Merged Their Return

[Correa Neto]

"Ignore reports from your fellow man at the peril of timely truth."

Actually WTF this is supposed to mean?

I will not receive the benefits belivers will get when "they" reveal "them"selves?

I will be punished by disagreeing with and mocking their great prophet?

I will become a second-class citizen?

KotA, you are sounding more and more like a biblical fundamentalist.

 

[aggle-rithm]

I hold that this IS 'one' possibility, that happens to fit with what I've seen and experienced.

That's why it's so important for a scientific theory to have predictive power and to be falsifiable. There are many, MANY possible scenarios that are consistent with any given set of data. That's not enough. Other possible explanations need to be considered.

Your theory about heavenly agents has explanatory power. So does my theory about the origin of newspapers. They are regurgitated every morning by giant lizards. How do I know this? Look around your neighborhood early in the morning. What do you see? NEWSPAPERS! Hence, giant regurgitating lizards.

If I was REALLY interested in knowing the truth, I would ask myself: If the giant lizards did not exist, HOW WOULD I KNOW? That turns the question on its heel and allows for alternate hypotheses to be considered.

Maybe I could get up really early and try to catch them. The fact that I see paper boys delivering newspapers and no lizards doesn't prove anything. It only means that THOSE PARTICULAR papers weren't regurgitated by lizards.

In this case, there is really no way to test the null hypothesis. Therefore, the theory is unfalsifiable, and scientifically worthless. That's why I asked you earlier: If the heavenly agents did not exist, then HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? What would that look like?

You couldn't or wouldn't answer.

I conclude that to ignore ALL the anecdotes and other historical imagery is flatly foolish.

And I conclude that it is much more foolish to take anecdotes and historical imagery at face value.

 

[King of the Americas]

Given the fact that human memory is extremely fallible, subject to change over time, and impossible to subjectively evaluate for accuracy (all verified by scientific studies), why should we trust the accuracy of your memories? You yourself don't know whether they are accurate or not, unless you have a photographic memory. Do you?

^THIS^ is where skepticism goes off the tracks, for me.

NO ONE is capable of remembering anything accurately, the "You shouldn't trust your eyes.", argument.

I trust my senses and reason daily, and yet I still live. Truly an amazing feat to skeptics, yet MOST people get along just fine 'trusting their senses'.

It is flatly STUPID to demand absolute proof of something, before taking action.

 

[Cuddles]

I'm just making stuff up

 

[aggle-rithm]

It is flatly STUPID to demand absolute proof of something, before taking action.

I would agree, if you were talking about KNOWN ENTITIES such as house fires or hurricanes. We know these things exist. We have experienced them.

What we're talking about here is not a known entity, but a complete confabulation on your part. In this case, the burden of proof falls on you to show that they exist...it's therefore quite reasonable to demand absolute proof.

 

[aggle-rithm]

I conclude that to ignore ALL the anecdotes and other historical imagery is flatly foolish.

Here is some historical imagery. Should we accept them at face value? If not, then why not?

 

[RoboTimbo]

I have never been able to summon them...that will take half the world, at least.

You continue to assert that you know nothing about them other than they exist. So, how did you come by the knowledge that the bolded above is true?

 

[King of the Americas]

"Ignore reports from your fellow man at the peril of timely truth."

Actually WTF this is supposed to mean?

I will not receive the benefits belivers will get when "they" reveal "them"selves?

I will be punished by disagreeing with and mocking their great prophet?

I will become a second-class citizen?

KotA, you are sounding more and more like a biblical fundamentalist.

There was a scenario within this thread wherein a 'skeptic' military leader is faced with a report from a single anecdotal source of lightly guarded artillery about to launch an attack. Needing "verification", the leader chooses to send out more scouts, rather than act upon the initial report.

Skepticism cost the leader his defensive walls.

Timely truth and skepticism are at odds with one another.

In another real world scenario, the first guy to go to the bottom of the ocean comes back with reports of "lights" at depth. Skeptics accused the man of hallucinations... It would take years of research to verify that he guy DID in fact see 'lights', down there. We know now that they are bioluminescent fish.

So, now you are faced with me, and my report of yet 'unproven' or unverified "non-human advanced technology behind U.F.O.'s"... I have some experience in and around all sorts of terrestrial craft, and no history of hallucinations or failure of my senses to relay accurate information about my surroundings.

