Belief in aliens a new religion?

[godnodog]

Believing in the existence of aliens a religion belief? WTF?

There is life in the universe because there is life on Earth and Earth is in the universe, and because there is nothing special about Earth when it comes to its elements (carbon, hidrogen, etc), it´s pretty darn ridiculous to think that to consider non earth life possible as a religious belief, and to consider life on Earth as a single extraordinary event in the universe as reasonable? Mega WTF!!!!

One thing is to believe in UFO and ufo abductions, for me it´s highly improbable but not impossible, another is to think Earth as a holy cow in the Cosmos.

Quotation:

"But there’s something different about the UFO narrative. Here we have people who are actual scientists, like Ellen Stofan, the former chief scientist at NASA, who are willing to go on TV and basically make announcements like, “We are going to find extraterrestrial life.” Now, she’s not exactly talking about intelligent extraterrestrial life, but that’s not how many people interpret her.

She says we’re going to find life, we’re going to find habitable planets and things like that. So that gives this type of religiosity a far more powerful bite than the traditional religions, which are based on faith in things unseen and unprovable.

But the belief that UFOs and aliens are potentially true, and can potentially be proven, makes this a uniquely powerful narrative for the people who believe in it.

Is it fair to call this a new form of religion? I think so."

End of this quotation.

Thios another quotation:

"I wouldn’t call myself an atheist any longer, but I also wouldn’t say that I’m a believer. I don’t quite believe that there are extraterrestrials. I would say, though, that these scientists have discovered something that is truly anomalous, but I’m not in a position to say what it is or where it came from.

All I can say is that I was shocked to discover the level of scientific inquiry into extraterrestrial life. I thought I was going to interview people who just saw these things and I was going to basically say, well, you know, this is the new structure for belief in aliens and UFOs.

I had no clue that there were actually people at top universities that were studying these things on their own, that there was a whole underground network of people doing the same work, and that there was much more to this than most people imagine."

If this is not taken out of context and is exacly how it was said, and of I am interpreting correctly I am appaled by this comparison, as for me it makes no sense, this person lives in a bubble.

Comparing people who do scientific research with people believing in a book written thousands of years ago, and is known to have incorrectly translated, amongst other things is frankly insulting.

What´s next? She´s going to compare pokemons wikipedia with national geographic work on wild life?

Edited June 9, 2019 by godnodog

[godnodog]

She could compare cults like those  that commited suicide a few years ago (Switzerland???) with religious fanatics, but she puts everyone in the same bag.

[Minimalists]

Well if you really stop and think about it all religions are based on the stars..Where do aliens suppose to come from?

Edited June 9, 2019 by Alien Origins

[godnodog]

8 hours ago, Alien Origins said:

Well if you really stop and think about it all religions are based on the stars..Where do aliens suppose to come from?

The point is the researcher is mixing belief with research. 

[Minimalists]

2 hours ago, godnodog said:

The point is the researcher is mixing belief with research. 

I think you mean bias with research don't you?

[godnodog]

19 hours ago, Alien Origins said:

I think you mean bias with research don't you?

No, I don´t, but sure bias may be present too

[Alchopwn]

On 6/9/2019 at 11:10 AM, Alien Origins said:

Well if you really stop and think about it all religions are based on the stars..Where do aliens suppose to come from?

Thanks for making the elephant in the room statement.  As you say, most deities allegedly come down from the sky.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Alchopwn

[jpeniel333]

OLDEST religion on Earth.

[odas]

On 04/06/2019 at 5:40 PM, Tatetopa said:

Is belief in god or aliens the same as religion?  Does anybody worship aliens and pray to them for intervention or favors?  Just curious.

Religion is believing in myths. To believe in inteligent Alien Life is to believe in posibilties.

Religion started out as a belief in posibilities.

[odas]

On 07/06/2019 at 9:50 AM, TripGun said:

 Welcome the Godless children of the internet.

Welcome to the free mind!

[TripGun]

19 hours ago, odas said:

Welcome to the free mind!

Free from one and captive to another. 

Edited June 25, 2019 by TripGun

[Essan]

On 6/9/2019 at 1:45 AM, godnodog said:

Believing in the existence of aliens a religion belief? WTF?

There is life in the universe because there is life on Earth and Earth is in the universe, and because there is nothing special about Earth when it comes to its elements (carbon, hidrogen, etc), it´s pretty darn ridiculous to think that to consider non earth life possible as a religious belief, and to consider life on Earth as a single extraordinary event in the universe as reasonable? Mega WTF!!!!

One thing is to believe in UFO and ufo abductions, for me it´s highly improbable but not impossible, another is to think Earth as a holy cow in the Cosmos.
 

More a case of belief in super powerful benevolent aliens visiting Earth and watching over us, is a new religion.  And I agree.  They play the same role in many respects as the gods of old.

(And let's forget the idea that the gods of old were powerful benevolent aliens visiting Earth and watching over us)

But believing there is life on other worlds is just the same as believing the Earth orbits the Sun.

