Lixma, kudos to you for applying critical reasoning and logic to this subject. It really should be taught in schools from an early age.

Also props to Oldschool, Luisv, Rattlehead and Dutch for entering the debate with an open mind and calm demeanor. Too often, otherwise good natured debates of this sort get heated when one's long-held beliefs are challenged and I think that's a measure of intelligence, whatever any of us gets out of this by the time it gets locked down. ;)

I'm part of the Illuminati's disinformation bureau.

It's a living.

:cool:

Lol, I guess you have a point there. :)

Lucky you. I'm still at initiate status and not even allowed to stand behind the curtain or perform level 2 anal probes.

I remember an occasion when I was riding a very slow motorcycle down a very dark and winding country 'A' road. (It was the A57- Snake Pass between Sheffield and Glossop for the Brits here). I was pretty tired at the time.

I came around a corner and had to slam on the brakes because a deer had run across the road in front of me.

It shook me up a bit because the deer instantly disappeared. For the rest of the journey I was seeing deer in every reflection from the walls and bushes.

Trouble is, there aren't any deer in that area to my knowledge, so I put it down to tiredness, imagination and the lonely feeling of being on my own on a dark and winding country road.

No doubt other people would have seen something that proved that aliens were already amongst us. ;)

I think it would be safe to say that it really was an alien deer.

You know, since they are generally not around those parts. ;-)

Ahhh, thanks. Yep that would explain it perfectly, cheers.

Do you know where I can find Bob Lazar's e-mail address? Thanks.;-)

Lixma since nothing is real to you I was wondering what your beliefs are when it comes to supernatural beings like say god or the jesus of christianity. Do you think god exists? If so why and what evidence do you have to support your claim??
Do you think jesus was real? If so what evidence or proof do you have to support that?
If you dont take actual eyewitness testimony at face value than certainly you must be an atheist because there is no proof of god or jesus..(mohammed was real but just another goat herder who liked little girls)

O-oh.

Initiate countdown to locking procedure, 10, 9, 8...

"Nothing is real to me?". I don't in all honesty know how you arrived there. But anyway....

I hold no belief either way in the existence of a god. There might be one, there might not. As to the peculiar varieties of god - Zeus, Yaweh, Odin, Xenu...these gods I do not believe exist.

Amongst other things I see them as culturally specific projections; just as a pack of wolves would endow their god with a perfect nose, so too our own people endow their gods with perfect reflections of their own favoured attributes.

I've no idea whether he was or not. I don't believe he was in any way divine, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to discover that there indeed was a real flesh and blood man called Jesus who caused a bit of a stir way back when.

Give it another 2000 years and you will be amazed at who people believe is divine. Probably L. Ron Hubbard or Lady Gaga.

Stop baiting for religous or political discussion and stop taking the bait in responding

OK good I wasnt sure if you were being honest in your skeptisism (sp).
From what I get your most likely an agnostic like myself. I however give eye witness testimony from credible people more weight than you. Especially when there are multiple witnesses to same sighting. Not everyone is crazy or out to make a buck. And lots of theoretical physicists believe now that its likely possible to travel light years away by bending space and time, we are just to primitive to figure it out now.

Okay, I'm taking a risk here but i'm going to bring up a religious event witnessed by thousands of people. Now, this has nothing to do with religion so don't go off on one. It concerns the nature and reliability of eye witness testimony.

The day the sun went mental*....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

I will wager that you and I don't believe for a second that on the 13 October 1917 the sun actually....

And yet presumably there were quite a few people in that huge crowd who would easily qualify under your standard of 'credibility'. Still, you will be inclined, as would I, to explain the event in naturalistic terms. Perhaps as a mass delusion, an optical illusion or an instance of people seeing what they expected to see...etc. I very much doubt you will entertain the thought that perhaps God really did make the sun dance for the faithful on that day.

However, when it comes to UFOs all this seemingly goes out of the window. Why is that? Why, in the case of religious visions (of which there are many) would you immediately look for a natural, down to earth explanation; but when it comes to testimony concerning un-identified flying objects you have your heart set, it appears, on advocating probably the most out-landish explanation imaginable!

True. But the fact is that UFOlogy is filled to the gills with crackpots and charlatans. For anyone who is truly trying to get a handle on the phenomena they have my respect and sympathies.

