Politically charged Quote of the Day (and ... The Meaning of Life)

Alex · 04-14-2006, 12:09 PM

Yes, but are you sufficiently open to finding suprenatural explanations that you are too quick to overlook natural explanations? Or perhaps fallen into the common form of egoism that because I can't think of a natural explanation there must not be one?

This isn't meant as criticism, but simply as an expression of the gulf between the way you think and the way I think. I read what you just said and it is like a snake eating its tail, it just twists on itself to use itself as evidence of what it postulates. To you (and billions of others, certainly more than think the way I do) it makes perfect sense.

But still the question remains how do you differentiate what you will believe from what you won't? I once thought I saw a chimpanzee dead on the side of the road while driving up to Mt. St. Helens. My friend saw the same thing, but we were driving too fast to stop for a better look. As we talked about it throughout the day it transformed from "was that a monkey?" to "can you believe we saw a monkey?" to developing theories on how a monkey came to be dead by the side of a mountain road in Washington state.

When it was time to return home we had planned to do so by a different route but changed that just so we could go back and take pictures of the monkey. For half a day we had even started to believe that maybe Bigfoot wasn't so far fetched after all and maybe we'd seen a juvenile one. We were going to be rich and famous. My point is that we talked ourselves into believing it. Based on a moment's observation that lasted no more than a second as we drove around a mountain curve at 50 miles an hour we quickly convinced ourselves of a most unlikely answer.

When we got back to the monkey it turned out that it was a dead porcupine. We have no idea how we could ever mistaken it for a chimpanzee or a young bigfoot. But if we had taken our originally planned route, to this day we'd both believe with all our conviction that on May 27, 1994, a bigfoot had died on the side of a road in Washington state.

Another example comes from a cross country trip with a different friend. I was driving from Kansas City to Denver over night on a backroad through flat land. My friend was asleep and eventually I noticed two lights a couple hundred feet in front of us and to the right. These two lights moved in formation and would zip up and down, moving slightly farther forward, or more to the right. They'd suddenly disappear and then a couple miles later just as suddenly reappear. I thought they might be really far away but they always appeared roughly at the same angle in front of us and to the right. I could think of no explanation for this. Was I seeing some kind of UFO? As the miles passed I became sure of it. I woke my friend (it was something like 3 in the morning) and asked him if he saw what I saw. He did. He couldn't explain it either. He took pictures but we knew they wouldn't come out as the lights weren't very bright and everything else was black. We stopped the car a couple times but both times the lights disappeared.

Finally, around 5 a.m. I was too tired to drive and we pulled over to sleep. But I was excited and couldn't sleep. I had seen a UFO (and this is when I was much more willing to accept such things that I'd be now) and quite possibly an alien UFO because why would a terrestrial aircraft have followed us? Then suddenly the lights appear for just a second, moved a little bit and then disappeared. A little while later they did the exact same things. Same location, same movement. A third time, a fourth time. Then I noticed the pattern. The lights were only appearing when another car was driving by on the road. I was confused. I had doubts again.

Slowly the sun came up and revealed what had been going on. About 200 feet off the road, running parallel were electrical and telephone wires. The lights I had been seeing were a reflection of my headlights whenever the angles were just right. And the repeated pattern once we'd stopped was because passing cars hit the same angles and caused the repetition. But for a couple hours I believed I had seen UFOs and I was beginning to convince myself that had to be extra-terrestrial. If I hadn't grown tired of driving I would probably still believe it to this day.

So, again, how much rational examination of events is enough to prevent believing the wrong thing and how much is so much it prevents you from experiencing the intangible?

04-14-2006, 12:09 PM	#23
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	Yes, but are you sufficiently open to finding suprenatural explanations that you are too quick to overlook natural explanations? Or perhaps fallen into the common form of egoism that because I can't think of a natural explanation there must not be one? This isn't meant as criticism, but simply as an expression of the gulf between the way you think and the way I think. I read what you just said and it is like a snake eating its tail, it just twists on itself to use itself as evidence of what it postulates. To you (and billions of others, certainly more than think the way I do) it makes perfect sense. But still the question remains how do you differentiate what you will believe from what you won't? I once thought I saw a chimpanzee dead on the side of the road while driving up to Mt. St. Helens. My friend saw the same thing, but we were driving too fast to stop for a better look. As we talked about it throughout the day it transformed from "was that a monkey?" to "can you believe we saw a monkey?" to developing theories on how a monkey came to be dead by the side of a mountain road in Washington state. When it was time to return home we had planned to do so by a different route but changed that just so we could go back and take pictures of the monkey. For half a day we had even started to believe that maybe Bigfoot wasn't so far fetched after all and maybe we'd seen a juvenile one. We were going to be rich and famous. My point is that we talked ourselves into believing it. Based on a moment's observation that lasted no more than a second as we drove around a mountain curve at 50 miles an hour we quickly convinced ourselves of a most unlikely answer. When we got back to the monkey it turned out that it was a dead porcupine. We have no idea how we could ever mistaken it for a chimpanzee or a young bigfoot. But if we had taken our originally planned route, to this day we'd both believe with all our conviction that on May 27, 1994, a bigfoot had died on the side of a road in Washington state. Another example comes from a cross country trip with a different friend. I was driving from Kansas City to Denver over night on a backroad through flat land. My friend was asleep and eventually I noticed two lights a couple hundred feet in front of us and to the right. These two lights moved in formation and would zip up and down, moving slightly farther forward, or more to the right. They'd suddenly disappear and then a couple miles later just as suddenly reappear. I thought they might be really far away but they always appeared roughly at the same angle in front of us and to the right. I could think of no explanation for this. Was I seeing some kind of UFO? As the miles passed I became sure of it. I woke my friend (it was something like 3 in the morning) and asked him if he saw what I saw. He did. He couldn't explain it either. He took pictures but we knew they wouldn't come out as the lights weren't very bright and everything else was black. We stopped the car a couple times but both times the lights disappeared. Finally, around 5 a.m. I was too tired to drive and we pulled over to sleep. But I was excited and couldn't sleep. I had seen a UFO (and this is when I was much more willing to accept such things that I'd be now) and quite possibly an alien UFO because why would a terrestrial aircraft have followed us? Then suddenly the lights appear for just a second, moved a little bit and then disappeared. A little while later they did the exact same things. Same location, same movement. A third time, a fourth time. Then I noticed the pattern. The lights were only appearing when another car was driving by on the road. I was confused. I had doubts again. Slowly the sun came up and revealed what had been going on. About 200 feet off the road, running parallel were electrical and telephone wires. The lights I had been seeing were a reflection of my headlights whenever the angles were just right. And the repeated pattern once we'd stopped was because passing cars hit the same angles and caused the repetition. But for a couple hours I believed I had seen UFOs and I was beginning to convince myself that had to be extra-terrestrial. If I hadn't grown tired of driving I would probably still believe it to this day. So, again, how much rational examination of events is enough to prevent believing the wrong thing and how much is so much it prevents you from experiencing the intangible?
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