Peer reviewed and proof read they aint.
Frogs and Aliens, and Stuff
Believing in aliens is very different ontologically/metaphysically, logically, and rationally than believing in supernatural gods and their retinue. If one believes in aliens - of a natural non-supernatural or preternatural variety (i.e. not something like demons that are aliens) - then one is deploying very different epistemic ratiocination (knowledge-device) to a person that believes in a god. Godists won't admit that because they either don't want to recognise the distinction, or they are not capable of doing so. Philosophers and scientists have to recognise the distinction. (The marketing department doesn't, but they might if they are using psychological marketing. But nuts to the marketing department anyway. And the lawyers 😉)
Ontology is the branch of metaphysics in philosophy that studies what exists and how. It is linked to formal logic studies (both 1st and second order logics - which are distinguished on the basis that second order logics regard sets as members of sets, among other things) by way of semantics. Logics have syntax, rules (and axioms), and semantics. The logical sentence "all frogs are amphibians" and its formal predicate logic syntax might look something like
Forall x (Fx -> Ax)
where Fx means x is a frog, -> means implies (or "necessarily makes it the case that"), and Ax means x is an amphibian. If you are having trouble with the letter predicates, try
Forall x (🐸x -> Ax)
(Question. What is a predicate? Answer. "is a frog" is a predicate)
The semantics, in 1st order formal predicate logic, are given by that in the world which is referred to. In this case - froggies. Froggies all belong to the natural kind (set and category) amphibian, and to the natural kind category animal, insect eater etc. They are in all of those sets.
Categories are a bit like sets, but more permissive or less rigid in terms of what we can put in them: we can put more complex set based and algebraic things in them, for example. They can often handle types of things a little better. But we cannot put contradictory stuff in them - the category animal cannot really have non-animal based members. you cannot have supernatural things in the natural category. You certainly cannot have supernatural things in the natural set. That would be a contradiction.
Now, let's try aliens.
Forall x [(ETx -> Nx) AND (ETx -> NOT Sx)]
Forall x [(
x -> Nx) AND (x -> NOT Sx)]Which I will assert means, given any thing, call it 'x', if x is ET, then this necessarily implies that x is natural AND if x is an ET, then this necessarily implies it is not supernatural". There are other ways of saying the same thing with different syntax.
We could add the rule that says the set of natural things does not include any supernatural things, but let's just talk about it...
By definition - the supernatural and the natural are different type categories. We cannot call a supernatural kind (angels? spirit power? ) a natural kind like frogs or amphibians, or spiders, or DNA, because it sepecifically isn't anything like that by definition. To be supernatural specifically means to be NOT NATURAL (ask most theologians).
So, you do NOT have to suspend rational disbelief for something natural - something that is a natural possibility - in the same way or as radically as you have to suspend rational disbelief to believe something is supernatural, precisely because of the definition. Also EMPIRICALLY because we have lots of publicly easily provable experience with nature and the natural, but as The Amazing Randi and others keep demonstrating - the supernatural stuff seems really hard to come up with except in cases of mass hysteria and pieces of wildly interpretted toast. (You can look up the famous chapter "Of Miracles" by David Hume and philosopher Hilary Putnam's more recent 'The No Miracles Argument'.)
To believe in the existence of aliens, you don't need anything else but natural ontology - which is what science already works with exclusively. That is - you only need the set of natural stuff and things. To believe in gods and angels (and supernatural toast artists) and such, you have to massively inflate the ontology to include a whole lot of non natural things in it that by definition have to exist on a non-natural basis. To do this is to disobey Ockham's razor in the extreme. Ockham's Razor is NOT about picking the simplest theory - it's about chosing the least clutter in the ontology to achieve an explanation. If you can explain something without the need for supernatural stuff in the ontology, you are obeying Ockham's razor or the principle of ontic parsimony.
Here's the related psycho-social and political point however. Some corporate types and the politicians that they have bought don't care what you believe in, so long as you hate socialism and keep participating in the capitalist machine that makes them rich. They have known since Constantine and the Pharaohs that religious faith is great as the opiate of the masses to keep you all from rising up and lynching your rich abusers. Belief in aliens is probably just as useful for this outcome, even though broadly speaking it is more rational from a logical, ontogical, and epistemic (knowledge) perspective.
Social Determinism and Lack of Free Will Entails Metaphysical Determinism: Not Vice Versa
Or something like that.
