"Why do we believe in aliens?"

[Qasim]

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/45176.html

"Why do we believe in aliens?" asks The Herald, which says that Star Trek "imagines the aliens as human beings, most of them bad, which tends to be what science fiction does."

[Osiris-RA]

Hmm, well, I think that the concept of aliens comes from the human yearning to truely find his/her place in the universe because they didn't seem to able to find their place here on earth. Which is part of the reasons there are so many wars and junk today. In some twisted way, man's search to discover himself and who his creator - preferably SEEN creator - is has caused him to rebell against his fellow human being. I suppose it's the anguish that perhaps some people have found a place on earth that angers certain types of men and drives them to destroy what place that human has found on the earth. Kind of like a kid who's mad someone else got the last peice of pie so he puts some cayenne pepper in the pie to ruin it for the kid. So, really, I honestly believe that aliens are man's way of trying to find both his creator and his purpose in the world - which is why in most sci fi movies you see that the human visitor to another world is in some way, united with ET - his 'creator' and leaves earth to serve his purpose in the grand scheme of the universe. That's also part of the reason, I think, that you'll find some atheists believe in aliens, and not a God. SOME, no body jump on me here.

Yeah, it sounds pathetic but IMHO, I think that's why mankind - or some of mankind - believes in extraterrestrial life.

However, I do believe that there are other forms of life that walk amoung us that we can't see. Then there are forms that you CAN see which, if you tune to Notorious on the History Channel, you can get a nice glimpse at occasionally.

[Wyrminarrd]

Why do we believe in aliens? It´s cause it makes for good movies and television Imagine Independence day if there were no aliens, then all we would have had was a movie about a three day weekend

I do agree with Osiris-Ra on the point that many of the people who believe in aliens do so because they want to believe in a better race and a way of doing things. These are the people who say things like "Any technologically advance race must perforce by peaceful or it would have destroyed itself bla bla bla", they project their desires for human kind unto aliens.

For my part I believe that there must be other sentient races out there somewhere, the universe is just to freakin huge for us to be alone. I do however not believe that they´ve ever come to Earth, the odds of another race being around our part of the universe at the same time seem very small.

[Qasim]

Interesting read - the both of you

[Darkstar]

For my part I believe that there must be other sentient races out there somewhere, the universe is just to freakin huge for us to be alone. I do however not believe that they´ve ever come to Earth, the odds of another race being around our part of the universe at the same time seem very small.

the small odds are biggert than you think, life on this planet is a by product of natural selection many creatures big and small have come and gone in the millions of years past but the odds of life somewhere in our part of the universe may be bigger than some people think.
im not saying you are ignorant to this but most people don't stop to think that life on other planets is not just somthing we see in the movies and tv, take war of the worlds for example aliens come to this planet to take it from us in their ships they land and begin to exterminate us now to say that that film is far ahead in the realms of science fiction is absured, the possibility of this happening of course depends on if there are capable aliens and so on but there is nothing to stop aliens from arriving and taking it for themselves this fails to sink in to the ordinary mind of your everyday person, life always finds a way and if there are others there would be nothing beyond their abilities to wipe each other out stopping them flying around the void of space or even visiting earth, i mean take a look at how far human civilisation has come we split the atom found cold fusion and the technological ideas that we see in sci fi is only kept primative in our today world by our lack of progress with things such as money resources and evolved know how to build somthing like warp drive or somthing along those lines but if other sentient species evolve along these self presevation and self exploration lines then the odds of there already being alien space ships or in the near future is higher than most think.

i could have explained that better i guess but you get the idea.

[Wyrminarrd]

I still think those odds are very small. Staying within the realm of known science we are confronted with the fact that faster then light travel is impossible, the only theories I´ve heard to get by this involve more energy then the sun produces in it´s entire live span.

If there is no FTL then the aliens would have first been able to notice us around 25-40 years ago (If we say that radio transmissions started 70 years and the nearest Sol like sun is around 25 light years away), they would then have to mount a mission and get here.

Secondly lets look at the time scales. Just how long can an intelligent race survive? Do they go on forever or do they after a millions of years die out for one reason or another?

So the odds of another race being around right now and that close to us and with the technology to get here is extremely small. And if they have been around for a very long time and have FTL, thenI´d like to think they would have developed better hobbies then rectal proping hill billies

I´m willing to believe that there are alien races somewhere within 10.000 light year radius of Earth btw, I just find 25-40 light year radius to be stretching it a bit.