Don't confuse possibility with either probability or evidential support. The fact that wormholes may be theoretically possible in no way constitutes supporting evidence that aliens are using them to get here.

This notion of 'primitive' brings up a point I don't recall reading in this thread so far. Have you noticed how the alleged space-craft have evolved over the years? We've gone from the 1950's hub-cap style flying saucers to modern day stealthy 'black triangles'. When I was growing up in the 80's the common description for UFOs was as a 'cigar-shaped craft'. Similarly the descriptions of extra-terrestrials given by 'contactees' have undergone an obvious evolution.

How to explain this? One way to explain this is to take the testimony at face value and begin categorising all the various ETs and their ships into 'races' or 'species'. A somewhat more realistic approach is to explain this variety as the projections of culture upon a confusing and at times frightening phenomena.



* El dia el Loco Sol (or something like that...:grin:)

he magic sun is prettty easily explained with science. First problem is all the people there were there to see something so write there they are tainted. read the skeptics and scientific explanation...

"Stuart Campbell, writing for the 1989 edition of Journal of Meteorology, postulated that a cloud of stratospheric dust changed the appearance of the sun on 13 October, making it easy to look at, and causing it to appear yellow, blue, and violet. In support of his postulation, Mr. Campbell reports that a blue and reddened sun was reported in China as documented in 1983. Mr. Campbell's article does not attempt to provide evidence that might explain the reported zigzagging of the sun towards the earth[29].

Joe Nickell, a skeptic and investigator of paranormal phenomena, claims that the position of the phenomenon, as described by the various witnesses, is at the wrong azimuth and elevation to have been the sun[30]. He suggests the cause may have been a sundog. Sometimes referred to as a parhelion or "mock sun", a sundog is a relatively common atmospheric optical phenomenon associated with the reflection/refraction of sunlight by the numerous small ice crystals that make up cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. A sundog is, however, a stationary phenomenon, and would not explain the reported appearance of the "dancing sun". Nickell suggests an explanation for this and other similar phenomena may lie in temporary retinal distortion, caused by staring at the intense light and/or by the effect of darting the eyes to and fro so as to avoid completely fixed gazing (thus combining image, afterimage and movement)."

You've missed the point.

I get it notice I said the crowd was there looking for something to happen, that alone discredits most if not all that people saw as they were delusional before they went. Just wanted to add the rational scientific explanation for this "miracle". Hell Chris Angel performs bigger miracles than this!!

Nope, you still missed the point.

:-P

We agree there are perfectly natural explanations available to us to help explain these various religious phenomena, yes?

OK.

And we agree that even if we currently do not have a rigorous scientific explanation of these phenomena there is no justification for invoking the supernatural to help explain them. Yes?

OK.

So why, then, when it comes to the subject of UFOs are you eager to discard these natural explanations in favour of the most fantastic explanation? i.e. Aliens from Outer Space.

Try this out. Here's an archetypical UFO encounter I just made up. We'll let Bob describe his experience....

How to explain this? Well there are very many possible natural explanations for what happened. Tiredness, anxiety, vertigo, canopy reflections, hallucinations, birds, atmospheric effects, oxygen starvation, other aircraft.

But let us imagine that none of these explanations hold water, and we find that we simply do not have any explanation at all for what Bob saw. Our conclusion is therefore : "We don't know". Not "Aliens"

if none hold water, then yes, the "We don't know" holds true and captures the tag: Unidentified Flying Object... and "not of this world" is a natural extrapolation.

Crikey some of the artifacts dug up from some archeological sites have distinct shape to modern aircraft... but these are thousands of years old.
wall drawings... same thing - fantastically shaped beings, and some of which have uncanny similarity to modern experiments with plasma - others? who knows.
The Muhahubtra (sp) with its references to flying machines


so, go figure


Oh, and "bending space"... faster than light travel

It's only a valid extrapolation if you have some actual evidence to demonstrate that something is not of this world. Meteorites* are 'not of this world'; but we can collect them, hold them in our hands and scrutinise them to see whether the hypothesis that they are 'not of this world' holds any water.

The same cannot be said of UFOs. Over half a century of testimony and there is still not one ATOM of tangible proof to suggest that this phenomena is 'not of this world'.