You can accept my report, and the truth that "They exist.", or you can wait for verification.

The fact that they DO exist is not conditional upon your acceptance, however.

Refusing to accept mine, and other reports won't provide you timely truth...

 

[King of the Americas]

...

And I conclude that it is much more foolish to take anecdotes and historical imagery at face value.

I don't take them at 'face value'...

I don't believe they are "God", angels, demons, or any other religious icon.

They are merely more technologically advanced than we are.

 

[dafydd]

It is flatly STUPID to demand absolute proof of something, before taking action.

So if I told you to jump over a wall,you wouldn't ask how big the drop was on the other side? A very sensible philosophy.

 

[dafydd]

I don't take them at 'face value'...

I don't believe they are "God", angels, demons, or any other religious icon.

They are merely more technologically advanced than we are.

There is no proof of ''they''. What does the U in UFO stand for?

 

[Psiload]

You continue to assert that you know nothing about them other than they exist. So, how did you come by the knowledge that the bolded above is true?

Or how about this one?

Knowledge of them will catapult mankind forward into an unimaginable future.

How did you come by this knowledge?

If this is mere speculation on your part, rather than actual knowledge, then how is your speculation any more valid than that of the people who speculate that knowledge of "them" will spell NO more future for mankind?

 

[King of the Americas]

So if I told you to jump over a wall,you wouldn't ask how big the drop was on the other side? A very sensible philosophy.

I'd LOOK with my own eyes, then use my experience to determine whether or not to leap or not.

I would not require repeated testing, or conclusive proof, before deciding upon a course of action.

If I were being chased by an axe wielding killer, and the drop looked like 8-12 feet, I'd give it a go. Waiting until I verified that I could indeed survive the fall would be stupid...

 

[King of the Americas]

You continue to assert that you know nothing about them other than they exist. So, how did you come by the knowledge that the bolded above is true?

I told you. It is a theory of mine.

 

[RoboTimbo]

If I were being chased by an axe wielding killer, and the drop looked like 8-12 feet, I'd give it a go. Waiting until I verified that I could indeed survive the fall would be stupid...

Unfortunately, you died. The "axe wielding killer" was coming to your rescue from the ogre on the other side of the wall. You ran straight into his slavering jaws.

 

[Psiload]

I told you. It is a theory of mine.

Will you admit that your theory could be absolutely wrong?

With that in mind... do you think it's a bit foolish to expect half of the world's population to participate in a spectacle based upon nothing more than one of your pet theories?

A bit conceited? A bit presumptuous maybe? Arrogant? Delusions of grandeur perhaps?

 

[RoboTimbo]

I told you. It is a theory of mine.

I told you it isn't a theory. It's a WAG.

For future ease of use, how are we to distinguish you asserting your fantasies as reality from actual reality as observed by everyone else?

 

[King of the Americas]

There is no proof of ''they''. What does the U in UFO stand for?

I never said there was "proof"...

There weren't proof of bioluminescent fish, when the first report of such things emerged, either. But their existence wasn't conditional upon such proof.

The "U" stands for unidentified. It does NOT stand for unseen, unreal, unheard of, or any other not real U-word you can summon.

I've never claimed anything more than "They exist." I DON'T know what they are, where they live, or what they purpose to do.

 

[King of the Americas]

Will you admit that your theory could be absolutely wrong?

With that in mind... do you think it's a bit foolish to expect half of the world's population to participate in a spectacle based upon nothing more than one of your pet theories?

A bit conceited? A bit presumptuous maybe? Arrogant? Delusions of grandeur perhaps?

Yes.

No.

No.

 

[bruto]

They shouldn't be called aliens, because the COULD be from here, and have ALWAYS ben in our heavens.

There is no need to require that they be from another star system, to make them indeed "alien". Although, if they came from another planet, or a moon from somewhere in our solar system, that might make them certainly non-earthly.

The point I've repeatedly tried to make is that they have always been in our heavens, for as long as history has recorded. They aren't from anywhere else, because they've always been 'up there'.

Let's get this nonsense straight here. The term "alien" does not mean "from the stars." If they're not living here on earth, they're aliens. It doesn't matter where you think their ancestors might have come from. Are they earth dwellers now? NO? Then they're aliens. Are they ordinary human beings? NO? They're not from here. They're not us. They're aliens. That's what the word means!