Timeline speeding up?

[SaturnFX]

[HarryStottle]

I agree that "the authorities" public response to the notion of extra-terrestrials has become more positive and realistic. Perhaps the most notable example is the of the French Government.

However, what we haven't seen is any parallel progress within the wider community. In particular, the religious believers -especially the most psychotic forms we call "fundamentalists" - have become bolder and more entrenched in mainstream society. I suspect that, as a percentage, we probably have MORE humans, today, who insist we are alone in a universe specially made for us by the sky fairy than we would have measured at the time of Roswell.

Star Trek's "" is, in my view, likely to be pretty close to a genuine "contact protocol" and no advanced species is likely to breach it. Thus we should not expect unequivocal contact until they can be almost certain that there would be NO negative consequences for our development. The continued widespread adoption of religion remains, therefore, the biggest obstacle to contact. I don't see that melting away in the next few decades, however supportive governments may seem to be...

[SaturnFX]

Well, theres a few things that are of interest.

See, for me, the governments coming out and releasing info about ufos and such is nice, but the true difference will be made in religious leaders telling their flock that its ok to believe in ETs.

The vatican astronomer has stated that he would love to be going out and sending space missionarys to convert alien species (I know, I know). So, many main stream religions are now being more and more vocal about their acceptance of this potential truth to the point of coming up with plans on how to save our galactic neighbors.

Wont the aliens be suprised when they find out God was born on earth and not their planet....

I think governments simply watch the ants and when they are showing enough composure (often attributed by how their feelings of religion are and if still clinging hard, how the religion itself views the subject) they release more and more interesting (yet not fully conclusive) evidence.

So, is it the job, if we wanted to rush things, to try the impossible task of having the flock abandon religion, or the more plausable task of converting the leaders into accepting and even enjoying the prospect of alien neighbors...

This would require of course having full respect while discussing things to a priest, imam, or rabbi and trying to get them into seeing a bigger picture without them losing their faith (we will need reasonable minds guiding the flock to being open to the idea)

[HarryStottle]

you raise an angle which I realised my "" made me overlook.

I often think of the problem of the widespread infestation of religion as being a long term block on alien contact (assuming, of course, there are aliens watching in the first place and assuming they would, were it not for our primitive superstitions, actually be keen to make contact).

As a foot soldier in the "War on Reason" (hopefully on the side of Reason) I am intimately familiar with how difficult it is to open up the mind of the "believer" into the world of reason. On which basis, I predict it will be a long time before contact is safe and therefore a long time before contact is probable.

However, you talk of "the more plausable task of converting the leaders into accepting and even enjoying the prospect of alien neighbors..." and, instantly, I recognised that you are right. The necessarily authoritarian mindset of the religious believer actually provides a shortcut to getting them to accept the existence of the aliens in a manner which may be somewhat less traumatic. If indeed the religious leaders, collectively, were to endorse the notion of extraterrestrial intelligent life, their flocks would assimilate the belief just as readily as anything else they're expected to believe.

And as you point out, in the case of the Catholics, job done. The vatican already acknowledges the probability of alien intelligences. The Anglicans have never, so far as I know, objected to the idea and would have no problem supporting it. Hindus and Buddhists have never believed the Earth is the centre of the Universe anyway. So the only major religion which needs to be brought on board is Islam.

And there we have a problem because, ironically, given its opposition to democracy, Islam is the most democratic of religions. It has no leaders. Theocracies, like Iran, exist, and fatwas from an Iman or Ayatollah carry some weight, but not in the same sense or class as "Papal Bull" or Edict, more like an endorsement from a celebrity. Thus even if you manage to persuade an Ayatollah or two to issue fatwas declaring the probability of alien intelligence, it would only influence those Muslims who choose to pay attention to that Ayatollah.

And there are a bunch of Imams who have already come down against alien intelligence (and evolutionary theory) as they follow the line taken by the Xtian fundamentalists and argue that the existence of other inhabited earth like planets must be impossible because this world was uniquely created for us by their loving god and if that turns out not to be true, then the existence of that god itself must be equally false. This, of course, is unacceptable, therefore alien life capable of contacting us cannot exist.

These (and their Xtian counterparts) form the hard core of the "denialists" (denying even the possibility of alien intelligence) . Their supporters number in the tens or hundreds of millions. (see, for example, what percentage of the US population currently endorses Creationism) but how many "leaders" we'd have to awaken, I haven't a clue.

