Denying the reality of the gods (including God) by attributing to them only mythological (fictional) status is easy. Much harder is to try to accept their reality while stripping them of their supernatural (deity) status. That’s what I try to do here. If that however can’t be done, well the fairy tales involving the ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, etc. gods or the Biblical God still make for interesting bedtime stories.
What would an extraterrestrial ‘god’ (‘sky being’ might be a good synonym in many cases) do that a bona-fide supernatural god wouldn’t do – or vice versa? I’ll be damned if I know the answer to that, and it’s probably an unanswerable question. It’s at least not illogical to equate a god, goddess or demigod with an extraterrestrial or extraterrestrial intelligence. Any sufficiently advanced (extraterrestrial) technology is just the supernatural to entities that are too primitive yet to know what advanced technology is. A television set or jet airplane to someone living 2000 years ago would be pure magic.
*If there is any historical evidence for a god, gods or The God, then that evidence could just as easily be equally interpreted as evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence(s), whose purpose(s) or objective(s) may not be all that obvious. Clarke’s third law reminds us that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, or the equivalent, the supernatural. Aliens that can travel to Earth will surely have sufficiently advanced technology.
*I’d imagine a theoretical advanced extraterrestrial being or race, like the gods, don’t have attributes that are self-contradictory, unlike God (or the idealized concept of God). The ‘gods’ are not depicted as all-powerful (just powerful); not all-knowing (yet knowledgeable); not omnipresent; and hardly all-loving. The one attribute usually attributed to the ‘gods’ is immortality, though that doesn’t mean they can’t be bumped off. They’re immortal (actually quasi-immortal), but not invincible or invulnerable. To a human, especially humans living thousands of years ago, the immortality of the ‘gods’ could equally translate to and mean a very, very long lifespan (akin to some of the life spans given to a select few in the Biblical texts). Now very long life spans is something one might desire when postulating getting E.T. from there (wherever there is – somewhere out there among the stars) to here (Planet Earth).
*Historical cultures like the ancient Greeks, Hindus, and the Incas associated the location of their ‘gods’ with high places, usually the home of the ‘gods’ was high up in the mountains.
*Mythology is full of references to ‘sky beings’ like Zeus (Jupiter), God (our father who art in heaven), Horus, Odin, Uranus as well as all manner of related Moon (Nanna) and Sun (Re, Apollo) ‘deities’.
*Some or all of these and related beings exist but likewise do not belong to the realm of the supernatural. Since they clearly aren’t terrestrial, they must be extraterrestrial.
*Many ‘gods’ are identified with specific stars and/or constellations (i.e. – the Egyptian goddess Isis is linked with Sirius).
*That there are many thousands of ‘gods’ referenced in mythologies throughout the world makes sense – you’d need a large crew to man (alien?) the starships that brought them here in the first place.
*This also accounts for the division of labour and differing areas of responsibilities the ‘gods’ had. A crewman who was responsible for say hydroponics became a ‘god’ of agriculture.
*Many more ‘gods’ and demigods were born and assumed various rolls and responsibilities after Earth-fall, sometimes to replace other ‘gods’ who had been in those roles but met some sort of fatal fate or other. That major deities created minor deities should come as no surprise seeing as how the ‘gods’ are often portrayed as sex machines, or rather maniacs. Any examination of the mythological ‘gods’ will reveal whole genealogies.
*Is there any suggestive evidence to associate and equate the gods with extraterrestrials? Well, appearance could be a clue. Our modern world is full of images from ancient times of entities or beings that wouldn’t be out of place in any “Star Trek” or “Star Wars” movie. Translated, whatever these images represent, they most certainly aren’t your everyday terrestrial species you’re likely to see in a zoo. I mean you have all seen figures depicted as gargoyles – definitely not terrestrial beasties. Nor are the gorgons likely to be terrestrial. Many of the ‘gods’, like say the ancient Egyptian ones, while humanoid, are anything but human in appearance. Lots of beings, creatures depicted as rock or cave art around the world appear very other-worldly. For example, the Tassili frescoes in the Sahara , some going back to 6,000 BC, are very suggestive of E.T.. One was actually dubbed by an archaeologist ‘the great Martian god’, although there’s no actual evidence to connect the image with the Red Planet Mars. The puzzling statues on Easter Island are very nearly human but just weird enough to be distinctive – close to human but yet oddly not quite human. You can ask this logical question – are demons really supernatural, or just rather ugly and potentially nasty aliens?
*Even the very well known arch sceptic (when it came to UFOs and ‘ancient astronauts’), the late Dr. Carl Sagan** was impressed enough by a combination of ancient text translations coupled with images on ancient cylinder seals to suggest that this might be a bona fide contact between extraterrestrials and humans in ancient times. The ‘this’ had to do with strange appearing beings who brought knowledge to the ancient Sumerians. Images depicted on later cylinder seals associated such beings (who look quite unworldly) with the stars and with interstellar planetary systems.
**Sagan, Carl & Shklovskii, I.S.; Intelligent Life in the Universe; Holden-Day, San Francisco
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