Dr.Wu,you know the only difference in what your believing and what Im saying is that Im giving a name to it.Vallee couldnt or wouldnt but he did hint that he knows perfectly well where this should lay .You cant be a scientist and state any belief in God but apparently its ok to be a scientist and try to include things like Goblins faires and elves. Until and unless this country gets back to God this is never going to be solved,and I know this theory is very unpolular among those in the ufo community but Ill take that risk and say it anyway,UFOs are a demonic event controlled by the Devil himself,that guy that wants the whole world to believe he doesnt exist.

Somerville Changeling wrote:It changed so much that Karl Pflock felt we were visited briefly by genuine ETH aliens, but that they left and something else has taken over.

Karl was a good friend of mine, and we discussed this a lot, and this part of your post is simply not accurate. Karl was indeed convinced that aliens had visited Earth sometime in the 1950s and 1960s, and that those visits had stopped in the late 1960s - early 1970s (his line was always something along the lines of "they finished their survey, and left, perhaps to return someday"), but he did not think that "something else had taken over." For Karl it was ET, or nothing, i.e. more prosaic, terrestrial causes. The only thing that he thought had "taken over" after ET left was the profit motive amongst most UFO researchers, a point he drives home in my film Stanton T. Friedman is Real.

Paul

Carol Nistri wrote:Dr.Wu,you know the only difference in what your believing and what Im saying is that Im giving a name to it.Vallee couldnt or wouldnt but he did hint that he knows perfectly well where this should lay .You cant be a scientist and state any belief in God but apparently its ok to be a scientist and try to include things like Goblins faires and elves. Until and unless this country gets back to God this is never going to be solved,and I know this theory is very unpolular among those in the ufo community but Ill take that risk and say it anyway,UFOs are a demonic event controlled by the Devil himself,that guy that wants the whole world to believe he doesnt exist.

Carol,
Once again you misunderstand the issues involved. Naming a thing means nothing (it's arbitrary ) without some kind of objective or rational support with facts. There is nothing objective, scientific, nor rational that says any religious dogmas are actually real, that God or the devil really exist. It is a belief system based on faith and philosophy...not science. To use it to explain another unknown like ufos (which embodies various aspects including physicality) is simply not a very sound idea.
Dr Vallee does not say they are fairies and elves....this is a mistake you have repeatedly made. He says the ufo phenom seems similar in many cases to what our ancestors called fairies, elves, demons, etc. He believes it is a real unknown entity phenom (a truly alien lifeform) probably from another dimension or parallel reality/universe that we have called many names over the centuries. As far as I know he does not believe they are actual religious/supernatural beings from Christian beliefs.
If you want to believe in God and put ufos and aliens in that basket, and that's your right, then you are doing the same thing as Somer which imo is being done from a faith based cultural posture and not from any logical or rational position.
If that is too blunt I'm sorry ,but imho the whole idea that these are some kind of creatures from hell that God or the devil created sounds like medieval thinking which belongs in the distant past and it amazes me that any intelligent person would buy into this explanation.

oh but its not at all silly or incredulous to believe there are other dimensions,that there are entities that toy with the mind of mankind,I see,silly me.Thats part of the inigma,the chance we have to take,Im taking it.This is not little kindly gray aliens whos intent it is to help mankind with all of our problems.That much should be clear by now. It doesnt matter what position anyone takes the entire subject is screwy.

