No, it means we can Gore the Bush!

After reading your responses, Monkey_Boy, there’s nothing I can honestly say to take our discussion of alien contact with our planet down any constructive avenues. That’s fine; I’m sure you feel the same way about the religion thread where people, like me, try to rationalize the intentions of God with our naive mortal logic… where we ask for measurable proof where there is none to be found.

Your overnight facial reconstruction is just as profound and indisputable as someone else’s account of an alien abduction. Of course, they’re just confused, mentally unstable people… your miracle was clearly a visit from God. I’m not trying to insult you, I’m just pointing out the irony of the situation.

I really wanted to keep this discussion in the religion thread for that very reason, but it’s hard to talk about aliens and God without the distractions of space travel theories, warp engines and holodecks. ;-)

What bothers me, more than your disregard for the possibility of alien visitors, is your stark view on the possibilities of mankind conquering other planets and space. For me, it’s just a matter of time… time slowed down by capitalism and conflicting government agendas, of course, but time nonetheless. ;-)

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I was just flipping through the recent Popular Science magazine and there’s this guy who built a cheap 3D printer for retail sale. Apparently, it’s very inexpensive for anybody to fabricate parts out of many different materials… even chocolate! The logic behind this new printer is that mass production factories are limiting so why not give the power to the people. The guy who’s heading this says he won’t stop until he figures out how to print a complete robot… batteries, circuit boards and all. His vision includes the ability for planetary exploration by landing a small facility that builds what it needs… as it needs it. Need a different tool to extract something? A robot could simply go back to home base and have it fabricated and attached. Of course, we’re a long ways off from that, but it’s not hard to imagine… or maybe it is for some people.

Right now, you can buy one for a little more than $2000 and print Lego pieces, rubber watchstraps or new parts for anything you can dream up. That sort of thing would have sounded like science fiction 30 years ago.

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A while ago a competition launched to see who could build the most cost efficient travel outside the earth’s atmosphere and back. Apparently, a Canadian entry shows the most promise. Instead of piggy backing off a plane or launching from the ground, a large balloon will carry the shuttle near the edge of the atmosphere where at that point it hardly takes any fuel to blast out. A balloon of all things… crazy, man! ;-)

Would burning Bush really be the right thing to do? I'm not saying that I favor him, but do we really want to become an anarchy?

I agree with you, Echo, that interplanetary travel for humans is a question of when, not if. Given enough time, human beings will figure out how to travel the long distances. It may require generations living on a ship, but I think even our primitive baby steps, (landing on the moon, the int'l space station) are just that. First steps.

Unless of course we blow ourselves up, or destroy our environment before then...

I know we talk about faith a lot in the religion thread, but I do have tremendous faith in man's ability to create. It's easy to look at something we don't currently have the knowledge or technology to accomplish and call it impossible, but I don't know how anyone can look at our accomplishments, and ignore the results. As Echo said, we have so much that's commonplace now that would've seemed impossible as little as 20 years ago.

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Unless of course we blow ourselves up, or destroy our environment before then...

Isn't that what always ends up happening?
Then again, I'm a pessimist .

FINALLY!!! I was thinkin' you forgot about our little debate !

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Originally posted by Echolocating:
Your overnight facial reconstruction is just as profound and indisputable as someone else’s account of an alien abduction. Of course, they’re just confused, mentally unstable people… your miracle was clearly a visit from God. I’m not trying to insult you, I’m just pointing out the irony of the situation.

Not really all that ironic, at all. These "alien abdutees" NEVER have proof of what happened. They claim to have been impregnated by alien beings, but never have a doctor check the "fetus" for alien DNA or even abort the baby for proof. I mean, who wants an alien baby living in their stomach? Then they have the exscuse that the aliens came & took back the baby six months later, so, once again, no proof. As I said, you can look at my face & see the proof of what happened. I have a picture from when I was 14 & there is a clear difference in the shape of my left eye. Once again, still unexplainable, some 15 years later, on how this could've happened in a single night. There isn't a thread of evidence that hasn't been explained by a rational scientist on alien sightings. So, the biggest difference is mine has been acknowledged & deemed unexplainable (at the moment), theirs is acknowledged & deemed explainable & that they're just nuts, or lying, or both. I am actually quite surprised you disagree with the majority of scientists on this matter. I mean, in that other thread "Science Rules!", but here, you refuse to acknowledge that the Scientific community believes most of the stories are fabrications of the human mind (something else you hold very high in that OTHER thread). Science requires that we judge according to the availability of concrete evidence, that a conclusion must validate a hypothesis rather than the opposite, and models should be adapted to fit situations, not vice versa- This is the belief of the scientific community. I actually find it ironic you'd disagree with me on my belief, especially when I have proof, & you'd be completely ready to believe that aliens have visited this planet, when NOBODY has any proof. You said it yourself, "...we ask for measurable proof where there is none to be found." Why is it you're so easily ready to dismiss the NEED for proof when discussing alien visitations aka UFO's?

