The Dark Side of Flying Saucers

[Ezechiel]

I for one don't think it is a laughing matter. The problem is that we cannot ascribe any human derived philosophical notions to other organisms. While I agree we should look to being as non-hostile and threatening as possible in any potential non-human/alien contact and look to a mutually beneficial relationship, we should be prepared to encounter something more like our relationship with lower life forms. Recognizing the nature of that relationship (our evil standing with farm animals) is a good thing for us to do. It's beyond a superior or different culture; we are talking a different species, the operative word being different. If its all sweetness and light and Star Trek and all that, well great, but we should be prepared for the natural order to extend to that relationship rather than human created ideas and philosophies.

You hope for Star Trek but what you might get is something like Warhammer 40K.

I agree 100%. (until we can communicate with dolphins )

---------- Post added at 12:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:09 PM ----------

Hmm,... 'dominate'. Why, what for? Why dominate something that's already co-operating?

At this stage of human development... impose values would apply (as in human rights for example). Would the USA bother imposing the implementation of human rights charter on China if the USA wasn't a 'super' power ?

The first monkeys that mastered the stick imposed their values on stickless tribes lol

 

[Sean Elifritz]

Uh oh

I see intelligence more as a defence mechanism, extremely useful in producing technologies/tools that can help a tribe dominate over another. Scientific progress and applied sciences can evolve in contexts that can be labelled insane from certain points of view

Totally off-topic here but your first line reminded me of something I think about sometimes. I see intelligence as...CRUEL. Well, cruel when combined with mortality. It just seems to me that being smart enough to know that you are going to die someday and not being able to do a damned thing about it is about as nasty a thing as Mother Nature has ever done. It burns my ass to no end to know there's a good chance that humanity might accomplish some truly revolutionary things someday, like travel to other star systems or perhaps even find a way to turn off the aging process, and that if those things do happen I'll have long been put in the ground already. How ironic would it be if I'm a skeleton while a future generation is living forever? That ain't fair, not fair at all. If I have to perish I shouldn't have to know it's coming.

 

[Ezechiel]

It burns my ass to no end to know there's a good chance that humanity might accomplish some truly revolutionary things someday, like travel to other star systems or perhaps even find a way to turn off the aging process, and that if those things do happen I'll have long been put in the ground already. How ironic would it be if I'm a skeleton while a future generation is living forever? That ain't fair, not fair at all. If I have to perish I shouldn't have to know it's coming.

If this happens before we are able to migrate off this planet, the ecosystem won't support it and the planet will die. Life of this planet depends on our death

 

[softbeard]

That ain't fair, not fair at all. If I have to perish I shouldn't have to know it's coming.

Yes, yes, life is not fair. But 'fair' is a human value that we push on nature. Point should be; instead of grumbling about it, do something about it and better yourself (very generally speaking, of course).

 

[Sean Elifritz]

If this happens before we are able to migrate off this planet, the ecosystem won't support it and the planet will die. Life of this planet depends on our death

Yeah, I know that. Hence the reason for the suicide pact the body commits to after it is created (Just one of the human body's genius musings: "Hey, I think I'll store excess fat in the heart." Brilliant! Gee whiz ). But if humanity can find a way to travel to the stars we'd have all the space we'd ever need. Could breed like freaking cockroaches and never run out of room. At that point the whole death thing would become incredibly stupid. I know why it happens. But if mankind does accomplish things like that, reaching out to other star systems and perhaps even finding a way to tinker with DNA to cheat death, that really will make for a bum deal for all those that perished before the discoveries were made.

---------- Post added at 01:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:04 PM ----------

Yes, yes, life is not fair. But 'fair' is a human value that we push on nature. Point should be; instead of grumbling about it, do something about it and better yourself (very generally speaking, of course).

Uggh, exactly what can be done about it?

 

[softbeard]

You hope for Star Trek and a organization of peace loving species, but what you might get is something like the Tyranids of Warhammer 40K. It's just a risk management kind of thing. I think if you look at history of life on earth the risk is great that when and if we encounter something higher up on the food chain than we are it isn't going to be going our way so to speak.