dr wu23 wrote:
Carol,
Once again you misunderstand the issues involved. Naming a thing means nothing (it's arbitrary ) without some kind of objective or rational support with facts. There is nothing objective, scientific, nor rational that says any religious dogmas are actually real, that God or the devil really exist. It is a belief system based on faith and philosophy...not science. To use it to explain another unknown like ufos (which embodies various aspects including physicality) is simply not a very sound idea.
Dr Vallee does not say they are fairies and elves....this is a mistake you have repeatedly made. He says the ufo phenom seems similar in many cases to what our ancestors called fairies, elves, demons, etc. He believes it is a real unknown entity phenom (a truly alien lifeform) probably from another dimension or parallel reality/universe that we have called many names over the centuries. As far as I know he does not believe they are actual religious/supernatural beings from Christian beliefs.
If you want to believe in God and put ufos and aliens in that basket, and that's your right, then you are doing the same thing as Somer which imo is being done from a faith based cultural posture and not from any logical or rational position.
If that is too blunt I'm sorry ,but imho the whole idea that these are some kind of creatures from hell that God or the devil created sounds like medieval thinking which belongs in the distant past and it amazes me that any intelligent person would buy into this explanation.

With respect Dr Wu, I think you've demonstrated Carol's point nicely. Fairies, elves, demons etc., are perfectly described as beings "from another dimension or parallel reality/universe". As you say yourself, naming things is somewhat arbitrary. Vallee is indeed defending a belief in 'fairies' - by any other name. His belief in other dimensions or realities (or fairyland for that matter), is empirically unverifiable, so if science is your sole and ultimate measure, his belief is without objective foundation and does not, by those standards, constitute a rational position.

However, science is not the ultimate measure and to believe so is to subscribe to the error of scientism, a philosophical stance long since shown to be self-vitiating, as science cannot verify itself. The foundation of science is philosophy: acceptance of first principles, a firm belief in the principle of induction, the assumption of a lawful universe, and so on. Science cannot attain to truth, only an approximation of it, only verisimilitude, which is why the occasional paradigm shifts in understanding don't invalidate the method.

You seem to dismiss theism because it's based on faith and philosophy, but science too is rooted in faith and philosophy, and both seek verification by assuming the validity of axiomatic truths and logically reasoning from them. I cannot speak to your beliefs, but your representation of God here seems to equate Him with the likes of ghosts and goblins rather than with being, existence and the first cause. Even so, while you find belief in God unreasonable, you seem to think belief in ghosts and goblins from fairyland (or entities from parallel dimensions) is reasonable.

Perhaps you might be kind enough to clarify your position?

Gilbert wrote:With respect Dr Wu, I think you've demonstrated Carol's point nicely. Fairies, elves, demons etc., are perfectly described as beings "from another dimension or parallel reality/universe". As you say yourself, naming things is somewhat arbitrary. Vallee is indeed defending a belief in 'fairies' - by any other name. His belief in other dimensions or realities (or fairyland for that matter), is empirically unverifiable, so if science is your sole and ultimate measure, his belief is without objective foundation and does not, by those standards, constitute a rational position.

However, science is not the ultimate measure and to believe so is to subscribe to the error of scientism, a philosophical stance long since shown to be self-vitiating, as science cannot verify itself. The foundation of science is philosophy: acceptance of first principles, a firm belief in the principle of induction, the assumption of a lawful universe, and so on. Science cannot attain to truth, only an approximation of it, only verisimilitude, which is why the occasional paradigm shifts in understanding don't invalidate the method.

You seem to dismiss theism because it's based on faith and philosophy, but science too is rooted in faith and philosophy, and both seek verification by assuming the validity of axiomatic truths and logically reasoning from them. I cannot speak to your beliefs, but your representation of God here seems to equate Him with the likes of ghosts and goblins rather than with being, existence and the first cause. Even so, while you find belief in God unreasonable, you seem to think belief in ghosts and goblins from fairyland (or entities from parallel dimensions) is reasonable.

Perhaps you might be kind enough to clarify your position?

