I have been having ranting arguments over the excistence of Aliens with my dad recently and while he is agnostic/ borderline athiest he feverently believes that UFO visitations are a fact. I am both athiest and compleatly sceptical about any kind of aliens and it occured to me mabe its just a replacment for god for him. Using the kind of argument that just because it cant be disproved (yet) it is therefore a vald theory seems to be more of a delusion than an argument. Am I wrong?

Using the kind of argument that just because it cant be disproved (yet) it is therefore a vald theory seems to be more of a delusion than an argument. Am I wrong?

Yes you are wrong. If the evidence seems credible then as a rational person you would have to assume that it may be true. If you can't disprove something then you've got to include it in your list of possibilities.

Religion is at heart a way of forgetting about the dirty fleshy bits of life and concentrating on the spiritual, trancendential aspects. This practice of forgetting about the meaty goodness of life on earth seems to be desirable to most humans, and as a result people often bounce from one improbable religious belief system to another. Concentrating on matters of the psyche or spirit makes people happy. I myself became a sub-genius as I found the only way to destroy my programming was to replace it.

Perhaps aliens give your father a way to achieve the benefits of religion without the dogma. Certainly groups such as Heavens Gate found such benefit in their belief in aliens. Then again maybe he has looked at the evidence and found that in the balance of probabilities aliens are real. But few people are so rational as to be able to make an informed decision.

I don't see the parallels between belief in God and belief in E.T.'s. Unless of course he is counting on the presence of aliens to somehow lend him salvation or "save" the world.

I dont think its so much the salvation but rather an escape, that or he's just enthusiasticly curious, I really dont know. Its more that i found it funny that he said its more credible than religious nutjob types beliefes, and i personally cant put any stock into the probablity of little green men abducting hillbilly's, and to me it seems a simmilar leap in blind faith to a religious belief.

Everyone has their own interpretation of God.
Everyone has their own interpretation of aliens.
Due to lack of a definition of either, I have nothing to say. . . Except for that. ^

And this:
If you're talking about "blind faith" in "God" (Christian dogma?), well, those people don't have true knowledge of God.
That can only be found in private, through contemplation, and exploration of consciousness.
In my opinion, you can channel "aliens" using similar methods, and find true knowledge of those frequencies.

A connection is presented between aliens and religion (most notably christian) is present in Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World.

The basic idea is this, although Sagan presents it a great deal better than I:

Many psychologists believe people who claim to have been abducted by aliens are just masking childhood sexual abuse.

The argument is the vast majority of people who claim to have been abducted, are abducted at night, just as they are falling asleep, alone in their bedroom, and many times things are done to them sexually.

Cases of sexual abuse happen primarily at night, while the child is alone, are done by a relative, and these memories are known to be suppressed.

Following that line of thought it is easy to imagine someone (especially a child, or an adult remembering what happened as a child) preferring to believe that creatures from beyond space and time abused them than it is to realize it was a close and loved relative. It is thought of in many instances to be a coping mechanism.

The same argument can be parralled to demonic possession. Many cases of Demon possession take place just a person is about to fall asleep and many texts on the subject suggest this is the time when you are most subsceptable to demonic possession. In a good number of cases the demon takes human form, often times of someone you know or someone close. Many cases of demonic possession also have a great deal of sexual abuse that is half remembered later in life.

The question is, what happened to Demonic possession? It is far less prevelant than it used be. Did the demons just quit?

Demon possession and indeed exorcism as practiced by the Catholic church (speaking of sexual abuse) goes in rapid decline while at the same time alien abduction is on a very rapid rise.

The idea is simply that the populace traded one well known and common coping mechanism for another.

That is the only connection I know of between Jesus and E.T. (other than they are both fictional).

I had to slip SOME assholery in there.

I have seen ufos (saucers) scratched into artwork from centuries ago. Sometimes there would be religious pieces with angels and jesus etc and then there would be these saucers above everything, just like someone would picture a saucer or ufo today. Has anyone else seen this?

http://lithiumdreamer.tripod.com/ufoart.html

IF you research far enough, you'll find some pretty exciting theories on our true creation. Aliens helped engineer our race, and gave us various DNA "upgrades" along the way. So, of course they would be seen as god-figures from humanoids of low technological advancement and experience.

That is of course..if you believe it.

Using the kind of argument that just because it cant be disproved (yet)

Are you implying God has been disproved?

IF you research far enough, you'll find some pretty exciting theories on our true creation. Aliens helped engineer our race, and gave us various DNA "upgrades" along the way. So, of course they would be seen as god-figures from humanoids of low technological advancement and experience.

That is of course..if you believe it.

Along with the reason of why they gave us various DNA "upgrades"..which was to help them in the pursuit of seeking and finding the supreme being.

I have been having ranting arguments over the excistence of Aliens with my dad recently and while he is agnostic/ borderline athiest he feverently believes that UFO visitations are a fact. I am both athiest and compleatly sceptical about any kind of aliens and it occured to me mabe its just a replacment for god for him. Using the kind of argument that just because it cant be disproved (yet) it is therefore a vald theory seems to be more of a delusion than an argument. Am I wrong?

ok i was sort of discussing this with a christian(sort of) friend of mine. honestly you dont believe in the fact that there could be life on other planets? i mean yeah the whole probing rednecks is probably bull but the universe is infinite or damn close to it.

That is the only connection I know of between Jesus and E.T. (other than they are both fictional).

YOU FUCKING LIAR, E.T. IS REAL!

I believe that there probably is life in some form or another on other planets, what I dont believe is that there have been visitations, or that aliens have in any way influenced humans. I was arguing that it is in no way a factor to us and to think that it is would be equally as big a leap as believing in god. Isnt light speed impossible, anyways?

We have so many unanswered questions from cultures and civilizations long dead ...

Was God an Astronaut? (http://media.putfile.com/Was-God-An-Astronaut)

Tsarion Videos (http://video.google.ca/videosearch?q=tsarion&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv)

For any of you who may be interested in humoring one of the many Alien/Designer hypotheses out there, I highly suggest you labor over a few of Erich von Däniken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Von_Daniken)'s books. I read them long ago when I was young and impressionable.

Isnt light speed impossible, anyways?
You don't have to move faster than light to travel vast distances.

General Relativity: Cosmic Tunnels / Worm Holes (http://youtube.com/watch?v=wogZN94-5QU)

In light of Darwinism, aliens make sense. If life can spontaneously emerge here on Earth (abiogenesis) and then over billions of years evolve into numerous forms of complex life with no purpose or design, why not somewhere else in the universe?

^ Correct. Just how intelligent they are is the question.

OP, you might be interested to know that Sandra Ingerman (one of the pre-eminent shamans of modern times) addressed this very issue in one of her books in the 80s. She compared New Agey types who think that aliens will descend to "save" us with Christian fundies who believe that Christ will return to "save" us.

She suggests--and I strongly concur--that we get off our collective asses and work to save ourselves.

Thing us, what we most need saving from IS ourselves.