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Why do Christians reject the testimony of Alien Abduction victims?
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IWantGod
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I guess it all depends on what you mean by God. For example If there is no omnipotent God, If God just means the highest intelligence and the highest intelligence in existence is us then i suppose we are gods.
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AgnosticBoy
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Don’t let the SXSW robots know that
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3DOCTORS
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Well said. Is it SETI@home that you’re involved with? I’d like to get into that myself but I’m not sure if my ancient laptop is up to the task. In any case, I’m tied up a bit with other stuff at present. However, it’s something I’d like to look into later.
Ed, my gripe isn’t with Unidentified Flying Objects per se, it’s with those who believe credible evidence exists of bug eyed grey guys who spend all the time and effort it would involve to cross interstellar space just to stick probes in parts of human beings where the sun doesn’t shine.
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BroIgnatius
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As I have told you, what I have said is a scientific fact about how abductee experiences may be explained. To not accept a Fact is the height of being unreasonable. In fact, a person who obstinately holds to an idea in the face of facts to the otherwise is delusional.
As a delusional person who wants so badly for this to be true, regardless of the lack of credible evidence, regardless of a scientific explanation of how many people can have similar experiences of abduction, and without even asking what that scientific evidence is, there is no hope of convincing you otherwise. (sorry for the long sentence). Delusional people can never be convinced as they are totally invested in their false views.
The UFO community is composed of mostly delusional or gullible people or of wishful people who want so bad for this to be true. They site evidence that is not evidence and have no understanding of the nature of credible evidence or what qualifies as credible evidence.
As for mass sightings of phenomena in the sky, that too is mostly explained scientifically, but not all of it. Nevertheless, to presume it is ET craft is a supposition, an assertion, a rash judgment, not evidence. UFO is UNIDENTIFIED. The most we can say about such phenomena that cannot be explained is that we do not know, it is unidentified.
But, to presume that something unidentified is an ET is totally unreasonable and intellectually dishonest.
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BroIgnatius
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I expected that kind of stupid reply. This is apples and oranges and, by dear one, the Bible is inspired by God. Alien abductions are not.Well, I guess I’ll just burn my New Testament then…
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IWantGod
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If you think its reasonable to conclude that multiple eye witnesses of the exact same objects and events can be explained by the idea of a shared hallucination then there is nothing for us to discuss because in that case all of our experiences could be a shared hallucination. Its an unreasonable rationalization and an excuse to not take something seriously.
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BroIgnatius
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Yes, SETI@home. You can set the software to use only portion of your cpu processing and set it to only work during certain time, like when you are in bed, which is better if you system is at the bare minimum
Here are the minimum system requirements:
- There is an initial download of about 10 MB.
- You’ll need about 20 MB of free disk space and 64 MB of RAM.
- with a typical computer (such as a 2 GHz Pentium 4), you’ll need to let SETI@home run for at least 2 hours per week (slower computers are fine but they’ll have to run proportionally more)
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ericc
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That is easy. Even if they are not demons, they also know that our Lord is mightier than them and wouldn’t want to mess with a friend of Jesus.Explain how calling upon Jesus would halt an alien abduction if the event is not demonic. Hmmm?
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ericc
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Walton_UFO_incident
Wikipedia says Travis Walton flunk the lie detector test conducted in 2008 about his 1975 abduction. I guess he wasn’t as well prepared then. Or the test was better conducted.
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BroIgnatius
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As I have told you, what I have said is a scientific fact about how abductee experiences may be explained. To not accept a Fact is the height of being unreasonable. In fact, a person who obstinately holds to an idea in the face of facts to the otherwise is delusional.
As a delusional person who wants so badly for this to be true, regardless of the lack of credible evidence, regardless of a scientific explanation of how many people can have similar experiences of abduction, and without even asking what that scientific evidence is, there is no hope of convincing you otherwise. (sorry for the long sentence). Delusional people can never be convinced as they are totally invested in their false views.
The UFO community is composed of mostly delusional or gullible people or of wishful people who want so bad for this to be true. They site evidence that is not evidence and have no understanding of the nature of credible evidence or what qualifies as credible evidence.
As for mass sightings of phenomena in the sky, that too is mostly explained scientifically, but not all of it. Nevertheless, to presume it is ET craft is a supposition, an assertion, a rash judgment, not evidence. UFO is UNIDENTIFIED. The most we can say about such phenomena that cannot be explained is that we do not know, it is unidentified.
But, to presume that something unidentified is an ET is totally unreasonable and intellectually dishonest.
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IWantGod
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Or the test was wrong or Travis Walton is a professional liar including his team since they passed the lie detector at least once.
Could it be the lie detector test is unreliable?
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IWantGod
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What, that people might have hallucinations? Sure. But the idea that a group of people shared the same identical hallucination of some phenomenon is not reasonable.
