UFO skeptics, Answer one question please?

Yes as it says there is one question i have wanted to know the answer to among the skeptics of the UFO phenomenon,

Now i think there is a mountain of proof on the UFO subject out there and due to today's technology we also have another much bigger mountain of counterfeit proof,

Which obviously gives the skeptic so much more ammunition to shoot the UFO "subject" out of the sky, So it is even easier for the skeptic to blindly say "that's CGI" or "come on i have seen better fake clips than that obvious forgery" So it seems it's only going to get bigger, that counterfeit mountain of "proof"

But my question is this.

Given that there is no video or photographic evidence of God and his son Jesus, the UFO skeptics among us here if you are religious or have beliefs in a higher power or creator, can it be explained why that is true but the UFO subject that has a huge amount of evidence that can be easily accessed and logically worked out to be true seems to be debunked by the skeptics?

And can we do a kind of a survey as well to see how many UFO skeptics actually believe in a higher power with a healthy skepticism in UFO'S please?

Just something i have Always been intrigued about as i am sure some of the other UFO believers and witnesses will be too.

I have to add i believe in God or a higher power and i have not seen any evidence myself, Thanks again


peace

reply to post by watsgoingon?


Thank you! Ive always said this to people who believe in God and not aliens. I dont understand how they could follow something so blindly and without any evidence of existence. When it comes to aliens im very skeptical and dont believe most of whats out there is real evidence. But when it comes to religion you would think people would want to know more about what some of them dedicate their lives too. For that matter id rather meet the person who came up with the idea of god rather than god himself. Thats true imagination. By the way ive never seen any evidence that god exists and refuse to believe something so blindly.

reply to post by watsgoingon?


I'll give this one a shot.

You're tying together belief in three different things, only two of which are actually related. There's belief in God, belief in the existence of alien life, and belief in UFOs as examples of alien spacecraft. I'll take these in reverse order, if you don't mind.

I firmly believe that people see UFOs...literally "unidentified flying objects". If you see it, it's in the air, and you don't know what it is, by definition, it's a UFO. Does that mean that it's an alien spaceship? Not in the slightest. It might be anything from a very mundane aircraft seen at a very odd angle, under odd lighting conditions. It might be a military prototype of some kind. It might be a kite, a balloon (with or without a six year old aboard), or an astronomical phenomenon. If I see something like that in a photo, my first thought is 'film or camera artifact', not 'alien ship!!'. Whatever it is, I owe it to myself to exercise due diligence in investigating the situation, and attempting to identify whatever it is that I saw, rather than immediately assuming it to be Visitors From Out There...or assuming it to be Swamp Gas, for that matter.

As for alien life, I certainly hope it's out there, because otherwise, God wasted a LOT of stars! Do I have proof that it's out there? Nope. Even if it was, what are the odds that they would come here? I'm *very* skeptical of people who say that Earth is, somehow, so important....and among all the people on Earth, they are so important...that aliens would come across interstellar (or intergalactic) distances just to buzz over their farmhouse. My belief in alien life runs headlong into my understanding of just how BIG the universe is...we're much more likely to contact aliens via radio than face-to-whatever.

As for belief in God, see above re: UFOs. I believe in God, but if you show me a grainy, over-manipulated image or YouTube video that purports to be a picture of God, I'm going to be *very* skeptical...not because I *don't* believe, but because I *do*. You're confusing standards of evidence with a lack of belief.

I think you (and many of the others who have posted these "Skeptic-Believer Battle Threads") misunderstand both what type of skeptic you all hate so much, and confuse "reserving judgement for further evidence" with being "skeptical". In reality there is no "skeptic or believer", a true ufologist is neutral, only looking at the facts, it is as simple as that. Now there are two unfortunate extremes in the subject matter, one being pseudoskepticism, which is the types of skeptics you and so many others commonly refer to.

