The skeptics catch 22 when it comes to U.F.O.'s

a reply to: Arbitrageur

You said:

Critical thinking needs to be applied to the evidence which means when someone changes their story, you can't consider what they say to be reliable.

Let's see if you will apply some critical thinking when the story changes:

The controller on duty that night, Bill Grava, described the experience as “weird” and “inexplicable” to the USA Today reporter. “I have no idea what it was,” said Grava. “Something military I guess.”

But the military denied any involvement, at least at first. A bit later on, the U.S. Air Force took responsibility for the events, saying the lights were leftover high-intensity flares that were dropped by a fleet of A-10s during a training routine at the nearby Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range.

www.esquire.com...

Using your standard of "CRITICAL THINKING" how can we trust the military when they denied involvement at first? These are your words:

Critical thinking needs to be applied to the evidence which means when someone changes their story, you can't consider what they say to be reliable.

Of course your biased opinion will make an excuse in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1............

a reply to: neoholographic

Has no bearing that the object probably wasn’t extraterrestrial.

So. How do I contact extraterrestrials to invite them for dinner. Or would like an extraterrestria pen pal? Or where do I tune in to catch extraterrestrial news broadcast?

a reply to: neoholographic

But in short - themselves.

This is meaningless. You have to provide evidence of this.

Actually. It’s probably far from meaningless. It’s probably the truth.

You

They didn't say themselves and if they didn't say it,

And a link to the actual collected tablets and works translated.

Cuneiform Digital Library Interactive

cdli.ucla.edu...

Now. What do the actual tables say.


Your keep referencing works with no cited reference.

Now.

This

The Anunaki, the Igigi and the humans
aratta.wordpress.com...

Who was this written by. And what is the referenced sources?

a reply to: neoholographic

Oh. Wait. Someone at the door…

Oh. They just said they are the real sky beings. They just claimed the Sumerians received no help, and did things out of their own need and want. And said to post your wrong.

Well. There you go. Who are you to post and judge what really happened.

a reply to: neoholographic
I never said I trusted the military, I don't.
But that doesn't mean everything they say is a lie, just some things they say are lies.

Analysis of the evidence using critical thinking can help distinguish the truth from the lies in some cases, and in the case of the Phoenix lights, we have a video of the earlier event, and several videos of the later event.

Detailed analysis of the videos of the later event shows the behavior of the lights is entirely consistent with illumination flares. Video of such analysis can be found linked in the thread I linked.

So that analysis is consistent with what the military said about flares.

Also, I'd like to see specific citations about the military's denial, because there could be a misunderstanding there instead of a lie.

Witnesses thought the lights were on the near side of the mountains, so if the military was asked if they had military activity on the near side of the mountains, and they said no, that wouldn't be a lie. The military activity was on the far side of the mountains, contrary to what witnesses reported about activity on the near side, and it was actually detailed video analysis which proved beyond doubt that the activity was on the far side of the mountains and that the witnesses saying otherwise were wrong.

Of course it's not unusual at all for eyewitnesses to be mistaken when it comes to estimates of size, distance and speed of UFOs. They are frequently wrong about such things as it's nearly impossible if not impossible in most cases to accurately report such things for unidentified nocturnal lights. This is why I say the reliable evidence is in video analysis, and once again it confirmed the eyewitnesses who contradicted the video evidence were unreliable and inaccurate.

a reply to: neutronflux

You posted zero evidence and left the thread, now you're back with the same nonsense. You haven't provided any links that answer the simple question:

WHERE DID THEIR KNOWLEDGE COME FROM?

You keep debating Sitchin not me.

If you don't have anything new to add, please don't clog up the thread with the same nonsense. We're onto Arbitrageur's CRITICAL THINKING or lack thereof not your obsession with debating Sitchin because you can't refute anything I have said.

a reply to: neoholographic

When it comes down to skeptics, you are your own worst enemy. You drive away people who even agree with you to some extent because they won't bow to the altar of your beliefs.

a reply to: JIMC5499

The UFO community is a strange one.

As you say, someone can be on the same 'team' broadly speaking,
but still be brutally attacked and marginalized by someone who
believes 1% differently.

It's like Catholics and Protestants.

Just like Diana says, UFOlogy is a religion, and she would know,
she's a PHd chair of religion and has collaborated with some of
the same 'invisible college' members that I have.

There is close to zero actual 'research' in UFOlogy, it's more like
a quest to confirm one's biases, and jam one's religious nonsense
down someone else's throat.

