Trevor Wozny
Paranormal Novice
I have thought about this for some time now. Does God exist? Do UFO's from off-world exist? It all comes down to the evidence. Both sides really do have credibility problems. Why is it that believing in God is OK and actually encouraged (by some), while believing in UFO's is considered crazy. I have seen a UFO but I have never seen an Angel or Demon. Even a tertiary glance will show that there are volumes of alleged evidence of extraterrestrials coming here for at least a good joy ride. I know most of it is ridiculous, but it only takes one image, one video to be legitimate to make my point. I hold that little truism to have more believability than seeing Jesus in a piece of toast, in a Mexican tamale, or when The Virgin Mary's visage around the world bleeds red corn syrup from various orifices.
Personally, I think it has less to do with the concepts themselves and more to do with how society frames the context behind each belief. Belief in God is a nebulous non-interactional concept, whereas the image concocted by a belief in aliens, is not. What I mean by this is that when most people claim to believe in God, they do not make claim to having an interactional relationship with deities- that is, people think God exists and may try to communicate with God through prayer but they, on the whole, do not make claims saying that God speaks to them in return, has given them a specific mission, or that they are otherwise the son of God reborn. That is to say, they believe God exists, but they do not claim that God has done anything to them in particular.
Alien conspiracy theorists, on the other hand, do tend to make such claims - “the aliens abducted my cows! They probed my anus! They made this crop circle!” etc., which is far more outlandish (and readily verifiable) than the simple claim that “Aliens probably exist”.
Basically, I think people consider “Aliens” to be a more radical thing to believe in, since the social context around alien conspiracy theorists distorts the question of “Do you think Aliens could exist?” into something more along the lines of “Do you believe aliens have interacted with humanity?”, which is a far more specific and radical claim than the former.
I think part of the problem is that aliens have not given us any set of texts telling us what to do. Other belief systems typically come with a book of instructions. But the aliens have remained silent, leaving us to our speculations.
Imagine if someone said, "I believe in God. I don't know anything at all about God, but I believe in God." It would be a little unsatisfying.
You: Is God all-powerful?
Them: I don't know.
You: Is God all-knowing?
Them: I don't know.
You: Did God create everything?
Them: I don't know.
You: Do you know anything about God?
Them: Only that I believe.
It doesn't have the oomph that we typically associate with a real belief system.
Now, suppose the aliens came down and started telling everyone what to do. For example, suppose they took over Federal Triangle station, directly between the White House and the Capitol building, and started to behave like a fourth coequal branch of government.
Traditionally the Congress, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives, passes laws. The President has a limited power of veto and is also responsible for enforcing all the Federal laws that Congress passes. At times he can also get involved in state matters, but this usually involves a negotiation with the Governor of a given state. And then the Supreme Court passes a final judgment on how laws are to be interpreted, and whether any given law violates the stipulations found in the US Constitution.
Into these three Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of government, the aliens insert themselves as the Incentive branch. The Incentive branch makes suggestions to the other three branches of government, and provides incentives, in the forms of technology and other things, for the other three branches of government to follow those suggestions.
Consider campaign finance reform. The Incentive branch could speak to the members of the Supreme Court, and offer to provide improved technology for organ transplants, if the Court would reconsider its position on unlimited financial contributions to political campaigns. The Incentive branch might make a similar offer to Congress, to encourage passage of a constitutional amendment constraining the use of money in politics.
Or likewise, consider gun ownership. The Incentive branch might make an offer to Congress, to encourage a repeal of the second amendment; in exchange for which they would provide a new type of non-lethal weapon that could only produce varying levels of stunning force.
Regardless of the precise positions of the Incentive branch on any of these issues, they would certainly represent something. And people would be able to have an opinion one way or another, whether to support those positions or to reject them.
At that point, the number of people who considered belief in aliens to be radical would diminish considerably. Nearly everyone would consider it to be a relatively normal belief. Actually, at that point, it goes from something to believe in, to something you know. Believing in something is NOT the same as knowing. Knowing requires evidence. This change came about all because the aliens decided to come down and communicate directly with us, and tell us what they wanted.