[Darkstar]

i had seen the stats of alien life evolving on another planet on a web site i forget which it was now and i did't believe it all but the abundance of life on this planet points to there being life on other planets.
i mean get this on earth we have creatures that live in the coldest regions of the planet and underwater creatures that thrive around volcanic smokers that the water is boiling at, explain that that isnt a kind miricle of life.
another planet isnt going to toss out the rules of nature.

the dillemas are that we as a sentient species declare ourselves mentally advnaced above all creature on this world in that we can imagine speak and so on but that is only a matter of prespective, and space travel isnt to be all and end all not all sentient species may want to travel to other planets.

also the possibility of human or humanoid life (i use that in the closet context) evolving on other planets may not be impossible as well, the mamals on this planet have a great way of adapting to new enviroments such as heat and cold much like us so the possibility of humanoid mamals on other world is not to be dissmissed s blindly either since species such as humans and mamals are mostly the dominant and inteligent (by that we rely more on our brain power than other animals rely on instinct with no awareness like us) on this world, so that may be the way it happens on other planets.

[Telawen]

What ever we think of how aliens will be or think about us, humans, will always remain human. The people who thought of it are humans after all ^_^. Anything outside that frame of thought will be to alien to us until we actually come across such alien-thinking aliens.
I think it's also very likely another living race in the universe capable of interstellar travel will simply take one good look at our planet and decides we're not really that interesting (petty earth politics etc.).
Osiris-Ra's post about aliens being a sort of substitute for a god is very intriguing. It makes sense to me. Science has disproven explanations put forth by the church over the centuries and we seem to know more and more about the world, can explain more things and without godly intervention (like in the middle ages). Why not believe in aliens if the idea of God doens't appeal to you?

[Tok'Ra Hostess]

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/45176.html

Before I read everyone else's posts:

I'm gonna go out on a limb and mark myself as stupid, unenlightened, intolerant or some such label and say that I view aliens(as in ETs) the same way as I see evolution: great plot devices for SF, but that's about it.

Every alien that we "know" is nothing more than the artful contrivance of our own imaginations.

The size of space and possible number of planets neither proves nor disproves the existence of intelligent life "out there."

I do not belong to any religion whatsoever, so I take full responsibility for my own opinions.

[Wyrminarrd]

Personally the accounts of UFO abducties sounds more like elfs and goblins then gods to me

Aliens have become modern day versions of those mythical beings, they sneak into peoples bedrooms and wisk them off to their strange homes were they do strange things.

[Ancient 1]

Just an off-the-cuff opinion here:

One reason to believe in aliens is much the same as to believe in god...any god; the universe is so vast that besides being a great waste of space if no one else is out there, we are then very much alone. We don't want to be alone; individually or as any intellegent race as a whole. Only those truly in denial could think any differently.

Well, that's my "pop-psyche" lesson for the day. Have fun with it.

[NowIWillDestroyAbydos]

I believe in alien. I don't know why I do.

[MarshAngel]

I think I remember a documentary a while back that claimed our brains are hard-wired to believe in a god. If that's true, maybe now that more people than ever before no longer believe in a god and science is such a dominat force in everyone's lives we're simply substituting a supernatural idea with a scientific one.

In addition to that, looking out into space and seeing all those planets and stars one can't help but imagine what if someone else is out there looking back at you. And because we can't go visit them we fill in the blank spaces of our imagination and desire and bring them to us instead.

Either that or the government invented it all to cover for even darker misdeeds

[Bast]

I am open to the possibility of extra terrestrial life , But "believe" is a big word although there is a deep human desire to explore some day I hope we will be the ones in spaceships to scare the crap out of preindustrial savages pondering the same questions on some far off planet.

[Darkstar]

I am open to the possibility of extra terrestrial life , But "believe" is a big word although there is a deep human desire to explore some day I hope we will be the ones in spaceships to scare the crap out of preindustrial savages pondering the same questions on some far off planet.

LOL scaring the crap outa some poor alien alone in his/her bed we beam em up and probe them with the dreaded A probe just to strike the fear of god into their hearts, with no body who can beleive them we would be up in space laughin our sorry ass's off.

maybe and it is a theory that us humans are the first of a kind, we evolve to become space fairing people and spered our genes on other planets and let nature take is course humans eveolve and then design their own alien species to put on a planet to evolve and do the same after wea have gone, its sorta a renewing thing a cycle if you will maybe some alien race did this to us and we do the same like a chain letter we pass it on and on for all time with our legacy.

just a though.