Paul Burke, I think that everything has a soul....not just human beings. I think that a body is built by a pre-existing soul...that is, a pre-existing and non-physical bundle of highly organized spiritual intelligence. I don't think that life spontaneously arose out of inert matter somehow by mere happenstance, I think that inert matter itself was fashioned into living forms BY pre-existing life itself. (spiritual life) And, no, I am not talking about the supposed Christian Father God figure up on his throne stretching out a divine hand when I say that. I'm talking about LIFE itself. Life IS God, as far as I'm concerned.

I am saying that until we know accurately the condition and nature of all life throughout the Universe rather than just the biological life on this planet, we are in no position to estimate the chances of humanoid life occurring once....twice...three times...or 50,000 times.

The great conceit of humanity is always this: They think they know way more than they do. Look at the scientific and popular notions of any past century, and you will see this folly of human delusive grandeur. People are self-preening know-it-alls who think they have reality all figured out, but their ruling scientific or religious orthodoxies are always overthrown in short order proving how little they really knew.

The same will happen to the ruling orthodoxies of our present civilization (which are mostly scientfic and technical orthodoxies), and those are the orthodoxies that your assumptions and stigweard's rest upon. I know they're all you have to rest upon.... ;-) But I am unimpressed. They are not enough.

I have no objection at all to the notion of non-humanoid aliens, by the way. It seems very likely that there would be some such aliens. If, however, credible witnesses to various AFO sightings have seen some humanoid aliens then I am not going to reject their testimony merely because I have some crackpot pet theory of my own that says "Oh, the chances against any aliens being humanoid are very, very high!"

That's bullshit. It's just an argument of convenience which jumps into your mind, because you would rather not believe that anyone has seen any aliens, period, and you're looking for any excuses you can think of to pooh-pooh various eyewitness accounts.

In so doing you are engaging in a pointless and unproductive side issue that has little or nothing to do with the subject at hand. It doesn't matter whether the aliens are humanoid or not! It matters whether they really exist or not and whether they are visiting here or not.