[Chaldon]

On 6/8/2019 at 5:11 AM, Minimalists said:

Why can't he cure amputees?

He can. He gave us all the needed chemical elements, the intelligence and will to use them and even a bit of direct help in the form of what we call "sheer luck". What else do you want? To alter the whole Universal order to help a single piece of dust? God takes care of everything in the whole Universe, and we are not the first in the list, no matter what our hubris tells us. All we can do is to do our modest job and hope for more clues to come from above. And they will, one just have be open to anything what life brings and ready to learn from it. Don't listen to anyone's teachings, make your own conclusions but don't rush with them. Put all emotions aside, they never help to understand. True knowledge is never indignant, if it is, your conclusions are false and understanding is not deep enough. Open your eyes and ears and try to understand everything. Don't put aside anything you get to know. But you should also know, that finally a moment will come, when you will be tired of your attempts and stop searching, and that will be the moment when you gain true knowledge. Unfortunately, you won't be able to share it with anyone, you'll be only able to show them the same way. Or, better, don't show them anything; if they do seek, they will find, if they do not, no one can help them find the way. But if they ask, why not help them?

Edited June 27, 2019 by Chaldon

[Minimalists]

1 hour ago, Chaldon said:

He can. He gave us all the needed chemical elements, the intelligence and will to use them and even a bit of direct help in the form of what we call "sheer luck". What else do you want? To alter the whole Universal order to help a single piece of dust? God takes care of everything in the whole Universe, and we are not the first in the list, no matter what our hubris tells us. All we can do is to do our modest job and hope for more clues to come from above. And they will, one just have be open to anything what life brings and ready to learn from it. Don't listen to anyone's teachings, make your own conclusions but don't rush with them. Put all emotions aside, they never help to understand. True knowledge is never indignant, if it is, your conclusions are false and understanding is not deep enough. Open your eyes and ears and try to understand everything. Don't put aside anything you get to know. But you should also know, that finally a moment will come, when you will be tired of your attempts and stop searching, and that will be the moment when you gain true knowledge. Unfortunately, you won't be able to share it with anyone, you'll be only able to show them the same way. Or, better, don't show them anything; if they do seek, they will find, if they do not, no one can help them find the way. But if they ask, why not help them?

Great speech but it still does not answer the question "why can't he heal amputees?"

[+Desertrat56]

3 hours ago, Minimalists said:

Great speech but it still does not answer the question "why can't he heal amputees?"

Maybe the question should be "why doesn't he heal amputees?"

[Minimalists]

43 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

Maybe the question should be "why doesn't he heal amputees?"

 I guess I worded it incorrectly...My bad.

[+Desertrat56]

10 minutes ago, Minimalists said:

 I guess I worded it incorrectly...My bad.

I agree with you, if "God" is omnipotent then why do we suffer and why are we allowed to "break god's laws"?  There are a few possibilities, including "God" does not care, "God" does not exist, or "God's" laws are made up, "God" is not omnipotent...

[Trelane]

At the end of the day, as long as it doesn't negatively affect anyone else who cares what people truly believe in as their source of spiritual nourishment? George Carlin had a great bit on worshipping the "Great Electron", and it could apply to anything really. So yeah, if people worship the concept of extraterrestrial beings, so be it. Just don't try to sign me up for any prayer groups.

[Coil]

Someone read an interview with an alien woman caught in Roswell disaster?

Very interesting interview. It turns out that a quarter of the universe is controlled by a single alien race. Fly to any side of the galaxy in a few hours. At the official contact will not go out just study us and our nuclear experiments. Know themselves as a civilization of trillions of years.They visited our planet for the first time when there were no people on earth.They possess weapons of the greatest destructive power. They bend their line and say what they want say, and not what our scientists and military want from them. They can take a person out of the body and show him instantly that he is an immortal spirit and not a body and an earthly person. Their ship is controlled mentally. The cause of the disaster is lightning and loss of contact with the ship. She communicated with people mentally using a remote synthetic body-conductor that does not need food, water, air or sleep.She knows about 300 languages and learned English and our science, history, literature, quickly.Read a quarter of the interview.
 

[Chaldon]

On 6/27/2019 at 10:26 PM, Desertrat56 said:

I agree with you, if "God" is omnipotent then why do we suffer and why are we allowed to "break god's laws"?  There are a few possibilities, including "God" does not care, "God" does not exist, or "God's" laws are made up, "God" is not omnipotent...

