Worldwatcher, I was not aware the Buzz Aldrin “observed strange objects on the moon as well as unidentifiable craft, and has gone on record to describe them”.

I have met Buzz Aldrin and have had the marvelous opportunity to discuss his adventures. I’ve never heard or seen such written accounts; can you provide some support for these comments?

What I have been exposed to is reports of the “optical flashes” some space travelers have experienced which we now know to be “neutrino strikes” on the optical nerve.

I’m not sure about your request for “logical explanations” but would suggest that physics can address most issues.

So why don’t you post some specific questions that OLO’ers may be able to address rather than some speculative stuff that remains unsubstantiated?

Tony Lavis>> I admit that I cannot have certain knowledge about god's existence - merely faith. I am agnostic on the subject of religion<<

Tony, being agnostic is basically denying that something is knowable. At present, right now, how can any thinking multi cell animal deny the existance of a creator....or extraterestial life for that matter.

Dave wants to play semantics with language. If you are agnostic....you deny a creator, but he does not want to say that for some reason, anyway it gives me something to do while I wait for my plane.

>>If you are agnostic....you deny a creator, but he does not want to say that for some reason<<

He does not want to say that because it's wrong: if you are agnostic you admit the possibility of a creator even if you don't believe in him. Have you paid attention to anything I just wrote?

Cheers,

Tony

Tony Lavis,

None of this is important but this is not correct. "if he had a conclusive disproof of God he'd have published it and we'd have heard about it - so Dave (David) is also agnostic. He is an agnostic atheist."

Atheists do not claim to have conclusive proof that a god does not exist. They don't even look for such proof. The burden of proof is on the proposer of the existence of gods to deliver the evidence.

I'm philosophically agnostic on not just gods, but nearly everything. I live my live, the same as you and everyone else on the planet who can think, drawing conclusions from the highest probability of a statement being true, false or indeterminate. And to halt the accusation that a gods existence is indeterminate, is only a philosophical stance, not one based in practicality.

The agnostic argument is a red-herring thrown around by the faithful to make themselves feel better. It is also used by those unwilling to admit agnosticism about near everything and those frightened they may be making the wrong decision is they commit to atheism. It is also used by people who do not understand that mixing philosophy with reality does not necessarily enlighten.

Atheists consider all these positions pointless, meaningless and an interference in understanding that the bad parts of religion need addressing and curing.

If I said, which is true, all religious people are agnostic in regard to their beliefs, would that help anything. Answer..no and the same answer is for atheism.

I find arguments based around whether or not one is an agnostic, well...errr, stupid. Most atheists think the same.

David

Things have taken a fascinating turn and I find Tony's position eminently reasonable, whereas David's is anchored in the faith known as realism. David keeps on talking about himself precisely as if he had an enduring soul that was able to think objectively apropos reality, as if he was more than a construct of his time and place within a discrete culture. He talks about "the world", but what world is this? The world for David is not the "real" the way it is for, say, a whale, or krill; the world of sensation is a completely artificial construct built over the real and his logic derives from that. All his "thinking", utterly derivative, in which he places his faith, partakes of the reality he was born into.
What is it that thinks? What is the self that's more than a construct? That can occupy a critical stance apropos that which it is immersed in? Nay, evolved and inalienable from? How is it that David commands this critical-distance between "himself" and the phenomenal world of which he's (a)part?
It's not merely out of conceit that Gods are evoked to make sense of the human sense of the world. The analytic philosophical tradition, of which David is (nominally, and probably unwittingly) a part, has long since taken its omniscient logic for granted. Whereas Tony, quite rightly, applies his agnosticism across the intellectual spectrum.
The only retreat for David, and the New Atheists, is pragmatism. But in that case he must reflect on his politics, and on the good life about which he is (apparently) uncritically pragmatic. Agnostics humbly acknowledge all this; New Atheists elide it.
David is merely my rhetorical figure and "realistically" this applies to all of us.

Squeers,

Allow me to put it in a way that all might understand. I have conceded that internal observation of sensory input and drawing conclusions from it is the way I see how the physical world appears to operate. It may not behave in that manner but all other ways are guesses with their basis in a multitude of concepts drawn from the human central processing unit; that is the brain/mind unit.

There appears to be no mind without brain and this function results most probably from interchange with the assumed outside world through the senses. This also may be an illusion but it is the most consistent and best predictable illusion we have
.
I don’t find it useful to sail to close to solipsistic notions when my illusion is screaming at me that some disregard this at the cost of the happiness of other life forms that fit a consistent description that they are aware of their surroundings in common with my own thoughts.

It’s not worth arguing this point and I don’t intend to even discuss it further.

David