UFOs and Aliens: An Answer for the Skeptics

I took a class in Christian apologetics in which an argument for the atheist was given. The professor said that the claim to be an atheist is a philosophical impossibility. To claim that God does not exist, you would have to be someone who possesses total and absolute knowledge. Otherwise, you would have to admit that God could exist in that portion of knowledge you do not possess. At best, all you can do is claim agnosticism. "I don't know if God exists or not. He could, but perhaps not."

Therefore, I apply what I learned in Christian apologetics to this UFO-Alien issue:

To say UFOs are not intelligently designed and operated by those who designed them, namely aliens, you would have to be in possession of a total knowledge of existence itself. You would have to know everything possible about the Universe. Otherwise, you would have to admit that the reality of UFOs and their alien occupants could very well exist in that portion of knowledge which you do not possess. To be intellectually honest, you have to say you don't know! - Doug Bower, 2007

And, to my fellows who do accept the reality of UFOs occupied by aliens, you also have to have a healthy dose of skepticism when evaluating reports by those who have had an experience with a UFO or an alien. We also, have to admit what the evidence seems to say and what else it could mean. Until someone gives us convincing contradicting proofs, we have to say we believe what we believe convinced by the preponderance of evidences currently on the table. Until something else comes along, we stand by our convictions that UFOs are extraterrestrial manned by those ETs.

"I was raised in a tradition of inquiry. If you encounter something that doesn't fit your worldview, it's more intellectually honest to say, 'maybe there's something wrong with this worldview,' than to try to shoehorn your findings into an existing belief." -- John Mack, M.D.

I want to present two points. The first is that both the skeptics and believers in the overarching notion of aliens being from other planets are visiting Earth in their interstellar spacecraft also have their lunatic fringes. To say because skeptics adopt a Scientific Materialism (a philosophic view that nothing supernatural can possibly exist) that they are always correct in their conclusion is false. To say that because believers adopt a worldview that accepts the possibility of the supernatural occurring, therefore everything they spew forth is true, it really happened, is also false.

For both groups to come together, maybe even work together, there has to be a common frame of reference. The skeptic has to entertain at least the possibility of something supernatural occurring. The believer has to entertain certain possibilities within the worldview of the skeptic and stop believing that "I had this experience therefore it is true." The skeptic has to stop arguing from the position of his Scientific Materialism as the absolute basis for truth. The believer has to stop arguing from the bases of human experience as the basis of absolute truth.

The second point about this debate is that both groups in this issue tend to mimic the same problems that occur within this camp: The problem of science versus the Bible. In the Scientific Materialism camp, these guys simply do not entertain even the possibility of anything supernatural happening ever! They are presuppositionally predisposed to holding as a self-evident truth that the possibility of miracles occurring, of which the Bible is full of them, is impossible. The "natural world" or "matter" is all there is. There are some believers in the Bible who will offer their experience of miracles as the basis of validating the existence of miracles.

Both groups in the UFO-Alien issue have to recognize the lunatic fringe nutters among them and try to weed them out. Both groups need a bit more intellectual honesty in dealing with the "Are we alone" question. The Scientific Materialists need to do a major overhaul of their presuppositionalism. The UFO-Alien believers need to stop offering their personal experiences as the basis for truth. You cannot go around saying that you were abducted by aliens and the proof for this having actually happened is the fact that you say so. Nor can the opposing camp go around saying that what some Experiencer says happened didn't happen because you don't accept the possibility of the supernatural happening (and being abducted by aliens definitely qualifies as an above-nature or supernatural experience).

That isn't science; it is philosophy.