When Religious Aliens Come Knocking: Part One

Aliens, as in extraterrestrials, come in all manner of shapes and sizes at least according to science fiction authors, TV produces, filmmakers and even scientists. We have to rely on them since we don’t yet have an alien on the slab in the lab for verification. Our potential aliens also have all manner of philosophies and intentions – invasion and sex usually dominate. But what about religion: their existence and impact on our religion and of greater importance, their religion’s impact on us. 

There has been an awful lot of ink spilled over many, many a decade on the question of what the discovery of an advanced extraterrestrial civilization would mean for terrestrial religions, especially the Big Three – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. That’s mainly because the Bible (and associated texts) make no mention of ET, and thus human beings are the one and only apex of God’s creations. Discovery of ET would throw that alleged apex into more than just a bit of theological confusion.

However, theologians tend to make light of this and suggest along the lines that there’s an awful lot of real estate out there, and since God can do whatever He damn well pleases, well maybe He populated some of that real estate with one or more extraterrestrial societies. I mean the Bible doesn’t mention Antarctica or penguins. The discovery of both didn’t upset the religious applecart, so why are aliens relevant to vie for Biblical space and commentary and why should they, if they exist, upset the religious applecart?

In short, one answer boils down to, is everything out there in parallel with everything down here, at least as far as the big three monotheistic faiths go? Do all planets with intelligent aliens have extraterrestrial Adams and Eves that muck up their alien Gardens of Eden and get the boot? Do all alien civilizations have sin, a flood, a Chosen People, a Promised Land, etc? 

Now apparently the biggest of the big theological question is, assuming the existence of ET civilizations, is whether or not Jesus (assuming the reality of a Jesus of course – not a given) visited these worlds and got subjected to the ET equivalent of The Cross. Did Jesus have to hitch a ride on interstellar spaceships in order to get to all those other sinful other-worlds, assuming those other-worlds are sinful other-worlds?  Methinks the questions are as similar to how many angels dance on the head of a pin!

IMHO, the odds that our religious histories in broad-brush form would happen on each and every other-world housing an extraterrestrial civilization is so remote as to not be worthy of even two seconds of pondering. 

Okay, so if UFOs land on the White House lawn tomorrow, or radio astronomers detect obviously artificial radio signals from an extra-solar other-world planet that’s home to ET, big deal. Church attendance will probably not alter greatly, at least after the initial shock. If those of the monotheistic faiths embrace all of humanity as equals, then it’s not a huge step upwards to embracing extra-solar ‘humanity’ – ET – as equals as well. 

But, and this is a very real but, what if our advanced aliens are not just technologically advanced aliens, but theologically  advanced aliens, who in fact have a theology that bears no similarity with any terrestrial theology! Then what? Might ET take a leaf out of our religious histories and violently preach their version of hell, fire and brimstone to us? What leaf you ask? 

The basic reality is that members of the trilogy of major monotheistic religions (and lots of minor ones as well) have in the past wished, and continue to wish, to impose their beliefs by any means fair or foul (usually foul) on anyone and everyone else. If fact, all too often those wishes were turned into reality.

If one had to list all of the atrocities inflicted on various cultures by Christian missionaries, including the abduction and indoctrination of young children, well let’s just say comparisons with the Nazi Third Reich regime wouldn’t be all that inappropriate. From across Africa to the Pacific Islands and points beyond, it was the Christian duty of the faithful to force-feed if necessary their religious doctrines to all those thus far spared monotheism fanaticism. And it wasn’t just a matter of polytheistic to monotheistic conversion, it was the absolute and total destruction of anything and everything part and parcel of their ‘pagan’ traditional beliefs that had to be eliminated, so much so that most of the culture, say of the Aztecs and the Incas, have now been lost forever – thanks due to God, or rather His ever faithful representatives.

Then throw in the Inquisition, the Crusades, and all manner of Holy Wars and God’s Old Testament reign of terror has been taken to heart by the faithful whose duty is to see that it is ‘to be continued’ and on, and on, and on it goes. Your option: be a living Christian; or a dead pagan. Well there’s an exception to that – the last of the Inca emperors was given this option: a relatively quick and easy death as a born-again Christian, or a very slow and very painful death as a pagan. Needless to say Christianity won out yet again. Belief in God can be very persuasive when you’re faced with being burned at the stake as an alternative.  

