I like this thread because the discussion has turned more towards open-mindedness and trying to discern what is true. Ultimately, the truth-finding process is much more important than any particular debate.

One of the biggest problems people have is that of the false dichotomy, also known as binary thinking. We either accept all or nothing. You either believe someone or you reject them completely. This may be one of those things that takes years to unlearn, but we have to gain the ability to pull out truth wherever we find it. There will always be inconsistencies to someone's story or reputation, but that doesn't make something they say which is true be any less true.

The second thing we need to do is not invest ourselves in any particular 'picture of the world'. Our beliefs should not be emotional attachments, but rather probabilities of what we think the truth is based on what we know. Fundamentally, discovering the truth is all about taking in information from the world and seeing what's self-consistent. The truth will always be self-consistent. Big lies will also be self-consistent. Therefore, just like puzzle pieces from several puzzles mixed together, we have to start fitting them together in several separate chunks. The chunk with the most puzzle pieces on it is 'what we believe to be true'. The smaller chunks with less puzzle pieces are not then discarded, but instead continually built upon.

In the method described above, we first accept everything as being potentially true, then build parallel possibilities. This is an important distinction, for it is not deductive reasoning but abductive reasoning.

We're taught to use deductive reasoning. In that case, when we're about 5 years old, we're given a puzzle piece and told "this is the absolute truth". For the rest of our lives we see what fits onto it and discard everything contrary to it. Deductive reasoning only works if it has some absolute foundation from which to build upon. Abductive reasoning on the other hand more closely matches the situation we're in as humans: we enter the world knowing nothing and have to figure everything out from there. It won't give us that secure feeling of 100% assurance that we are right, but it will hopefully keep us over 50% and allow us room to grow.

Based on the preparation we have been given I vote for this one. The influx of "aliens" has been so intense (particularly, right after WW2, does 1947 ring a bell??) and the propaganda that we are being visited and have been visited by "ALiens" from another world is so great I find it difficult to not believe it will not be used as an explaination for Biblical events and who knows what other "controls" will be hoisted over everyone based on this. (Hollywood being the main proponent and propaganda machine for this)

What in particular do you think you should be "doing"? Perhaps being involved (conspiracy) in another hoax? Perfecting one perhaps since this one has so many holes in it??

Puma Punku and a number of other sites still blow my mind.

I don't buy the 'only modern man could do these things' type arguments. Civilizations rose, and fell. They understood flatness. They understood mechanisms. They had engineering. We flatter ourselves about our intelligence. True, we do have more capability now, but they understood the basic concepts, and made do with what capability they could garner. They did have rivers for power.

JQP:

In regards to my post above. It's just a thought experiment. Similar to your "Earth Center" theory that you pointed to.

When you think how ludicrous the notion that there was "nothing" and in this nothing something happened "big bang" that set forth an infinitely exponentially expanding something full of all this "stuff" we have in our "universe", it's not a far walk down the hall to find any other theory that explains it not just as well, but better.

The big bang theory only really makes sense if you contemplate "nothing" state, being no power applied to the machine, and big bang state, being booting the machine. Thence from nothing, comes as much something as you can compute, had you pre-programmed it to be so. And from there it's very easy to find yourself in the matrix or wonderland and any ridiculous programming could in fact be true.

I don't have any answers, just more questions.

Thanks

I personally don't believe in the big bang or the expanding universe theories.

The reason light is red shifted from distant stars, and more red shifted the further we look away, is because of non-linear losses light encounters as it moves through space which cause the frequency to decrease.

With all the non-physical postulates and magic hidden energies and particles modern science needs to keep the current models in place, I don't think it's too difficult to come to the conclusion that it's probably very wrong.

Joe returns!

@ dmac..one can hope http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/wink.gif...
well im no expert on this subject so ill take the shortcut....well, IS the successful moon landing the "official story ' backed by hollywood and the media"?? well, then its a lie.
simple.

Lol... Yeah, it's gotten that bad. Preponderance of evidence.

This is a very worthwhile book to read if you have an open mind (the cover and edition have likely changed since this picture). Once you see the history of how the big bang theory developed, you will understand that it and all the complications in cosmology were introduced to maintain the Copernican principle at all costs. See this chart for a very brief and partial illustration.

frontcoverv1.jpg

For the theologically minded, there is a volume II also.

This is a hard one to wrap my brain around. The earth as center of the universe? Wow.

Bullshit. I know because I'M the center of the universe. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/cool.png

since no one has a telescope powerful enough to see the whole universe, it is impossible to tell where the center is, let alone judge the earth to be the center of it. it's like me saying my house is the center of the united states, but i can only see 2 miles out on the horizon.

If we wanted to wax metaphysical/philosophical (and I typically do), then we could say that everyone is the universe as centered on his or her being.

It is extremely hard, and therein lies its power to blow the lid off the current failed establishment.

The fact that everything is rotating around you may be due to drinking too much. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/wink.gif