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Originally Posted by unreasonable
Surely you do not mean this (if I am right in thinking that by "bearded man" you mean a conventional patriarchal deity)?
The existence of grey aliens with big eyes is an empirical issue - you assert (and I would agree) that there is no credible evidence for their existence. But without an assumption that life only evolved once in the universe there is surely a tiny possiblity that they are indeed there, watching and judging from behind their stealth fields, descending occasionally to probe the fundament of an unwary midwesterner.
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Sure there is. It's also remotely possible that Luthier is one of them and has to travel a couple hundred lightyears back to the office on Rigel, hence his understandable lack of communication.
Seriously though, I don't look at it as impossible but simply very unlikely given the circumstances. Seems far more likely to me that it's a social and psychological phenomenon.
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By contrast, the existence or otherwise of a patriarchal deity is not an empirical matter of uncertain status. So probability does not come into it.
(Disclaimer: this comment should not be taken to be part of a religious discussion. It is a comment about what a religious discussion is).
So how can they be "equally likely"?
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Because both religions have multitudes of faith-based believers with no evidence beyond internal or second-hand experience. Hell, isn't the notion of God essentially an "alien" being by definition? So just different flavours of the same ice cream.
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On another note it is surprising how long governments used to be able to keep secrets - take the Polish/UK cracking of the German Ultra code in WW2. Hundreds of people knew something about this and many a great deal, yet the general public and even professional military historians had no idea until sometime in the seventies, IIRC, when the records were released. In those days, when some elderly officer in a regimental tie sat you down and told you that you could never discuss your work even with your family, you did what you were told. Not sure how that would work now....
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Sure, that makes sense and again it isn't
impossible to hold a secret but like Lixma says, we're talking over 50 years here, multiple governments that can't agree on anything else, and one or multiple alien species visiting our planet wherever the hell they feel like it. I say, do the math.
People seem to have a need for the more dramatic story over the mundane, and answers for the cold finality of life and death. The UFO phenomenon seems to me to be a pseudo-scientific fill-in for the hole left behind from the decline of religion.
Until I get that alien paperclip or bumper sticker to run through some real scientific testing then I'll remain a skeptic with an open mind. After 30+ years of interest and fascination with the UFO phenomenon lets just say that it's had a more than reasonable chance to come up with something beyond some spooky documentaries and fuzzy pics to pass muster.
08-09-2011, 04:59 PM
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