Albeit more civilized today, the indoctrination goes on. It might be religious fanatics picketing in front of abortion clinics or forcing public schools to delete Darwinism (Darwinian evolution) from their curricula and replace it with Creationism or Intelligent Design (you’d think that had been settled once and for all with the 1925 Scopes Trial). It often takes the form of all those televangelists knocking your socks off and all those religious billboard signs warning you of this, that and the next sinful thing. Then of course there are those ever pestering Bible-pushing Christians knocking at your door, eager beavers telling you how much God loves you, but in return for a donation He’ll love you even more!

But take note, its God the singular, not gods the plural. I mean is it a God / Jesus Bible-thumper who bangs on your door or is it an Osiris / Odin / Quetzalcoatl / Zeus, etc. person who disturbs your peace and quiet, trying to convert you to the wisdom of polytheism? Did I hear you say God / Jesus? I thought so. Despite the fact that the Bible isn’t a legal document like a search warrant or a summons, it nevertheless seems to give Bible-pushers carte blanch to do whatever they please, as long as the Bible tells them it’s okay to do it, like chewing your ear off (not literally of course) with tales of hell, fire and brimstone and trying to scare the shit out of you into making a donation to the cause. 

If there were any polytheistic cultures who tried to ram their gods down the throat of other cultures I’m not aware of them, which is not the same as other cultures assimilating the gods of another culture. As an example, there ultimately proved to be an amalgamation of ancient Greek and Egyptian deities. Ramming has been the ‘divine right’ and privilege of monotheistic cults and examples, including all of the very graphic details, would fill an encyclopaedia. Would aliens perceive their having a ‘divine right’ to ram their theology down our throats? Yes, if our own history is an example. If God is on your side, you can do no wrong!

In the history of our terrestrial civilization, there have been lots and lots of refugees. Many are economic, escaping poverty by chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow away from their homeland where it never rains (thus no rainbow). Some are political. Some are for racial / racism reasons. A fair share of all refugees, past and present, are religious refugees, an obvious example being the Pilgrims that migrated to the United States of America before there was such a name as the United States. So the issue of religious freedom, or freedom from having someone else’s religion rammed down your throat, is not trivial.

To be continued…

UFOs: Bits and Pieces: Ancient Astronauts

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO ETH – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena this time the concept of the ancient astronaut, UFOs’ kissing cousin.  

Scholars when they research the polytheistic gods of ancient civilizations and cultures start with the assumption that the gods are imaginary inventions of the fertile human mind and purely mythical beings. I start with the opposite assumption, that is that ancient peoples depicted real (extraterrestrial) beings which to them were so advanced as to be deities - the gods. These ‘ancient astronauts’ have an actual ongoing presence which has filtered down through the present day, achieving now an actual quasi-mythology of its own, not just fictional as in say “Stargate”, but as a basis for serious speculation such as Erich von Daniken’s or even my own minor musings.

Before embarking on my little fairy tale, I note that for such taken-for-granted imaginary beings, the polytheistic gods and their relationships and adventures are spelled out in exquisite detail. I mean this was way before multi-season TV shows and volumes of related paperback novels for mass consumption. I mean we know an awful lot about Captain Kirk and Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter. But were there writers of polytheistic fiction back then who knew perfectly well they were fabricating the lives and times of the gods for consumption by and entertainment for the great unwashed and kept quiet about their literary fictions? Probably not! I don’t think the gods were literary characters invented out of whole cloth. Dare say a non-fictional biography of (fill in the blank - pick a god, any god) would be far more detailed than a similar tome devoted to God or Jesus Christ (J.C.).

The second point from the outset is that IMHO the polytheistic gods aren’t gods but ‘gods’. We think of them as the mythological gods but they weren’t actual gods but real alien beings. Now let’s get on with the tale.

*Once upon a time, a long time ago, a group of boldly going extraterrestrials discovered Planet Earth and took dominion over it, like humans take dominion over national parks and reserves, but starting at a time before humans.

*Now I’ve no idea where they came from except from somewhere out there. Different myths and legends point to different points of origin, all of which could well be the case.

