There’s nothing quite like a former high-ranking official giving credence to conspiracy theories to kick off a work week.That's an understatement.
So there you have it, folks. Aliens are real, according to a nonagenarian man who at one point had access to highly classified information during the height of the Cold War.Oh. There's another one.
Are there extraterrestrials? I don't know. I'm enough of a fan of sci-fi to wonder. I note that no terrestrial based religious system, including the bible, claims that there is not. They also don't tend to address the issue, Ron Hubbard et el excluded of course. If there are aliens it would pose religious questions but not necessarily be a problem.
The bible does clearly teach that there are extra dimensional beings. This is true of other religions as well. Are these creatures what they are calling aliens? This brings up another question: Why would creatures smart enough to travel across the galaxy want to bother with us? From a religious/biblical perspective we get an answer. Some inter dimensional creatures are benevolent and some are malevolent. If this perspective is correct, how do we know which type of aliens the Canadian government is doing business with?
Of course aliens exist. We've got 5-10 million of them here in the USA.
ReplyDelete--Hale
So that's what they want, free health care and a chance to do yard work.
ReplyDeleteRes Ipsa: "I note that no terrestrial based religious system, including the bible, claims that there is not."
ReplyDeleteAnd I note that -- AFAIK -- no terrestrial based religious system claims there are not unicorns, nor Bigfoot, nor Loch Ness Monster, nor teapot orbiting the Sun between Earth and Mars. To paraphrase a well-known saying, lack of (religious) evidence of absence does not constitute evidence of presence.
Or put another way -- religiously speaking, do you really want to side with the Raelians?
As far as Mr. Hellyer's testimony goes, it should be noted that:
ReplyDelete- He never claimed to see any aliens himself, only a UFO.
- He never claimed to read any official reports about any actual aliens whilst in office, again only about UFOs.
- He claimed that about 80% of those reported incidents turned out to be false, and that 15%-20% ended up being unexplained. He calls these UFOs, which is technically correct; however, it does not mean that they do not actually have a terrestrial explanation. Accordingly, this does not prove the presence of aliens.
That his official position did not reveal any more evidence of alien presence than what already exists in public (which he goes on to point to as additional evidence), means he's just another guy with no more proof than anybody else, IMO.
I'm not arguing that non-evidence proves aliens. My point is two fold, A. religion does not preclude life on other planets B. religions point to creatures that are best described as intelligent multi-dimensional beings. The obvious religious exceptions being groups like the Mormons and Scientologists who hold to a faith based on multi-planet life forms. They also include a multi-dimensional life form concept as well, but I'm not entirely sure how that plays into the theology.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that an atheist/agnostic could accept either view with no significant impact on his over all belief system.
Assuming intelligent life exists outside of our planet, why would they want to visit? I'd think a couple of days spent watching our satellite based TV system would convince them that they could spend their time more profitably on some uninhabited rock.
As far as I know its all conjecture. Unless some Air Force personal want to trot out their pics from Roswell.
"I'm not arguing that non-evidence proves aliens."
ReplyDeleteUnderstood.
"A. religion does not preclude life on other planets"
And I guess that's where I'm not getting why this is being put forth, since to me they don't seem to be connected at all. You might just as well say that Mathematics doesn't preclude life on other planets or Home Improvement doesn't preclude life on other planets. It either exists or it doesn't, and is in no way dependent on whether or not various religions say it can or cannot, outside of that religion*.
To me, Religion is only tenuously connected to the question of extra-terrestrial life (or Bigfoot, or the LNM, or etc), and then only if it is by itself True. I mean, the ancient Egyptians could have made a claim that Ra told them there was no life anywhere else beyond this world, but that would have no more relevance to the actual facts than the Raelians saying there is.
* Obviously, they all claim to be true, but that is an internal claim; if you have Faith in that religion, then its claims are, by definition, true.
I guess a better way for me to put it is that you would be better off to address the question from a specific religious viewpoint, like Christianity, rather than trying to incorporate all of them generically. If one of them is True, then it doesn't really matter what any of the others say.
ReplyDeleteDoes that make more sense?
Res have you gone off the deep end with this crap? Aliens, whats next ghosts and things that go bump in the night?
ReplyDeleteWB,
ReplyDeleteI guess from my perspective there are two basic forms of truth. The first is revealed truth, i.e. someone told you something and you trust the source of that information. The second is discovered truth. This form is akin to first hand information. This truth is experienced.
A mathematical example would be: 2+2=4 is discovered truth, I can experience adding two numbers and achieving a correct sum. Revealed truth would be a complex calculus proof. I'm going to have to take your word for it that the answer is correct. I believe that you can move from revealed truth to discovered truth. We call it learning. It doesn't matter what the subject is.
As far as I know, the question of aliens is an unproven matter. Which means we have no discovered or experiential truth to base our opinions on. That only leaves us with revealed truth.