The other side is the pseudobelievers, which follow the same principles as the pseudoskeptics, but just from a different paradigm. Both of these fallacious sides of ufologist will not change their mind regardless of any evidence presented and will resort to arguments of fallacy to engage in circular debates in attempt to defend their beliefs, NOT the evidence. Both of these groups are an unnecessary burden in the subject matter, and the sooner we ignore them or bar them from our field the better off we will be.

One more thing I notice a lot of the times, more commonly so with the "believer side" (just regular believers, not necessarily the pseudo group), is that the opinions and statements of cases are misunderstood. Just because a so called "skeptic" will not come to a definite conclusion saying "it is absolutely certain this is alien" they are called "skeptics" or "debunkers". The fact is this, there is no hard, irrefutable evidence from ANY case that proves beyond a doubt that UFOs are anything extraordinary in nature. The fact is that ufology is all based upon probability based on available evidence.

All unsolved cases have a certain amount of probability for being true, this is all we can do at this time since there has never been anything solid that confirms anything. The only thing that can be done is to make logical and unbiased judgements ruling out things and coming to a list of possible explanations. So just because someone will not say that they are 100% certain that a case is a definite alien spacecraft does not mean they are skeptical, they are only being scientific, truthful, and reserving definite judgement for definite evidence.

On the flip side of this, some of the more skeptical groups tend to start battles with the more liberal believer side of ufology because they are more open to the extreme possibilities. In reality this is all irrelevant because when we resort to this (either skeptics or believers) we are no longer researching productively the subject matter, we are using our time arguing with ourselves and not doing anything to progress the case.

We are all in this together, we all have our opinions, we all have our own beliefs on what we think makes sense based on the evidence. There is no need to continue arguing over everyone's beliefs. Gather the evidence, research, list the possible conclusions and move on. An argument between two people that think a different explanation is right (when either one can't prove their argument at this time) is pointless and a waste of time.

In summation, it is totally ignorant and ambiguous to positively state that either aliens exist or they don't exist. We just DON'T KNOW at this time, and we never will if we keep worrying about which of us believe what. There are no "sides", no "skeptics", no "believers", well not if you are a true ufologist and researcher and are after the truth, as opposed to advertising and defending your ideology. You should be either a ufologist (and thus neutral and only going off of what the evidence says) or not (and making up your own stuff because it suits your belief system), plain and simple. If you call yourself something else such as a believer or skeptic then you are misunderstanding the fundamentals of scientific research.

Let me clarify in case what I said was not clear as to it's relevance to this thread topic. The researchers belief in a god doesn't matter, it has NOTHING to do with the scientific research. Religion is ultimately irrelevant to science investigations.



[edit on 10/18/2009 by jkrog08]

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
reply to post by watsgoingon?

 

I'll give this one a shot.

1)You're tying together belief in three different things, only two of which are actually related. There's belief in God, belief in the existence of alien life, and belief in UFOs as examples of alien spacecraft. I'll take these in reverse order, if you don't mind.

2)I firmly believe that people see UFOs...literally "unidentified flying objects". If you see it, it's in the air, and you don't know what it is, by definition, it's a UFO. Does that mean that it's an alien spaceship? Not in the slightest.

3)As for alien life, I certainly hope it's out there,.we're much more likely to contact aliens via radio than face-to-whatever.

4) I'm going to be *very* skeptical...not because I *don't* believe, but because I *do*. You're confusing standards of evidence with a lack of belief.

1) I don't think i used the word "alien" or mentioned anything about "aliens" just UFO'S

2) I know people see UFO'S coz i have seen at least 8 and 3 were at once and to be honest not going into too much detail a couple of times they were reacting to stimuli one was a few hundred feet high and it got shot at with a 150Mw laser and the very brightly glowing "object" put on it's cloak to disappear and there was 2 other witnesses. Maybe a government craft as it was near a Military base but definetely under intelligent control!!!

3) I think to say it would be contact through radio is quite arrogant as the universe is what... billions of years old? Imagine we were at the level of tech we have the now say 500.000 years ago. U prob cant imagine what tech will be like in 500.000 years from this point but it's not impossible that by then we may be able to travel at light speed or even faster, maybe "wormholes"?
So imagine a civilization that has been around for 3/4 the age of the UNIVERSE? don't you think they could travel further than us and our PUNY 40-50 year old moon missions?