Neither Dr Vallee nor myself are postulating that fairies, elves, or demons actually exist as such but that the entities involved with the ufo enigma( both now and in the past) were described that way in the past using religious models since that is what earlier people understood. We are now in a scientific age (at least in the industrialized nations) so our models/paradigms have changed to one of science and rationality. People also used to think the world was flat.
Dr Vallee thinks the ETH fails to address many of the more unusual asepcts to the entities and their 'craft' so he has postulated that these beings might be from an alternate reality or dimension (where the laws of physics allow other abilities) which is now being postulated by most if not all quantum physicists. They are biological beings but truly alien being from a parallel realty. This has nothing to do with religion and is indeed based on new scientific models of other possible worlds. I direct your attention to the Many Worlds Theory which has been around for some time now.
Religious models are not scientific in any way shape or form and definitely cannot be verified in any objective manner. IMHO they only make the whole area even more murky and confused and put it in a faith based mythological setting.
And regarding science you have some mistaken notions imho...it is indeed the ultimate measure we have so far and nothing else even comes close. Your philosophical points above come to nothing when you want medicine or you wish to type a response on your computer; all gained from science. Dwell on that. Objective everyday science is not based on faith nor philosophy..you are very wrong there. Try driving down the street with your belief in God without the car science gave you.
I'm not saying that one cannot use other ontologies/philosophies to give them an explanation about reality but the simple fact is none of those have provided us with anything other than words on paper. Only science has actually created the technology and given us answers on how things seem to work. We cannot say the same for religion or any other ontology.

paulkimball wrote:

Somerville Changeling wrote:It changed so much that Karl Pflock felt we were visited briefly by genuine ETH aliens, but that they left and something else has taken over.

Karl was a good friend of mine, and we discussed this a lot, and this part of your post is simply not accurate. Karl was indeed convinced that aliens had visited Earth sometime in the 1950s and 1960s, and that those visits had stopped in the late 1960s - early 1970s (his line was always something along the lines of "they finished their survey, and left, perhaps to return someday"), but he did not think that "something else had taken over." For Karl it was ET, or nothing, i.e. more prosaic, terrestrial causes. The only thing that he thought had "taken over" after ET left was the profit motive amongst most UFO researchers, a point he drives home in my film Stanton T. Friedman is Real.

Paul

Either I misstated or you're misreading my post. It's probably the former. I did not mean to say that Pflock felt that an entity had taken over. I only know Pflock's views "channeled by" Moseley, but I tend to see his view in light of more Fortean statements on the subject by others.

When I intend to refer to something that has a real existence, I generally call it an entity and then argue to the demonic based on folklore similarities. Something simply means that the cause is unspecified. The accounts of UFO's showed that something else had taken over [the folklore], as stories of UFO entity encounters had continued past the classic days of grounded craft with human appearing occupants (or in South America, hairy dwarves). I'm inclined to the PSH most of the time, but I advocate the EDH because the PSH does not rule out high strangeness and even seems to miss how human experience molds storytelling which molds human experience. Folklore happens.

The profit motive makes me think that today's Ufology in North America is the Fortean equivalent to the morally bankrupt televangelists.

Keel was the believer in Ultraterrestrials, not Pflock, though Moseley supports the "3 1/2 D" theory. I'm a great believer that the phenomenon (whatever causes it) fits the culture as it shapes the culture. Fort was actually the one who felt that if aliens had visited earth, they were warned away "because we are property". He also felt that if there was a god, that it was insane. Humorist or not, his views still resonate and actually fit world folklore related to evil supernatural beings who seem to earthbound man to sit in high places, while claiming to be the god of this world.

dr wu23 wrote: We are now in a scientific age (at least in the industrialized nations) so our models/paradigms have changed to one of science and rationality. People also used to think the world was flat.

Oh the old "people used to think the world was flat" canard. No educated person did. No one did who was a keen observer of nature. If anyone believed the world was flat, it was probably someone who misunderstood a Hindu mystic who said the world was held up by 4 elephants riding on the back of a turtle swimming in an endless sea (yes I know the story's apocryphal and no Hindu might actually have believed it, but you get my point). However, those into scientism have often claimed that people (especially Medieval Christians) believed the world was flat up until relatively modern times, but that is a falsehood.