Yes, well, I think the human species, time and time again, has certainly demonstrated it's ability to foster malevolence and insanity in its interaction with members of its own species, other species, the environment, you name it.. If anything, I think we, as humans, are masters of malevolence and insanity. But along, the way, slowly, I think we've also learned. And learning from our mistakes, is, I think, a sign of sanity. So if any of this stuff still makes sense, I still think 'malevolence', in our sense of the word, = stupidity.

---------- Post added at 01:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:27 PM ----------

Uggh, exactly what can be done about it?

I leave that up to you and your imagination.

 

[Sean Elifritz]

Yes, well, I think the human species, time and time again, has certainly demonstrated it's ability to foster malevolence and insanity in its interaction with members of its own species, other species, the environment, you name it.. If anything, I think we, as humans, are masters of malevolence and insanity. But along, the way, slowly, I think we've also learned. And learning from our mistakes, is, I think, a sign of sanity. So if any of this stuff still makes sense, I still think 'malevolence', in our sense of the word, = stupidity.

---------- Post added at 01:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:27 PM ----------


I leave that up to you and your imagination.

I consider my imagination to be fairly good. Better than average, in fact. But I'm under the suspicion that I could exercise it in overdrive from now until the cows come home and no solution to the death thing would materialize. But hey, I know there is absolutely no answers to any of the things I've been discussing. Just being philosophical, that's all.

 

[mike]

Well that is my point more or less. Our perspective is not theirs. I view evil in this situation as being defined as harmful, injurious, or destructive. That we are evil towards them is their perspective and valid from that point of view. However, we need to be concerned with our point of view in relationship to something else higher up on the food chain than we are. If we are preyed upon by another species, that species is committing evil against us. That is a perspective we should not abandon for some philosophical reason. We eradicate dangerous organisms on a routine basis. Nobody thinks about whether we are evil in the eyes of parasites or other disease organisms we seek to genocide. Non-human intelligent beings who we may encounter that attempt to use the human race in ways that we use lower life forms cannot and should not be tolerated or viewed as morally equivalent. The Prime Directive for any species is the survival and health of that species. Things that adversely affect a species are evil to that species. If aliens or inter-dimensional interlopers come here to jack with us we should be doing all we can to send them packing or wish to whatever gods they worship that they'd never heard of the human race. But that's just my human-centric opinion I guess.

Lets take a topological view for a moment, what about the lion who eats a baby antelope, we are above it in the food chain, is the lion evil for eating a baby alive ?


There is a single universal rule that covers each of these examples, its not pleasant, but its true

The ability to do a thing, is all the right you need to do it.

What gives us the right to take a monkey from africa and stick probes in its brain for research ?
The ability to do so
What gives us the right to turn a lamb into a sunday roast ? the ability to do so
What gives them the right to abduct and experiment on us.........

Good/evil. Morals/rights , they are nice concepts but at the end of the day the universal rule prevails

I believe it was Streiber who asked his abductors what gives you the right to do this to me and my family.
Can you guess what the answer was ?

 

[boomerang]

Totally off-topic here but your first line reminded me of something I think about sometimes. I see intelligence as...CRUEL

Not off topic at all, I think. Intentional cruelty is one function of self-awareness, and much philosophy has been devoted to this topic. Just as we may have no frame of reference for ascribing intentions to a species many times more complex than ourselves, It is not obvious that universal kindness and compassion must practiced by our superiors. The better side of our nature likes to think so.

My intuitive feeling is that inherent in cognitive complexity is a kind of bipolar capacity for extremes of cruelty and compassion. But who really knows?. How ironic it would be if we are quarantined on this planet for the unforgivable shortcoming we call compassion. This is not my belief. But what a horrible notion!

 

[Ezechiel]

Not off topic at all, I think. Intentional cruelty is one function of self-awareness, and much philosophy has been devoted to this topic. Just as we may have no frame of reference for ascribing intentions to a species many times more complex than ourselves, It is not obvious that universal kindness and compassion must practiced by our superiors. The better side of our nature likes to think so.

My intuitive feeling is that inherent in cognitive complexity is a kind of bipolar capacity for extremes of cruelty and compassion. But who really knows?. How ironic it would be if we are quarantined on this planet for the unforgivable shortcoming we call compassion. This is not my belief. But what a horrible notion!