4) I don't get what you mean?
As to standards of evidence, With God/Jesus there is not alot that i can see? I do believe in the Almighty!
And UFO'S there is alot of A1 evidence, just us "the plebs" do not have the access to the good stuff, just dribs and drabs but if u actually look into it you can see that it is a real phenomenon, that is being surpressed by all means possible and the general idea that it's "unfashionable" to talk about these real subjects that mean alot more than what your neighbour is doin and what the sports scores were, But the sheeple are trained and learned through their lives whats acceptable and proper to speak about and how to act in certain situations, But i digress...
If skeptics seen some of the things others have seen then there may not be as many skeptics


Is it possible to do an ATS survey with just a yes/no set up?

Are you a UFO skeptic?
Do you believe in God/Jesus without seeing evidence?


peace

Well said jkrog08, I agree with practically most points.

It's rather unfortunate that both camps, pathological believers and disbelievers, do not see their own presuppositions and how these hinder them.

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
I firmly believe that people see UFOs...literally "unidentified flying objects".

As for belief in God, see above re: UFOs.

I agree with most of your points but after all you said about UFOs I don't see how that comparison is valid.

You were talking about literal UFOs but there is no literal evidence of God. The evidence for God is subjective and dependent on personal interpretations.

But if you're talking about literal UFOs, then it's not a matter of belief because that would be like saying that you believe people see Unidentified Cars.

Hmmmm.....Dejavu! I swear I have read this thread with these answers from the same people before.........Interesting...........

reply to post by jkrog08


To be honest this was not intended to be the thread known as a "battle thread" as the question can be answered quite simply; i believe in God or a higher intelligence/power as i have had an experience, or i feel it in my soul. And i do not believe in UFO'S because ......

On reflection i can see how it may be seen as a provocative subject to compare too, but i could not think of another subject that people believe in with no proof to use against the skeptic's of UFO activity? God was used due to a lack of widely held beliefs that have little proof among skeptics?

Basically i just do not understand how they can be so dismissive on a subject that if they pulled the finger out they would see there is more too it than the tongue n cheek sci fi movies they base their skeptical beliefs on? So lets forget the God part of this question but is there skeptics out there who believe in something with no actual tangiable proof?

I just want to understand how something with no proof can be believed and something else with bucketloads of proof can be binned?????

Anyway sorry to the folks who may have taken offence to some of this thread


peace

reply to post by watsgoingon?




I can't say it much better than Carl Sagan.

It's a 6 minute video but you can skip the first 1 minute and 45 seconds if you want, and see what he has to say on the subject. He believes in the likelihood of ET life, and also answers the religion question in his own way.

And while we have more evidence of UFOs now than when he said that, all the additional evidence is no more convincing of ET than we had when he said that.

Also note what Sagan said about spirituality in my signature, I think that's true. All the real things we can observe are so awe inspiring that we really don't need to make anything up to be amazed at the wonders of creation.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
I can't say it much better than Carl Sagan.

Yet Sagan never did get involved that deeply into the UFO subject nor did he seem to know much about it.

In contrast, it is amusing to know that in the early sixties when Sagan was a young man he opined that ET visitation of Earth was likely enough that artifacts of such visits might be found or that ETs could have some kind of base in our solar system.

And while we have more evidence of UFOs now than when he said that, all the additional evidence is no more convincing of ET than we had when he said that.

How is this claim any different from the wide-eyed believer who believes proof is available in abundance? Don't tell me it's because you say so, you would be merely begging the question.

[edit on 18-10-2009 by jclmavg]

reply to post by jclmavg


sagan was invited to study the best ufo cases of the time and he did. He concluded there was "not a shred of evidence" of ET visitation.

Well, some UFO skeptics that also believe in god and/or are religious have probably been brought up that way.

There is a HUGE difference between lifetime religious indoctrination from the moment you are born and choosing to believe in something that is just as ridiculous later on in life. A difference someone as smart as you probably already has considered, but that doesn't stop you from taking a swipe at skeptics anyway just for the fun of it.

