UFO Religions

Archive for the ‘Aliens as Demons’ Category

Here’s a sample of how many readers are taking Nick’s most recent book. The review has quite a negative tone with respect to Christians. Assuming Nick is accurate in his portrayal of the Collins Elite, this sort of dark attitude (portraying Christians as fascists) would not be unexpected.

I’ll be posting my own review sometime during the first two weeks of November if all goes as planned on the writing front (one dictionary essay and two scholarly conference papers are in front of it).

By the way, the Magonia site is perhaps the web’s deepest reservoir for reviews of UFO / paranormal books.  A good resource.

Technorati Tags: Christians, Collins Elite, Crowley, demons, FInal Events, redfern, review, UFOs

This is a post worth reading (including of course the original source post by Tony Bragalia) if for no other reason than it is illustrative of the “all or nothing” thinking on the alien (by conservative Christians) that I have cautioned about (here is part one of ten on that). Naturally, there’s a good deal of black-and-white thinking on the other side as well.

I hope in reading the full essay you can excuse the typical, mind-numbing tropes about the religious right. Want to know what’s scarier than the religious right? The fascist progressive left that is now in power. Want concrete examples? How about 30+ appointed (and so, un-elected) czars, dispensing with the sunset regulations on the Patriot Act, key pieces of bureaucratic control achieved by cleverly circumventing the Legislative Branch, and a full 60% of the American economy now directly under the authority of the Executive Branch (wasn’t it Congress to whom the Constitution gives the power of the purse?).  Oh, and then there’s the creation of a financial deficit amount larger than the cumulative deficit of the country’s entire history from George Washington to Ronald Reagan. That’s change we can believe in. And net neutrality and cap-and-tax yet to come! Kiss the first amendment on the Internet (and everything else communicated over the web regardless of point of origin) goodbye if that goes through (try reading the proposals, not listening to the talking heads). Yes, the left is so enlightened and beneficent. Bless their pointed little heads.

For a lesson in intellectual history, you should all read The Road to Serfdom and Liberal Fascism. They describe the American future under the Leftist elites. It is the Left that is most palpably opposed to individual freedom. I’d rather have a genuine Jesus-driven politician than a genuine Mao/Che/Chavez-driven politician any day.  Historically speaking (evidence available to anyone with a pulse and who can read), socialist Marxism has caused more human suffering in the history of the world than any other force, hands down.

But read the article to get back on subject.

Technorati Tags: Christianity, ET, extraterrestrials, Mars, religious right, socialism, UFO Religions

Nick Redfern has a new book out that you’ll find interesting (even if the cover art is cheesy).  UFO Mystic blogged about it recently. Nick interviewed me a few years back for the book. I’m eagerly awaiting my gratis copy!

Technorati Tags: aliens, ET, hell, redfern, religion, UFOs

As promised, in this post I’ll be wrapping up my “Understanding the Christian Fundamentalist View of Aliens and UFOs” by addressing Matthew 24:37-38 and Daniel 2:43. My last few posts on that thread have directed readers to my Naked Bible series on why an obsession with eschatology is a waste of time. My purpose there was not to take or deny any position on eschatology — it was to introduce readers to the overwhelming ambiguities that exist with respect to prophetic interpretation, and how everyone’s presuppositions drive their eschatology (i.e., no view is slef evidently “biblical”).  With that skepticism as a backdrop, I move to Matthew 24:37.

My problems with the application of Matthew 24:37-38 to the UFO and “alien” abduction phenomenon transcend the fact that the typical eschatological view espoused by Christian UFO researchers — the notion of a pre-trib rapture — is far from being biblically self evident. “Self evident” is my bone of contention — that is, one should not make such a doctrinal belief core to one’s identity as a Christian. As such, it is equally foolish to marry “the answer” to UFOs and aliens to that particular view of end times.

More specifically, I just don’t see UFOs and aliens in Matthew 24.  I’ll try to explain why.

First, let’s talk about the problems with the alien material brough to Matthew 24. The basic idea is that Gen 6:1-4 tells us that, in the days of Noah, the sons of God (divine beings) were cohabiting with human women, producing nephilim. Christian Fundamentalists (hereafter CF) argue that the alien abduction phenomenon is a modern version of the Genesis 6 events — that is, the fallen (evil) sons of God are now doing the same thing, masquerading as ETs. These ETs are abducting people and, through a variety of medical procedures (or what are disguised as medical procedures) are creating a hybrid (human-alien).