Von Daniken alert!!!! All hands on deck!!! "Put down that book and never open it again!"

Countdown to Face on Mars!

:-P

:confused:


* long considered super-natural events.

Actually you have photographic evidence as well as radar so its not completely a blind faith thing like religion. Your method of saying one individual saw swamp gas holds only when its one individual. What about mass sightings like the phoenix lights or the UFO's over Washington DC in 1952.

Yes we have photographs. Yes we have radar blips.

Great, but now you need to explain how you get from these photographs, blips and sightings to 'extra terrestrials'.

What about them?

Watch where we go wrong here.....

Phoenix lights (unidentified lights in the sky) = Extra terrestrials.

UFOs over Washington (unidentified objects in sky) = Extra terrestrials.

See the yawning gap in the reasoning there? We've made a completely un-warranted leap from something being unidentified to being 'extra terrestrial'.

Before claiming something is extra terrestrial you need to point to evidence of it being extra terrestrial and not just difficult to explain.

Its called process of elimination.

Is it a plane? No

Is it a bird? No

Does it look like anything man made? No

What else could it be?? Flying fish?
Do flying fish fly faster than our best fighter planes?
Do they have the ability to do manuevers that no know earth bound craft can perform??

try a process of elimination UFO doesnt mean ET but it caould well be. Do you really think we are alone in the universe?? There could be civilizations a million years more advanced then us. Look how far our primative species has progressed in the last 150 years. We have gone from horse and buggy to traveling into outer space in 150 years. what do you think we will be able to do in 100,000 years or a million years?

"We don't know" is the answer. But we could hypothesize....

No they don't. So we can eliminate flying fish. Do you know why we can eliminate flying fish from our investigation? It's because we are familiar with flying fish; their characteristics and capabilities, that we can safely conclude that UFOs are unlikely to be flying fish.

One question....Do Alien space ships have the ability to do these things? If so, please tell me how do you know this? Where did this information come from? How do you, or anyone, know what an Alien space ship is (or is not) capable of?

If you want to use a process of elimination then at the very least you need to have a basic understanding of the things you are offering up as candidates. We can eliminate flying fish because we have knowledge of them. But we cannot ever eliminate ETs from our inquiry because we don't know a single fact about them.

Yes, yes and yes to all these things!

But the mere possibility does not constitute evidence. It's possible i'm talking to you from the middle of an asteroid, smoking cancer-free Marlboros while playing the harp....all this is possible. But it does not contstitute evidence that I am in fact doing all those things.

Point I was trying to make almost. IF you rule out all other know earthly possibilities and all your left with is ET than what does that possibly mean??

I have video of aliens and their space craft. The shadow government told me if I ever released them they'd "disappear" me.

Let me see.....yes, according to our records you are about due for a probing. We also offer 2 hours of missing time which can be taken at your discretion; perhaps during a dull business meeting. If we need to core out your anus we will of course arrange some rudimentary after-care but as we're fully booked up with cattle for the time being I wouldn't start worrying just yet.

Please refer to the addendum which also recommends bringing a shaving kit for this one's probing. You don't want to get held up for the "Black Helicopter Stealth Techniques" workshop.

You do realize that the push for universal bowl cancer testing is just an alien plot thought up because their probing teams have been photographed too many times.

Just face it, your average doctor is highly intelligent (in the top 1% of University entrants), you study for 5 years, spend two years in your internship, Another 5 specializing, only to poke things up other peoples bums? Frankly I find it easier to believe in Aliens!



(Hope any doctors present have senses of humor!)

well, you have to go back to your previous points of -


not holding water and to use the "logic" that everybody else is fond using, what does that leave? remember... if you have ruled out known possibilities and are left with an unknown; any unknown possibility can't be ruled out

Sorry, can you elaborate or rephrase that, WR? I'm not sure what you mean.

Couldn't resist this one.

Here's an enterprising chap who's tired of UFOs not being taken seriously so he's calling in the big guns....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l4Az...eature=related

And he's pretty talented himself!

"Hold on, let me put it on standby, brother..." :-D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXuEw...eature=related

:cool:

Could you be a bit clearer? I don't follow what you're asking

Ok, sure but why not flying demons instead of aliens that break the most fundamental law of the universe to get here? Or maybe interdimensional ghost souls frantically burning ectoplasm in their search for heaven?