The greatest source of revealed truth that I am aware of is religion. Yes I am including all of them. I believe this is appropriate because they as a group all claim to give us information beyond our own experience.
When we take an honest look at human religious teachings, they all seam to allow for or emphatically state that there are other intelligent beings/creatures that exist outside of our normal terrestrial experience.
You could argue over who's religion is better, or which take on the subject is more "true". I don't think you'll arrive at a reliable answer that way, until we have discovered the answer for ourselves. So it's pointless to say the Mormons are right or the scientologists are right or the Catholics, Hindus etc.
FWIW, I accept the belief in what I am calling extra-dimensional beings. I think that term is more descriptive than aliens. Reveled truth seems to indicate that there are creatures that can access and exist on higher plains than we can. Experiential truth is limited at this time to inferring mathematically six additional dimensions beyond the four we inhabit. IT seems to me that it is theoretically possible that humans could one day experience those other plains of existence. If you approach this from a "religious perspective" then it becomes a form of "spiritual truth". If you approach it from an atheistic perspective then it becomes a matter of knowledge and technology.
Regardless of the perspective you may be coming from, I understand why we would want to go from here to there. I just can't understand why anyone there would want to come visit life on this rock. Intergalactic or inter-dimensional tourist slumming?
Res Ipsa: "The greatest source of revealed truth that I am aware of is religion."
ReplyDeleteGot it, I follow you now.
"I just can't understand why anyone there would want to come visit life on this rock. Intergalactic or inter-dimensional tourist slumming?"
Why, that's easy -- we're simply the best reality show in the Universe!
We must be the galactic equivalent of Jerry Springer and Oprah's illegitimate love child.
ReplyDeleteI guess if the multiverse theory is correct, there is an earth out there where things make sense.
Res have you gone off the deep end with this crap? Aliens, whats next ghosts and things that go bump in the night?
ReplyDeleteWhat's your point?
As far as things going bump in the night, when that happens my dog goes berserk barking his fool head off.
Question: Why is it that in Sci-fi writing, when the presence of aliens are discovered, the dominant theme is that the governments of the world have to hide it from the "people" to prevent panic?
ReplyDeleteDid the primitive natives in the Americas and on a thousand islands in the Pacific panic when white men discovered them? Did the Japanese panic when Europeans first landed there?
Why is it that sci-fi writers universally carry the idea that contact with aliens must be hidden (unless they hover a huge ship over every major city on the planet (ala, V and Independence day).
What do you think the real policy of our government should be WRT the "announcement"? I favor truth and openness, unless there is only one old ship we found buried in ice and we are exploiting it's technology.
--Hale
They don't hide them to keep the people from panicking...they do it to protect the aliens from the overbearing paparazzi.
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note, though, I can see the SF writers' side, through the lens of the original radio broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Even with disclaimers at the beginning of the broadcast (and a few more throughout, IIRC), people either missed them or didn't pay attention and got caught up in the narrative.
ReplyDeleteI think that given the circumstances of the "invasion", people were justified in being nervous; neverthelesss, this became a trope within the SF community.
As for how the government should handle the "announcement", that would largely depend on the circumstances. As you noted, a large-scale invasion like V or Independence Day or Battle Los Angeles would be self-evident. But something like Men in Black, where the aliens secretly live amongst us, should be disclosed a la District 9.
A very small number of people did anything strange as a result. About the same number of people who were going to do something strange that day anyway. Most of the people who got "caught up in it" just listened intently and waited for instructions like, "assemble at the local police station with your guns to fight back" or "assemble at your local sports field for "processing".
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, the big thing to be afraid of way back when was that the UFO with clearly advanced technology actually belonged to the commies who were way ahead of us technologically, because communism + captured German scientists + JOOS.
--Hale
"A very small number of people did anything strange as a result."
ReplyDeleteThat is true, as far as the sensationalized reports of widespread panic are concerned. That's why I used the term "nervous"; it's an expected reaction, even to a fictionalized drama.
However, the overblown or outright manufactured reports in the newspapers that followed the broadcast is what the trope is based on. That the actual events have since been discounted doesn't erase those reports from history, nor prevent SF writers from incorporating them in their works.
And even if SF writers are aware of the true events, it's not unimaginable that they would take a minor reaction from a small number of people and magnify it into a major reaction by a large number of people. After all, it is fiction.
True. But even sci-fi doesn't move Los Angeles to Illinois. (though it does sometimes move whole cities a few hundred years into the past.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why Sci-Fi writers automatically assume that the government would be involved in a unethical, dishonest, morally corrupt attempt to conceal information form the public in an effort to manipulate events to benefit a handful of "insiders".
ReplyDeleteI think they call that art imitating life.
"I think they call that art imitating life."
ReplyDeleteNiccccccccce.