Four proofs of the nonexistence of God

[mordant]

Here is an example of something that has been reported by "otherwise" normal respected people.   Many people have reported being visited by angels.  Can science prove whether or not they were truly visited by angels?  If not, are we to assume totally that they were not visited by angels.  What do we do with thousands of claims by "otherwise" regular people concerning this?

Many thousands of people have reported that they were abducted by aliens, taken to their spaceships and subjugated to anal probes; do you accept those accounts?

Lol. My wife and I visited Sedona, Arizona, which is one of those tourist-y places that has lots of New Age woo going on. Vortexes, crystals, places where you can go to have your aura photographed, etc. We stopped by one of these vortexes scenic overlooks and after awhile we were approached by a guy who struck up a conversation with us about aliens being present among us, incognito. He was dead serious, and in fact claimed he ran a radio talk show of some kind on the topic (probably a podcast, but whatever).

Now my current wife is a journalist so she immediately just rolled with it and started asking him journalist questions. The guy lit up like a Christmas tree and beckoned over a couple of other hangers-on, both of who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. They had baroque stories of going into a trance state and floating out of their cars and into the alien ship, with the usual vaguely sexual violations with probes and such.

My wife was so drop-dead serious and earnest in her interrogation, the only thing missing was a mike or a notepad. But the instant we got back to our car she (and I, who had to turn my back at times to contain myself during the "interview") dissolved in gales and gales of uncontrollable laughter.

We came out of that encounter with an invitation, which we accepted, to join them after dusk that night to look at the night sky through night vision binoculars which was supposedly the only way to see the alien spacecraft coming and going from Earth. That fell through because of violent thunderstorms but to this day I'm curious if we could have kept a straight face at such a get together.

My wife and I were still courting at the time and this incident helped me fall in love with her. She doesn't fall for woo, which is now important to me in a mate. But she's kind even to idiots. And she knows how to dig out the truth (or falsity) of a matter. She also has a great sense of the absurd, and the ability to laugh at it.

Point being, as you said, the very people claiming angels must exist because many people claim they exist is no different than aliens or alien abductions being true because many people claim they are. And yet ... through the magic of Special Pleading™, it's okay for one and not the other.