Stanley Kubrick captured this idea 40 years ago (2001 space odyssey) with the first conscious murder by an ape


Not to mention planet of the apes (Battle for the Planet of the Apes): Ape shall not kill ape


How difficult is it to imagine a specie that enforces Eugenics: Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution" where compassion takes a hike in favor of pristine genes.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

 

[exo_doc]

Hmmm....pristine genes gives us genetically programmed diseases like diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, etc etc...really nice of nature, eh?
It also lets big strong bullies lord over the weaker, smaller genetically less advantaged.
I'll take eugenics any day of the week over the alternatives.

 

[Ezechiel]

Hmmm....pristine genes gives us genetically programmed diseases like diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, etc etc...really nice of nature, eh?
It also lets big strong bullies lord over the weaker, smaller genetically less advantaged.
I'll take eugenics any day of the week over the alternatives.

Whoops perfect genetics is the goal of eugenics. I didn't phrase it correctly.

The holocaust was a corrupted implementation of that concept.

 

[Randall]

UFOs From Hell​

​

 

[mike]

I cant take the whole aliens = biblical demons idea seriously at all

We are talking about a source that

And employs logic like

Its a source that is only good for describing Iron age barbarism and superstition

Personally as a source, it offers nothing, in regards to a possible extra terrestrial civilisation/s using structured craft .

Our current scientific lexicon offers better descriptions, like ebe, and FTL drives.
And these are imo more likely to be more accurate than "chariots of the gods" or demons from hell

 

[Randall]

I cant take the whole aliens = biblical demons idea seriously at all ... Its a source that is only good for describing Iron age barbarism and superstition. Personally as a source, it offers nothing, in regards to a possible extra terrestrial civilisation/s using structured craft . Our current scientific lexicon offers better descriptions, like ebe, and FTL drives. And these are imo more likely to be more accurate than "chariots of the gods" or demons from hell.

Regardless of what your perspective is on religion, its one of those facets of ufology that crops up now and then, and from a sociological / mythological perspective within ufology as a whole, it's as worthy of discussion as any other topic. I encourage you to try setting the religious argument aspect aside and consider the content from this perspective. Back in the early 1990s when I first heard the "UFOs are transports from Hell" theory, I never would have guessed that anyone would actually take it seriously, let alone evolve into YouTube videos of preachers trying to make UFO researchers into religious converts.

 

[mike]

You cant set the religious argument aspect aside, if thats the very aspect thats being put forward as an answer.

Its akin to me claiming UFO's are piloted by santa's elves, updating the naughty and nice list, discuss.....oh but leave the santa aspect aside.

Or UFO's are piloted by the meatballs that rebelled against the flying spagetti monster.

I personally dont think mythology is a helpful starting point to explain this enigma.

Thats not to say these mythologys dont sometimes describe the same things we see today, i think in some cases they might just do that.
But those descriptions are worthless today, other than confirming that these sightings might have historical provenance.

It would be like someone from the iron age trying to describe a TV.

Magic box, with talking spirits contained therin, is not nearly as useful as a modern science books description of what a TV is and how it works.

There is simply no way that the knowledge base of that time, could possibly describe with any real accuracy the real nature of an ET or a UFO.

Demons and sky chariots is as close as they could get, and its about as accurate as magic box is to describe the workings of a TV.

 

[mike]

But lets accept for a moment the biblical authors met ET's and in their superstition and ignorance coined the label "Demon" and assumed that they came from "hell"

Science has yet to prove the existance of hell, it has on the otherhand proven the existance of other planets, including ones they think might harbour life.

Just one example

Major Discovery: New Planet Could Harbor Water and Life | Space.com

Logically which is the more likely location from which a non terrestrial entity might come ?

A mythological hell, of which there is no evidence whatsoever of its existance ? or another planet with all the markers for harbouring life ?

now they are saying

There could be many more habitable planets in the universe than previously thought, suggest new computer models.

More planets could harbour alien life than believed


Logic says real planets over mythological places.

The real question here is why would any modern day human, discard the obvious logical answer in favour of the superstitious myth based one ?

