Moontanman

"never fairly considered" is putting a positive spin on the problem. the reality is that Governments, The US government in particular actually ran a disinformation campaign against UFOs and ridiculed anyone who tried to seriously study UFOs. Their main investigator Dr. Hynek, eventually quit and went on to support the extra terrestrial origin of UFOs. I think reasonable study could be made to falsify the UFO phenomena, I was hoping that WISE would either detect their bases or mother craft in the Ort cloud or Kuiper belt but I talked to a couple of people who were familiar with WISE and i was told it wasn't capable enough to do that. But a probe similar probe might if it was designed the right way. At least one and in my mind the most likely scenario could be directly tested by science. I won't hijack your thread but I do have a thread on this prospect... A lunar orbiter should be able to confirm or deny those bases quite easily via infrared detection...

I have to admit that if aliens are really here the far side of the moon would be a great place to hide a base... But... if NASA had photographic evidence of aliens on the moon they would be all over television.. NASA would have the funding of it's dreams immediately! I doubt the veracity of these pictures...

I've been reading this thread and I'd like to comment. Too-Open-Minded, great idea for a thread dude! Sadly it has brought out some real pessimists and while pessimism has it's place I can't use it to pour doom and gloom on the future of the human race. I think our reluctance to use nuclear weapons is far more significant than some seem to be willing to admit. in fact I think it goes beyond that. We humans have shelved the deadliest weapons before nuclear weapons became a threat. Poison gas was used then withdrawn due to the horror it revealed. Humans made the decision not to use chemical and biological weapons in modern times. In earlier human history such restraint was unheard of, the enemy was... the enemy, you killed him any way you could. If that meant catapulting dead bodies of plague victims over the city wall so be it. If it meant selling everyone conquered into slavery it was done, few people even thought of objection. Killing everyone man woman and child? It was not just done it was celebrated. If nuclear weapons had been made available to ancient humans does anyone here think they wouldn't have been used as many times as weapons were available? Human culture has advanced, geologic history has no bearing on the issue... Star Trek.... Oh how I love it when people sneeringly use that to ridicule someones argument... Why is some silly bullshit made up 3500 years ago that does nothing but separate and deny the basic humanity of anyone different more valid than something made up now that is inspiring and speaks to human rights and diversity and the celebration of those ideals? IDIC... google it... is a basic concept of the United Federation of Planets, yes it's fiction but fiction can be used to spread hope and a celebration of those who are different. Why is that so trivial and fictional writings of thousands of years ago that do nothing but sow dissension and mistrust between men who are different or who believe different are so valid that civilizations can base their entire morality on them? BTW, no i don't expect there will ever be a Star Ship Enterprise, it's the philosophy not the technobabble that is important... I think we can move past bronze age mythology and if we want to replace it with a modern mythology and follow it and be free to change it as the need arises because we know it is made up and can be changed as we change... I think that is a good thing... I think Humanity has good reason to be hopeful. We can conceive of something better and we do it! maybe 3500 years ago the mythology they created was better than what they had at the time but we can and do provide our own path and space travel and colonization of the universe is a good way to go. This advance might seem slow to us in the here and now but i can remember when in my own believed country people who were different were ostracized and denied their humanity, if you care to read history it was much worse not that long ago... It's been an uphill battle and not with out setbacks and i am sure there will be more but the overwhelming trend is toward humanity becoming more moral than our own gods... I think it's quite possible that we can and will spread earth life through the galaxy, maybe the local group of galaxies as well (it's difficult to conceive of much more within reasonable time lines) one thing is sure, staying on the Earth and going down with the ship is not acceptable, it's not the human way, humans want to know what is over the next hill, what is beyond that and on and on, humans survive, it's why we dominate the planet and technology willing... the rest of the universe...

Immortal, i don't know your life experiences but I have not just read about religion I've experienced it, from the most fundamentalist Christians, pass me the rattle snake but hold the strychnine, to speaking in tongues and traditional Catholics (who the pagans say are really just male dominated pagans) and attended calling the circle and calling down the moon with witches, yes they do it nekked and sweaty, and they take their rituals very seriously, I felt honored to have been allowed to attend. I've talked extensively with the adherents to many religions, most of them did little but try to convert me, a hopeless cause. The Pagans seemed to have the healthiest attitude toward their religion, they admit up front that most of it is made up or gleaned from legends and old writings but they do have a idea of "what feels right" their rituals are based on what feels right to them and they do not proselytize. You have to seek them out, they are not exactly hiding but they know history and mostly prefer to do their rituals in private outdoor settings. Witches like poets... the main thing is that all of them have no real basis in empirical reality. neither does yours, i do understand how important ritual is to the adherents of any religion, it's something they all do and it keeps the group together but ritual has no bearing on the veracity of the religion and neither does ancient writings, you have to believe via faith. your assertion that none of these people are religious is insulting. you do not get to define religion anymore than the snake handlers do. It's your belief and you have a right to them but you do not have a right to your own reality...

I understand you can't breath freon, I didn't know they were toxic, one of the main things they said about the rockets was that the freon was harmless. I can't remember the freons number, for some reason 22 sticks in my mind but I'm not sure. I was thinking that mixed with oxygen it would be breathable. I remember testing a lot of rockets indoors, strapped down so they couldn't move, they didn't harm me...

How about Freon? I used to launch model rockets powered by Freon, it is very dense and does pool in low areas...

immortal, does your version of religion have anything to say about lying?

