Why don't people take UFOs and ancient astronauts seriously?

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How about the help of God?

That would be nice ...

Which God? There are several.

ruveyn

If you look at the passage regarding the tower of Babel, notice what the people there said in contradiction to "Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the Earth".



I believe the point was that they were just going to stay in one place rather than spread out, staying in a single place rather than spreading out and filling the Earth as commanded in both Genesis 1:28 and 9:1. It was not that they were trying to "get to heaven" by building a lump of clay bricks, but that they were trying to stay put in a single city instead of spreading out and pioneering the new frontier.

Not taken seriously by the above groups for the above reasons, and by myself either because

a] the majority of devoted UFO researchers like J. Allen Hynek and John Keel eventually reached conclusions that the UFO phenomenon is far more likely to be metaphysical or extradimensional in nature rather than extraterrestrial

OR

b] the entire phenomenon is a fictional narrative created from a misunderstood or unknown function of natural processes, subsequently exploited by governments to cover for black projects in modern times.

If you are one of those individuals that sees patterns in everything, such as ancient cultures, then I would posit that it is more likely that an imaginary invasion scenario is more likely than ETs actually meddling in Earthly affairs. Watch media portrayal of the 'enemy' over the years, and current media culture, then tell me you won't wet the bed thinking about Blue Beam, lol.

Personally, I hold the average Islamic viewpoint: of course there is other life in the universe (no-brainer), but is it our concern? Not likely! Allahu alim (the knowledge is with God alone). The sheer amount of cosmic background radiation coupled with the extraordinary distances between worlds in space drowns out the possibility of interstellar contact, in my opinion. Besides, why would any species want to contact a distinct species on another planet, or interfere in their evolution or existence? The list of compelling reasons would be very short indeed.

On a philosophical/religious note, suppose we were biologically engineered by some spacefolk. Would that make them 'gods' necessarily? Hardly not! It is awfully presumptuous to say that just because a species can design a life form, then they are the ones to actually give life to that creation. We can engineer heretofore nonexistent bacterium, if I remember correctly this can be done from 'scratch' as it were, but do we dare call ourselves god? Qadr is for Allah only - without Whom the conditions for existence would not be present.

It should be said somewhere as well that if extraterrestrials are in contact with the Earth, reside within it (subterrestrials), or are just passing through, then there is nothing controversial about it at all. Of course governments and corporations would cover up that fact. Any sociopathic organization would seek to exploit something that would give a massive competitive advantage, whether it were technology or simply intelligence.

This makes for the entire subject to essentially be a waste of time.

Last edited by laffhaqq on 22 Sep 2011, 2:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

Lack of artifacts and other hard evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The "witness" testimony of people interpreted in hard to believe ways does not constitute hard evidence.

Use Ockham's Razor. A person claims he was abducted by aliens. I have two ways to take that: 1. He was so abducted. 2. He is a crackpot or a publicity seeker. In the absence of any other "evidence" 2 is the simpler choice.

ruveyn

^ I would like to add that while absence of material evidence is not necessarily evidence of material absence, it is however sufficient cause for reasonable doubt.

So when someone claims that they've been abducted by extraterrestrial aliens and has no material evidence to back up that claim (only their own testimony), then it is reasonable to doubt them at their word - they could be lying, deluded, or remembering an hallucination or a dream.

The ancient aliens theory is pseudoscientific rubbish. It is also racist: Pumapunku was made by Aymara people, not by aliens. But, much like the neo-Europeans in the USA and the Mississippians, people cannot admit that people who do not fall into their stupid pseudoscientific definition of the "Native American race" could do anything but smoke peace pipes and hunt buffalo: In fact, this is the same kind of rubbish that the [url=http://research.famsi.org/whos_who/people.php?mathewsnumber=PAL%20011&fullname=K\'&site=]Pakal the Great[/url] astronaut theory is based on, as any actual Mayanist could see that it is simply an example of the Maya's mastery of reliefs and their refined aesthetics rich with symbolism. And we have written records from Pakal the Great's day that say nothing remotely reminiscent of aliens (but much, including some on his sarcophagus's lid, concerning planets and constellations); these were written by the Maya, however, and thus cannot be trusted .