The aliens need a bible, it's as simple as that. If they're not willing to accept an offer of their own coequal branch of government, then at the very least they need to provide us with a book containing the recommendations they would have made. What they really need to have is something to say about what happens after death if it is going to compete with the established idea of God. Only if we had a hybrid construct, one that is a religion and had E.T's. Only if we had a religion that promised you your own planet after death, wait we have that it's called Mormonism. If only we had a religion that's central character is an extraterrestrial, wait we have that already with Xenu and Scientology. E.T.'s are firmly entrenched already in some of our terrestrial religions. Maybe to make E.T a respectable belief system, we should pass the collection plate around MUFON meetings.
Personally, I think it has less to do with the concepts themselves and more to do with how society frames the context behind each belief. Belief in God is a nebulous non-interactional concept, whereas the image concocted by a belief in aliens, is not. What I mean by this is that when most people claim to believe in God, they do not make claim to having an interactional relationship with deities- that is, people think God exists and may try to communicate with God through prayer but they, on the whole, do not make claims saying that God speaks to them in return, has given them a specific mission, or that they are otherwise the son of God reborn. That is to say, they believe God exists, but they do not claim that God has done anything to them in particular.
Alien conspiracy theorists, on the other hand, do tend to make such claims - “the aliens abducted my cows! They probed my anus! They made this crop circle!” etc., which is far more outlandish (and readily verifiable) than the simple claim that “Aliens probably exist”.
Basically, I think people consider “Aliens” to be a more radical thing to believe in, since the social context around alien conspiracy theorists distorts the question of “Do you think Aliens could exist?” into something more along the lines of “Do you believe aliens have interacted with humanity?”, which is a far more specific and radical claim than the former.
I think part of the problem is that aliens have not given us any set of texts telling us what to do. Other belief systems typically come with a book of instructions. But the aliens have remained silent, leaving us to our speculations.
Imagine if someone said, "I believe in God. I don't know anything at all about God, but I believe in God." It would be a little unsatisfying.
You: Is God all-powerful?
Them: I don't know.
You: Is God all-knowing?
Them: I don't know.
You: Did God create everything?
Them: I don't know.
You: Do you know anything about God?
Them: Only that I believe.
It doesn't have the oomph that we typically associate with a real belief system.
Now, suppose the aliens came down and started telling everyone what to do. For example, suppose they took over Federal Triangle station, directly between the White House and the Capitol building, and started to behave like a fourth coequal branch of government.
Traditionally the Congress, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives, passes laws. The President has a limited power of veto and is also responsible for enforcing all the Federal laws that Congress passes. At times he can also get involved in state matters, but this usually involves a negotiation with the Governor of a given state. And then the Supreme Court passes a final judgment on how laws are to be interpreted, and whether any given law violates the stipulations found in the US Constitution.
Into these three Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of government, the aliens insert themselves as the Incentive branch. The Incentive branch makes suggestions to the other three branches of government, and provides incentives, in the forms of technology and other things, for the other three branches of government to follow those suggestions.
Consider campaign finance reform. The Incentive branch could speak to the members of the Supreme Court, and offer to provide improved technology for organ transplants, if the Court would reconsider its position on unlimited financial contributions to political campaigns. The Incentive branch might make a similar offer to Congress, to encourage passage of a constitutional amendment constraining the use of money in politics.
Or likewise, consider gun ownership. The Incentive branch might make an offer to Congress, to encourage a repeal of the second amendment; in exchange for which they would provide a new type of non-lethal weapon that could only produce varying levels of stunning force.
Regardless of the precise positions of the Incentive branch on any of these issues, they would certainly represent something. And people would be able to have an opinion one way or another, whether to support those positions or to reject them.
At that point, the number of people who considered belief in aliens to be radical would diminish considerably. Nearly everyone would consider it to be a relatively normal belief. Actually, at that point, it goes from something to believe in, to something you know. Believing in something is NOT the same as knowing. Knowing requires evidence. This change came about all because the aliens decided to come down and communicate directly with us, and tell us what they wanted.
The aliens need a bible, it's as simple as that. If they're not willing to accept an offer of their own coequal branch of government, then at the very least they need to provide us with a book containing the recommendations they would have made. What they really need to have is something to say about what happens after death if it is going to compete with the established idea of God. Only if we had a hybrid construct, one that is a religion and had E.T's. Only if we had a religion that promised you your own planet after death, wait we have that it's called Mormonism. If only we had a religion that's central character is an extraterrestrial, wait we have that already with Xenu and Scientology. E.T.'s are firmly entrenched already in some of our terrestrial religions. Maybe to make E.T a respectable belief system, we should pass the collection plate around MUFON meetings.
We need to know how to prevent death, and science may enable us to do that someday.