Which of these do you think is most likely to be real?

[Stereolab]

Even if your estimated probabilities are really, really low...vote anyways.

When you vote, you're not stating that you believe in whatever you vote for. You're just saying, "this one is the most likely."

[Brian]

I said Elvis, with E.T.'s being a close second.
At least I know Elvis was born, he also had the money to fake his death.
Although, I guess that it's %100 that religon exists, not that it's right, but it does exist.

[LostAngeles]

Life in outer space is the most plausible out of all the options.

[Nex]

Considering life evolved here on Earth, I don't find it too much of a stretch to think that somewhere in the expanses of space there might be another life bearing planet.

However, I really don't think they're here abducting people in order to plumb the depths of the human anus.

[nightwind]

The possibiity is very good that life does exist elsewhere in the universe.

It is doubtful that they are now visiting us, or folks are being abducted, though.

And I guess there is as much evidence for life in the universe , as there are the other things.

[Brian]

Wow, I'm still the only taker on Elvis.
We know for a fact that he existed, he may still exist. None of the other choices seem as likely.

[scratchy]

Aliens for me.

If i rate these things on how they would create the heaviest dent in my beliefsystem if shown to be true, its like this:

Religion
Ghosts
ESP
Elvis is still alive
Space aliens

[jambo372]

I couldn't vote for any single options :

I could probably vote for all of them except the aliens one and even my scepticism about aliens is shaky.

[Rob Lister]

Originally posted by jambo372
I couldn't vote for any single options :

I could probably vote for all of them except the aliens one and even my scepticism about aliens is shaky.

If the "space aliens" option had read "Life on other planets" would it have been easier? I think the latter is [almost] a foregone conclusion, but for strictly logical reasons.

[jambo372]

Life on other planets ... it would have to be more specific.

[monkboon]

Depends upon what you mean by religion. I played it safe and assumed that non-theistic religions were to be included, and voted religion. Certainly, of the thousands of religions, there's bound to be a non-woo-woo one out there some where.

Many secular humanists would argue that SH is not a religion, but in many ways it has the appearance of one. Would that qualify as "real" in the context of this poll?

[Stereolab]

Wow...

I'm a little bit surprised by the results, but please keep them coming.

Religion definitely means "woowoo" religion. I am no religious expert, but some religions make sense to me e.g. Zen Buddhism, "if you meditate enough, you'll see things the way they really are." I don't doubt that that's true. I'm talking about Christian/Jewish/Muslim/etc religion..."we know who God is and you need to do this and this and this in order to get into Heaven."

[monkboon]

Originally posted by Stereolab
Religion definitely means "woowoo" religion. I am no religious expert, but some religions make sense to me e.g. Zen Buddhism, "if you meditate enough, you'll see things the way they really are." I don't doubt that that's true. I'm talking about Christian/Jewish/Muslim/etc religion..."we know who God is and you need to do this and this and this in order to get into Heaven."

I should've waited for clarification before voting then. It was the "(any)" that threw me.

[turtle]

My order is:

ESP
Ghosts
Space aliens
Religion
Elvis

[DangerousBeliefs]

Given the hundreds of years of investigation into ESP and ghosts without any more positive results than "that looks interesting" or ghost plumbers investigating on TV... I'd say they both look extremely unlikely to ever be shown to exist.

With religion, I assume you mean proof that God exists. Here we literally have our entire existance searching for that answer without one shred of evidence. In fact, we can show two things: 1) Religious belief has evolved and changed over time; 2) As our scientific knowledge grows, religious explainations of the world around us shrink and grow childish.

Elvis was massively overweight and loaded on a cocktail of drugs when he died. He died in front of his "friends" and family where he was easily identified. So unless he comes back as a brain-eating zombie... Elvis has left the building.

Space aliens. You mean intelligent or just non-Earth-origin life? It seems more and more likely that we will find non-Earth-origin life even in our own solar system sometime in the next 5-50 years. That potentially means we may want to rethink our estimates on life in the galaxy/universe to the point where we don't estimate if there is life in the Universe but how much and where.

My vote easily goes to space aliens.

[Powa]

Space aliens, no doubt. I even allow for the possibility of inteligent life somewhere in the universe, but because of great distances it's highly unlikely we will ever detect any signals from them, let alone meet them.

Food for thought: what if we received a message from aliens, offering us their friendship, technology beyond our wildest dreams, wealth and prosperity, but then we'd discover that the signal had traveled 10.000 light years and the aliens were long gone? Wouldn't that suck? :D

[monkboon]

If I could change my vote, I'd change it to space aliens for the same reasons the majority seems to be providing, but I'm afraid that the poll is flawed.

When I selected religion, I was under the understandably misguided impression that all religions, not just theistic religions, were to be included. After asking (my fault, I shouldn't have assumed that (any) really meant any) I find the intent was not just theistic, but Abrahamic. If I were to ask what is meant by space aliens, would we find that we're talking about the existence of life (of any sort) on other planets, or visitations?

[kalen]

Religion is certainly real, even though the basis of religion (ie. the existence of supernatural beings) is certainly questionable.

So, I voted for religion. What do I win?