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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
 Posted - 10/20/2005 : 21:30:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by markie
If alien spaceships do not visit our planet then one has to account for the vast numbers of respectable people who report not merely vague lights in the sky but specific features of the flying craft which appear to defy our technology.
The historical and sociological examination of UFO reports have already accounted for this, once you get past the "'respectable' means a person cannot delude him/herself or be mistaken in any way" nonsense. It's just a false dichotomy: this person wouldn't lie, so they must be telling the absolute truth. What a load.quote:
The hybridization issue is a just a subplot of the larger UFO issue and not necessary for the latter to be true.
Of course, you must distinguish between "UFO reports" and "aliens have landed on Earth." There are genuine UFOs. There is no good evidence that aliens have landed on Earth. A genuine UFO is not evidence that aliens have landed on Earth. A genuine UFO is only evidence that someone saw something which nobody has been able to identify. Claiming that it must be evidence that aliens have landed on Earth is therefore an argument from ignorance: we don't know what it was, therefore it was an alien.quote:
Regarding the unlikelihood of aliens mating with earth humans, that of course invokes the premise that human evolution has been essentially random and purposeless. That premise is nothing more than a belief really. Or put differently, that premise is an active disbelief in evolutionary overcontrol.
No, that "premise" is actually the tentative conclusion one can come to through the complete lack of any evidence of "evolutionary overcontrol."quote:
But it leads to an interesting question: Would the idea a higher Power be more acceptable to a disbeliever if aliens were found to be real?
Thus is the idiocy in the movie Contact brought to life. Why should the presence or absence of other mortal life in this universe have any affect upon our belief or disbelief in a "higher power?"
The only way I'm aware that extraterrestrial life has any bearing on anyone's religious beliefs is that some fundamentalists Christians believe that any alien which might exist will necessarily go to hell because they're ignorant of Jesus and so cannot accept His sacrifice and redeem their own sin. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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