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Gertabelle
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It’s not just about hallucination.
It’s about how our memories can be manipulated by hearing the testimony of others, how our memories can be influenced by the kinds of questions we are asked, and how our interpretation of events is influenced by our cultural “stories” if you will.
For example, a group of people at a little league game see strange movements of lights in the sky. The crowd starts pointing to them and getting other people to look at them. A few people point their phones at the sky and record photos or videos. The whole thing last maybe ten seconds.
How many lights were there?
How did they move?
Where in the sky did you see them?
You’d think the photo evidence would prove everything – except all the photos are blurry and you can’t even tell how many lights there were.
Witnesses say they saw lights, they mention movement patterns, they overhear each others’ statements and what starts out as a motley bunch of descriptions begins to solidify into a single description of what occurred.
To many this would seem like irrefutable evidence – “See! They all agree with one another!”
Memory is fluid. It is not a digital image. And our human brains allow our memories of an event to be changed by the influence of culture, the accounts of others, and other factors.
What I’m saying here is based on brain research – peer-reviewed research that has been duplicated in multiple studies.
So no, group testimony is not always trustworthy. And the reason it is not accurate is not due to “group hallucination.”
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IWantGod
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And yet only a delusional person would say they didn’t see any lights at all.
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IWantGod
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You have a double standard and that’s fine. Just say you are willing to accept testimonies and about the Resurrection and Divinity of Jesus but you are not willing to accept testimonies about alien abduction. But don’t act like you are the most rational person in the room because the same naturalistic rationalizations you are using are the very same kind of rationalizations used against the faith.
Don’t be a hypocrite calling us stupid.
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3DOCTORS
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Precisely. I would add that maybe the word “hallucination” has bad connotations that the abduction believers reject. What I would say based on my reading in this area is that the shared memory is altered by the interpersonal collaboration as witnesses attempt to shape a consistent narrative and description of what they saw, heard, etc. Details are examined, compared, edited out, embellished, agreement is subject to confirmation bias, and the end result is a mostly agreed upon version of what happened.
Susan Clancy, author of the book Abducted that I mentioned earlier, explains how she came to study the UFO-abductee movement. It was during a time in the 1990s when there was much controversy over “recovered memories” of sexual and Satanic abuse. Things had gotten to the point where emotions were running high, alleged perpetrators had been convicted and incarcerated on evidence that was difficult to independently verify, and the tide had begun to turn with therapists being hauled into court in malpractice suits. Ms. Clancy hit upon studying alien abduction “memories” as a way to study the phenomenon of traumatic memory formation and recall without the danger of taking sides for or against possible genuine abuse victims or falsely accused alleged perpetrators.
What she learned was that the “abductees” did indeed display emotional and physical symptoms of PTSD and that those can occur whether an experience is objectively real or simply perceived as real.
Of course, there will still be some who will argue that Ms. Clancy was biased in starting from the assumption that extraterrestrials have not visited Earth to date. I’m satisfied that they have not. So are most people with the ability to consider the matter with scientific objectivity.
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Roseeurekacross
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Absolutely stunned with this comment
There is nothing that can be compared or similar in The Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ And the Divinity of God.
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alleged alien kidnap.
Begone satan.
You, my dear, if Catholic, if you truly want God, need to put all this utter ridiculous nonsense aside, and go find God. Start with Mass, Reconcilliation, and a good chat with your Priest.
You are so far off the path. I will pray you find it again.
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IWantGod
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God is my judge not you. If you cannot see the double standard in your reasoning that’s your problem not mine. Attacking my Character does not make you a reasonable person, and it says more about your prejudices then it does about me.
If you don’t want to believe there are aliens then don’t and you are free to manifest all kind of naturalistic rationalizations to protect yourself. But don’t come on the thread huffing and puffing like you’re better than other people…
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3DOCTORS
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Emotions seem to be running high on this thread, too. I may disagree with IWantGod’s conclusions about UFOs and extraterrestrials but ad hominem attacks on his or her character are unnecessary and counterproductive.
It seems there may be a continuum of those who feel concern that too much emphasis on the UFO phenomenon or even the topic of extraterrestrials might tempt someone into dabbling in the occult (which is understandable considering that there are New Age cults that include UFOs in their beliefs), and those who are trying to examine the issue through a paradigm that at least tries to be scientific. I would say that good science and faith need not be in conflict.
It seems there may be a continuum of those who feel concern that too much emphasis on the UFO phenomenon or even the topic of extraterrestrials might tempt someone into dabbling in the occult (which is understandable considering that there are New Age cults that include UFOs in their beliefs), and those who are trying to examine the issue through a paradigm that at least tries to be scientific. I would say that good science and faith need not be in conflict.
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