A new collection of original documents about ufos :cool:

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos

if that's what you think, Charvel... that's fine ;-)

Because demons and goasts arent real

depends on in what context though, Oldschool

yeah in sci fi movies they are real but not in real life.

mmm dunno Oldschool... haunted by the ghosts of past memories, perhaps?

But there are thousands of credible eye witnesses that swear they saw them. People who would know the difference between corporeal matter and not. And sightings didn't just magically start around 50 years ago.

How are they any less real or any different than aliens from outer space?

Is it the illusion of technological underpinnings that make sky phenomenon more appealing in the modern age than ghosts?

show the photographic evidence the mass sightings the scientific evidence.

Its called hallucinations.

Thats the same as saying there is an all powerful space god. where is proof

Sure, you show me yours and I'll show you mine. ;)

Q exists :grin:

There is tons of photographic evidence for UFO's as well as radar reports.

OK your turn show me pictures of ghosts and the all powerful OZ

LOL!

Show me just one please. Out of the "tons" just pic one clear and unambiguous picture of an alien spacecraft.

I must admit, you have as much faith in your alien religion as I've ever seen in a religious person. It works out well though because faith doesn't require evidence, proof, or logic just a choice to believe.

Its your turn to show your scientific proof.

I never said that I thought UFO's were 100% real I have been saying that its more likely than not.

Still waiting on your proof of the all powerful OZ

Still waiting Charvel.....

Think he's waiting for the evidence of the alien occupied extra terrestrial spacecraft mate.;)

I'm looking forward mostly to the radar evidence, I mean, you can't fool that!

But the Proof Pictures with a side order of Credible Witness™ should make for some yummy bbq so I can't decide what to anticipate more.

I'm waiting for his evidence for his invisible friend you know the one they call jesus, that has less evidence than UFO's.

So the thread has been reduced to; "You show me yours and I'll show you mine, except mine is bigger". ??

And then it will be " I know you are but what am I"

"sticks and stones...."

Since you can't have less than zero I suggest a reread of the thread again since I think you might have missed a logic connection somewhere along the line.

There comes a time in every debate thread where, the evidence (and more importantly lack of evidence) is laid out for all to see and we can let the jury take it from there.

Bad luck if this "Jesus" will come to earth with an UFO. Then you suddenly have both a proof. So what, would it change something? No.
I am not a believer, I am scientist. And as a scientist I KNOW there is the chance of intelligent life on other planets, even if it is life in a way we maybe would not recognize. Chances are huge. Same for "god" or however you call it. There are things on earth which still lack a scientific explanation. So what. 200 years ago, this list was much longer than nowadays. Nobody knows how it will be in 200 years, maybe it continous to get shorter, maybe we have destroyed ourselves before ;-)

If a UFO shows up and has an occupant named Jesus than maybe the thumpers will finally realize they have been hoodwinked for 2 K years.

I didnt expect you to have any evidence..why? Because in my exhaustive search for the truth I discovered that there is none.

"Chances are huge. Same for "god" or however you call it" IF your actually a scientist as you claim you would never make an irrational claim like this. It goes against all scientific reasoning. What hypothesis did you use to come to this conclusion? "god" is based on mans ancient belief that something created us thats supernatural. There has never been and never will be any scientific data/information to even hint that this is possible. the whole concept requires irrational thought. In this day and age that someone would believe the writings from the bronze age where people who made up these types of stories thought that the earth was flat and and was the center of the universe is just crazy.

I might mention "Cargo Cult" at this point, with regard to "irrational thinking" claims

Huh, you should not just take one piece of my post and comment it without the rest of the context. With "same for god" I was actually referring to the fact that there are still things missing a scientific explanation (as UFOs and Aliens stuff does sometimes) and that people usually need to have everything explained. I was not really clear on that one though, sorry for that. Of course you're right in your explanation about the irrationality :cool:

Omg lol you really are thick aren't you? ;)

read this carefully:

OF COURSE THERE IS NO PROOF YA NIMROD! :lol:

For every picture you can produce as evidence I'll match it with one of a ghost/demon/angel/etc.