Nor, given how hard it is to rationalise with even an ordinary religious believer, can we be optimistic about our chances of persuading even a significant fraction of these "belief shepherds" to open up their minds to such dramatic alternative possibilities. Nevertheless, I do accept that its a somewhat more plausible target than the millions of sheeple who will meekly follow their leaders on this as on every other issue...

[SaturnFX]

Hey Harry,
cheers for the reply.

Well, first off my thoughts of Islam are many, none of which are positive, so will just leave it at that. Lets just say, not a fan...and that is not even bringing in the extremist element to it.

It seems to me that the newer the religion, the wackier it becomes for some reason

Judaism spoke of in essence an alien encounter (which has been mistranslated into giants, sons of God, etc) messing with the people, genetic modifications, etc..ok, its a interesting and plausible story percieved by cavemen whom didn't know how to possibly compare it to anything, so sort of nerfed the explanations...then of course the really wacky stuff in the torah comes when they start "channeling" said alien gods...thats where you get the whole God loves the smell of a barbecue sacrifice, hates gays and shellfish, etc..

damned channelers..

Then you got Buddism coming along..perhaps the most reasonable religion..more of a spirituality of the personal soul verses a grand rulebook of how to get to heaven. I personally have no real issue with buddism and if someone put a gun to my head and told me choose a religion or die, that would be a no brainer

Christianity comes on and jumps on the coattails of judism..I guess they got bored waiting for the channeled messiah so decided to erm...make one perhaps out of some random guy...make a hero out of a rather ordinary guy whom spoke some new and interesting perspectives.
(there is a point to this)

The founding's of Christianity was ultimately (I believe) to eliminate the nonsense of the church...the seperation of who their gods love (people with clean hands = more loved than people with dirty hands obviously)..and what initially may have been an actual anti-religious movement by this one guy became twisted into just another religion.
(I am aware the story of christ is a borrowed figure from actually a few other ancient pagan religions, but will get past that point due to magic -alakazam- there, you forgot about that)

Then many years later, we got Muhammad coming forward...saying he is the next in a series of prophets, riding the coattails of Christianity..then proceeds to say some of the most nutty stuff yet. (good general stuff that can be attached to just about anything in the future for "proof"). He is the new kid on the block and people in the area are fed up with the church anyhow, so why not adopt this new religion...tada, we got a nightmare.


My thoughts are this...these major religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all rely on the religion of the previous religion to remain in tact...should that flop, like a keystone, the whole mess will tumble down.

So, a plan of attack would be to focus completely on the root religion, Judaism, or the torah. If that goes, then theoretically the bulk of what follows is on no foundation. The literal translation underway no doubt will chip away at some core beliefs of a quiet universe..(interesting read actually..it is far more specific of what happened and there is no single God...but rather a host of supreme beings, like some sort of government looking over some project).




sidenote:
I found it interesting that the UN has just appointed an ambassador of sorts for any alien contact..after looking at some forums, the majority of the discussions are not the concept, but rather the hair splitting as to the person and who would be a better or worse representation, etc...
this is an action done not in the beginning or even middle stages of the first phase.



References (since I don't know how to embed yet)

(ambassador of earth) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/spac ... itors.html

(literal translation underway)
http://www.thechronicleproject.org/index.html

(interesting somewhat credible testimony)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlKFeWkdZdY&feature=sub

[HarryStottle]

I like the proposed strategy: Undermine the original monotheist fairy tale and the rest collapse like a pack of cards. That's almost as ambitious as some of my proposals! Let me know when you've done it ':D'

embedding, by the way, is pretty simple on these boards. Use the format:

{url=http://www.youtube.com/whatever}your text{/url}

except, instead of curly brackets {} use square []. NB no quotes around the url.

[SaturnFX]

not soo much undermine it as have them accept and adapt it towards the desired outcome (in this case, alien brotherhood).

If the jews are for the most part perfectly happy with accepting such a notion, to the point of working for it...then (theoretically) the rest of the religions should fall in line.

then of course the aliens will come here in great ships, bypass the land all together and talk to the dolphins...being they are just advanced dolphins anyhow (damn, our ego got us again...and here we are little more than land bugs that push things around and fling things in the air).

Anyhow, ya...talk to your local jew about ETs...lets get this thing rolling.