Hey, Googs. Oh, I agree with you that there is no proof that intelligent extraterrestrials don't exist. I don't discount that they may. And I'm a fan of Leslie Kean's book. I've got it right here on my shelf.
As for naming the scientists, like the thread on spirituality and consciousness, I'd recommend a book (yeah, I do that a lot!) entitled Civilized Life in the Universe: Scientists on Intelligent Extraterrestrials. The chapter entitled Mirror Worlds is especially nuanced and specific, and I don't presume I could do justice to what some scientists think. In essence, the evolution of culture, technology, intelligence, civilization, and even (and, especially) SCIENCE, has been by the very fact that we are human, so a victim of anthropomorphism, that it is presumptuous to say the least to well, presume (!) that intelligent extraterrestrials have even remotely similarly evolved, these things just listed. And those things are so intertwined with each other. That's the drawback and the beauty of being human.
Of course we do anthropomorphize. I think humanity and the human brain (see the "brain" thread) are wonderful. But it's a drawback, too, in the sense that we cannot just extrapolate us onto THEM, if they exist. And, rhetorically, what if we are the only intelligent beings in the universe? What, rhetorically, would be wrong with that? Some scientists think so, or rather, it's not just that they say well, prove that I'm wrong. It's their findings, yes, their scientific assumptions based on evidence, that this just may indeed be true. I personally don't know, but I do lean toward thinking that that may well be the case. I certainly don't think this experience on this thread, and similar ones, are even the barest drop of proof that intelligent extraterrestrials exist. In fact, my common sense, and statistical reasoning, think such experiences speak for themselves in terms of their actual reality.
When I talked about the experience above, and attributed it in my opinion to, as I said, "some very, very remote and quasi or rather proto/primitive "religious" experience that night" on the part of the experiencer, I based that on my own readings, and I would extend that to other similar "alien abduction" experiences. Or, it's sleep paralysis. But that any remote crack in the door should be left open to the possibility that an alien (IN THOSE CASES) actually entered the room a la lost in space, is something that I think can and should be categorically excluded, for many, many reasons. Additionally, that there's a feeling of the being returning and the experiencer even going someplace else to possibly await it, and the emphatic desire to meet the being/beings again, is a, TO ME now, a more than probable explanation for labeling it a "quasi, proto/primitive "religious" experience."
Which brings us to the religious aspect, Goggs. And that's the very thing: I've never pushed religion, Christianity, on this forum; instead my focus again and again has been to historical evidence I have studied personally over many years about religion, Judaeism, and Christianity. Except for saying 1. I am Christian, and 2. listing a few specific examples of my liberal social values, I've never pushed it itself as a religious system (for want of a better term) on anyone else. In fact, except for once or twice, no more than merely that. You're right, THAT aspect, as I've consistently said, is a matter of belief and faith.
And Christianity doesn't require, in fact rejects, that it itself be proven, so that you, Goggs, will come with me to church on Sunday. Kidding you there, of course, Goggs! In fact, I will make a confession: I'm a backsliding Presbyterian, for many reasons. But I love and enjoy walking into churches, especially Catholic churches, and feeling the mystery. And that part of Christianity, the mystery, IS a matter of faith and belief, and I have assiduously avoided pushing it.
Lastly, I will maintain that it is an aspect of the human being that he/she does feel this yearning for something bigger, and that's as far as I'll go. In that respect, we KNOW OURSELVES far, FAR better than we can even begin to conceive what an intelligent extraterrestrial might be like. Have you read Alexander Pope's poem An Essay on Man? There's that famous line we all know, "The proper study of Mankind is Man." The first line is, "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan."
I maintain, then, in MY OPINION, this experiencer's experience, though real to the experiencer, categorically, indisputably, CANNOT be attributed to an actual alien entering the room; the sensation of subsequently feeling its presence and moving to possibly await that alien CANNOT be attributed to the alien returning; and the fervent wish to meet that alien again, also categorically cannot be attributed to that premise. It is, TO ME, preposterous that this and other similar abduction experiences are attributable to actual extraterrestrial beings. Sleep paralysis, yes, but to leave the door open at all to an alien, not the case categorically. The only other explanation is that these experiencers are, perhaps, feeling something that in my opinion is in us all, a religious experience (however you might want to define it or even deny it; not you Googs, I mean people in general). And because of the details supplied by this experiencer and others I've read, in my opinion, the religious experience should be included within quotation marks to denote that as religious experiences of some sophistication and richness I have read and read about, these alien abduction ones are pretty poor, but their root is that yearning. That is difficult for some to accept, and that's my opinion. And I don't presume to say that I, Kim, have experienced any earthshaking religious experiences. I have felt that, well, I won't go there, inside me, that INEFFABLE feeling. Kim
just thinking about the delicious tears this produced.