Aliens Moved My Cheese
Chapter 26: Anthropocentrism and You

I’ve known my kid brother my whole life and I know that he is generally the smartest person in any room he is standing in. His last essay emphasized this point with an exclamation point the size of the Sears Tower. I couldn’t on my best day even dream of attempting to tie together an analysis of the Seti program with an anthropological mental exercise concerning why people have a certain concepts about aliens and vague issues of religion and spirituality. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no shit for brains uneducated hillbilly that just fell off the turnip truck myself but I’ll be the first to admit I was in way over my head when it comes to his latest topic. I think I grasped the major themes of his paper but he left me feeling like the lead character in the movie “Sling Blade” Mmmmm hmmmm! My essay will end up being nothing more than a very weak translation of his genius speak, with just a slice of my personal observations thrown in. I had to read over his writing at least a dozen times while banging my head on the wall and chanting “Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna Hari Krishna, Hari, Hari” before I even started to grasp the very basic concepts behind his diatribe. My bro left me looking like Bam Magera in one of the “Jackass” movies trying to fly a kite out of my ass. Thank you Aaron, I have a massive headache now. Well here’s what I came up with. I hope you my five readers dig it.

The common perception of many Ufologists is that alien life is carbon based, bipedal and oxygen/nitrogen breathing. The fact that many people think that way is not at all a revelation. Humans are generally anthropocentric. For those of you who don’t own a thesaurus that means we have cultural tunnel vision where alien intelligences are concerned. Our bias is often based on the idea that aliens are somewhat like us and are created through evolutionary processes similar to our own. That smacks of psychological projection but many humans are masters of that discipline. If you don’t believe me check out the UFO conspiracy theory sites on Facebook some time. They project their own shortcomings so often; it should be considered a martial art. I understand where this cultural bias comes from. 48% of Americans believe in UFO visitation without conclusive proof for a reason. The majority of us want there to be aliens and preferably aliens that are visiting us because we are just so super cool. It strokes our very human egos to think that we are actually worthy of such visitation. In our arrogance many of us also want those aliens to have human characteristics. Why? That’s easy, so we can better relate to them. This is why so many of the reported visitations are allegedly Greys, Greens and Reptilians Be honest Ufologists, what would you rather meet a humanoid type of alien or some gelatinous silicone based blob that smells like unwashed foreskin and routinely oozes a substance closely resembling frog bile? I wouldn’t even want to have sex with that and I don’t suffer from the afore mentioned cultural bias.

I don’t blame humans for being that way. We have come by our anthropocentric outlook honestly. What was one of the first beliefs humans clung to desperately despite a distinct lack of evidence to the contrary? If you said religion, you win a cookie. Take the example of Christianity. Christianity is basically a unsubstantiated belief that we are under the control of a magical, genocidal, wish granting, water walking, virgin raping, zombie carpenter, sky wizard. People just blindly accepted that and two billion people on earth currently still accept this notion. There’s one born every minute. When religion becomes a part of a cultural outlook many of us are willing to believe otherwise ridiculous propositions are truisms. Spirituality works along similar lines as religious beliefs. Religion is a blind belief in what a group of like minded zealots tell you about a fairy tale higher power. Spirituality is making up your own hocus pocus as you go along and then calling that the truth. It’s less a case of following the herd or prevailing cultural wisdom and more a case of keeping your own council on the bizarre things you believe. Pseudo-Sciences like Ufology are rapidly becoming a lot like religion in the respect that there is whole lot of supposition and allegory going on and a distinct lack of actual legitimate evidence backing up the resulting beliefs. Human belief systems build on top of each other through ought history and usually directly affect the cultures they are associated with. This is what I mean by my statement ”we come by our cultural bias honestly.” Cultural norms often dictate behavior and affect our cultural outlook, hence the large number of Ufologists displaying an obvious cultural bias in terms of speculation about aliens. Now there are exceptions to this rule. Some UFO enthusiasts like to consider the likelihood of bizarre aliens who are nothing like us but these are usually actual scientists who are less constrained by cultural bias concerning aliens and how we would like to perceive them. However, they are in the minority. That is why if somebody came to me and described an alien devoid of humanoid characteristics that came to visit them, I would find that far more interesting than some yayhoo telling me about the Reptilian who stuck an alien vacuum cleaner nozzle up their ass. That sounds to contrived to me because that is what most abductees report has happened to them. Maybe it’s because cultural bias has instructed alleged abductees as to what an alien is supposed to look like, with the assistance of pop culture vehicles like the movies. Please note: I did not say abductees who claimed they are getting corn holed by humanoid style aliens are all lying. I have no proof to the contrary. There is also no proof that God exists. It is up to the ones making the claim God exists to prove their claims. Why? They’re the ones making otherwise outrageous claims without proof, not me. I could make the claim that God is the Flying Spaghetti Monster but without supporting evidence both theists and atheists would immediately tell me I’m full of shit and that I should prove my claims. I feel organized religion should be held to that same standard of proof my flying spaghetti monster God was. They don’t just get a free pass because a lot of people blindly believe that shit. Well the same goes for Ufology. If claim you were abducted or visited by aliens, it becomes your burden of proof to prove it by providing evidence. No evidence doesn’t mean you are automatically wrong but it does mean your claims should be immediately suspect at the very least. Your alien testimonial does not get a free pass just because your claim was made with a great deal of conviction.

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