That said, Vallee is a Rosicrucian by inclination. I'd suspect that, since he believes modern Rosicrucians have lost much ancient lore, that he's inclined to believe in demons, even if he does not think they are the demons of Christian folklore. He certainly seemed to believe that the entities behind abductions were the ones behind succubi and incubi attacks. IMHO a demon is a demon by it's actions and what it claims if it actually converses with men. We really do not know what demons are. I keep saying that, but you appear to keep interpreting it as if I'm talking about fallen angels (the Watchers are another subject entirely).

dr wu23 wrote:Dr Vallee thinks the ETH fails to address many of the more unusual asepcts to the entities and their 'craft' so he has postulated that these beings might be from an alternate reality or dimension (where the laws of physics allow other abilities) which is now being postulated by most if not all quantum physicists. They are biological beings but truly alien being from a parallel realty. This has nothing to do with religion and is indeed based on new scientific models of other possible worlds. I direct your attention to the Many Worlds Theory which has been around for some time now.

Biological beings from another alternate reality would be subject to similar physical constraints as we are. In directing anyone to Many Worlds theories, you should understand what they actually say, as opposed to what SF says they are or what atheists believe they prove about religion.

Western religious traditions all involve alternate realities at their core, so do Hermetic and Eastern traditions. It's modern science that's finally caught up to at least one aspect of what religions have taught for thousands of years. I personally do not see Many Worlds theories as disproving religion because they allegedly disprove the cosmological anthropic principle, but many modern skeptics do.

What it comes down to with Many Worlds theories is this; there is no reason not to support a seemingly infinite, ageless multiverse where other realities exist side by side due to varying initial starting conditions arising from different "big bangs" creating universes with divergent physical laws. However, I'm not convinced that physical biological beings from such worlds would have an easier time getting here from there than the classic ETH.

We know other star systems with varied planetary types exist. We have theories supporting one or another model of warp drive making travel within the lifetime of a biological being reasonable. We envisioned generation ships before we imagined warp drives. The only arguments against the ETH are twofold: one is that we have no evidence of any other technological civilization existing within a time frame allowing us to detect radio transmissions (or even an alien equivalent to "I Love Lucy" broadcast before the age of satellites); the other is that the aliens we encounter in the stories are too much like us to have evolved under a distant sun based on what we know about how evolution works.

Do you actually believe physical biological beings from an alternate dimension with differing physics would be more likely to look like us because they are from an alternate earth? We aren't talking "Sliders" here, we're talking a planet like earth orbiting a star like the sun where evolution operates according to laws similar to our own, but spawned in a universe where the laws are different enough that the odds of a human like race existing is far worse than the odds of a human like race evolving in a nearby star system like Tau Ceti or Zeta Reticuli.

I'm a believer in the EDH, but what I see as passing over from other realities are the same entities that religions the world over have engaged with emotions ranging from wonder to adoration to fear. Their passing over is probably not material, but they seem to be able to put on the material the way we put on a costume. What they are like in their own worlds is probably very different because the initial physical conditions of those universes would be quite different.

dr wu23 wrote:Religious models are not scientific in any way shape or form and definitely cannot be verified in any objective manner. IMHO they only make the whole area even more murky and confused and put it in a faith based mythological setting.
And regarding science you have some mistaken notions imho...it is indeed the ultimate measure we have so far and nothing else even comes close.

No one claims that religion is scientific, though science can be warped by some and made into a religion. Religion simply means "way of life" and I wish you'd be fair and apply the same critique of religion to your views of consciousness. Once again, I ask you to examine the way in which you take mystical views of consciousness from Harpur, Thompson et. al. seriously while reacting to Biblical mystical views as if you were Sam Harris. Your two sets of views do not seem to have much overlap, so how do you avoid cognitive dissonance?

dr wu23 wrote:Your philosophical points above come to nothing when you want medicine or you wish to type a response on your computer; all gained from science. Dwell on that. Objective everyday science is not based on faith nor philosophy..you are very wrong there. Try driving down the street with your belief in God without the car science gave you.

