For whatever reason I became curious about Christian ideas about UFOs, and aliens. Most of them seem to believe they aren’t actually from other worlds, but from another dimension, specifically a spiritual realm.
In some ways I can see how they might think that. Objects that suddenly appear, and disappear are really strange. Also ones that travel so incredibly fast, and make right turns without reducing speed, or stopping also strange. They say that would kill anything inside, or destroy the craft. Also they claim alien abductions look a lot like encounters with demons.
I think it very strange, but what are the possibilities for this? Also what are the possibilities that Aliens and UFOS actually are from other planets. I remember hearing of various sightings in one state, and then another. I haven’t seen any such thing anywhere, but for whatever reason I have always wanted to see a UFO and an alien.
I remember driving in the desert, and seeing a lot of people stopped along the road, and outside of their car looking up into the sky. I actually stopped to see what they were looking at, and saw…only stars, the moon, clouds etc…nothing else.
What might be the atheist view of Aliens and ufos?
My wife and I were visiting Sedona, Arizona about 15 years ago. It is one of those desert meccas for UFO enthusiasts, although we were just there for the beautiful scenery and to do a little easy hiking.
While taking in the view near the local airport (and also an alleged “vortex” location where spiritual forces supposedly gather), we were approached by a guy who claimed he was abducted by aliens in a UFO.
My wife is a journalist and began to ask him questions, which he mistook as actual interest rather than reflexive fact-gathering. Pretty soon we were surrounded by 3 of them telling tales of floating out their car windows on a beam of light and being poked and prodded in their nether regions.
In the end we were given an invitation to join them in the desert to “watch UFOs” with the aid of night vision goggles. I think what you’d see in those goggles would be digital artifacts that they interpret as “cloaked” UFOs. We did accept the offer, figuring it would be … well, something to tell our grandkids eventually.
At any rate after they told us where to meet them and left the area, my wife descended into helpless gales of laughter. She had her reporter’s hat on so well that she had me going there for a bit, thinking she was actually impressed with this guy’s codswollop.
We never did actually join them for sky-watching as a nasty thunderstorm moved into the area.
Anyway I think stories like these highlight the human capacity for self-delusion. It is nearly unlimited.
But that is my view as an empiricist, not as an atheist. Atheists don’t have holy books or an atheist pope to tell us what to think or believe. We just TEND to be rational thinkers, versed in the scientific method, and do not hold views that can’t be empirically evidenced or at least logically argued.
There are atheists who believe or dabble in what I’d call “woo”. Humans aren’t always self-consistent. Definitionally all that makes me an atheist is that I lack belief in even one god. That doesn’t prevent me from believing there are aliens or, say, tooth fairies. I don’t, and most atheists don’t … but some do. To ask what “atheists think” on UFOs is really a category error, unless you meant by that, “I was curious what the atheists here generally think on this topic”.
Not necessarily a category error. I recall reading about a secret society which existed around 1,000 years ago. I was surprised that their ‘secret’ was atheism. Commentary about that was it was a very revolutionary idea at the time. People literally had never heard of atheism as a concept, and the vast majority literally could not think of the idea.
One might think that even today atheism is ‘unthinkable’. for many people, but its ‘unthinkable’ in a very, very, very different way. The fact that there is an organization with a platform about ‘atheism’ says volumes about what is ‘thinkable’ now.
LOL! “disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.” So…what is a view that accounts for Aliens and ufos that does not involve a theistic or supernatural explanation? I suppose its simply that life could have evolved elsewhere…
Its possible that there is a lot of ‘wasted’ space. Who says that every possible place has to have life? Its possible and it seems probable that there is life outside of our planet. But so far, it seems there is no evidence that is made known to, and accepted by the general public.
There is a particular faction of Christianity which believes that aliens and ufos are supernatural, not beings from another world. In their point of view apparently all the stars out there are just to impress humans on earth, and maybe mark days, months, years etc…
Some countries, however, have gone to the extreme of execution for atheism. And some countries are calling for state religion where there was none before. The pendulum swings and backlash occurs. That seems typical with any human rights progress.
My point, I guess, is that taking a wide view allows for the reality check that allows forward action.
Oh Sedona is so beautiful! I love the landscape that looks ‘painted’, also the beautiful blue cactus. I visited Sedona about the same time. I never spoke to anyone about aliens, ufos etc. I did see people dressed in silver, looking like they were wearing a space outfit.
“Atheists don’t have holy books or an atheist pope to tell us what to think or believe” It might seem like a category error, I have commented on this to someone else. That someone expressed Atheist ideas probably caused more people to consider it, and there tends to be a lot of ideas in common. I recall reading about a secret society that formed around 1,000 years ago. Their ‘secret’ was 'atheism". It was so revolutionary, that they had to have a safe place to share their ideas around that concept. They also thought it was best to keep it to themselves at the time. They probably would have been executed as heretics for introducing the concept to the general public. The majority of the people were just not able to think of anything execept some form of theism. I could be wrong, but i remember reading about it.
I think people are curious. So, I can see someone atheist perhaps testing out something related to the supernatural, magic or religion etc…Or maybe the unknown and mysterious. Sometimes unusual phenomena could appear unexpectedly. For example, I have experienced an ‘apport’, and that was completely unexpected, probably not repeatable and probably can’t be tested.
I remember staying with a friends family, and some family member got into a really bad argument. And I saw something very strange…I saw the outline of what looked like a person waddling down the hall with their arms swinging. I later thought it was their grandparents, who were dead. So it was ghostly in apperance. My friend saw it also, and thought the argument had caused them to become activated. I am not sure if it was my imagination however.
I don’t think it’s just Christianity or theists, though they would certainly be more predisposed to supernatural explanations. I think it’s sloppy thinkers who aren’t into organized religion also.
All these stories of people being levitated into flying saucers, described very much like the lucid dreams they likely are, is a lot like religious revelation.
There’s a hilarious SNL sketch about this where the pentagon is interviewing alien abductees and two of them describe it as meeting beings of light and having oceanic feelings of joy and peace (representing generic mystics / flower children types) and the other one, a white trailer-trash sort of person, describes a very different experience involving the aliens slapping her genitalia around. I think this gets at how alien abductions, “near death experiences” and similar reflect the cultural conditioning and expectations and wishful thinking of the experiencer.
I have two older brothers and both of them are drawn to some of the lower-grade conspiracy-based stuff … they used to listed to Art Bell’s late night radio programming for instance. It is speculative entertainment to them, but they almost half believe it too, because they like thinking they are clued-in or at least open to things other people miss. One is a fundamentalist Christian and the other has a nebulous sort of non-dogmatic default theism (attended a religious college and was briefly an assistant youth pastor, hasn’t been practicing religion most of his adult life, was married to a mostly lapsed Catholic until her recent death). Yet their attraction to tales of UFOs and such, is similar. It is more of a personality trait or proclivity I think, for which religion is an accelerant but not strictly necessary.