*In the time of humans, sometime later on down the line, these extraterrestrials would become, in the minds of the humans, the ‘gods’. But the so-called ‘gods’ (including ‘God’) were never real supernatural deities, but ‘flesh-and-blood’ extraterrestrials with advanced technology and powers.

*The ‘gods’ reign over their dominion of mankind wasn’t always benign and just.

*They, the extraterrestrials, made their presence felt at the dawn of mankind’s emergence; but hence, because there were so many of them, polytheism became the religious order of the day as far as the various human cultures were concerned. The humans obviously mistook the advanced extraterrestrials for supernatural deities, worshiping what they thought were the ‘gods’, but who in reality were at best pseudo-gods.

*Therefore, the polytheistic pseudo ‘gods’ (or at least some, many or most of them) exist. Later on down the track, what became the monotheistic ‘God’, actually pseudo-God also existed. However, in the beginning, pseudo-God was just one of the pseudo-gods.

*Now I assume here that the ‘gods’ and ‘God’ are all related, but like humans, aren’t always one big happy family. In fact, if there’s any one word that describes the family of the ‘gods’, its “dysfunctional”!

*Even further on down the track, was there was some sort of a falling out between ‘God’ (and His followers) and the other ‘gods’ for control over humanity? If so, ‘God’ and hangers-on win – monotheism comes to the fore.

*However, ‘God’ (assuming His reality) and His minions have a falling out in turn – a house divided against itself. This is where ‘Satan’ and followers tell ‘God’ and followers to take a long walk off a short pier. Ultimately, ‘God’ proves to have ‘the force’ be with Him.

*But, a now much weakened ‘God’ and company are ripe for getting their comeuppance and it was so. They then get overturned and banished by the ‘gods’, which is why there’s no evidence for any Godly presence over the past several millenniums. ‘God’ has left the building! ‘God’ has been tarred and feathered and exiled from Dodge City.

*But are the ‘gods’ still around? There’s been equally and relatively little evidence for them too over the past several millenniums. Still, I propose they’re out there at a distance, patiently observing, ever observing.

*But what happens when humans get advanced enough technologically to begin to, at least in principle, have the potential to challenge the ‘gods’ on their own turf? That is, we humans can begin to toss around a thunderbolt or two of our own.

*Enter the modern UFO era, with the ‘gods’ moving in to keep far closer tabs on us and their dominion, which they’ve probably never relinquished but are worried that it will be taken away from them, even by force. Our thunderbolts are now, or soon will be, bigger and better that their thunderbolts.  

In conclusion, if aliens stumbled upon our humble abode it would likely as not have been millions, maybe billions of years ago. Alas, terrestrial critters around then (trilobites or dinosaurs) couldn’t leave behind any record of their observations! It’s only when humans developed that some sort of record could have been entered into. So, there’s no contradiction with suggesting that ‘ancient astronauts’ are only ancient in human terms since that doesn’t exclude the possibility they were around millions of years before that. One bit of suggestive I find interesting for the credibility of ‘ancient astronauts’ is that ancient cultures from around the globe have myths and legends of ‘sky beings’ – the Australian aborigines; the American Indians; the Mesoamericans – Aztecs, Mayans; the South Americans, the Incas; the Egyptians; the cultures of the Indian subcontinent; and of course the Romans, Greeks and Norse cultures all had tales of ‘sky beings’. I suspect that detailed research would find the presence of ‘sky beings’ universal, or nearly so. A human culture needing to invent imaginary friends from the sky is probably less likely than the reality, or the possible/probable reality of actual ‘sky beings’. [As an aside, maybe trilobites and T-Rex aren’t totally kaput – if ancient astronauts (UFO aliens) were around way back then, doing their abduction thing, then maybe the descendents of these prehistoric life forms are alive and well in some cosmic zoo!]

Mythology: Godly Attributes: Those Extraterrestrial Gods Behaving Badly

Godly Attributes:

*The ‘gods’, including ‘God’, do not serve as good role models. They tend to be rather hyper-emotional.  The ‘gods’ were a rather - well actually extreme - dysfunctional bunch, spending a lot of time fighting for power and dominance and in general just endlessly feuding among themselves. There have been several, even numerous ‘wars in heaven’ between the ‘gods’. These warring factions fight for supreme dominance over Earth and humanity.

