[meteorite-list] They're Leprechauns!

[Phil Whitmer]

Darren & late  night Listoidians:

There exists today, a prevelant belief in outer space aliens living in 
advanced technological civilizations. A majority of Americans inexplicably 
believes that they have visited us.  This belief is prevelant amongst the 
vast majority of scientists.  A NASA scientist who walked on the moon 
believes they are living and working amongst us in all walks of life.

Belief in imaginary beings is an interesting psychological phenomenon. 
Through the ages there has been much interest in elves, fairies, trolls, 
dwarves, ghosts, succubi, incubi, mermaids,  what have you. I don't think 
though that at any time in history has there ever been anything like the 
overwhelming cultural acceptance of the  unsubstantiated belief in outer 
space aliens. The only thing that even comes close is the belief in angels 
in the 1200's, and maybe witches in the 1600's.  Completely hypothetical 
mental constructions,  and yet they are believed by vast majorities. 
Questioning this belief is like arguing the Immaculate Conception with a 
Catholic. Neither side will ever win the argument.

I can understand that it's comforting to believe in advanced civilizations 
in outer space. Humans are pack animals, living in bee hives.  It's sad, 
lonely and forlorn to feel we are all alone.  Maybe one day these beings 
will appear out of the sky and save us from ourselves, like Jesus or 
Mohammed, or maybe they'll just kill and eat us.  I hear humans taste like 
pork.

And yes, the ancient Chinese conceptualized going to the moon, it was right 
around the time they made mankind's first record of a solar eclipse.

Why do I feel like a heathen being proselytized?

Phil Whitmer



On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:16:11 -0400, you wrote:


>Just once, I'd like to read one of these articles that doesn't include the

>grains of sand analogy.


At least they are using something similar to sound reasoning skills.

Here's an analogy for your "thought" process:

You have two books-- you read the first chapter of the first book, note that
nobody has been mysteriously murdered yet. You toss away the first book. You
read the title second book-- the word "murder" is nowhere it the title. You
toss away the second book. You decide that, therefore, there is no rational
reason to believe that any book anywhere might be a murder mystery.

The biological sciences are very, very young. And very, very little of Mars 
has
been explored. And yet you make the claim that "scientists are too dumb to
understand abiogenisis" as if the current state of science is the end of all
human knowledge when in fact it is barely the beginning. And that the few
tinker-toys we have sent to Mars so far (as cool as they may be) preclude 
that
Mars ever did support life (or Venus for that instance.) You then take those
very very, very early sets of data and reach the conclusion that there is no
other life in the universe.

You may think that is rational thinking. But it is a very long way from
rational thinking.

And THEN you make a post where you think that maybe the Chinese visited the 
moon
thousands of years ago?

And you praise ancient philosophers who spent their lives speculating on the
nature of reality, while calling the people on the list who want to 
speculate on
the nature of reality "mental masturbators", and call the conversations
"stupid"?

And you continue to construct straw men to attack for everyone who makes a
misguided attempt at reasoning with you.

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