What's the difference between a ghost and an alien? For all intents and purposes, not having ANY clue about where this alien is from, WHY it is here, WHAT does it want, and HOW did it get here, ghost could be aliens or angels or demons or ancient Mayan gods. YOU just choose to believe they are from unreachable worlds from the nether parts of the universe because it appeals to you much like angel sightings appeal to religious believers.

I find it hilarious after all the posts I've made in this thread that you still want to build some sort of religious strawman for me that you can use to try and justify your logic for the existence of alien visitors. Sorry son but that dog don't hunt. ;)

So in case you missed this as well I'm also going to say that my whole point in this thread isn't to say that alien visitors to earth don't exist. Simply that the sheer cumulative lack of ANY compelling evidence over the last 50 years, and especially the last decade or so (considering the proliferation of easily accessible video/digital cameras and cellphones) leads anyone with any sort of rational reasoning to conclude that the whole phenomenon has a very low probability of any merit.

Coupled with studies contributing to our understanding of mass delusion phenomenon and other physiological responses (see alien abduction syndrome) it starts to reveal an even greater likelihood that most if not all of these "sightings" are less than real, and certainly none that are suggestive, beyond biased conjecture, of space travelers.

From a scientific perspective, visiting aliens are certainly not impossible, just statistically improbable as each year passes without anything tangible. If you tell me you choose to believe in aliens that's fine, and who knows you could be right in the end, but it's your staunch conviction that causes me to reply that you are no different than a Christian or Muslim - save the rituals - due to the necessity for you to have "faith" to make the leap in logic to arrive at your conclusion.

So is that your confession that you dont have scientific proof of angles and demons and the great OZ!!

You apparently cant read an entire post or just have very short term memory so I'll say for you one more time.. I NEVER said that UFO's were 100% real I stated many times the level of evidence is overwhelming. If you would ever research something you may learn something someday. NIMROD

I rest my case.

Actually your reasoning is quite unscientific.
A priori excluding, even to you, irrational explanations is opposite to sound scientific practice.

Can someone translate this into English please.

As I have previously emphasised, all belief systems rely on the absence of incontestable proof.

Were truth to be incontestably established, any passionate rhetoric and/or dialectic would ipso facto be rendered superfluous.

As truth cannot be ascertained within belief systems, all belief systems render themselves self perpetuating due to both their protagonist's and antagonist's continual and often passionate reaffirmation of the unknowable.

However; Sentient life and/or existence would not be possible were it not for belief systems in themselves, as proposed by Immanuel Kant in his 'Critique of Pure Reason' wherein it is mooted that the a priori continuum of a particle from second to second is essential for survival of cognizance, often described by the ludicrously simplistic 'tree in a forest' analogy.

Wow you must have had to do a lot of acid to come up with that.

Or a sound understanding of critical reasoning.

Your statement is is erroneous on a number of counts.

I was not forced or obliged to emit low pH number solutions from any orifice.

Nor would such emanations lead to thought provoking circumstances.

I would suggest you consult the 'world wide web' on the philosophical works of the aformentioned Mr. Kant.

Life (whatever its base) will exist wherever conditions are right for it to do so

I fail to see how you would back up this hypothesis with sound empirical data, given that the number of locations at which you would conduct research is one.

Therefore your statement is one of belief. See above.

Fact... check the depth of the ocean for fish, which live there under great pressure, for one, and life which exists under the Antarctic ice shelves in extremely cold conditions, for two. Creatures which exist under the sands of the hotest deserts, three, and geothermic ocean vent critters, four.

rather extreme conditions, yet life exists.

These are odd statements, especially coming from someone who calls himself Mr Logic.

"all belief systems rely on the absence of incontestable proof" - what about the "belief systems" of mathematics and propositional logic? These have incontestable proofs, since they have axioms.

Inside these systems truths can indeed be ascertained, since the steps by which the axioms can be used to prove other propositions are clear.

Furthermore, your statements are self defeating. If indeed the proposition "truth cannot be ascertained within belief systems" is true, then it cannot be ascertained within the belief system that contains this proposition.

So does this make your expression of the proposition an exercise in "rhetoric", or does it simply mean that your understanding of logic is a lot less impressive that you appear to believe? Or perhaps a more charitable explanation is that you have been unable to communicate clearly?

