GENIUS FORUMS

DHodges wrote:"I believe in UFOs," as it is commonly stated, means "I believe the earth is visited by alien craft," or something like that. It is very vaguely stated, purposely so, because it is a vague, religious belief, not a statement that there are objects in the atmosphere (or other atmospheric phenomenen) that are not well-identified.

When people say, "I believe in UFOs," they almost never mean that they think that not all flying objects are well-identified. It should probably be stated as "I believe in UFOs hurf durf."

Yes, many confuse UFO with extraterrestrial when literally it means not identified. I agree that believing in anything without examining evidence is foolish. But if the statement "I believe ETs have visited earth" is made after said examination, then it may be a reasonable statement. Therefore it is still unreasonable to call statement (3) unreasonable outright. Bear in mind I do understand your personal point of view that aliens have not visited earth.

Carl G wrote:I agree that believing in anything without examining evidence is foolish.

Perhaps more to the point here, believing it because it says so in the Urantia book or because some guru said it is foolish. Having some sense of what constitutes valid, reliable evidence is a start.

Bear in mind I do understand your personal point of view that aliens have not visited earth.

My point of view is that it extremely unlikely that aliens have visited the earth. There are no known off-Earth spots within our solar system (e.g., Mars or a moon of Jupiter) that would be a likely spot for advanced life. Outside of our solar system, the distances are incredibly vast.

Our current understanding of physics doesn't point to a way to travel those distances in a reasonable time frame (of course future advances are possible that could change that). A trip would likely be one-way, not round-trip. I would expect an advanced civilization to do what we would do and are doing, namely, send out unmanned probes.

DHodges wrote:My point of view is that it extremely unlikely that aliens have visited the earth. There are no known off-Earth spots within our solar system (e.g., Mars or a moon of Jupiter) that would be a likely spot for advanced life. Outside of our solar system, the distances are incredibly vast.

Our current understanding of physics doesn't point to a way to travel those distances in a reasonable time frame (of course future advances are possible that could change that). A trip would likely be one-way, not round-trip. I would expect an advanced civilization to do what we would do and are doing, namely, send out unmanned probes.

You've got to get out more. :)

And like here.