He's not "absolutely-beyond-anything" omnipotent. He's not a wizard with a magic wand doing for fun whenever he wants. He's created the basic laws of Nature and keeps them working, true miracle requires altering these laws. It's not easy to understand but if you ever did programming you know that once you created a program which is working properly it becomes somewhat rigid, in other words it gains a set of restrictive laws, which even you, the creator, also must obey to a great degree when editing it to keep its functionality from breaking. To add a big feature (e.g. to heal an amputated leg) you have to violate your own the laws, and you can do it of course, but does it really worth it? Of course, Universe is better than any computer (although very much like it), and God is more than a mere programmer, yet, like every creator, he loves his creation and does not want to "rewrite" even a part of it without one really, really great need. And yet it happens constantly, I mean planetary and stellar evolution. So unlike computer programs, one can say that the Universe is in the process of constant refactoring, from the largest of things to the smallest ones, but that's not the point. I mean, to give or not to give an amputee a new leg is a more serious question than it may superficially appear. Does he worth it? A true miracle? An alternation of the laws? What will be the use of it? People like to believe in anything but miracle. They always search for a logical explanation. And it's perfectly fine, as logic helps us to survive in the 99.9% of cases. But still logic doesn't make a wise man, as emotional capability is not enough to become a good man. Something else is needed. So may be an amputee has more chances to improve spiritually without a leg rather than with a new one? I personally have never seen a spiritually advanced person who would be completely healthy in every aspect and live a full mundane life. You must always give something less perfect to gain something better.

Edited June 29, 2019 by Chaldon

[jmccr8]

On 6/27/2019 at 2:07 PM, Coil said:

Someone read an interview with an alien woman caught in Roswell disaster?

Very interesting interview. It turns out that a quarter of the universe is controlled by a single alien race. Fly to any side of the galaxy in a few hours. At the official contact will not go out just study us and our nuclear experiments. Know themselves as a civilization of trillions of years.They visited our planet for the first time when there were no people on earth.They possess weapons of the greatest destructive power. They bend their line and say what they want say, and not what our scientists and military want from them. They can take a person out of the body and show him instantly that he is an immortal spirit and not a body and an earthly person. Their ship is controlled mentally. The cause of the disaster is lightning and loss of contact with the ship. She communicated with people mentally using a remote synthetic body-conductor that does not need food, water, air or sleep.She knows about 300 languages and learned English and our science, history, literature, quickly.Read a quarter of the interview.
 

[Dejarma]

3 hours ago, Chaldon said:

He's not "absolutely-beyond-anything" omnipotent.

well that's refreshing 

[Dejarma]

On 27/06/2019 at 4:55 PM, Trelane said:

At the end of the day, as long as it doesn't negatively affect anyone else who cares what people truly believe in as their source of spiritual nourishment?

yep..

[Chaldon]

19 hours ago, Dejarma said:

well that's refreshing 

Yep. By the way, I hope no one here took all my philosophical blabbering too seriously. Actually all that is a typical modern "New Age" point of view, no more than an awkward attempt to cross old religion with modern scientific knowledge. The real problem is that by the end of the 20th century science got too deeply into everyday life, but we cannot easily embed it into our picture of the world, cannot easily use it as a holy book to answer basic moral questions, to help us to get through the day and give up hope (well, statistics can, to a degree). Science contradicts with many of the old religious postulates, shakes the old beliefs but offers nothing comparable in return to fill the void. Will a solution be ever found? Or we'll just learn to cope with the science vs. belief contradictions and will no longer see it as a problem? After all, does it really matter? No one is going to abolish the basic obvious truths because of some discoveries, they quite rarely overlap, if at all.

So, returning to the topic, if someone deem aliens as gods, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as they don't hurt anyone. If it makes them happy, it's even better. The more happy people around the better.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Chaldon

[+Desertrat56]

On 6/29/2019 at 12:51 PM, Chaldon said:

He's not "absolutely-beyond-anything" omnipotent. He's not a wizard with a magic wand doing for fun whenever he wants. He's created the basic laws of Nature and keeps them working, true miracle requires altering these laws. It's not easy to understand but if you ever did programming you know that once you created a program which is working properly it becomes somewhat rigid, in other words it gains a set of restrictive laws, which even you, the creator, also must obey to a great degree when editing it to keep its functionality from breaking. To add a big feature (e.g. to heal an amputated leg) you have to violate your own the laws, and you can do it of course, but does it really worth it? Of course, Universe is better than any computer (although very much like it), and God is more than a mere programmer, yet, like every creator, he loves his creation and does not want to "rewrite" even a part of it without one really, really great need. And yet it happens constantly, I mean planetary and stellar evolution. So unlike computer programs, one can say that the Universe is in the process of constant refactoring, from the largest of things to the smallest ones, but that's not the point. I mean, to give or not to give an amputee a new leg is a more serious question than it may superficially appear. Does he worth it? A true miracle? An alternation of the laws? What will be the use of it? People like to believe in anything but miracle. They always search for a logical explanation. And it's perfectly fine, as logic helps us to survive in the 99.9% of cases. But still logic doesn't make a wise man, as emotional capability is not enough to become a good man. Something else is needed. So may be an amputee has more chances to improve spiritually without a leg rather than with a new one? I personally have never seen a spiritually advanced person who would be completely healthy in every aspect and live a full mundane life. You must always give something less perfect to gain something better.

How do you know "God" is a "he"?  As for creating a program, I have created a lot and the rigidity is dependent on what the program is created to do, not that is is complete and working correctly.  You must be talking about programming for Microsoft databases.  Most programming is not like that.  Besides, are you saying "God" is a programmer and we are the program?  That makes no sense as everyone else agrees that "God" gave us "free will".