Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think if you check with the dictionary, and/or read any of about a zillion atheists' posts here, you'd understand that atheists find no evidence for a god-thing.
Alien-things and ghost-things are different from god-things.
Correct. Atheism and indeed theism are belief -positions specifically related to the god -claim. Can a theist believe in Ghosts and aliens? Yes, perhaps. Can they also disbelieve in them? Yes, perhaps. It makes no difference to their belief in a god and belief or disbelief - the acceptance of the evidence for - ghosts, saucer -piloting aliens, bigfoot, Nessie or indeed power -tools used to carve ancient stonework - makes no difference to the rejection of the God -claim.
In actual fact, thinking atheists would hopefully apply the same criteria of evaluation of evidence for ghost or ET aliens visiting earth (1) and might find the evidence inadequate. But they might find it persuasive. A very good case can be made for ghosts and visiting ET's if you dress it up in the right way. Especially if a few odd misrepresentations are slipped in, like the one that popped up here not long ago, that the Tiawanako stones are hard rock that could not have been carved without power-tools when actually they are red sandstone that actually could, or the evidence is fiddled like the case of the ufo seen by African schoolkids, where the once account that looked 'best' from the UFO researcher's point of view was taken as the 'story' and the rest of the accounts were cherry - picked for anything that could be fitted in.
Perhaps Arach Angle hads a good point that some atheists just reject 'supernatural claims as an emotional response to anything that conflicts with the 'Science' position. But if so, that makes no difference to Atheismitself and its rational and evidential credibility. Just as some Christians who believe in it simply because they were brought up that way and in fact have hardly read the Bible and know nothing of the debate does not in itself discredit the god -claim. it is the inadequacy of the evidence in itself that does that.
apologies for the length of the post. This question, like the one about the relation between atheism and agnosticism, is quite simple, when you know the answer but can often cause confusion and go into various ramification.
(1) the probability of ET aliens existing somewhere in the universe, regularly used as a reason to believe in flying saucers (and uncannily like the 'have you looked everywhere in the universe?' argument used by theists, is utterly irrelevant to whether the evidence that any visit or ever have visited, earth, just as a god existing on some other galaxy is irrelevant to the god -claim. It is a god that is supposed to interact with us or at least did in acts of creation, that concern us.
There is no Pope of Atheism who issues edicts regarding what we are to believe or disbelieve, there is no Atheist Congress that legislates dogma for us.
All that is required to be an atheist is non belief in a deity. Beyond that we are all individually free to embrace or reject any theories or claims we encounter.
As for me, ghosts require a suspension of natural law and I've yet to encounter any convincing evidence that natural law may be so defied.
Aliens? While there is nothing very persuasive about the claims that have been made, they remain a possibility.
Perhaps Arach Angle hads a good point that some atheists just reject 'supernatural claims as an emotional response to anything that conflicts with the 'Science' position. But if so, that makes no difference to Atheismitself and its rational and evidential credibility. Just as some Christians who believe in it simply because they were brought up that way and in fact have hardly read the Bible and know nothing of the debate does not in itself discredit the god -claim. it is the inadequacy of the evidence in itself that does that.
slowly but surely you are understanding. This post of yours is right arg, by definition people's emotional state do not influence the definition of "atheism" as a whole. But People's emotional state do effect how they express their atheism and thius how others perceive atheism. My emotional state just says I don't believe in the supernatural.
I only emotionally attach to a belief called "conclusions based on observations." I don't even think that's atheism.
"atheism" is not the rejection of any observations that say we are part a seriously more complex system and belittling of other people that don't agree with us. I call that stupid and I do not have to follow stupid just because they are atheist.
Then there is the "emotional angle". We cannot ignore that; or our conclusions will be incomplete. Some of us are ok with just saying "I don't have to worry about the facts." That is true enough. It is sound advice many times. I only disagree with it when it becomes the focal point in rejecting observations. or forcing it on others.
The same can be said for literal bible also. Logically There is no need for an Omni dude when observations do not support one. But emotionally we have to ask why these people need one and address those needs in a "HEALTHY" manor.
To OP
the better the measuring devices and understanding become the less chance of seeing aliens and/or ghost dude. That is not to say that a life form is out there somewhere and we don't understand it. I mean if you turned off every EM field in your body ... you would disappear and walk (more like fall) right through the planet.
As Sizzly said, the difference between Gods and Aliens is that the existence of aliens - and even aliens visiting earth - do not violate the natural laws of physics as we know them. Some might argue, "But what about violating the speed of light?" Well, who says aliens HAVE to travel faster than light to get here? We are very humanocentric because being human is all we know. Thus we perceive everything in accordance with being human. Because of that, we think that if a human can't survive a 500 year voyage, another alien race could not. Except ... who on this planet knows just how long an alien lives?
As Arq said, sure, you can throw in misrepresentations - and you can also throw in untruthful or fallacious debunking. One of the most popular examples used by debunkers is to try and recreate the UFO sighting, and if they can, then it is automatically assumed the sighting was a hoax. That's like saying that, because Spielberg was able to recreate the D-Day landings of WWII in the movie Saving Private Ryan, it must be assumed that D-Day was a hoax.
Another popular tactic used to dissuade people from considering aliens as a possibility is to immediately latch onto any old mundane explanation even if it doesn't fit the information put forward by the witnesses. A classic example of this is the famous Rendlesham Forest sighting by over 60 U.S Air Force personnel. The debunkers still insist that those men saw a lighthouse 5 miles away even though every man present was used to seeing the lighthouse and was familiar with its light - and - the eyewitness accounts make it VERY clear that the object was moving.
So there are two sides to both the UFO and ghost phenomena when it comes to how they are explained. Oh, and it wasn't the Tiawenako stones that were very hard rock, it was Puma Punku not too far away from Tiawanako. And those stones are andesite, not red sandstone. Besides, it was the precision of the work that would have been impossible for the time; the fact that it was very hard stone only added to it.
Atheists obviously do not always agree on other issues. While it's true that atheism often carries very similar "beliefs" between adherents. Evolution is a primary example. But the one and only requirement is a non-belief in supernatural deities.
I've often found it baffling when a hear a believer in God unilaterally dismiss the idea of aliens. I always think to myself, "Why can't these believers use the same kind of critical thinking and evidence-gathering abilities on their God as they do on UFOs?"
I think it's retarded to believe that we're the only planet in the universe that can hold life. As far as ghosts, I believe there are things on this world that we can't explain. Whether that's "ghosts" or "spirits" or just other lifeforms we can't see, I don't know.
Speaking for myself I think it is entirely possible for life to exist on other planets. Unfortunately the chances of us ever making contact with other sentient lifeforms is next to zero.
Unfortunately, people who think we can contact aliens don't have any comprehension of the vastness of space. Take for example, our nearest galaxy Andromeda, which is 2.5 million light years away. That means it takes 2.5 million years just for the light from Andromeda to reach us. Since we can't travel anywhere near the speed of light, the time it would take for aliens to cross that distance is simply too ridiculous to comtemplate. Pair that with the fact that the universe is not only expanding, but the expansion is accelerating, makes the journey even more unlikely (impossible really).
We have been scanning the skies for radio signals for decades and come up with nothing. As far as we know, so far we are unique in the universe.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
but can often cause confusion and go into various ramification.