Diana Pasulka

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: neoholographic

When it comes down to skeptics, you are your own worst enemy. You drive away people who even agree with you to some extent because they won't bow to the altar of your beliefs.

I said I respect skeptics. I said this:

This is another distinction between the skeptic and pseudoskeptic. I have debated skeptics that are okay with the fact that I have used the evidence to reach the conclusion that extreaterrestrial/extradimensional visitation has occurred. They just believe their isn't enough evidence for them to reach that conclusion and I respect that.

I can't respect the illogical position of the pseudoskeptic who acts like there isn't any evidence. It's like people are just reaching the conclusion that extraterrestrial/extradimensional visitation has occurred based on wishful thinking.

How did I drive them away? I made a distinction between skeptics and pseudoskeptics which is pretty clear.

Truzzi attributed the following characteristics to pseudoskeptics:[5]

Denying, when only doubt has been established
Double standards in the application of criticism
The tendency to discredit rather than investigate
Presenting insufficient evidence or proof
Assuming criticism requires no burden of proof
Making unsubstantiated counter-claims
Counter-claims based on plausibility rather than empirical evidence
Suggesting that unconvincing evidence provides grounds for completely dismissing a claim

He characterized true skepticism as:[5]

Acceptance of doubt when neither assertion nor denial has been established
No burden of proof to take an agnostic position
Agreement that the corpus of established knowledge must be based on what is proved, but recognising its incompleteness
Even-handedness in requirement for proofs, whatever their implication
Accepting that a failure of a proof in itself proves nothing
Continuing examination of the results of experiments even when flaws are found

en.wikipedia.org...

Is it really that hard to understand?

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear
I'm not saying you are wrong. Personally I don't subscribe to that. To me you NEED skeptics. In the event something is found it is going to be the skeptics that give that find credibility.

I have to wonder how much the Federal Government is involved in that train of thought? I honestly believe that the Government has no proof of extraterrestrials. The Government isn't very good at keeping secrets. The Government is VERY good at discrediting people. You only have to look at what happened in the 1996 bombing of the Olympics in Atlanta to see that. I've seen first hand a few things that got played down so much they didn't even make the news. I get a real kick out of the whole "black helicopter" thing.

I know for a fact that some sightings in the Western US in the late 70's and 80's were tests of the F-117 and other aircraft. I can very easily see two groups at work there. One group promoting the sightings as alien spacecraft and the other side discrediting them as lunatics. As a result, someone who has really seen something keeps quiet because they don't want to be made out to be a lunatic.

a reply to: neoholographic

You

You posted zero evidence and left the thread,

You mean myth even if written down isn’t evidence if it doesn’t have something physical / tangible to back up and provide context.

My kid believes in magical unicorns. They are in hundreds of books as being portrayed as real. But most adults grasp they are fantasy, and myth.

You

now you're back with the same nonsense.

It’s not nonsense. The Sumerians more than likely developed the technology of improved and built on technology already discovered solely by humankind on earth.

No sky beings needed. They are probably a myth like the magical unicorns my kid would like to believe are real. Nothing more than the ruling class to justify themselves with a “on talent in loan from god” attitude that would keep a purposefully held down ignorant lower class awed. Seems to work on you….

You

You haven't provided any links that answer the simple question:

WHERE DID THEIR KNOWLEDGE COME FROM?

It’s been explained, they had their intelligence. They weren’t rocks. Like it or not. The technology had to get a start from somewhere. At some point. No mater where it originated.

You

You keep debating Sitchin not me.

No. I have provided this link.

Cuneiform Digital Library Interactive

cdli.ucla.edu...

And asked to reference what the Sumerians actually wrote and claimed from their discovered, known, and catalogued works.

Then you provided this link

The Anunaki, the Igigi and the humans
aratta.wordpress.com...

It seems to me built on Sitchin’s work and not built from what’s actually in the available Sumerian works.

Can you cite who wrote “ The Anunaki, the Igigi and the humans”
aratta.wordpress.com...

And can you cite what their references are?

You

If you don't have anything new to add,

That you only have myth and circumstantial evidence?

Your evidence is as credible as this statement

“ Oh. Wait. Someone at the door…

Oh. They just said they are the real sky beings. They just claimed the Sumerians received no help, and did things out of their own need and want. And said to post your wrong.

Well. There you go. Who are you to post and judge what really happened. ”

Can’t debunk it by your own standards of credibility, can you. But because something can’t be “debunked” doesn’t mean it has a bases in reality. Like my kid believing in magical unicorns.


You

don't clog up the thread with the same nonsense.

