Simply based on others peoples biases.

If you want "free stars", just go into the religious forum and start posting "god isn't real", and people will star it up. Or, on the flip side, post "Jesus christ is your Lord and Savior", and it will get stared up. Start talking about actual actions and philosophy on the same topics, crickets.

So I quit believing the majority of things, and now I'm just to the point where I don't know, or I consider it unimportant. I believe there is life "out there", but I won't hardly step foot into the UFO forum. You get in there and start questioning someone, and it's all "skeptic", "unbeliever" and so forth.

I guess I just long for a day when people are basing their opinions and such off actions and understanding rather than biases and worry about the who's and whats. Attack another "who", and anyone who doesn't like that "who" or "what" will be your best friend. Start talking about the actions and understanding and point out where both sides do it.

I sometimes wonder if I am the only person who can look at 2 sides of a "debate" and see each side as being exactly like the other, only their "who's" and "what's" are different.

Will there ever be a day when what someone does is more important than who or what did it?

Originally posted by sebarud
Wow! A post that actually has some common sense in the Gray Area!

I never thought the day would come. Thanks, munkey66, this is the first time ever I have read an opening post in this subforum without getting the feeling I have stumbled into an asylum for the insane.

The thing that I have noted about a lot of the

conspiracy theorists

that post here is either they are bored stiff and post just about any old poo...

or their connection with reality is fragile at best...

or perhaps the most sad explanation is that they are so aching for mystery and wonder in life that they reach out to the most far fetched ideas in order to satisfy that need... and in doing so miss the real mystery and wonder that there is in life.

Don't get me wrong there are conspiracies out there... but most of them are the hum drum conspiracies of greed or concealment.

Personally, Im starting to be less of a believer also.

If I was to account all the information here at ATS, I would have to put at least 99% of all the stories here into the "Bull Crap" folder. I might have one or two stories that are still of some interest, but nothing major (Giza, Ancient History).

My on going 6+ year stay here at ATS has really amounted to an education. One that has me less of a believer in the traditional "conspiracy's", and more of a believer in mans need for over zealous stories and tales, as if it helps to make the world around them more interesting.

Lets be honest here. In this day and age of 9-5 work weeks, and all the typical routine day in, and day out. Add to that our relatively high amount of knowledge of the scientific world in which we live in, and it might seem that everything to be discovered, has already been done so. Where is the excitement? So people tend to look to other worldly topics, because for the most part, that is all that it left to discover and imagine and make stories about.

It really boils down to that this is all that is left to keep us interested. Hence sites like this are alive and running even though 99% of the material here is false, fake, hoaxed, or is just misinformed hysteria.

reply to post by badmedia


I with ya. Same boat.