And every ancient "mystery" has pretty much been solved: The Rapa Nui carved tuff into Moai and put them on sleds to erect them where they desired on the island; the Mississippians simply used massive amounts of highly organized labor to build Cahokia and other sites; and the Inka pounded their stone blocks into shape without the use of metals stronger than bronze.

Besides, if these aliens were so advanced to be able to travel from a distant star system to this Earth, why did they only build in stone and earth? Why would they not use nanomaterials, or superalloys or advanced ceramics? This alone points out the ancient aliens theory as nothing more than a bunch of stupid and racist rubbish.

I am almost certain that intelligent life exists beyond the Earth due to simple probability theory but I have no empirical evidence that it does. And I am not using my belief that intelligent life exists beyond the Earth to solve problems that can be far more obviously and easily solved with evidence on Earth (which we essentially lack for extrasolar planets): Take the Indus Valley Civilization's cities for example: Their grid plans are perfectly aligned to the cardinal directions, they had a measurement system that was to base 8 as the SI is to base 10, they had the smallest unit of length ever found in the Bronze Age and they had a sanitation system superior to that found even today in much of Pakistan and India.

So, given that we have found plenty of skeletons that are clearly modern Homo sapiens, we have some records from the Sumerians that quite likely refer to the IVC as a valued trading partner but no documents that mention anything extraordinary about their physiology and we have some linguistic evidence that the Indus Language is related to modern Dravidian languages, such as Tamil and Telugu, which are obviously spoken by humans, from the Vedic Substrate and even from the poorly understood Indus Script, would it not make the most sense to say that, given this large body of empirical evidence for the indigenous development of the IVC's incredibly advanced cities entirely by humans, that there were no ancient aliens involved in the development of these cities, as no strange biochemistry, no external records of anything that is without doubt extraterrestrial nor technology that cannot be easily explained by trade with proven Bronze Age cultures, later contamination of the strata or local manufacture has been found, that the IVC is indeed entirely the product of human ingenuity? The reverse conclusion is arrived at by ancient alien theorists but without ANY empirical evidence. Give me enough empirical evidence to overwhelm the evidence that the IVC was the product of human beings and I will believe it. Until then, I see it as just rubbish.

The Inka probably did have a writing system in their khipu (see "Narrative Threads", a very good book that I got from the library, if you wish to see what I mean) for one thing and Stonehenge builders would not require writing to build it (tally sticks would more than suffice, as would memory.) And about the Ancient Egyptians and electricity: See here. The Egyptians were certainly capable of building a simple battery with copper and tin electrodes in a vinegar jar of course but their is no evidence in their large amounts of written records that they did anything like that: Hindsight is 20/20.

There is nothing extraordinary about the assumption that extraterrestrial life exists. It is presumably possible, given the vastness of the universe and the likelihood of life-supporting conditions elsewhere. As long as this assumption remains only an assumption, no proof is necessary - everyone is entitled to their own opinion, after all. It's when the claim is made as a fact that proof of claim is required.

Saying that E.T.s have visited Earth is to make an extraordinary claim, given the vast amounts of time, energy, and materials involved to travel to Earth from the nearest known non-solar planet that could possibly support life.

So saying, "I think that E.T.s exist and that they may have visited Earth" is to express an opinion, while saying, "E.T.s exist and they have visited Earth" as if it were a statement of fact is to express a claim. Do you see the difference? One need not prove an opinion, but a claim must be backed up by evidence - it's just that simple.

In what way do you disagree, and why?

Both you-anybody, and you-as-an-individual?

Not bothered,but am puzzled as to why someone who appears to more or less agree with me (based on what Ive read of your posts on this thread) would take humbrage at this.

You do realize some of these structures would be extremely difficult to build even with modern machinery.

Like what?

What is with all the necromancy lately? I already fought this battle and won. Instead of wasting my time repeating myself, just go and look at the earlier pages, where Fnord and I and probably a few others totally shot this ancient astronauts garbage down

I wouldn't discount the possiblity, but if there was anything they were truely interested in they would be hanging out here still.