Because I have healthy skepticism. And because you can’t tell the difference from myth, and what constitutes real evidence.

You

We're onto Arbitrageur's CRITICAL THINKING

No. Your still stuck on your “religion”. And your trying to belittle people who actually question for themselves. And cannot separate a good story, myth, material produced to make a profit from a biased target audience that tells them what they want to believe, and understanding what is actual evidence.

or lack thereof

A very logical and reasonable explanation was provided backed by practical knowledge. But because your “religion” is threatened. And you have no reasonable counter argument, you turn to belittling and unfounded false authority. You are behaving exactly like what you tried to call out in this thread. And it’s is just sad.

a reply to: JIMC5499

As far as I know, the government has no proof of aliens
or nuts and bolts UFOs, as there isn't any.

I know people who have been read into the USG apparatus
very deeply.

But there seems no doubt that a 'phenomenon' does exist,
that people sometimes confuse with god or jesus or ufos.

That's the take of everyone I know, who is an actual
government-backed researcher.

Though of course, some of them still insist upon the
'paranormal' + 'nuts and bolts' explanation, but none
of them deny the (apparent) 'paranormal'.

Do you know what my favorite UFO blog is?

badufos.blogspot.com...

I'm not a 'skeptic ' in the way it's maligned/misinterpreted
in this post; nor am I precisely a 'believer'. I don't like
either tag.

My view is that 99% of Ufology is pure BS.

What the remaining 1% is, i have reseearched most of my
life, and I have my own answers, but it's not settled science
obviously...

Lots of researched needs to be done, and it probably won't
be done in any of our lifetimes.

So in my view, it's best not to give oneself a stroke, with
ranting about one's personal beliefs, especially if you haven't
had a personal CE5. If someone hasn't had a personal CE5,
I'm far less prone to give anything they say credence,

and IF they have had a CE5, then the event has probably
bent and distored their mind/personality, and they need
to spend no less than 30 years processing it, before anyone
should listen to them.

(in the hoary past of mysticism, this was the rule... as
'ufology' is just modern mysticism).

Kev

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

I understand Ufology not wanting to be like main stream academia. But it shows what happens if a group doesn’t have a governing body to establish some sort of standards with the teeth to enforce those standards.

People in ufology have leaned the right material for the right audience brings fortune and fame. It doesn’t even have to be factual, credible, based on actual evidence. It just has to play on the biased judgment of the target audience. And soon as people criticize it for the BS it is, all the better. The target audience just says to themselves, “it’s being repressed. Must be true.”

originally posted by: neoholographic

Where did this knowledge come from to go from this:

To this:

Agriculture was a big part of it. With systemic agriculture and systemic animal domestication, humans were able to spend less time finding food and more time on other pursuits. It also allowed them to live together in larger groups and share intellects and resources.

Ancient humans had their natural geniuses (the Newtons and Galileos of their time) and other people who were very smart but to a lesser degree. Put those people in a larger group to work together and give them the support to allow them to do what they do best without needing to worry about hunter-gathering, and suddenly new ideas and opportunities begin to open up for that society.

Living in larger groups also necessitated the need to develop greater civic and societal infrastructure to support those larger groups. Necessity is the mother of invention.

a reply to: neutronflux

Yes, sir.

There's this deep desire to solve hte great mystery of existiece
personally, even if one does not have the skillset, and makes a
fool of themselves.

The truth is that NOBODY alive, as an individual, can make a
solid claim that they fully understand the great mystery of
existence.

We may NEVER solve it.

We need something like 'open-minded non-dogmatic science'
to be involved, and that's a tall order.

Kev

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

While I haven't done the research that you have, we pretty much have the same view.

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Life is short. And the mystery will be revealed soon enough. Might as well enjoy the ride, and make time for family and friends. Too many people dying before their time it seems. Hold and grow with what you got. It might be gone tomorrow.

a reply to: neutronflux

This is what UFO research should be, not the ridiculous ranting:

The Journey

a reply to: neutronflux
It's kind of hard to define "standards" to the undefined.

Some have crossed the line from research to entertainment. The Government is a coinvent whipping boy. If you prove something wrong, the person says that they can prove it if they can get the Government's files or that the person who proved them wrong is working for the Government or the Government got to them.

It's a lot like the 9-11 debate. Micronukes, nano-thermite, prewired for demolition, things like that. Doesn't matter that the collapse started at the impact points. Government coverup.

originally posted by: neutronflux
Life is short. And the mystery will be revealed soon enough.

I heard that in the 70's. I'm still waiting. Waiting for that and the Ice Age I was promised because of Climate Change.