Celsus

Hi all,

I was recently looking at the <a href="http://www.nmsr.org/roswell.htm" target="_blank">NMSR's take on the Roswell Incident</a>. In particular, the point they make which caught my attention was this review of a book found <a href="http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/roswell2.htm" target="_blank">here</a>:

I think all of you would have guessed what I've been thinking about by now. Firstly, the fact that no written gospels existed until several decades after Jesus death is strange to say the least. Is it possible that someone (e.g. Paul) "rediscovered" some covered-up conspiracy about Christ, propagated them and then started asking "witnesses" about it? It also looks like several apologetic arguments about contradictory witnesses ("the important thing is that there was a resurrection/alien" ) are made to look stupid by comparing it to what is described in the last paragraph.

I admit there's plenty of speculation going on here. Any thoughts on this?

(edited to change "NSMR" to "NMSR" (New Mexicans for Science and Reason))

[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: joejoejoe ]</p>

Vorkosigan

An NT scholar would argue that although harmonizing these accounts is not possible, it is nevertheless possible to sift through the accounts to recover the Historical Roswell Incident, in which aliens crashed and some bodies were found. Perhaps we will never know exactly what happened. But certainly we can say with confidence that a UFO did crash and bodies were found. Those are the common elements to every story, regardless of the source.

I mean, would all these people just make up stories? What would they have to gain? And why would all these other people have gone to Roswell to discover the truth? Do you think it was all for nothing? People have died on the way there, you know. Would people die for a lie?

And forget the time lag between the crash and the first appearance of documents and memories. Remember, the US had just gone through the horrible Vietnam experience and much more important things were going on. Further, these writers and speakers were not trained professionals, but locals, whose mastery of investigative techniques were necessarily short of what a real detective would use. They can be forgiven for the gaps in their memories, the story changes, the mythical people and the missing documents.

Michael

Kosh

The parrallels are impressive. Of course, all of
this is just evidence that the devine creator
is using the Roswell incident to show us exactly
how the Gospel stories are true...


Not to nitpic Michael, but we were involved in
Vietnam from the mid 60s through 75, and Roswell
occured in '47. You meant to say WW II, right?

Vorkosigan

Ah you missed that; I being not clear. See, Jesus got whacked in the 30s, according to myth, but then the jews passed through the horrors of the Jewish War a few years later, just as we passed through the horrors of vietnam a few years later.

Michael

Boro Nut

Nominally 2000 years

Echo

Are there any theist participants on this board who *don't* think that aliens crash landed at Roswell?

If so, I'd be interested in knowing why you don't find the evidence, which is largely witness testimony, to be adequate enough to warrant belief?

The Resistance

&lt; sarcasm alert&gt;

Silly Echo, don't you know that witness testimony is only valid if it happens to agree with what you already beleive?

&lt; end sarcasm &gt;

Megatron

The theists aren't likely to admit it, but this seems as (or more) believable, IMHO, than an invisible fairy godfigure... But then again, no one has proselytized on behalf of the aliens, and no one has used any kind of scare tactics and controlling paranoia in an attempt to make us believe in the aliens.

Boro Nut

...and yet we DO!!! Why is that?

faded_Glory

I suspect that the answer will be along the lines of "I know Jesus in my heart, but I don't know any aliens in my heart, therefore I believe in Jesus but not in aliens". In other words, a subjective experience is part of the justification for belief.

fG