Serious question from a skeptic - practical realities of t..

External Since: Jan 22, 2008 Posts: 104

>> I'll bite on the questions of aliens, but the whole God debate I'll leave
>> to other forums, or you can e-mail me at hanks.dudley.RemoveThis@gmail.com for a
>> private dialectic.
>>
>> Regarding why we should care if alien crafts are sighted but do not
>> interact with us, well, wouldn't you be interested if you knew that an
>> invasion was iminent? Or, if you, yourself, kept seeing things you
>> couldn't rationally interpret, wouldn't you be concerned that you either
>> needed to upgrade your education or seek competant psychological
>> assistance?
>>
>> From the time of Plato and Aristotle, if not from the earliest wondering
>> contemplations of cavemen, the human race has sought to understand both
>> ourselves and the world around us. Why draw the line at the present
>> level of understanding and say, "Great, we now know enough to live
>> comfortably. Let's all just sit back and have a big retirement party!"
>>
>> As long as stuff happens that cannot be rationally explained, enquiring
>> minds will want explainations, and the search for explainations will
>> spawn inquisitorial discussions until solutions are settled upon.
>>
>> Take Care,
>> Dudley
>>
> Nope.....Not if I couldn't do anything about it, I wouldn't.
>
> And, I will leave wild ass speculation to the speculators who (apparently)
> need to have such things to speculate about.....In the meantime, I will
> speculate on or about those things that I have some hope of doing
> something about, or which can improve my circumstances. There are more
> than enough real unsolved problems in the society. Why should I bother
> with manufacturing imaginary problems that have no useful purpose or
> solution?
>

Fair enough. If one has never encountered a physical phenomena that one
cannot explain or rationalize with reference to one's own experience, then
it is easy enough to dismiss someone else who has seen something like an
unidentified flying object.

But, when others who have had such experiences and want to discuss them, I
think it is somewhat selfish to simply dismiss the enquirey as rubbish and
nonsense. Remember Mount St. Hellens? Living hundreds of miles away from
the mostly dormant volcano, I didn't really care that scientists were
predicting an eminant eruption. But, supposedly, there was some old guy who
had been living there all his life, and who had told everyone he didn't care
what the scientists were predicting because he had seen it all and heard it
all before. And, hey, nobody could remember the last time there was an
eruption, so it really was unlikely that it was going to affect him in any
way. And, hey, even if a bit of smoke and ash got spewed up in the air,
"What the hell?"

Supposedly the old guy was vapourised in the blast. And the ash trail was
detected well into Canada.

While I wouldn't exactly call myself a firm believer in aliens and their
flying fortresses, I like to think that I keep an open mind, so I won't be
taken entirely by surprise when ET parks his saucer in my backyard and wants
to rev up my cell.

Take Care,
Dudley

External Since: Jun 11, 2004 Posts: 1764

"Dudley Hanks" <hanks.dudley DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote in message
news:qE1vj.36815$w57.30655@edtnps90...
>>> I'll bite on the questions of aliens, but the whole God debate I'll
>>> leave to other forums, or you can e-mail me at hanks.dudley DeleteThis @gmail.com
>>> for a private dialectic.
>>>
>>> Regarding why we should care if alien crafts are sighted but do not
>>> interact with us, well, wouldn't you be interested if you knew that an
>>> invasion was iminent? Or, if you, yourself, kept seeing things you
>>> couldn't rationally interpret, wouldn't you be concerned that you either
>>> needed to upgrade your education or seek competant psychological
>>> assistance?
>>>
>>> From the time of Plato and Aristotle, if not from the earliest wondering
>>> contemplations of cavemen, the human race has sought to understand both
>>> ourselves and the world around us. Why draw the line at the present
>>> level of understanding and say, "Great, we now know enough to live
>>> comfortably. Let's all just sit back and have a big retirement party!"
>>>
>>> As long as stuff happens that cannot be rationally explained, enquiring
>>> minds will want explainations, and the search for explainations will
>>> spawn inquisitorial discussions until solutions are settled upon.
>>>
>>> Take Care,
>>> Dudley
>>>
>> Nope.....Not if I couldn't do anything about it, I wouldn't.
>>
>> And, I will leave wild ass speculation to the speculators who
>> (apparently) need to have such things to speculate about.....In the
>> meantime, I will speculate on or about those things that I have some hope
>> of doing something about, or which can improve my circumstances. There
>> are more than enough real unsolved problems in the society. Why should I
>> bother with manufacturing imaginary problems that have no useful purpose
>> or solution?
>>
>
> Fair enough. If one has never encountered a physical phenomena that one
> cannot explain or rationalize with reference to one's own experience, then
> it is easy enough to dismiss someone else who has seen something like an
> unidentified flying object.
>
> But, when others who have had such experiences and want to discuss them, I
> think it is somewhat selfish to simply dismiss the enquirey as rubbish and
> nonsense. Remember Mount St. Hellens? Living hundreds of miles away from
> the mostly dormant volcano, I didn't really care that scientists were
> predicting an eminant eruption. But, supposedly, there was some old guy
> who had been living there all his life, and who had told everyone he
> didn't care what the scientists were predicting because he had seen it all
> and heard it all before. And, hey, nobody could remember the last time
> there was an eruption, so it really was unlikely that it was going to
> affect him in any way. And, hey, even if a bit of smoke and ash got
> spewed up in the air, "What the hell?"
>
> Supposedly the old guy was vapourised in the blast. And the ash trail was
> detected well into Canada.
>
> While I wouldn't exactly call myself a firm believer in aliens and their
> flying fortresses, I like to think that I keep an open mind, so I won't be
> taken entirely by surprise when ET parks his saucer in my backyard and
> wants to rev up my cell.
>
> Take Care,
> Dudley
>
>
The geezer could have left. Presumably he knew that volcanoes had erupted in
the past, so I guess he was taking a calculated risk.....Scientists who
study volcanoes do the same thing. And, if I saw a flying saucer, I would
change my mind, (depending on exactly what I saw) But all I have seen is the
testimony of others whom I did not believe. The same kind of testimony that
tells me that bigfoot doesn't exist. (and that crop circles don't exist,
either)So, I will keep a "closed mind", until I get some substantiation.
Today, photographs aren't good enough. Not since, "2001 - A Space Odyssey"
You can just do too much with Photoshop to make photography believable. IOW,
when the little green men get around to kidnapping me, then I will change my
mind, but until then, I think it is a waste of time to speculate on such
things.