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60% Of U.S. Believe Life Exists On Other Planets
jangobongo writes "Does intelligent life exist anywhere besides Earth? Are regular churchgoers less likely to believe life has evolved on other planets? Do more Democrats or Republicans believe in extraterrestrials? And if alien life makes contact, what should we do? These questions were asked on a poll released last week that shows that two-thirds of Americans do believe that life exists on other planets, and of that group, 90% say if we receive a message from another planet we should reply. The poll was commissioned by the SETI Institute and the National Geographic Channel."
Check out this guy who can summon UFOs on demand. Has a link to a news broadcast where they filmed him doing it. Shocked the hell out of the camera crew.
_ ID=44503
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE
Pretty cool.
-Matt
I'm confused why only 46% of christians believe that aliens exist. Is it because then they might have to consider that a god might have more to think about than their petty affairs, and that the bible might just be pretty limited in galatic terms? I always think an alien visiting earth would just laugh at the primitive beliefs of our so called 'advanced' civilisations. Interested to hear what other religions think about aliens. Would Mohammed, Jesus etc have any relevance to someone from Alpha Centauri?
Ignoring the fact that this is straying way off topic...
What's truly weird is how so many of us delude ourselves into believing that we live in democracies (ie. rule of the people) simply because we hold elections. The main function of an election is not to give the people a voice, but to periodically renew the governmental entity (congress, parliament, legislature, judiciary, whatever). It's a way of cleaning out the old and bringing in the new -- but it's always the same political parties in roughly the same mixture.
Even here in Canada, in one election we wiped the Progressive Conservative party off the electoral map in 1993. But all of the Progressive Conservative policies remained intact (the GST, Free Trade, the public service cuts, low inflation policy, etc. etc). Elected governments rarely contradict or rescind the policies of the previous government. In Canada and the US after a legislative election, generally 80% to 90% of the incumbents win.
Which is good for the people in power. It gives the illusion of listening to the voice of the people but doesn't disrupt the reign held on power by the parties, corporations and unions. Elections are, in fact, essential to ensuring that the powerful maintain a fresh, strong grip on power.
True democracy is not about giving the people a choice: it's about giving the people a voice. If the powers-that-be simply give people a choice, they limit what power the people have and reserve the real power for themselves.
What would a real democracy look like?
Probably the most genuine democracy would draft their legislators at random (like juries are or mandatory military service) from all walks of life and force them to go to Washington or London or Ottawa and do their duty. Namely, if any laws need to be made, make them -- otherwise, don't. This would solve many problems such as the underrepresentation of minorities and women in government. They could even remain anonymous and we could make it a crime to reveal the identity of a legislator.
Other things that would make democracy less illusionary:
* Give the vote to every citizen above the age of zero (obviously until a child was able to claim the right to vote themselves, their parents would vote for them). In most places, there is no IQ pre-requisite to being an elector and children should have the right to be represented by their government. I suspect if kids could vote (or parents voting for them) education and health care would be a higher priority. If teenagers voted, maybe we'd actually get some movement on the environment. I wonder what promises a politician would make when visiting a high-school campus if the kids there could actually vote...
* Make voting continuous -- not just once every 4 years or whatever. Register our votes and give every citizen the right to change their vote whenever they want to. Thus an incumbent could effectively be recalled any time his/her constituents lose confidence in him/her.
But those are wishy-washy measures. As long as we have any form of voting, we dilute any power vested in the people.