The problems are not hard to spot. (1) the offending “sons of God” in Gen 6 and other versions of the episode in ancient Jewish texts, the NT, and classical sources, are always said to have been punished — specifically, imprisoned until the time of the end. CFs argue that EITHER they must have been released or that more of these fallen angels are around today doing all this. The actual release of these entities is described in Rev 9 (the passage has a number of touchpoints with the sons of God story — CFs want to deny that, and good luck with that — my guess is that many have never considered Rev 9). But Rev 9 comes after Rev 4, which in the pre-trib rapture view = the rapture. Since the rapture hasn’t happened yet (I think we’d know if it had), we have an obvious problem with the fallen sons of God being back to do their dirty work again. That leaves the idea that the fallen angels masquerading as ETs are new ones. There simply is no Scripture to prove that — it is pure speculation and thus an argument from silence. In other words, it’s an idea brought TO the text, not one derived FROM the text.

Another obvious problem is the hybrid.  If the sons of God are fallen angels, they don’t have DNA (they aren’t physical terrestrial beings). So how could we have a literal hybrid? At this point CFs offer some answers that don’t work very well: (1) it is assumed that the flesh in which these new sons of God (remember, the old ones are still imprisoned) has DNA. Another argument from no data. (2) it is also suggested that the fallen angels are simply conducting genetic experiments on people, and so the “hybrid” isn’t really a hybrid — it’s an alteration. Well, that eliminates the need for angel DNA, but what are we left with? You guessed it — no data and silence.

Moving on to Genesis 6 and Matthew 24:37-38 …

1. Does Matt 24:37-38 describe the conditions of the sons of God-human women cohabitation?  The sons of God are never mentioned; their presence is assumed on the basis of the phrase “marrying and giving in marriage.”  In Gen 6, though, there is only the idea that the fallen angelic beings “took” wives for themselves.  Since this wording is used in other instances in the OT for simply getting married (Gen 11:29; 25:1; Exod 2:1; Ruth 4:13; etc.), there is no inherent sinister feel to it. But how does that fit with alien abduction, reports of which describe involuntary physical violation?  There are separate Hebrew words for rape (women are described as “humbled” in these contexts – see Lam 5:11; Gen 34:2; Deut 22:24, 29; 2 Sam 13:14). This vocabulary is not in Genesis 6. My point here is that a real parallel for today back to Genesis 6 would be aliens showing up and getting married to human women, not the trauma described with alleged alien abduction.

2. Can we be sure that what is described in Genesis 6:1-4 was actually happening in Noah’s day?  This may sound like an odd question, but it is relevant. The answer is no. Consider the wording of Genesis 6:1 – “When men began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them…”  When did humanity begin to multiply? In Noah’s day?  No. Genesis 5 tells us humanity began to multiply centuries before Noah’s day.  The book of 1 Enoch tells us the sons of God committed their violation in the days of Yared (see Gen 5:18), centuries before Noah. In fact, if we go with Enoch, the fallen sons of God were imprisoned in the days of ENOCH (he is the one that God sends to them in their prison to announce their doom).  That means these fallen sons of God were in prison before Noah was born. That means the sins of the fallen sons of God has nothing to do with the days of Noah.  in 1 Enoch, the flood is not about the sons of God (they are in prison); it is about their offspring, the giants — the flood helps cleanse the earth of them.  The wording of Genesis 6 could be consistent with this, but it isn’t as precise.  Hence there is ambiguity.

3. In Genesis neither the giants (nephilim) nor the sons of God are mentioned as the reason for the flood. Rather, it is human sin that is to blame (Gen 6:5). If one interprets “marrying and giving in marriage — coupled with “eating and drinking” in Matt 24:37-38 — as merely living in a godless manner, THAT would make sense of Matthew’s wording. Matthew cannot be referring to the sin of the fallen angels in vv. 37-38 since the point of those verses and what follows is judgment on HUMAN sin. But even if we assume the cohabitation continued into Noah’s day, humans are not specifically blamed for the divine-human cohabitation in Genesis 6. I would suggest that the fallen angels aren’t in view in Matt 24 (where are they?) – and they logically wouldn’t be given what I described in number 2 above.