For me the answer is about preserving the biblical fantasy.

Despite some press releases, most hard core god botherers, firmly think aliens cant exist, since god made man in his image, and since the bible doesnt say he made other planets with life , it didnt happen.
The bible does mention hell and demons, so yeah that must be the answer.

You cannot possibly expect to see the universe thru the filter of a musty old book written by bronze age nomads, who thought making goats copulate in front of striped rods produced striped offspring

Jacob displays his (and God’s) knowledge of biology by having goats copulate while looking at streaked rods. The result is streaked baby goats (Genesis 30:37). The author of Genesis (God?) believed that genetic characteristics of the offspring are determined by what the parents see at the moment of conception. This is a laughable belief. Ask any animal husbandrist.

The bible says that hares and conies are unclean because they “chew the cud” but do not part the hoof (Leviticus 11:5-6). But hares and coneys are not ruminants and they do not “chew the cud.”

Some birds have four feet (Leviticus 11:20-21).

These guys didnt even have a decent grasp of basic terrestrial biology......

Seriously the same people who thought all the animals on earth came out of a single boat, and their evaluation of what ET is and where it comes come is worth something ?.

And that applys to your bronze age nomad, and your modern ignorant bible thumper.

The same people who want to teach creation instead of evolution in science class

The Earth Is 6000 Years Old

And thats how i feel when people trot out "demons" as an answer to anything

 

[mike]

The Bible provides a complete genealogy from Adam to Jesus. You can go through the genealogies and add up the years. You'll get a total that is just over 4,000 years. Add the 2,000 years since the time of Jesus and you get just over 6,000 years since God created everything.
Is there anything wrong with figuring out the age of the earth this way? No. There is nothing to indicate the genealogies are incomplete. There is nothing to indicate God left anything out. There is nothing in the Bible that indicates in any way that the world is much older than 6,000 years old.
The Bible does tell us, however, that the fossils we find could not have been buried before God created Adam. The animals whose bones became fossilized had to have died after God created Adam. That means those fossils must be less than 6,000 years old. Here's why

How do we get fossils?
The animal has to first die. That's rather obvious. When did death enter the world? Not until Genesis chapter three when Adam and Eve disobey God. So up until that time neither people nor animals died. So, based on the Bible, there could not be any bones to create fossils until after the fall.

The earth is 6000 years old
Creation, not evolution explains how we got here
UFO's are piloted by demons from hell.................

 

[trainedobserver]

If the ETs of modern UFO myth actually exist, they are truly evil sons of bitches that need to be exterminated. To those who want to carry on about moral equivalency or the ETs implied superior perspective I say, "Get behind me Satan!" It is past time to chase the bastards back to their hives, holes, or home planet and enforce our territorial and civil rights on their rude and presumptuous selves.

The fact that none of that is happening is a signal to me that the things described in modern UFO myth are in fact mythological to a large degree. If the United States military had at any point determined that a foreign power was routinely visiting this country, kidnapping citizens, performing genetic experiments on them, and so forth, all hell would have broken loose long ago. The DOD and NASA would have no problems justifying their budgets. Politicians would be using it to whip the country into a frenzy. Instead, what do we have? People fighting over patches of dirt.

 

[Randall]

You cant set the religious argument aspect aside, if thats the very aspect thats being put forward as an answer. Its akin to me claiming UFO's are piloted by santa's elves, updating the naughty and nice list, discuss.....oh but leave the santa aspect aside.

Absolutely, but I think maybe there is a bit of a communication issue. When I say "set the religious argument aside" I don't mean suspend your disbelief or ignore it. I mean set the argument ( the process of arguing ) about it aside and consider it within the context of a sociological / mythological / cultural setting, something like an impartial reporter might do rather than as someone critiquing the content itself. By taking that approach you're looking at the issue from the perspective of a ufologist who is studying these aspects with respect to the phenomenon and adding it to your library of information in a non-judgmental fashion. Certainly on another level we can examine all the various beliefs and evidence and arrive at our own personal conclusions on what we think is a reasonable hypothesis. For example I have many books with many different viewpoints in my library. Do I believe all of them? No. But it's useful to know about them for the sake of reference and discussion.