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August 14, 2016 — Walter Bosley with Alejandro Rojas

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With all of the conservative and Christian bashing you guys do I'm seriously concidering giving up on this podcast. I'm like 25 mins in and turning it off and deleting this episode.

The sad thing is you completely understand talking politics and religion upsets listeners.It seems you keep it up anyway to insert your left wing views and to get a dig in on conservatism.

This show used to be cool when you left politics out and um actually talked UFOs but now you sound like an episode of Rachel Maddow.

I think I'll find a ufo show to subscribe to.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
I'm not bashing Christians and my wife is conservative. Just so you know.
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As a Christian I've found some things you and Chris say a little insulting. I do not blame you guys though. It's my fault for listening after my own personal conversion to the faith. We are told that we will be hated during the last days and I accept that. This may not be the kind of show for me anymore.

I had questions about this subject when I joined the forum in 08 but my Christian faith has shown me all of the answers I need.

Sorry to derail the above discussion. I'll be leaving this thread now.
 
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You are taking it too personal. My first mother-in-law, still alive and in her 80s, is Methodist. I don't hate Christians or those of any religion.

I don't approve of people with hate in their hearts, such as people who are bent out of shape over my money situation.
 
Fcseven said:
... I had questions about this subject when I joined the forum in 08 but my Christian faith has shown me all of the answers I need ... I'll be leaving this thread now.
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Cool. Maybe you can find a Christian UFO group like maybe the Raëlians who claim to have been in contact with Jesus! Raël even went to the Elohim Planet of Eternals and met Jesus in person! He says there will be many false prophets, so don't believe anyone else but Raël because anyone who claims there must be false prophets must be the real prophet right? Or how do we figure that out exactly :confused: ?

​
 
Just building on from the Sci fi tv series discussion.

Would recommend a show just aired in australia on showcase called 'the Kettering incident'

8 part drama where a missing person enquiry is ongoing in an area where there is a history of ufo incidents. I haven't done it justice at all with that explanation! However It's well researched and has a lot of UFO folk lore included such as missing time, owls, unexplained booms in the sky, car engines and electrics failing etc.

Not done on a shoe string budget either and is one of the main shows in australia at the momen!
 
Why is it useful to constantly state "This is my opinion," whenever one states their opinion? It is evident from the statement whether it is an opinion or fact, and if it's an opinion, it is obviously that of the person stating it. Hearing someone say "You shouldn't state your opinions as fact," is nails on a chalkboard to me. Does anyone agree?
 
TheJCBand said:
Why is it useful to constantly state "This is my opinion," whenever one states their opinion? It is evident from the statement whether it is an opinion or fact, and if it's an opinion, it is obviously that of the person stating it. Hearing someone say "You shouldn't state your opinions as fact," is nails on a chalkboard to me. Does anyone agree?
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You're right. (In my opinion.)
 
TheJCBand said:
Why is it useful to constantly state "This is my opinion," whenever one states their opinion? It is evident from the statement whether it is an opinion or fact, and if it's an opinion, it is obviously that of the person stating it. Hearing someone say "You shouldn't state your opinions as fact," is nails on a chalkboard to me. Does anyone agree?
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It's primarily because there are dumb people who cannot discern the difference and there are others who are hypersensitive to confidence in others. There are fewer who have a good point when they say that sometimes people will state an opinion as if it were a fact, which can be a legitimate problem for reasons obvious to those who can discern things for themselves. :)
 
Walter, whether or not your statement is a fact or opinion depends on the content of the statement, not how it is stated. For example "It's sunny outside," is a fact, while "The weather outside is nice," is an opinion. It is impossible to state an opinion as fact.
I do consider myself someone capable of discernment, yet it is not obvious to me how there is a legitimate problem with not preceding all of my opinions with a disclaimer. I expect my conversational partner to be themselves capable of discernment, thus making the disclaimer unnecessary. If it were necessary, that conversation would not be worth having (i.e. If I were talking to anyone who fit your first two categories).
 
TheJCBand said:
Why is it useful to constantly state "This is my opinion," whenever one states their opinion? It is evident from the statement whether it is an opinion or fact, and if it's an opinion, it is obviously that of the person stating it. Hearing someone say "You shouldn't state your opinions as fact," is nails on a chalkboard to me. Does anyone agree?
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It's done for those cases where a statement is bold or controversial to emphasize the fact that the statement is not dogmatic and really is just an opinion. It's designed to make others feel more at ease in continuing the discussion and to make the person stating the opinion not seem arrogant and all-knowing.
 