Objective science is based on faith, faith in observations. If you didn't adopt scientism's misuse of faith as blind belief, then you'd see that faith means trust. You might not trust in anything beyond human consciousness when you read Harpur et. al. and you might get dogmatic when responding to Biblical belief with arguments from technology but those arguments are beside the point.

No one ever claimed that religion was magic prior to the atheist's attack on religion. Science is a way of understanding nature. All of the technologies you cite have nothing to do with the questions of religion, unless one adopts scientism and makes the unfounded claim that material reductionism is the truth that underlies all truths; and the rejection of religion is the measure of human progress. If you believe that, then you're being a philosopher, not a scientist.

dr wu23 wrote:I'm not saying that one cannot use other ontologies/philosophies to give them an explanation about reality but the simple fact is none of those have provided us with anything other than words on paper. Only science has actually created the technology and given us answers on how things seem to work. We cannot say the same for religion or any other ontology.

Religion has given us a better understanding of human nature than science, because religion observes human nature in the 'wild', not in the controlled study. Science, when striving to understand human nature went astray with social darwinism and eugenics. Sociobiology has done a better job but not by much. We can state that this or that behavior evolved for this or that purpose, but when further studies are done, the answers change.

Science is self correcting like any other human endeavor, but religion imagines realities where there is no need for self correction because perfection is reached. IMHO, those realities are as compelling as the Many Worlds theories (and would be probable in an infinite multiverse). When religion goes wrong it's usually because of a belief that one's own prejudices and limited understanding of reality are perfect and in conformance with God's will and our ultimate purpose. God corrects religion in history, just as scientists correct our material worldview in history.

We aren't in that perfect realm yet so we still need those who walk humbly with God and those who humbly inquire into the nature of things. We don't need inquisitions, either religious or atheist. I really do not see religion and science at odds, and if any religious people do they are mistaken and at odds with both Christianity and Judaism. If any scientists do, they are abandoning science for a philosophy that's actually failed the test of time. Modern atheism is in a twilight phase.

Are you sure you can reject God, but hold on to infinity? Rejection of God is foolishness and is usually replaced with systems promising the same perfection, but always leading to disaster. The only scientific response to religion is to be agnostic, because when studying the natural world, the supernatural must be left out, but when studying the greater reality in which the natural world is embedded, then the supernatural is the gateway. Just be careful which gate you choose, they don't all lead to the same spiritual destination.

God requires infinity to do His work in this finite world, but not because infinity is higher than God, but because God is truly "What Is". To paraphrase Isaiah, God creates light and darkness, good and evil, infinity and the finite, God alone does these things and there is no other. God is the One that creates the many.

I often wonder why many of the mystical authors you read don't get that? Or if they do, they want to see God as anything but personal and the God of the Biblical revelation. It appears to me that you think that the automobile illustrates the truth, all the while rejecting absolute truth in Sam Harris mode while accepting "What Is" in mystical mode. That's how it is from my perspective.

IMHO, you represent a patchwork rejection of God; one part quasi-pagan views found in writers of emerging human consciousness, one part material reductionists who would also reject your mystical claims. I have no problems with old paganism, only some things that old pagans did (like human sacrifice and ritual bestiality). I tend to agree with Chesterton that Christianity baptized paganism and with Lewis that truth is conveyed in both Judaism and old paganism that became clear in Christianity.

Sometimes God has poor allies who simply don't understand what men like MacDonald and Lewis (not to mention Lady Julian of Norwich and Peter Abelard) understood about God. Other times, God has poor enemies who judge God by the magic they expect a deity to provide, and thereby conclude that since there is no magic, there is no God.

Man plans and God laughs!

Neither Dr Vallee nor myself are postulating that fairies, elves, or demons actually exist as such but that the entities involved with the ufo enigma( both now and in the past) were described that way in the past using religious models since that is what earlier people understood.

