Why I Don't Believe In Aliens

why don't i believe in aliens?

well, in some ways, i DO believe in aliens. the universe is huge enough that there has to be some other life out there. and they could have found a way to get here.

but i choose, for now, to resist a belief in aliens. i don't think there are intelligent aliens near our planet, interacting with us. i don't think that aliens are reading our minds or speaking to us.

there are some reasons why i don't believe it.

it isn't because of a 'lack of evidence.' my reason for disbelief is a little different. it's because that particular belief can mislead people in a direction that i think is harmful. the RESULTS of the belief are what concern me. i don't WANT to believe in aliens, because that belief leads to some things that i think are a mistake.

again, if we are talking about 'having evidence' or 'theoretical possibilities,' then yes, i do believe in aliens - they're possible. but in terms of 'taking action' and 'solving problems,' i think we should interpret our phenomena as being caused by something other than aliens.

people wonder sometimes about the voices we hear in our minds. where do they come from? if they come from outside us, are they the voices of aliens?

i've taken an official position on this. the voices come from other humans, and we hear them because either somebody is deliberately sending them to us through the means of technology, or else because something in the environment (for instance, electromagnetic fields) is accidentally enabling us to hear them.

if we say the voices come from aliens (or something supernatural), that can lead in a harmful direction. we might wish that the intelligent aliens will help us out, educate us, do all the hard work for us. we might think they're so much smarter than we are, that we can't ever compete against them, and it's hopeless.

and we might forget that all of the technology needed to put those whispering voices into people's minds is already here - we have it, on earth, and it was made by humans.

the technology isn't as far advanced as you might think.

we imagine that the aliens are thousands of years ahead of human society - that there's no way we could ever reach the high levels of knowledge that they have reached, because it's just so far in the future. we think that there's something about the mind, about the brain, that is so secretive, so complex, so mysterious, so sacred, so untouchable, so supernatural, that it will be thousands of years before we can even begin to understand it or be able to control it and influence it somehow.

but meanwhile...

other people have spent the past century working to observe and control people's brains and bodies. they had no qualms about doing experiments without consent on people who didn't know they were the victims of an experiment. they had no qualms about using government money or borrowed money to fund their research. they had no qualms about stealing the work of independent researchers, shutting down their labs, and 'classifying' their research as 'top secret,' preventing the public from hearing about it.

there are people out there in the world, people who think it's okay to hurt, it's okay to steal, it's okay to kill, it's okay to control people, it's okay to do things without consent.

you and i and almost everyone we know thinks otherwise. most people don't want to hurt or kill anybody. most people don't feel comfortable about stealing other people's property. most people have empathy for others, especially if they can actually SEE the effects, the consequences of their actions. if they see somebody crying, or depressed, or in pain, or afraid, they stop hurting that person.

there are other people out there who DON'T stop when you say 'no' - for instance, our government, the people who've sent our troops to iraq to take possession of that country. iraq said 'no,' but our government just kept doing what it was doing.

back to the subject of aliens. i've chosen to interpret things differently: that everything we're experiencing is caused by humans (or some combination of natural or manmade environmental factors). we have the power to do these things ourselves. we don't need the help of a mysterious race of intelligent beings whose technology is thousands or millions of years ahead of ours. we can't wait around for a powerful, higher entity or alien race to give us the help we need. we can do many, many things right now, ourselves, using the technology we have - and we are responsible for doing those things. all of this knowledge is here on earth, right now.

those of us who can't read those 'top secret' folders have to recreate, rebuild, reverse engineer the technology that others use against us. we have to painstakingly build our defenses and our countermeasures against it, knowing nothing, starting almost from scratch, with no money, no research, no resources, no support from the mainstream public. we have to work in spite of ignorance, poverty, social disapproval, frustration, humiliation, failures, poor health, exhaustion - and continue our full-time jobs and our ordinary lives and our relationships at the same time.

there are people who love human beings, love liberty, love peace, love our lives and our opportunities and our joy. we are here to experience and enjoy life. we are here to build a better world for ourselves and our children.

we're responsible for doing all these things ourselves, by working on our own and by cooperating with other people.

so i've chosen this: i believe in human beings.