I am well aware of what is being discussed/asserted here and so far you have failed to show any of it to be anything but faith and belief, I have no problem with that but to assert it as empirical evidence your god is real is simply not supported by what you keep claiming is evidence...

I want a elephant the size of a dog... or a centaur! Genetic engineering gives me goose bumps...

Missing links? let me know if you want to discuss missing links... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil

Ok Immortal, I watched your videos, I saw no scientific evidence of the existence of your god, in fact the entire video danced around that concept in favor of the Vedas being historically accurate. This does not support the existence of your god but only the antiquity and relative accuracy of the vedas compared to what westerners thought happened in the area. If there is some part you think i missed that was support for the existence of your god feel free to give me the time index of the statement. Again it would seem that your idea of what constitutes Empirical Evidence appears to be evidently different from what everyone else defines as empirical evidence... having said that if I take the narrators word at face value it is evident that Vedic Culture was mischaracterized due to prejudices of western researchers and some of the history described in the Vedas is accurate despite what the Western researchers thought to be true. But at no point did the videos or the guy who made them claim the existence of your god or gods was confirmed by anything in the Vedas. the best he could do was say that the Vedic description of the universe was somewhat more accurate than other religious writings... His claims of technology in the Vedas, while interesting, do not support this position either, in fact the whole thing is after the fact transposition of information that appears to describe technology but cannot be used to create technology is not indicative of anything anymore than ancient writings that describe flights to the moon were prophecy... If you disagree with my assessment feel free to give me the time indexes for the information i missed...

Again, you evidently have a completely different definition of Empirical EVIDENCE than the rest of us do....

Immortal, I am going to recommend you watch the following video, it is mostly targeted at creationism but it makes some pretty good points about the Holy nature of various religious writings. You keep saying the Veda's are somehow evidence of God or some sort of god but the first five minutes of this video gives very good logical reasons why this cannot be true. I realize you will not watch this, but I feel the need to at least give you the opportunity to see just how irrational the idea that any writings, much less yours are somehow written by a deity. AronRa gives a very good summation of why this is certainly not the case and what we would expect a god to write...

Yes bacteria communicate with each other chemically. I tend to question the idea that life must reproduce with variation. I can see the possibility of a planet that it's entire biomass is one organism... Opps already been thought of Gaea.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

Plants respond to stimuli, some directly some indirectly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

I don't know why you got neg rep for just asking the question but stars do not qualify as life because they do not reproduce with variation. in fact I doubt you could make a good case they reproduce at all. While they do shed outer layers the end result is not necessarily a new star in fact since they use up hydrogen and will eventually result in all the hydrogen in the universe being used up. If a star can be defined as life a fire would also qualify. A fire grows, reproduces via sparks, but it is not alive...

How do they reproduce?

31 gods, kinda like Baskin Robbins ice cream? This has gotten silly, immortal you win, your 31 gods beats my rational mind approach, have fun cow towing to 31 gods for an eternity... sounds like hell to me...

Actually there is a funny story behind that. My sister is 5 years younger than me and of course she always wanted to follow me around and get in the middle of anything me and my friends were doing. When she would inevitably get knocked down or what ever she would go home to mom crying and of course mom would come and get me wanting to know what happened. Mom would always kiss my sister to make her feel better and would insist i do the same thing. Eventually it got to the point where I would kiss her immediately hoping she would not disrupt what ever game we were playing by going to momma... Of course my biddies always ragged me hard about my mom making me kiss my sister to make her feel better. One day in school we were playing at lunch break in the school yard and there was this girl... Barbara Ashworth... oh yes I was in love, 2nd grade, i was enamored beyond belief with Barbara Ashworth... one day, playing tag, I accidently knocked her down and you guessed it I immediately kissed her to make her feel better... the rest of the year was a living hell as my buddies teased me incessantly... my first kiss... well non family member kiss...

I didn't say that common ancestry was based on chromosome fusion. I said it can be explained and that it supports evolution... Please watch this video, then we can talk...

Please show some evidence of these beings immortal, show some evidence they control any aspect of human existence. From where I stand you are no better than any other god botherer standing on a street corner preaching some obtuse interpretation of what bronze ages savages believed about god...

Only if you assume they are true with no evidentiary support. Immortal, so far you have done nothing but dig a hole you cannot escape from. You claim special knowledge but fail to show how you can show this knowledge as anything but your own assumptions about what you think god should be like. You believe what you do because of faith in your beliefs... totally circular reasoning if it can be called reasoning at all. Your so called comparative studies is nothing more than your own conformation biases supporting what you think should be true. Your views on this do not significantly differ from Ken Ham's biblical glasses... So far, and I have been keeping track, all you are doing is making unsupported claims asserting things you cannot possibly know to be true... Faith in your beliefs, that is all you have, yes we came to this conclusion a while back, and you admitted you had no empirical evidence then, you still don't immortal, it might very well be enough for you to believe but it fails miserably when you try to show this "faith in your belief" as part of empirical reality...

neanderthals had 48, 24 pairs, Other apes also have 24 pairs. Yes evolution can explain this, google fused chromosomes, humans and apes... Why do you think this is an unanswered question? I would say this makes science stronger not weaker...

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2013/01/01

Actually the use of fire is thought to have started 1,000,000 years ago not 125,000 years ago. http://www.livescience.com/19425-earliest-human-fire.html Human brains are shrinking, maybe we will end up with brains the size of walnuts... http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking#.UPBDtuTO1Rw