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What bothers me, more than your disregard for the possibility of alien visitors, is your stark view on the possibilities of mankind conquering other planets and space.

Space travel is very slow & extremely dangerous. Especially, when you consider the fact that outer space has large amounts of dangerous radiation levels. To spend too much time up there is just begging for cancer. Or the very same radiation could cause you to age rapidly. Besides, while you see space travel as relatively cheap, for some odd reason, NASA thinks it's very expensive. The problem isn't getting into space, it's staying there for months, even years, even generations at a time. While there are scientists who are optimistic in our ability to travel into space one day, I tend to think that they are FORCED to say this if they want to keep their funding.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Monkey_Boy,

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Originally posted by Monkey_Boy:
Space travel is very slow & extremely dangerous. Especially, when you consider the fact that outer space has large amounts of dangerous radiation levels.

Again, you're looking at things through 2007 eyes MB. You're seeing what we know to be true right now, and saying that's how it will always be. Science doesn't work that way. Scientists could find a more efficient fuel source and craft design, where speed and radiation aren't an issue. Scientists may even cure cancer one day!

Also, not to pick on you too much, but I'm sure I could spend some time digging and find someone with an alien abductee story offering as seemingly irrefutable evidence as your "God healed me" story. An anecdote's an anecdote. To say that they don't have proof and you do is to misunderstand the definition of the word "proof".

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Originally posted by ericg75:
Again, you're looking at things through 2007 eyes MB. You're seeing what we know to be true right now, and saying that's how it will always be. Science doesn't work that way. Scientists could find a more efficient fuel source and craft design, where speed and radiation aren't an issue. Scientists may even cure cancer one day!

Also, not to pick on you too much, but I'm sure I could spend some time digging and find someone with an alien abductee story offering as seemingly irrefutable evidence as your "God healed me" story. An anecdote's an anecdote. To say that they don't have proof and you do is to misunderstand the definition of the word "proof".

*shakes Eric's hand*

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Originally posted by ericg75:
Also, not to pick on you too much, but I'm sure I could spend some time digging and find someone with an alien abductee story offering as seemingly irrefutable evidence as your "God healed me" story. An anecdote's an anecdote. To say that they don't have proof and you do is to misunderstand the definition of the word "proof".

We really shouldn't bring this discussion here (Geez, this shoulda stayed in the religious thread!), but I'll just say, look & see if you can find anyone. As I said, I would love it to be true, but it just isn't likely. If they TRULY had proof, it'd, at the very least, be all over the internet in big letters, "LOOK WHAT I HAVE! I TOOK THIS OFF THEIR SHIP! THEY ARE OUT THERE!" (I mean, that's what I'm doing.) There would be scientists who would back it up & the proof would be undeniable. However, with every piece of "photographic evidence", there is a scientist there to point out why it isn't real or what we think it is. This still has me puzzled as to how you can believe a small percentage of people who claim they've been abducted or seen an actual UFO, but you think the testimonies of the Religious are so much more far fetched. Strange, indeed.

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Originally posted by Monkey_Boy:
This still has me puzzled as to how you can believe a small percentage of people who claim they've been abducted or seen an actual UFO, but you think the testimonies of the Religious are so much more far fetched. Strange, indeed.

I don't. I'm saying neither are indisputable proof of anything. That's my point.

I'm not really a UFO-buff type of person, but a few interesting things have caught my interest in recent years...The Phoenix Lights: hundreds of people, including the governor of Arizona, reported seeing an enormous black shape moving slowly in the night sky, with blinking lights around its perimeter. This happened several times over a few weeks. The Air Force said it was a routine "flare dropping mission," which nobody, including the governor, is inclined to believe.

