psychic chess masters

On the other hand, I'm looking for the truth about what really motivates your skepticism and where your loyalties really lie.   Because if you're just kidding yourself and inadvertantly lying to everyone, giving them hell and stringing them along because you're broken and truth isn't your priority, I think it would be useful for us all to know that.

How would such knowledge be useful to anybody?  Why do you give a damn?

Because I'm broken?

I'm not even sure what you're trying to imply.

I'm a skeptic.  I think a lot of people see a lot of strange things, and I think a lot of people think they see a lot of strange things.  I also think that there are innumerably more plausible explanations in every case then aliens, especially given our currnent knowlege of the distances and physics involved with the prospect of interstellar travel.

I once saw a miracle.

Because harrassment for the sake of harrassment is dysfunctional and a waste of everyone's time.  If you want to see some examples of misanthropically motivated skepticism derailing a whole forum, look here:

This is what happens when you have people playing 'skeptic', when they have no interest in getting to the truth:

https://forums.craigslist.org/?forumID=20&areaID=94

Seems he thinks I secretly do believe that we are being visited by otherworldly beings but am pretending to be skeptical about it for a laugh.

Now there are a lot of things I find humourous, but this is just silly.  If was going to pretend something didn't exist even though I knew it did just so I could have a laugh it would be something ridiculous like midgets, or maybe global warming.

Well, there's a big difference than you and I.

I am unconvinced we are visited by aliens.  But I think it's very possible that we are.  I see foolish people making naive claims and false positives, but that has no bearing on the truth of the matter itself.  I think that a good skeptic must be equally skeptical of their own skepticism.  Emphasis on doubt will tend to close the mind of to legitimate possibilities, and will also motivate people to look away from possibilities rather than proactively investigate them. That's why I think the emphasis on doubt is a losing proposition in the long run.  Again, back to Wayne Dyer's observation, that the laws of flotation weren't discovered by contemplating the sinking of things.  But if you're just a well intentioned Doubting Thomas, so be it.

The Grobe wrote:

Seems he thinks I secretly do believe that we are being visited by otherworldly        beings but am pretending to be skeptical about it for a laugh.

I'm right here.  Might as well tell you what I think.   You should be more skeptical about your fantasies about what I think.  I don't know what you secretly think.  I think you're in denial. 

Ahh, but you see, I know what you secretly think because I'm psychic.

Bully for you.

So when you go deep into your own mind, you see me?

Wait -- it's not because I'm psychic, that's ludicrous.  It's because you're transparent:

I mean, come on, you came right out and said it.

The only evidence to support the claims that we have been visited by aliens are eyewitness testimonies. Any situation where that is the case will and should fire off alarm bells in any skeptic's brain. Of course the skeptic doesn't say that we most certainly haven't been visited by aliens, because the lack of definitive evidence doesn't assert that.

What we can do in lieu of definitive evidence is apply logical reasoning, and that leads us to justifiable points involving the sheer distances involved to alien civilisations. It is extremely reasonable to doubt that aliens have bothered to make such tremendous journeys only to scare a few farmers. The point made earlier that contact isn't made due to fear of our reaction doesn't cut it with me. Any civilisation which is capable of traversing such distances is far in advance of our own. They could likely make the choice between annihilating us or parenting us. They would have no motive whatsoever for ensuring their presence remained a secret.

Something is missing?

I infer you mean I'm projecting, because I'm pursuing this with you, and you feel harassed?  Well, I've said my piece.  Humans can't really be objective.  Some of us do our best.  Some of us are lazy.  And some of us are downright disingenuous.

If my being skeptical about something you feel likely makes me disingenuous in your eyes then so be it.  I'm aware of the pitfalls of getting between someone and their world view.

Yup.  You sure don't want to get between me and my open-minded attempts to learn the objective truth.

maybe?

Brilliant!

homo-centric viewpoint is the only one I have do not pretend myself to have an alien-centric viewpoint. Physics laws are not a property of the universe itself but of our knowledge of the universe, since pretended aliens would be part of that universe they should behave in conformity with the way we have millions of observations (good, tested and controlled measurements that can be reproduced by anyone) about how things behave in the nature, I more confident about these that I rely in what a person said he has viewed but could not take a picture (a not blurred one)... credit is just above the credit I give to any other lunatic who starts to tell how the virgin appeared in front of his eyes. Yes, there are also hundreds of reports about the virgin making special appearences and all other kind of miracles, poltergeists and mysterious various. With such strong evidences the belief of aliens coming around the earth is as the belief in any deity, a question of faith.