Math isnt a belief system.

All located on the planet Earth, which in a debate as to the likelihood of extra terrestrial life reduces your number of locations to one.

I am evidently attempting to communicate on a level of philosophical thought outside of your experiences to date.

The quest for the establishment of the nature of absolute truth has been the topic of fierce philosophical debate throughout documented history. Indeed the only logical conclusion which can be reached by sound critical reasoning is that; Since all information is transferred to our consciences via nerve impulses to the brain via sensory organs and neural networks, therefore existing solely in our individual conciousness and being entirely subjective, our perception of truth is in itself illusory.

'Reality' itself is therefore an illusion, rendering all we perceive in itself a belief system, open to the same passionate argumentation as the initial topic tabled for discussion.

Yes it is. See above.

1+1= equals whatever i want in my imagination :), i dont accept the "real" world

in fact didnt jesus take one fish and one bread add them and get hundreds?

1] Rhetorical. An example of ad hominem argument, which is fallacious. Also, as it happens, untrue in this particular case, but I see no point in a "philosophy degree measuring" contest, if "Mr Logic" even has one. (Rhetorical by me ;))

2] Rhetorical. While this is true it is also irrelevant, but put in to attempt to make the reader infer that the poster is knowledgeable about philosophical debate throughout recorded history. An example of the appeal to authority.

3] Rhetorical. "Mr Logic" merely asserts that his conclusions are true and necessarily true, while not actually demonstrating any "sound critical reasoning".

4] There is so much wrong with this that it is hard to know where to start. This statement of the mind-body problem conflates information with beliefs, the mechanisms by which we come to have beliefs with the beliefs themselves, and subjectivity with illusion. None of these stand up to scrutiny.

5] "Mr Logic" goes from the statement "our perception of truth is in itself illusory" to "'Reality' itself is therefore an illusion" which does not follow at all, even if the first proposition were true. "Mr Logic" is relying on the way in which human understanding tends to work through the association of ideas. Jumble them all up enough and you can end up with people believing that reality is illusion, black is white, all is one. The point of philosophy is to untangle these confusions, not to make them worse.

6] I cannot help noticing that "Mr Logic" has completely failed to address my objections to his post, namely that (If A&B Then A) is irrefutably true, and that his position is self contradictory.

Black could be white though... its just how things turned out at the time, in the naming process

but don't fall into the logic trap of the circular argument where the posts keep shifting...

and remember the old adage of "take a leap of faith", in which the goal is to ignore what the senses tell you, in order to experience something tangible which is unperceived by those senses.

Good advice, Mr Wolf_Rider. Mr Logic has a Trollish scent about him, so I probably will not respond to any further posts from him, unless he actually addresses my point.

On your other points... perhaps another time? Don't want to derail the thread.;)

derail the thread?? wha? :shock: who? nevva...

I've been following this thread with some interest and not a little amusement. This is one of those great circular debates where your point of view depends entirely on your point of view and very little is likely to shift it. Because at the end of the day there is very little hard evidence to definitively prove anything either way. Back in Newton's day scientists thought they pretty much had it licked with just a few loose ends to tie up. Now we are grappeling with relativity, sub atomic particles, quantum mechanics, the big bang and the likelyhood that there is 90 odd percent of the universe that we weren't even aware of not to mention our living on the 'Goldilocks Planet'. Still plenty of room for God or ETs or anything else.

I watched a program by Richard Dawkins where he explained Darwinian evolution and genetics to a class of teenagers and took them to the Jurassic Coast to show them rock formations and fossils and debunk the whole notion of God and religion. Afterwards the producers interviewed them and asked them what they thought and the general view was - Thank you very much, all very interesting but we still believe in God.

Either Extra Terrestrials or, for that matter, God exist or they don't. If they don't then no amount of belief, faith, wishfull thinking or unsubstantiated encounters or miracles will conjour them up. But if they do exist then no amount of scientific reasoning and logic will make them go away.

Personally, I have no problem with people believing there is more to the scheme of things than just hard facts and evidence yet to be nailed down and pidgeonholed. As has already been said, other dimensions, parallel universes, string theories etc. are all mathematical and philosophical devices cooked up to try and make what we can see and measure in the universe hang together and make sense.