UFOs, in the form of the classic round, metallic, saucer-shaped object, have been showing up in satellite photos for years now. Yahoo!, for example, offers satellite maps that are regularly updated, and anyone can see an aerial view of almost any part of the globe. Several of these satellite snapshots contain the aforementioned UFO objects, visible from above at altitudes of a few hundred to a few thousand feet. No explanation has yet been offered for this...

By the way MB, I think you've got me pegged wrong. I feel the same way about UFOs I do about God. I find both subjects fascinating, but I'm also skeptical about both. Too much school and a mother who's favorite motto is, "If something seems to good to be true, it usually is," have conditioned me to be skeptical about everything. It's not that I don't want these things to be true, I just need to witness them firsthand before I accept them as fact.

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Originally posted by ericg75:
By the way MB, I think you've got me pegged wrong. I feel the same way about UFOs I do about God.

Oooh, so you're like my friend who I had the same discussion with. He kept coming up with reasons it is possible to counter my reasons it isn't. He was so passionate about it & I finally had to ask him if he truly believed this & his response was the same as yours: "It's not that I don't want these things to be true, I just need to witness them firsthand before I accept them as fact." Nearly word for word. Wow.

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Originally posted by Monkey_Boy:
"It's not that I don't want these things to be true, I just need to witness them firsthand before I accept them as fact."

This is why I linked UFOs to the religion thread. Belief in either requires the acceptance that other people have experienced something that you haven't, or that you have experienced it yourself. Isn't it kind of egocentric though to think that you have to have had the experience yourself for it to be true?

I don't believe in 'em from personal experience, but Close Encounters is a beautiful film, definitely too beautiful to just blow 'em off!

Monkey_Boy, take a step back for a second.

I think that aliens have visited this planet. However, I don’t know that they have. You know that God exists, but can’t prove it. There’s a world of difference there. Ah, but you can prove it, right? Okay… so prove it. Let’s see these pictures, Monkey_Boy. I’m calling you out. ;-)

Where my skepticism with aliens ends and genuine interest begins is when large numbers of unrelated people report strange technological phenomena, like what Commontone said about The Phoenix Lights and other such things. How much of it is earthly and how much of it is otherworldly? Is it all military aircraft testing? If so, then the sightings would suggest that every country has amazing top-secret aviation technology. I’m not entirely sold on that.

…and don’t get me started on Roswell. ;-)

I will say this though. Let’s say that there are alien spacecraft flying around our planet… this doesn’t necessarily mean that alien life has visited this planet. These saucers flying at outrageous speeds and unfathomable maneuverability could very well be alien probes. Maybe the aliens are truly unable to travel the vastness of space, but their probes (like ours) aren’t concerned with the limitations of supporting life as they travel. Food for thought.

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I’m surprised that no one has mentioned Contact as an interesting religious sci-fi movie.

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Originally posted by Echolocating:
I think that aliens have visited this planet. However, I don’t know that they have. You know that God exists, but can’t prove it. There’s a world of difference there. Ah, but you can prove it, right? Okay… so prove it. Let’s see these pictures, Monkey_Boy. I’m calling you out. ;-)

Just to make something clear, that will only prove that a healing took place, not that supernatural forces were involved. Plus we could say he got plastic surgery in between the pictures, etc.

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Originally posted by Monkey_Boy:
I just need to witness them firsthand before I accept them as fact." Nearly word for word. Wow.

I don't think this an uncommon way of thinking. Scientific experiments, research papers, mathmatical proofs - they all basically work the same way. You have a hypothesis, then you try to prove it. You don't stop at the hypothesis and call it fact.

Here we go back to miraculous thinking. Things that don't normally happen *can* happen. It's just not likely. "Miracles" don't happen that often, and thus they are a fluke of scientific probability. The chance to roll three snake eyes in a row is something along the lines of 1 in 46,566, but that doesn't make rolling three snake eyes in a row a "miracle". Let's say someone got better from a disease they were going to die from? It doesn't happen often, it may barely ever happen, but that just means that the person was extraordinarily lucky. Plus, why would one person be singled out if countless others die?