I don’t see any meaningful distinction Dr Wu. Using the term ‘entities’ no more explains the phenomenon than the term ‘fairies’. It seems odd to write off fairies, elves, or demons as superstition when you yourself believe (I assume) in the equally indemonstrable ‘entities’ who fly spaceships, or craft of some sort, and abduct people. Some might see it as dismissing superstition with pseudo-science.

We are now in a scientific age (at least in the industrialized nations) so our models/paradigms have changed to one of science and rationality.

We live in a lot of ages – the age of discontinuity, the secular age, the age of relativism, the green revolution age, the information age, the age of greed, the new age etc. The fact remains, Christian theology was necessary for science to emerge – i.e. the belief in a lawful, ordered universe rather than a pantheon of capricious gods and goddesses, or numinous fate, or illusory dependent arising, or nihilistic accidentalism.

People also used to think the world was flat.

Almost no educated person since Aristotle has believed the earth was flat – medieval clergy were the most educated people of their time, founders of universities and of science. The idea that all pre-modern Christians believed the earth was flat is a myth popularised in the 19th century by various anti-Christian writers. There are many examples of Christian scholars who explicitly taught that the earth was not flat: Bede in the 8th Century A.D., Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th Century and Thomas Aquinas in the 13th. The medieval textbook on astronomy was called SPHERE. Need I elaborate further?

Dr Vallee thinks the ETH fails to address many of the more unusual asepcts to the entities and their 'craft' so he has postulated that these beings might be from an alternate reality or dimension (where the laws of physics allow other abilities) which is now being postulated by most if not all quantum physicists. They are biological beings but truly alien being from a parallel realty. This has nothing to do with religion and is indeed based on new scientific models of other possible worlds. I direct your attention to the Many Worlds Theory which has been around for some time now.

The Many-Worlds Theory intersects with modal realism or the possible worlds argument in philosophy and as a philosophical realist I find the implications intriguing especially concerning the nature of causality. But to talk of this theory’s ostensibly inaccessible parallel worlds with alien beings in a literal sense whereby such beings can pop into and out of this world, is to reach far beyond (and indeed contradict) any interpretation I’ve seen. But let’s say quantum physics does demonstrate the existence of other dimensions/worlds, and finds that some other kinds of beings do inhabit them, then by what fiat do you proclaim that this has nothing to do with religion? To the contrary, the religious, or theological implications are, to say the least, compellingly significant.

Religious models are not scientific in any way shape or form and definitely cannot be verified in any objective manner. IMHO they only make the whole area even more murky and confused and put it in a faith based mythological setting.

You mean religious models of the UFO/alien question? If so,then I’m too new to ufology to draw any firm conclusions. You might be right, but I’m inclined to the view that UFOs are real alien craft if they are anything at all and, I have to say, if UFOs are anything but alien craft from other planets in our own space-time, they are uninteresting – to me anyway.

And regarding science you have some mistaken notions imho...it is indeed the ultimate measure we have so far and nothing else even comes close. Your philosophical points above come to nothing when you want medicine or you wish to type a response on your computer; all gained from science. Dwell on that. Objective everyday science is not based on faith nor philosophy..you are very wrong there. Try driving down the street with your belief in God without the car science gave you.

They are not my notions, they are the notions of the preeminent thinkers of our age, which I merely report. I’m afraid none of your comments above bear on your claim that science is the measure of all things. All you’re saying here is that science is useful, and rightly esteemed for its utility, but that doesn’t change the fact that it rests on the foundations of philosophy and belief. First principles are believed, not scientifically demonstrated, and they are anterior to logic, reasoning, observation and experiment. You can neither prove nor deny the law of non-contradiction, for example, without first assuming it. Or take the belief in gravity – what evidence can you provide that gravity will exist in five minutes time? What evidence can you provide for the prediction of any event? Only, and I stress this point, the fact of the observation of repetition. You believe in the future because of the past, but what is the connection between them? How does the fact of a past and repetitious occurrence prove or guarantee the future recurrence? The answer is that it doesn’t. There is no connection, but for belief in the continuity of nomological integrity. Or, to put it another way, faith in an ordered universe.