*The ‘gods’ also spent a lot of time screwing each other and us humans. The sexual exploits of the ‘gods’ (especially the Greek ‘gods’) would put modern swinging and swingers to shame. The ‘gods’ were really quite a randy lot and not just the male ‘gods’ but a fair few of the fairer sex ‘goddesses’ as well. We’re well acquainted with Eros (Cupid) and Aphrodite (Venus) as to their job descriptions. The Biblical ‘sons of God’ were just as randy. Speaking of God…

The Monotheistic ‘God’ and His Place in the Cosmic Scheme of Things:

*The monotheistic ‘God’ is just one of the polytheistic ‘gods’. ‘God’ is but one of thousands of ‘gods’, albeit one of the higher ranking ones who in fact may have ultimately achieved Top Dog status. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was also one of the many ‘gods’ humanity has recorded in various historical texts.

*For a brief time ‘God’ became supreme ruler, but either abdicated because He was fed up trying to govern the rest of the motley collection of ‘gods’ as well as a rebellious humanity; or ‘God’ was recalled back to home base and stripped on His command for committing Old Testament atrocities on Earth and to earthlings; or was ganged up on by the other ‘gods’ and given His marching orders. Regardless, ‘God’ has left the building.

*Regarding those Old Testament atrocities, should God be tried in absentia for those Biblical crimes and atrocities committed against humanity in say the International Court of Justice or more likely as not the International Criminal Court? It would be no less than He deserves given a track record that puts many of our historical despots to shame. Hitler (as an example) had no monopoly on genocide.

*Now, if God were really not God, but ‘God’, an extraterrestrial, well Starship Heaven and crew might have left the building (Planet Earth) eons ago and sought greener pastures. I mean his Old Testament temper tantrums got him nowhere; we still take his name in vain and curse him “God damn it”; his Ten Commandments are often ignored by the great unwashed; God has lots of competition from other deities, as well as other goods and services that rival his. I mean God can no more compete with prime time reality television and rap music and cell phones and iPods and the Internet’s MySpace and Facebook, than Jesus Christ can compete with consumerism and commercialism on the 25^th of December. No, I think ‘God’ (the extraterrestrial since I don’t believe the supernatural God exists) has voluntarily give humanity the ‘big finger’ and taken his bat and ball and gone home to sulk. Or perhaps ‘God’ has been involuntarily exiled.

*’Captain God’, of the Starship Heaven, was a real Captain Bligh character. ‘God’ suffered His own mutiny, but unlike Bligh, prevailed, casting several officers (i.e. – Satan) and crew out on their ear, perhaps exiled back to their home world. However, as Yogi Berra is fond of saying, ‘it ain’t over till it’s over’ and so Round Two (probably the postulated Armageddon or apocalypse of ‘Revelation’) is or was apparently on the cards. However, that should have already happened (a real life ‘Star Wars’) and the net result was that perhaps the rest of the gods banished this entire lot of troublemakers back to where they came from. Again, regardless, ‘God’ has left the building. Unfortunately, no one bothered to inform the natives.

*One ‘god’, Jesus Christ, Son of God, was ultimately executed by humans. You’d think God, if all powerful, and was so willing, would have intervened and saved His offspring that awful punishment. But then in mythology, the relationships between father and son are often strained. Perhaps the father was a bit uncomfortable with His son who seemed to get more press coverage and overall public relations.

*Well after all God is indeed a jealous God by His own admission via the Ten Commandments so it stands to reason that He’d be miffed that His son has stolen His limelight. However, God laughs last and best because obviously Jesus didn’t get to follow Dad home since he of course met his waterloo nearly 20 centuries ago. Actually our extraterrestrial God wasn’t totally without compassion for His executed son (the straw that broke the camel’s back?), so before departing He no doubt ‘beamed’ His son’s crucified  body aboard His Starship Heaven, and in so doing explain the resurrection and the empty tomb!

*Jesus Christ might have been a representative of a minority of the extraterrestrials, yet a representation that might have resurfaced as those presenting themselves to the 1950’s ‘flying saucer’ contactees. The contactees might have in turn help spawn the 1960’s Hippy or New Age movement.

