SHAPE CHANGERS

[dissenter]

My point about reality, more or less, is that it seems less about presenting the subject with "truths" about the world and more about letting the subject just get on with living. People give themselves too much credit.

As for aliens, if your argument is essentially based on the number of people who report aliens, then I'd have to point out that there are millions of people who have never seen such things. You are creating a consensus fallacy.

Also...wasn't David Icke the man who claimed he was the son of God in the 90s? I tend to not find his opinions reasonable.

As far as mass sightings go, I have two points: (1) Every time a popular movie about aliens is released, the amount of reported sightings skyrockets. Coincidence? (2) In social situations, the frontal cortex is inhibited by the occipital lobe (the vision center of the brain), which reduced logic and reasoning capabilities and actually makes is possible to fall victim to mass delusions. There's some fascinating research on this.

Although I'm sure some of what people see is just government testing/usage of secret aircraft.

[Dave]

Nov 22, 2013 17:50:52 GMT -5 @dissenter said:

As for aliens, if your argument is essentially based on the number of people who report aliens, then I'd have to point out that there are millions of people who have never seen such things. You are creating a consensus fallacy.

Oh contrare - now you seem to be double speaking.

One the one hand, you say that reality is a product of the mind, determined by your individual perspective - therefore - for those who have seen something, believe it.

Whether it be angels/demons or UFO/aliens. For them their reality is correct and real.

But now you say it is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or most people believe it. Therefore their - reality is a mental projection far removed from the physical universe - is not reality at all but a fallacy, from your perspective.

Couldn't your same resistance to their reality be the fallacious argument because many haven't seen the same thing?

This sort of goes along with the same argument that people make about God. The Quran says, Many people say they would believe, if they could just see a sign. But those of us that already believe see signs all around us.

I agree it is all about a matter of perspective, as interpreted within the framework of what I call - our cultural common knowledge.

Example - 5000 years ago someone sees a strange looking being flying in a mechanical craft - his best guess as to what he saw is - an a god, or angel, in a fiery chariot. The same event happens today and it is reported as an alien in a flying saucer.

This is also why a Baptist, a Catholic, and a Presbyterian can all ready the same verse - then use the exact same vocabulary to argue their points and still never agree.

I have a paper called - The Psychology of Understanding - I would love to hear your impression of it.

ponderingconfusion.com/papers.php?id=psychology

[dissenter]

Well, I never said reality was correct...indeed, the very idea of "correctness" is a human linguistic projection. A sort of wall we create. Reality and the objective universe are both existent, both perceivable, both similar, and yet not the same thing. Each is about as "correct" as one another even if they are contradictory. Although reality is all about perception and illusion. All we are is perception of illusion. The objective universe just is what it is.

If you're making an argument, and I say you have made a logical falacy, I am not saying I disagree with the point you are making (even though I don't), only the proof you use. Just because a certain number of people agree on something, that thing isn't necessarily existent.

I mostly disagree because the kind of argements I tend to hear people make only make sense if one already agrees with them; you say to believe is to see...I say you are experiencing cognitive dissonance and retroactively altering your perceptions/memories.

...I'l check that paper out and get back to you...funnily enough, it has the exact same title of a paper I wrote during my psychology studies. ...it's sort of beautiful that we both can be pursuing the same end and come to such vastly different explanations, don't you think?

[Dave]

My education and professional career has been immersed with statistical analysis. Take a data set, shake it up, plot the distribution, toss out the 3sd out-layers and calculate the mean. I have applied this same methodology to my own life to sort out what is it that I believe or don’t.

This is exactly why I became a Gnostic. Romnology says only read the ‘one book’ and only listen to and their point of view. I spent many years of my life holding down a pew, but to be a good student of the OT, I began interacting with some Jewish websites and picked up some Hebrew studies. It didn't take long to realize that even though Jesus was a Jew, Romanology has retaught much of the OT in its own age. I am also trained as a chemist and work in a biological field.

This is why I embrace Gnosticism – knowledge – after all, if you buy into the notion that a creator created it all then how can anything within the realm of physicality deny that creator. The heavens testify to his handiwork (Psalms 90)

Aliens and UFOs

Do I believe? – Well, I don’t disbelieve. I know two or three different people that have very compelling stories. My x-wife use to work with the grand-daughter of the 1947 Provost Marshall involved in the Roswell crash. Everyone in that family believes grand-dad carried a secret to his grave. When asked about it on his death bed, all he would say is that by keeping his secret he kept his family alive. That very statement correlates exactly with what I believe about my government, and therefore validates the story for me. Not that there were little green men, but that there was a cover-up of something. 50 years is supposed to be the limit for the freedom of information in this country – yet, >50 years later still Roswell documents are classified.

Two possible conclusions: 1) There is something “they” just don’t want the public to know, which opens the door for the alien conspiracy. 2) Or, the resulting alien conspiracy generated by option 1 is being used for an eventual ‘False Flag’ governmental / military event. Either option makes my government a very nefarious organization indeed.

For me, I consider this as just additional data to add to the totality of available information. Such as, this same theme – we being visited from the outside (non-earth origin and therefore alien by definition) has been with humanity since the beginnings of our origin. Speaking only in secular terms, since the gods of Egypt from the star Sirius, or the Sumerian gods from Marduk or Nebiru, or the Hindi gods. Scriptural references begin only 6 chapters into Genesis.

That is approximately 5000 years of evidence that something is happening. The trail of evidence has been consistent since. The post Roswell era is plagued with exaggerations and out-right false reports, yet, major world governments (Canada, Belgium, France, etc) take enough of it seriously to validate that – again there is something going on.

But what? Life forms that evolved independently on other planets? Or, something grander in scope?

I offer the following link as food for thought:

Five Arguments Against the Extraterrestrial
Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects
JACQUES F. VALLEE

ufocasebook.com/valleearguments.pdf