Also, you seem to be under the impression that I oppose science in some way. Let me be clear then: I do not oppose it; nor do I worship it, I merely understand what it is. My criticism of the ’scientism’ you seem to espouse, is that it is unscientific – positivism was hoisted on its own petard of the verification principle halfway through last century but if you wish to revisit the arguments that dethroned it, I can certainly accommodate you.

I'm not saying that one cannot use other ontologies/philosophies to give them an explanation about reality but the simple fact is none of those have provided us with anything other than words on paper. Only science has actually created the technology and given us answers on how things seem to work. We cannot say the same for religion or any other ontology.

Words on paper? Good heavens, are you serious? Have you analysed those words? Wherein is the lie? What is technology and an understanding of the mechanics of reality in the face of personal death? Do you think fame or legacy or progeny are species of immortality? Absolutely, they are not. They are merely the false comfort of the condemned. Those mere ‘words on paper’ produced Western civilization, the scientific method, the greatest art and architecture ever seen, the most far reaching, ambitious charitable endeavours known in the history of mankind, an incomparable moral law, to say nothing of the hope for each man contained in the message of Christ Himself – that you will not become extinct, that you shall live on even after death. Who cares if science provides you with a car instead of a horse? Deal with what matters. You are already dead, and if there is no hope in death there is no hope in life.

I've debated with Dr. Wu for nearly a decade. He used to be a believer in Eastern paradigms, at the time, I was Jewish by conversion because I found it more compelling than the generic almost religious background I'd grown up in (plus, I didn't believe in Christ at the time). His dismissal of Biblical religion was just as strong then as it is now. What's changed is that he started reading modern atheists like Dawkins, Harris et. al. I see a dissonance in his thinking that wasn't present then because material reductionism is hard to fit into even Eastern religion, and the angry atheists who rely upon it wouldn't accept his views of consciousness and "What Is" any more than they would Biblical religion.

I tend to get some Christians upset because I'm thoroughly a Fortean. All supernaturalism is a Fortean subject in that it does not fit into naturalistic philosophies. In a sense, it was Keel who convinced me that supernatural evil actually existed (even though he was an agnostic at the time of writing and I've not read that he ever became a Christian). I had to be convinced of supernatural evil before I'd sit down and read the New Testament and actually engage Christ. I prayed sincerely for an answer and I became a Christian, but I still find much in Judaism that explains the Bible more clearly than what is taught in many churches.

What I've tried to do on this board (where most of the people I've known for more than ten years of posting are now engaged), is get them to consider the demonic as not just psychological evil and not just folklore, but as a real aspect of Fortean phenomena. Dr. Wu believes there's a Trickster element, but he tends towards New Age interpretations of Amerindian beliefs in that regard, where the trick is played as a way to force learning. I'm more inclined to consider traditional folklore (not just European) where tricks are played by deceptive entities that mean harm to humanity. Those beings can be found in all the world's folklore but are given a religious explanation in both Judaism and Christianity (and in Islam and Zoroastrianism as well).

IMHO, the religious explanation is valid in Ufology and, in fact, many allegedly non religious explanations are actually religious in tone. I did a thread on that awhile back but I let it devolve into replying to a couple people attacking Christianity, rather than engaging the argument with long time board members.

http://www.department47.com/ufo-reality-religion-imagination-or-physical-reality-t1461.html

In all honesty, I respect the generic Eastern argument more than the modern atheist or material reductionist. At least they have some inkling that there's more to reality and that beings who claim to be deities exist in Asia, even though they don't have a revelation beyond the noachide (noachide remembrances seem to be the source of much of Zoroastrian belief). My only debate with Eastern religion in the West is that it's watered down into a feel good "Buddhism lite", just as Hollywood stars and one disreputable self proclaimed Rabbi have watered down Jewish Kabbalah.