I can't help thinking that aliens, UFOs, faeries, angels and the like are all rather related phenomenon whether they are a product of the way human brains work or whether there is something more external behind them.

It is interesting that there are no scientific or archeological discoveries that have disproved anything in the Bible, even that old chestnut of evolution versus creationism is based on a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what the Bible is actually saying. It is not a scientific account, it is simply saying that the heavens ie. stars etc and the Earth were created and that there were distinct periods of time when only some things existed. There was a time when no humans existed, a time when no animals lived on land etc. Which is exactly what science says. The term 'day' is translated from a Hebrew word that can mean any time period, not just 24 hours. It states Adam would die on the day he ate the fruit and yet it goes on to say a few verses later that he lived over nine hundred years. The original writer and subsequent copyists would not have been so stupid as to make such a glaring mistake if the word day had the literal meaning of 24hrs.

But I digress off the topic of extra terrestrials, but as God and the Bible have already been brought into the topic I thought I might point out a couple of interesting points.

Firstly, when God was going to create Adam he said, "Let US make man in OUR image". The implication being that there were other intelligent beings in the universe before man appeared on the scene.

Secondly it says that the sons of the true God, or the sons of gods, depending on your version came to Earth and married any daughters of Adam they chose. The result of these unions were a race of giants or Nephilim. They were the heros of old, men of renown.

Now you can dismiss this as just myths and legends but it is an almost universal part of civilisations early lor. The gods of ancient Rome, Greece and other Mediteranean people, the Norse Sagas and Celtic legends to name a few. Were they really just an attempt by neolithic and bronze age people to explain away natural phenomenon such as thunder storms? How many thunder storms would intelligent humans need to witness before they realise they are simply passing events. Or is there some reality behind it all?

First you cant definativly prove a negative which is what the bible is. THis means that if something never happens you cant prove it because there is NO evidence because it NEVER happened.

And yes the bible stories are a fiction/myth. To believe them is to believe in fairy tales. And NONE of the stories in the bible concerning miracles or anything supernatural have any eyewitness's (its all hearsay generations removed). According to the bible jesus was from the town of nazareth. How do you explain that it isnt mentioned in history until almost the 3rd century? And thats just one of the many flaws in the myth.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/tech-news/a...t-just-a-cloud

I beleive this is the second time that air traffic has been grounded at this airport over UFO sitings.

Mr Flyingblind said "Either Extra Terrestrials or, for that matter, God exist or they don't. If they don't then no amount of belief, faith, wishfull thinking or unsubstantiated encounters or miracles will conjour them up. But if they do exist then no amount of scientific reasoning and logic will make them go away."

Yes but this is just saying, (If A, then A), which is not especially interesting.

He also said "I can't help thinking that aliens, UFOs, faeries, angels and the like are all rather related phenomenon whether they are a product of the way human brains work or whether there is something more external behind them."

Now this is interesting: the thing that they have in common is that they are all manifestations of agents: ie thinking beings that have beliefs, desires and intentions (albeit not necessarily the same as the human variety).

When we look at observed phenomena we try to explain them: the two most common methods of explanation are that of agency and that of physical causation. eg;

"Mummy, mummy, why did A do X?"
1) Because your sister wanted some more pocket money, or
2) Because the VCR is broken.

So odd objects are observed in the sky: 1) Some person (or person-like being) is responsible, or 2) Some combination of inanimate matter or energy has caused the phenomenon.

Note that explanations relying on agency are not necessarily supernatural: the Blue Tit pecks at the birdseed because he is hungry: an entirely natural explanation.

Both types of explanation can be valid, and everyone uses them both at times, but most people seem to prefer a single type of "ultimate" explanation.

Scientists tend to prefer physical explanations (possibly because they are semi-autistic and have trouble making sense of social situations that require agency explanations). By contrast, nearly everyone else tends to prefer an agency explanation, (possibly because they need the reassurance that a "big daddy" or a "big mummy" will make everything allright, and they find the science too difficult).

Both sides feel the need to reduce the alternate explanation into terms that can be used by their preferred explanation. So scientists believe that, if only we had enough data and modelling power we could explain all agency interactions in terms of the physical laws at atomic level, while the others believe that ultimately there must be some sort of mind that stands behind all these little particles and waves and somehow makes them do it according to her grand plan.