*Aspects of the polytheistic ‘gods’ do appear in the monotheistic Bible (i.e. Tartarus – part of the Greek polytheistic underworld). In fact there are many references to the 'other gods', 'their gods' and 'the gods' in the Bible, thus confirming their reality. If you believe in the Bible, you've got to acknowledge the existence of the polytheistic 'gods' as well.

Mythology: The Clash of the Deities (Wars in Heaven)

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.

*For the majority of mankind, for the majority of time, polytheism has been the be-all-and-and-all of explaining life, the universe and everything. Lots of phenomena; lots of things to explain; lots of divisions of labour resulting in lots of gods required to explain all.

*Then some bright spark comes along and suggests that all these different roles can be in fact rolled into one. So because one God is easier to come to terms with than dozens of gods, well, make it so, or so be it.

*But, does than shift ultimately mean that one God is better than many gods? Are there in fact other gods and God, or other gods but not God?

*Well, according to all things Biblical, God’s Commandments verify the existence of other gods

*My quick summation goes as follows:

*“I am the Lord your God” [Translated, ‘I’m top dog’.]

*“Do not have any other gods before me” [Translated: ‘that’s because I am top dog’.]

*“You shall not make for yourself an idol [presumably of other gods], whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. [The latter might be the Greek Poseidon, or Roman Neptune, for example.]

*“You shall not bow down to them or worship them [presumably those other gods]; for I the Lord your God [He repeats Himself here] am a jealous God [top dogs tend to be wary and even envious of lesser dogs least they gang up on Him] … punishing … those who reject me”.

*An analogy strikes me as if there were a group of school kids (gods) all playing relatively nicely among themselves, when the school bully (God) enters, chases them away and spoils everything for everybody!

*Or, it’s as if the General (God) is rather miffed – not all that pleased – if the adoring public idolise the Private, the Sergeant, or the Lieutenant – rank has it’s privileges, or at least some rather serious expectations.

*Okay, the Bible, being God’s word and all, verifies God has rivals!

*In fact, doing an online search of the King James Version of the Bible, I find 50 references to “the gods”, 63 verses that contain “other gods”, and lastly another 29 hits on the phrase “their gods”, in all cases the use of the plural.

*Even in Genesis 1:26, we have the sentence “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. Again, note the plural of “us” and “our”.

*By now you know my premise that God and the gods are really extraterrestrials; God being just one of the old polytheistic mob.

*Now ‘God’ and the other ‘gods’ didn’t always see eye-to-eye; in fact various ‘gods’ often were a feuding and a fighting with their comrades (i.e. – the Olympians overthrew the Titans for example in Greek mythology). Turf wars probably! Thus mythology records numerous ‘wars-in-heaven’. 

*For some reason(s),  suspect the ‘gods’ left around the time of the  phase transition from polytheism to monotheism. As an explanation, it logically follows, seeing as how there’s no love lost between ‘God’ and the ‘gods’, that at some point ‘God’ and followers overthrew all the other ‘gods’ and sent them packing. As per above the “Thou shall have no other gods before me for I am a jealous God” tirade! Monotheism now rules.

*The monotheistic clan followed the rest of the ‘gods’ shortly thereafter and thus no God or gods have been heard of again since roughly 2000 years ago. Why did ‘God’ too split the terrestrial scene? Probably ‘God’ left the building because he wasn’t wanted by us ungrateful humans. Despite ‘God’s’ temper tantrums and threats and punishments and atrocities and catastrophes, all an attempt to keep us in line, humans not only gave ‘God’ the Big Finger, refused to obey and worship as directed, but executed His son (J.C.) to add a final insult to injury. ‘God’, quite pissed off, huffed-and-puffed, gave us the Big Finger in return, but unloved and unwanted, turned tail, totally fed up and left. That’s why over the past 2000 years plus, there have been no more burning bushes, no new commandments (or amendments to any of the old), no reports of anyone walking on water, not to mention that the Sun hasn’t stood still for over 2000 years, and it’s been a very long time indeed since anyone has used the belly of a whale (or large fish) as a method of seagoing transportation, etc.

*However, there remains a token presence left behind to monitor humanity, least our thunderbolts begin to equal theirs, or perhaps because parents are always interested in the development of their children – we call the evidence of that presence our modern day UFOs. The polytheistic ‘gods’, now also known by the synonym ‘ancient astronauts’, have now morphed into the aliens or grays or ufonauts.