UFO's and religion part 2

[DanieltheDragon]

In a related thread these were posited as reasons to disregard belief in Mr.Mitchell's claims of UFO extraterrestrials preventing nuclear war. For background Mr.Mitchell walked on the moon in 1971 and is well connected within the air force.

[Replying to post 12 by Dropship]

Per dropship reasons for dismissing Mitchell's claims

1.

If Mitchell produced just one such photo with the aliens waving to the camera out of the portholes, he might have a point..

A lack of physical evidence

2.

No doubt many of the people he spoke to saw UFO's, but that doesn't mean they were alien craft, they could have just been the usual suspects- weather balloons, weather phenomena or optical illusions etc.

Witnesses basing their claims on mistaken perception

3.

For a start he refuses to name any of the alleged "witnesses".

Anonymous sources

4.

So (no disrespect to him) but I'd say his "mystic dabbling" has convinced him that "voices" have revealed secret things to him

Information via supernatural sources

5.

EDIT- I just found out he's a fundy Christian, he said in another interview-
"..my religious training, which was fundamental Christian.."
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/sm ... temid=1059

Which brings me back to what I said earlier, as fundy christian cultists definitely like to think they're a cut above the rest of us mere mortals..

Fundamentalists are less valuable in terms of veracity.

6.

, but many military personnel have gone on public record as saying they've seen lights in the sky, so Mitchell's "revelation" is simply repeating that and telling us nothing new anyway, so he's not lying in that respect..

Personal revelations are not useful in terms of establishing veracity even when they are echoing other claims of similar revelations.

7.

Well he claims to have had a 'mystical Hindu revelation', so bearing in mind that Hinduism is an evil religion, I'd say its polluted his mind and made him misguided, so I'm inclined to take anyting he says with a large pinch of salt..

His suffers from a bias from religious influences.

Taking just a handful of these reasons
1. A lack of physical evidence
2. Personal revelation(unverifiable)
3. Information vis supernatural means(unverifiable)
4. Anonymous sources
5. Mistaken witnesses


Do any of the gospels clear the bar set here?

How can one have a firm belief in the gospels yet reject Mitchell's claims?

Were either Mitchell or the Gospel writer's lying or making things up?

[Dropship]

Taking just a handful of these reasons
1. A lack of physical evidence
2. Personal revelation(unverifiable)
3. Information vis supernatural means(unverifiable)
4. Anonymous sources
5. Mistaken witnesses
Do any of the gospels clear the bar set here?
How can one have a firm belief in the gospels yet reject Mitchell's claims?
Were either Mitchell or the Gospel writer's lying or making things up?

1- Jesus was resurrected, so of course there's no physical evidence! But the 5 million population of Israel and the Roman garrison saw him and can't have been mass hallucinating!
2- Unlike Mitchell, the gospel writers didn't dabble in occult Hindu mysticism.
3- Jesus was solid flesh and blood, not a ghost, and was seen and heard by millions
4- The gospel-writers backgrounds are all well-known, nothing anonymous about them
5- Jesus did 37 miracles that blew people socks off, no mistake..

[Hamsaka]

Taking just a handful of these reasons
1. A lack of physical evidence
2. Personal revelation(unverifiable)
3. Information vis supernatural means(unverifiable)
4. Anonymous sources
5. Mistaken witnesses
Do any of the gospels clear the bar set here?
How can one have a firm belief in the gospels yet reject Mitchell's claims?
Were either Mitchell or the Gospel writer's lying or making things up?

1- Jesus was resurrected, so of course there's no physical evidence! But the 5 million population of Israel and the Roman garrison saw him and can't have been mass hallucinating!
2- Unlike Mitchell, the gospel writers didn't dabble in occult Hindu mysticism.
3- Jesus was solid flesh and blood, not a ghost, and was seen and heard by millions
4- The gospel-writers backgrounds are all well-known, nothing anonymous about them
5- Jesus did 37 miracles that blew people socks off, no mistake..

1- Jesus was resurrected, so of course there's no physical evidence! But the 5 million population of Israel and the Roman garrison saw him and can't have been mass hallucinating!

1. A lack of physical evidence.
4. Anonymous sources
5. Mistaken witnesses

2- Unlike Mitchell, the gospel writers didn't dabble in occult Hindu mysticism.