TheJCBand said:
Walter, whether or not your statement is a fact or opinion depends on the content of the statement, not how it is stated. For example "It's sunny outside," is a fact, while "The weather outside is nice," is an opinion. It is impossible to state an opinion as fact.
I do consider myself someone capable of discernment, yet it is not obvious to me how there is a legitimate problem with not preceding all of my opinions with a disclaimer. I expect my conversational partner to be themselves capable of discernment, thus making the disclaimer unnecessary. If it were necessary, that conversation would not be worth having (i.e. If I were talking to anyone who fit your first two categories).
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Well, uh, yeah. I know that and you know that. Your discernment capabilities were not in question, which is why you brought it up, I assumed. My commentary was aimed at those who have difficulty, which my not using pronouns identifying you should make clear. I was in solidarity with you. :)
 
As I stated above, there are times when a redundant or self-evident phrase has value. Of course this can be overused as well so saying "in my opinion" every other sentence would be an example of overuse and would defeat the purpose of using it carefully in proper context, as I outlined in my previous comment.
 
Dang dudes, go twitter on their asses and use IMO, or if you think they'll lash out and call you pompous, high on yourself, or whatever, add a simple H for humble as in IMHO. Then, if they have a problem w/ that, it's THEIR problem, it's personal, so they'l have to deal with it, not you...
 
TheJCBand said:
Walter, whether or not your statement is a fact or opinion depends on the content of the statement, not how it is stated. For example "It's sunny outside," is a fact, while "The weather outside is nice," is an opinion. It is impossible to state an opinion as fact.
I do consider myself someone capable of discernment, yet it is not obvious to me how there is a legitimate problem with not preceding all of my opinions with a disclaimer. I expect my conversational partner to be themselves capable of discernment, thus making the disclaimer unnecessary. If it were necessary, that conversation would not be worth having (i.e. If I were talking to anyone who fit your first two categories).
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Excellent points. But then again, there are people who do seem consider their opinions to be facts when they are in fact opinions, particularly when one gets into topics where faith based belief is the foundation. Perhaps that is why such beliefs are often referred to as opinions, and why people with faith based beliefs try to use the same argument against science, calling science a "belief" or "faith". It's a rather transparent and weak attempt to level the playing field.

Your post also made me realize something really obvious that I hadn't connected before, and that is that the concept of proof, with the exception of purely logical proofs such as those used in math, is an opinion rather than a fact. That is probably why people in ufology or the paranormal have had such a hard time with it when someone says that there's no proof that some sort of phenomena exists. That is really a personal ( and sometimes heavily biased ) opinion and the best we can do is hope to change their opinion by presenting enough evidence, and with some people, the requirement for such evidence is either too low or to high to be considered reasonable ( IMO ).
 
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ufology said:
Excellent points. But then again, there are people who do seem consider their opinions to be facts when they are in fact opinions, particularly when one gets into topics where faith based belief is the foundation. Perhaps that is why such beliefs are often referred to as opinions, and why people with faith based beliefs try to use the same argument against science, calling science a "belief" or "faith". It's a rather transparent and weak attempt to level the playing field.

Your post also made me realize something really obvious that I hadn't connected before, and that is that the concept of proof, with the exception of purely logical proofs such as those used in math, is an opinion rather than a fact. That is probably why people in ufology or the paranormal have had such a hard time with it when someone says that there's no proof that some sort of phenomena exists. That is really a personal ( and sometimes heavily biased ) opinion and the best we can do is hope to change their opinion by presenting enough evidence, and with some people, the requirement for such evidence is either too low or to high to be considered reasonable ( IMO ).
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Hey Ufology, it's awesome to hear you say that. I think you had said something in the recent round table episode to the effect of there is sufficient proof that UFOs are visiting us and they are alien. Having a mathematical background myself, I thought that was an outlandish statement, but when you realize the word proof really means "I have seen enough evidence for me to believe...," the outlandishness is far reduced.
 
TheJCBand said:
Hey Ufology, it's awesome to hear you say that. I think you had said something in the recent round table episode to the effect of there is sufficient proof that UFOs are visiting us and they are alien. Having a mathematical background myself, I thought that was an outlandish statement, but when you realize the word proof really means "I have seen enough evidence for me to believe...," the outlandishness is far reduced.
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Exactly. What I usually say is something like this: All proof is, is evidence that is sufficient to justify belief in a claim, and some people require more evidence than others. Therefore what we need to consider is whether the kind and quantity of evidence is reasonable enough to justify belief. When it comes to UFOs, first of all there's nothing unscientific or logically incoherent about the possibility of alien craft. That combined with decades of inquiry into thousands upon thousands of reports of such craft leads to the conclusion that the probability is very small that all reports result from hallucinations, misperceptions, and all the rest.

Therefore the logical and most reasonable conclusion is that some cases probably represent observations of real alien craft. Hence belief is reasonable, and therefore the best evidence qualifies not only as proof for some people, but well supported proof. Skeptics will often try to discard such evidence because it doesn't meet their standards, but this is simply a debating tactic and does not suddenly make all the experiences of thousands and thousands of people over many years suddenly disappear. Many of us know alien craft are real from our own observations alone.
 
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