Me, I'm not religious at all, so I don't have to worry about some sort of internal struggle over conflicted views or anything, but I can see how die hard UFO believers would want to ask this of the skeptics, because they feel if they do anything within their power to weaken the skeptics that it somehow makes their position on aliens/ufo's stronger. Shows the typical mind of a dyed in the wool ufo believer/fanatic.

Hey UFO/Alien believers, answer on question please? Why is it your consumed with debunking skeptics, when the whole reason this subject is so laughable and UN-DEBATABLE IN THE PUBLIC REALM is not because of skeptics, but rather nutter UFO believers and ridiculous documentary makers and authors that speak on our behalf?

[sarcasm]Yeah, those skeptics are ruining this subject. Because of them no one takes us seriously.[/sarcasm]

[edit on 18-10-2009 by IgnoreTheFacts]

Originally posted by yeti101
sagan was invited to study the best ufo cases of the time and he did. He concluded there was "not a shred of evidence" of ET visitation.

Yes I'm sure he did. Phil Klass did too, and I'm sure so does Jim Oberg.

Sagan's involvement with UFOs can be characterized as a disinterested skeptic. Besides from his involvement with an AAAS symposium on UFOs in 1969 there was precious little involvement after that.

Either way, you're not saying much. Sagan had an opinion, yes. So did others. Dr. James McDonald, a very prominent atmospheric scientist in the 60s concluded the ETH was the best fit. Does this now mean I have scored points because I can point my finger to a scientist who came to a different conclusion from Sagan's?

I hope you're not peddling the fallacy of appealing to an authority whom you've put your money on.

reply to post by watsgoingon?


I got a question for you.

Since you believe in god or a higher power, do you think a higher power created us?

And if so, who created the higher power?

The evolution or a even higher power?

I know i'm a bit off topic, but i'm just trying to see the logic here.

Thanks.

reply to post by jclmavg


I'm not appealing to authority, I was just trying to save some typing by presenting what someone else has already said not only on the topic of UFOs, but also religion and how religion relates to UFOs, specifically, that the almost religious belief that UFOs are ET may be a replacement for more traditional religious beliefs which have been rendered more difficult to accept by some people in the light of scientific advancements.

Also, I was rendering the opinion of someone who like myself and many other skeptics, believes that ET life is so likely as to be a near certainty, so it's not that we are skeptical about ET life. Nor am I even skeptical that it's possible that ET life may have visited Earth. I concede ET life is nearly certain and that ET visitation to Earth is possible. I merely state that I've seen no evidence that the numerous UFOs which certainly exist and are observed by credible witnesses, are of ET origin, which is more or less what Sagan said. The U in "UFO" is unidentified and that's what they are.

So much for my efforts to save some typing by showing the Sagan video, you made me type it all out anyway

Originally posted by Duvant
reply to post by watsgoingon?

 

I got a question for you.

Since you believe in god or a higher power, do you think a higher power created us?

And if so, who created the higher power?

The evolution or a even higher power?

I know i'm a bit off topic, but i'm just trying to see the logic here.

Thanks.

I will u2u you as some hypothesis on that exact question or questions you are asking would, (by some of the the skeptics closed minds) have certain people calling for the nuthouse.

I have to ask first are you a skeptic, it's just i have thought about that topic before and its quite an in depth questioin you ask but i can't be bothered typing it out if it's falling on closed, deaf ears?

Very very decent question btw!


peace

reply to post by watsgoingon?


I think you misunderstand what a UFO skeptic actually is.

We don't NOT believe in UFO's. We believe in ET and UFO's probably more than you do. What we are debunking are these sightings.

We have yet to be shown a piece of footage which conclusively shows an ET craft. That's all.

It's not about NOT believing, it's more so about believing what we see when it's presented to us. We are simple realists who want to look at all angles before saying "ohh well that's ET for sure".