Gilbert,
I think you and Somer should start a board for Christian apologists.

dr wu23 wrote:Gilbert,
I think you and Somer should start a board for Christian apologists.

On this board, I'm only forced to be a Christian apologist when you trot out the usual atheist suspects. I've read Sam Harris and Dawkins too. I recommended "The Twighlight of Atheism" and "The Dawkin's Delusion" to you as a counter to radical atheism. Those sort of discussions should be on the religion forum, but I'm the only one who gets accused of bringing in religion because some people here will not accept that placing Fortean phenomena like UFO's in a religious framework makes more sense when the evidence is considered than placing it in the framework established by extreme forms of material reductionism.

What I'm trying to get you, personally, to engage is the evidence for the folklore, religious point of view. You seem to accept folklore if it's channeled through the world view of Harpur, but not if it's channeled through the world view of Biblical religion. I see a dissonance in your views that you aren't addressing. I'm asking you, how can you reconcile the two world views you propose?

Somerville Changeling wrote:

dr wu23 wrote:Gilbert,
I think you and Somer should start a board for Christian apologists.

On this board, I'm only forced to be a Christian apologist when you trot out the usual atheist suspects. I've read Sam Harris and Dawkins too. I recommended "The Twighlight of Atheism" and "The Dawkin's Delusion" to you as a counter to radical atheism. Those sort of discussions should be on the religion forum, but I'm the only one who gets accused of bringing in religion because some people here will not accept that placing Fortean phenomena like UFO's in a religious framework makes more sense when the evidence is considered than placing it in the framework established by extreme forms of material reductionism.

What I'm trying to get you, personally, to engage is the evidence for the folklore, religious point of view. You seem to accept folklore if it's channeled through the world view of Harpur, but not if it's channeled through the world view of Biblical religion. I see a dissonance in your views that you aren't addressing. I'm asking you, how can you reconcile the two world views you propose?

If I may briefly chime in here, I both agree and disagree. I agree that one can and should consider religion as part of the overall paranormal / Fortean discussion. I don't see how one could argue otherwise. However, I don't for a moment think that the two are in all cases, or even some cases, inextricably linked. In short, a possible connection shouldn't be dismissed, but it also shouldn't be assumed.

Paul

I don't assume it. I do assume that Fortean events like ghosts, apparitions and fairy (and similar entity) encounters are usually interpreted within a structure that is essentially religious. They are seldom left to vagueness. Read my thread up to where I get sidetracked by attacks on Biblical religion. I am trying to get away from the ETH, the PSH and the EDH and examine how people believe in UFO's or any other Fortean phenomena.

As a believer in Christ, I do interpret UFO abductions and channeled UFO beliefs as demonic, whereas I interpret classic saucer occupant encounters in light of the fairy faith (and similar beliefs around the world). I recognize that choosing to fit the events into the structure of Christian belief may lead to inaccurate conclusions if every event is seen to be demonic, but I tend to side with Keel and see a tricksterish element that is most often malevolent, if there's any tricks played outside the percipient's own mind.

Jung, Harpur et. al. can be valuable, but I'm not inclined to see everything as the evolution of human consciousness, especially as the evolution of UFO folklore since the beginning of modern accounts has devolved in quality and has contributed nothing to human culture, civilization or consciousness that SF and technological mysticisms like the Singularity don't already contribute.

At any rate, I tend to want to go on a roll where comparative apocalyptic is concerned. I hate when it becomes modern atheism vs. religion, so I'll try to avoid that in the future by not responding to comments that are simply attacks on religion rather than engaging the theories I'm setting forth.

I repeat:

Before we can start to explain reality and it's enigmas with religion, we must first establish whether or not there is any objective truth to religious ontologies and that has never been done and imo never will be. For one to say, ' I think religion & the supernatural is true based on my personal beliefs so lets use it to explain ufos' is completely subjective and not an honest nor balanced way to approach an unknown.



I think that says it all...for the third time.