4. Anonymous sources
5. Mistaken witnesses
6. (my own addition) Personal observation and opinion. You haven't the slightest clue what the gospel writers did over the course of their lives, on top of no one knowing who they were (refer again to 4)

3- Jesus was solid flesh and blood, not a ghost, and was seen and heard by millions

6. Personal observation and opinion. The above claim (in bold) is one you've made multiple times, and it is grossly unsupported by the available evidence -- why did not even ONE of those 5 million write something, anything, about the man called Jesus and his teachings? Not a single squit of evidence can be shown that Jesus was seen and heard by millions; if he had, we'd have a LOT more non-religious commentary on him, instead of Josephus and Tacitus, the latter of whom hated Christians and the former's writings are known by scholars to be plagarized.

4- The gospel-writers backgrounds are all well-known, nothing anonymous about them

4. Anonymous sources

5- Jesus did 37 miracles that blew people socks off, no mistake..

1. A lack of physical evidence
2. Personal revelation(unverifiable)
3. Information vis supernatural means(unverifiable)
4. Anonymous sources
5. Mistaken witnesses

The good reasons you offered to dismiss Mitchell's claims, as applied to your own, ought to dismiss your claims as well. Why don't they?

If not outright dismiss them, they call them into question. What excuse do you give for the truth of your claims for Jesus/miracles/resurrection being adequate when the same applied to Mitchell's claims has you dismissing them?

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 2 by Dropship]

1- Jesus was resurrected, so of course there's no physical evidence! But the 5 million population of Israel and the Roman garrison saw him and can't have been mass hallucinating!
2- Unlike Mitchell, the gospel writers didn't dabble in occult Hindu mysticism.
3- Jesus was solid flesh and blood, not a ghost, and was seen and heard by millions
4- The gospel-writers backgrounds are all well-known, nothing anonymous about them
5- Jesus did 37 miracles that blew people socks off, no mistake..

1.There is not any evidence that 5,000,000 people knew Jesus
2.The Gospels are written by anonymous people, the names ascribed to the gospels came between 170CE-~200CE as place holders
3.Extra Terrestrials are solid not a ghost and have been seen and heard by many
4. The gospel-writers backgrounds are unknown.
5. Unverifiable tales from anonymous sources.

[Dropship]

..Extra Terrestrials are solid not a ghost and have been seen and heard by many..

Jesus said "I'm not of this world" (John 8:23), which technically makes him an alien, so congratulations for saying aliens are "solid" and not ghosts..
Many people saw him strutting his stuff-
"Large crowds from Galilee, the Ten Cities, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him" (Matt 4:25)

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 5 by Dropship]

Notice how the author of this verse uses vague terms such as large numbers.

Does he identify a single person that can be shown to have existed?

A large number could be 3, 5, 10. Large is a subjective term. No where does it state 5,000,000 saw Jesus. What's more telling there is not a single contemporary mention of Jesus. All mentions come at the end of the century decades removed.

There are no mentions outside of biblical texts for the twelve disciples either.

To quote Hamsaka from earlier:

The good reasons you offered to dismiss Mitchell's claims, as applied to your own, ought to dismiss your claims as well. Why don't they?

[Dropship]

Dropship quote-"Large crowds from Galilee, the Ten Cities, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him" (Matt 4:25)

..A large number could be 3, 5, 10. Large is a subjective term. No where does it state 5,000,000 saw Jesus..

He was almost as big as Elvis! He pulled audiences of over 5000 and 4000 at two gigs alone (Matt 14:13, Matt 15:32) when he did his loaves and fishes miracles.
Scientifically we'd call it "the replication of matter", he used the few loaves and fishes as a "template" to produce much more.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 7 by Dropship]

Again this is coming from an anonymous source written decades after the events described. Mitchell claims many people witnessed UFO's disabling nuclear missiles and that large numbers of officials are completely aware of this.

Quote:
For a start he refuses to name any of the alleged "witnesses".

Can you name one person in this crowd? Seems we have an unarmed source claiming even more unnamed alleged witnesses.

[Youkilledkenny]

[Replying to post 1 by DanieltheDragon]

How can one have a firm belief in the gospels yet reject Mitchell's claims?

Because BELIEF is all about the personal need to accept/reject something - no facts needed.

Were either Mitchell or the Gospel writer's lying or making things up?

I find it hard to believe that all the gospel writers were lying, though many probably were. They could have just been relaying what they experienced in the best way they know how.
A person sees something in the sky. Does that make it an alien craft? No, it makes it 'something' - a true UFO
Likewise, just because a dead man once wrote 'Jesus was the son of god' doesn't make it true - just that this is what he believed (or he lied).
What we want to believe it to be is up to us as individuals

[Dropship]

I find it hard to believe that all the gospel writers were lying, though many probably were.

What would have been their motive?