~Keeper

reply to post by watsgoingon?
I think this subject can through up a lot of semantics? Being a believer of UFO's in my opinion has been proven by the endless videos and film I have watched over many years. There are definitely UFO's, where they come from, be it another planet, another dimension, the future, military black ops etc... there is plenty of proof that UFO's exist. The only ambigious question no one can answer with authority is there is no empirical evidence what 'they' are?
God is a religious figure as is Allah, Buddah etc.... People psychologically need to believe in something otherwise we ask what is the point in all of this? Miracles have been witnessed, mystical things happen to people when they rely on God to guide them. But yet again there is no evidence to prove 'He' is a real entity. So my reply in summary is both of the subjects are in doubt but that does not mean I do not believe in both of them.

Originally posted by watsgoingon?
Yes as it says there is one question i have wanted to know the answer to among the skeptics of the UFO phenomenon,

Now i think there is a mountain of proof on the UFO subject out there and due to today's technology we also have another much bigger mountain of counterfeit proof,

Which obviously gives the skeptic so much more ammunition to shoot the UFO "subject" out of the sky, So it is even easier for the skeptic to blindly say "that's CGI" or "come on i have seen better fake clips than that obvious forgery" So it seems it's only going to get bigger, that counterfeit mountain of "proof"

But my question is this.

Given that there is no video or photographic evidence of God and his son Jesus, the UFO skeptics among us here if you are religious or have beliefs in a higher power or creator, can it be explained why that is true but the UFO subject that has a huge amount of evidence that can be easily accessed and logically worked out to be true seems to be debunked by the skeptics?

And can we do a kind of a survey as well to see how many UFO skeptics actually believe in a higher power with a healthy skepticism in UFO'S please?

Just something i have Always been intrigued about as i am sure some of the other UFO believers and witnesses will be too.

I have to add i believe in God or a higher power and i have not seen any evidence myself, Thanks again

peace

As you said there are the true UFOs and the faked kind. Basically, A skeptic requires irrefutable evidence to accept the reality of a claim. Sometimes what is considered by some to be irrefutable evidence turns out to be someone's creative effort with photographic and/or computer equipment.

Because of this a skeptic has a difficult time accepting claims that cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Since photos/emulsion movies/videos are subject to fakery most, though not all, skeptics will not accept claims that depend on those mediums. It depends on the makeup of the skeptic. Some skeptics are open-minded enough to consider a claim while there are hard-nose skeptics that will not give such claims any consideration.

So since very few if any UFO claims come to court to prove the evidence provided in the form of, mostly, videos or digital photos nowadays, claims will be accepted or denied according to the invidividual(s) who are being asked to accept. However, some of the more rapidly accepted evidence for the reality of UFOs comes to us courtesy of NASA.

What makes it difficult for a skeptic is that humans are very creative and will use any medium at hand to project that creativity. Some enjoy fooling others and CGI creations are the method we, UFOlogists, are more familiar with. In politics, some individuals not liked by the powers that be disappear from photos and eventually such faked photos are accepted as the real thing. Until serious research brings the original photo to light (pun not intended). If you are a believer chances are that you may be fooled into accepting questionable claims and the "evidence" provided for them.

Religion, on the other hand, is an article of faith since irrefutable evidence cannot be provided for anything associated with it. Faith is the result of beliefes and beliefs are the result of mental condition which begins in childhood and continues throughout our lives. Some individuals are not as mentally-conditioned as the majority of humans and, usually but not always, such individuals result in becoming skeptics.

I am such a skeptic but I am not a UFO skeptic. It is natual to be a skeptic because all that it means is that you are a questioning individual as opposed to the mentally-conditioned individuals who are not able to question and accept claims without the need for irrefutable evidence, called believers.

Only the mentally-coditioned are religious and this evident in their believing religious myths. History is the best provenance against religious myths for there is no record of anything out of the ordinary ever happening on planet earth. There has never been any divine interference in human affairs. For judeo/christians there is more evidence against the bible, old testament (jewish bible) and new testament being inerrant than for any of the tall tales and miracles having any reality.

You can explore all of the above at google.com.