Seen in this light religious belief is just as much a form of reductionism as is science.

:)

Notice how there is ALWAYS a convenient explanation! Sure!

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/bus...-just-a-cloud/

unfortunately it doesn't sound like the actual thing!

http://weatherthings.com/HolePunch.html

... very interesting thread to read ...
:)

I was mostly giving my personal view on the overall discussion rather than any particular view point although clearly I fall into the, 'There is more to life, the Universe and everything than can be explained by purely physical laws and natural phenomena', camp. I believe there is extra-terrestrial intelligence but I don't think it whizzes about in UFOs.

The scientist would rationalize everything by saying that if you gave a billion monkeys a typewriter each and they banged away for a billion years then they would, eventually, produce the complete works of Shakespeare. And I would say, yes, but Shakespeare produced his complete works over a few decades because he has a depth of intelligence, emotions, understanding and insight that make him human or, if you are of a religeous bent, the image of God.

I happened to watch a very interesting programme the other night on the chaos theory. Scientists have discovered that the universe is controlled by very simple equations, as simple and profound as e=mc2. It basically shows that the universe operates using feedback loops that create fractals. Everything - organic and inorganic growth, dynamic systems such as flocking birds and weather systems, even the brain, are all subject to this control. The most famous formula was something like z=z2+c where the = sign is two half arrows pointing in opposite directions and C is a variable. By changing C even slightly then you get an infinitly variable and unpredictable change in the pattern generated. But I am sure you know this already or can Google for a much better explanation.

Now what the scientists could do was write a programme that ran using such a simple formula and they could emulate these apparently very complex natural systems on a computer. They could do all sorts of strange and wierd things like generate an avatar with legs that could literally teach itself to walk.

But what I found really interesting was that the programme could not simply leave it as an excellent and informative documentary on an aspect of how the universe and stuff in it behaves. They suddenly announced that this discovery had finally dispelled any notion of intelligent design or any such tosh being behind anything as, clearly, everything could do it quite well enough on its own.

Of course, it dispells no such thing, and I would mischievously suggest that what it does show is that you need someone to work out the formula and write the computer programme and the operating system. You need to design and build a computer and provide power to run it plus a room to put it in etc. etc. Which seems like an awful lot of intelligent design that is needed to prove intelligent design is not needed.

And whilst I am making mischievous suggestions, here is a thought which might well out raaid raaid. If the scientists are correct and the universe is controlled by simple formulae and small variables then what if there was some supreme being that was able to instigate such variables at will and know what the result would be. A little tweak here could generate an unexpected tempest and another could quiet it. A small adjustment there might visit any number of plagues on Egypt. The possibilities are endless.

On the one hand the universe could run along quite happily without intervention but on the other, just as the scientist can make small changes to his programme and alter how it runs and it's outcome then maybe the universe can also be controlled and directed. If that really was the case wouldn't it just be an absolute hoot?

If a butterfly in Brazil could effect a tornado in Texas then what sort of effects would the Almighty have if he poked a metaphorical finger in the works? It would be the ultimate scientific irony if the discovery touted as the end of intelligent design was actually the very means by which miracles are engineered and prophecies fulfilled.

But as I said in my first post, such arguments are unprovable and unwinnerble by their very nature, but interesting and fun none the less.

Oh, and as a quick answer to Oldschool61 I don't think you can use Nazareth having no historical record for 300 years after it was said to exist as proof the Bible is fictitious. It was likely a fairly insignificant place of little note. Given the many upheavals and unrest that have afflicted the region then records are likely to be patchy at best, the entire records held at the temple in Jerusalem were destroyed by the Romans in 70AD for example. You would need at least a contemporary map of the area with no mention of Nazareth or some document saying when buiding actually started to be sure it wasn't there. Many Villages existed in England without any record until mentioned in the Domesday Book. A similar problem existed with Pontius Pilate. There was absolutly no record of him either so people suggested he was fictitious along with the Bible until an inscription bearing his name was found in Caesarea in 1961. Also it seems unlikely that the very early Christians would claim thier leader came from a place known not to exist at the time.

those Crazy Chinese ......

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/bus...d-in-shanghai/