The nature of the epic conflict between skeptics and believers, or - at the heart of it all

Originally posted by faustus
Being a skeptic does not mean we refuse to believe in Aliens or UFOs.
It means we do not jump to conclusions, we demand evidence and proof.
Of course there are those that refuse pointblank to believe and never will, but they are not skeptics, they are just as fundamentalist as those who believe every video of a blurry object in the sky is an Alien craft.
Fundamentalism on either side will get us nowhere. A healthy scientific skepticism however will add knowledge that all of us can benefit from.

Thankyou for your response!

And you're right, fundamentalism (it doesn't matter from which side) won't bring us any closer to "the truth". Fundamentalism is a strange thing. Maybe we should examine, where fundamentalism comes from. Maybe then we're able to understand why all this fighting not just here on ATS...

The fundamentalism might be a consequence of social paradigms and the tendency for people to maintain the status quo. Most people do not like for their belief systems to be challenged, and when their beliefs are threatened by change, there is a natural tendency to oppose one's self to whatever the new idea might be, furthering yourself from that new idea. For example, the idea that the world is flat was common in the past. It is easy to assume the world is flat after seeing a long expanse of plains or prairie stretch to the horizon, where it seemingly fades away due to the distance involved. So that the world is flat is an early theory based upon observation, and since few had questioned it, there weren't any alternative theories (to my knowledge at least, but that's not really important to this discussion) until later in history.

When the idea of a spherical planet gained in popularity, it made people take sides - are you a flat-worlder or round-worlder? To most, the idea of a round planet was totally foreign and did not match with their experience. So from just being a person who believed in a flat planet without notion of a round world, people progressed to being a person who believed in a flat planet and explicitly did NOT believe in a round world. In this way, paradigm changing ideas may encourage fundamentalism during the transition period between paradigms.

Socrates famously replied to comments by the Oracle that he was the wisest man in Greece by saying that the only thing which separated him from others was that he understood that he was ignorant while everybody else thought that they knew it all. This idea is illustrated by the Dunning-Kruger effect, which shows that the less competent a person is, the more competent they perceive themselves to be. Likewise the more competent a person is, the less competent they will rate themselves.

What is the cause of this ignorance-is-bliss type effect? I believe it is an effect of the ego holding itself in the highest regard, the ego is uplifted in the revelation of individuality, distinctness from the rest of the world. The ego creates the illusion of one's self being the center of the universe, just like the rotation of of the Earth around the Sun creates an illusion of the Sun rotating around the Earth. Ego fears change. To conquer the ego is to conquer fear, for it is only through fear of loss/lessening of ego that ignorance is accepted.

Thanks for posting. Why can't we just be satisfied with "ET life is a possibility, and as such, we must consider its implications"? Either conclusion, that there is ET life or there is not ET life, would be extremely significant for every human being. If we found we were totally alone in this universe, I feel much of our population would be disheartened and experience a cosmic heartbreak. However, we cannot prove that ET life does NOT exist - we can only prove that it DOES exist. The conclusion that there is no ET life is inherently irrational. The conclusion that there is ET life may be rational, depending on the evidence and your standards. The most rational conclusion currently is that ET life probably exists. So let's figure out what it MEANS to find that we are not alone... the evidence will present itself only as soon as it will present itself. We can find any conclusion we want from any evidence if we look hard enough. We need to move this type of discussion towards what ET life means to each of us and our global community instead of whether a video shows ETs or weather balloons.

Originally posted by tetsuo
Ego fears change. To conquer the ego is to conquer fear, for it is only through fear of loss/lessening of ego that ignorance is accepted.

[...]

Why can't we just be satisfied with "ET life is a possibility, and as such, we must consider its implications"? Either conclusion, that there is ET life or there is not ET life, would be extremely significant for every human being. If we found we were totally alone in this universe, I feel much of our population would be disheartened and experience a cosmic heartbreak. However, we cannot prove that ET life does NOT exist - we can only prove that it DOES exist. The conclusion that there is no ET life is inherently irrational. The conclusion that there is ET life may be rational, depending on the evidence and your standards. The most rational conclusion currently is that ET life probably exists. So let's figure out what it MEANS to find that we are not alone... the evidence will present itself only as soon as it will present itself. We can find any conclusion we want from any evidence if we look hard enough. We need to move this type of discussion towards what ET life means to each of us and our global community instead of whether a video shows ETs or weather balloons.

(emphasis by me)


Thankyou very much for this excellent post, this is what exactly I was waiting for! Indeed, it is really important, what implications might be the result of the dislosure of the existance of alien life. And as I far as I can see, the implications would be immense. So let's focus on that and get prepared, because I've got the strange feeling, that much sooner than later we'll have to deal with new discoveries that might change everything...

double post

triple post

reply to post by Peloquin


I appreciate your comments. America has always considered itself to be governed by a deity. Although at the beginning it wasn't run by christian zealots as it is now. The "bible belt" extends from the East to the West Coasts and from the south borders to the north borders. Our government would kill nonreligious believers (atheists, especially) if it could get away with it. Bush senior once said that atheists are not American citizens! Never mind those such as myself that served 4 years in the armed forces and those atheists that died in foxholes.

But one thing that always mystifies is when I hear a religious scientist. Which goes to show you that education, particularly high education, doesn't always result in intelligence.

So the bottom line is that it's always up to the individual to decide what is true depending on the way his/her mind works. For believers, religious and otherwise, evidence is not really necessary since they rarely question. In UFOlogy, you have believers that have not had an actual experience, they believe what others say. In religion, they do not bother checking the accuracy of the bible so they accept what it says blindly regardless of how unbelievable the bible's contents are.

There are individuals like myself who have studied what makes the mind works (basically) with the help of hypnosis, and who have also studied the origins of religions especially the judeo/christian religion. Beliefs result from mental conditioning and it doesn't matter where the conditioning comes from. I do not have a belief system; I do not believe in anything. I either know or don't know. When you know, beliefs are not a factor, knowledge is.

You can see from the various topics discussed in the Aliens & UFOs that they are mostly from believers and no matter how absurd the topic is the believers do not want to hear from skeptics or if a skeptic chimes in with a different, more logical POV the OP doesn't want to consider it 'cause it goes against their beliefs. You may be aware that there are cult deprogrammers and they all, to a man (and woman!), all agree that deconditioning a believer's mind is almost difficult 'cause you have to replace old beliefs with a new way of thinking.