4. Some CFs argue that the “signs in the sky” described in Matthew and other passages about the second coming speak to UFOs. There is simply no description of any CRAFT in those passages.  The signs spoken of are consistently astronomical / celestial phenomena, not alien craft.

In short, I don’t see any way to securely connect Matthew 24 to the FALLEN ANGELS of Genesis 6, and what is described in Genesis 6 lacks the violence of the abduction phenomenon. I think both are needed for the CF view to have any merit.

What about Daniel 2:43?  The phrase in question is that “they” will “mingle their seed” with the “seed of men.”  It is assumed that “they” in the verse are aliens (non-human) since “they” mingle with humans (“seed of men”).

There is a huge problem with this idea.  “They” in Daniel 2:43 are members of the fourth kingdom. It is in the days of this fourth kingdom that the kingdom of God would begin (2:44). We know from the NT that the kingdom of God began at Jesus’ first coming — during the days of the Romans. All rapture positions that I know of agree that the fourth kingdom is Rome.  So, unless we are willing to argue that the Romans were aliens, I don’t see how Dan 2:43 has anything to do with UFOs and aliens. Of course, the “answer” will be that at the end times we will see a “revived ROman Empire” and that is what Daniel is referring to. No, it isn’t. The key here is when did the kingdom of God begin. Paul assumes all believers are already in the kingdom (Col. 1:13) and Jesus preached that the kingdom of God was among his hearers (Luke 9:60; Luke 10:11 – and it was – JESUS was in their midst). Jesus also said very bluntly that the kingdom was here (Luke 11:20). Now, this doesn’t mean there is no future kingdom that will come, but it DOES mean that the prophecy of Daniel 2:43-44 did come to pass – the eternal kingdom began in the days of the Romans, and they weren’t aliens.

Technorati Tags: aliens, Matthew 24:37, noah, UFOs

In the last post, we moved into the fourth element to a Christian fundamentalist view of UFOs and aliens (i.e., that UFOs that are not man-made or other natural phenomena are demonic and alleged alien life forms are demonic). The four elements are:

1. Abductee testimony of the forcible trauma of their experience.

2. The similarity of abductee testimony to early Christian (and otherwise) reports of demonization.

3. The similarity of abductee testimony to the events described in Genesis 6:1-4 (and other ancient Jewish texts).

4. A belief that the events of Genesis 6 (and so, an alien presence) is a specific touchpoint in New Testament teaching about the Second Coming (or, for many, the notion of a rapture — which is not the same as what is broadly thought of as the Second Coming).

We started into number 4, which gets into end times (“eschatology”) by providing some links to a few short readings that overviewed eschatological terms like “millennium” and “rapture.” I included this thought in that discussion:

I think it’s fair to say (my own experience here) that most Christians who are involved in ufology are literal millennialists and hold to the pre-trib rapture view. I’m sure there are exceptions, but the vast majority I know fall into those categories.

That brings us up to speed. Basically, most “Christian fundamentalists” are pretribulation and premillennial in their eschatology. Here’s a nice visual to illustrate that view (from the ESV study bible website):

I sort of lamented where to start in my analysis of all this in the last post (“where do I even begin?”). The reason is because (as some of you know) I don’t like any of the eschatological systems in Christian theology. They all have strengths and weaknesses, and some glaring weakness at that. Many pre-trib, pre-millers talk like their view is self evident, as though anyone who just reads the Bible at face value will come away with this view. That just isn’t true. Having taught all this sort of stuff for fifteen years, I know it isn’t true. There are real problems with this view (and all the others, as I noted). At the risking of over-generalizing (and the patience of the reader), the reasons why you should be *very* cautious about embracing the teachings of any self-assured prophecy teacher are twofold:

(1) All eschatological views derive from a set of presuppositions brought *to* biblical prophetic texts. This is inevitable because the interpreter must make decisions about the meaning or trajectory of certain Old Testament ideas before he/she ever gets to the New Testament, and because there are also decisions to be made about how the relationship between the Old and New Testaments “work.”

(2) 99% (and I don’t make that as an exaggeration) of all prophecy “experts” in popular evangelicals are doing their work in the English Bible.  That means they have little or no appreciation for:

A. How an interpretation can turn on a manuscript reading;

B. The fact that a grammatical point in a key verse can legitimately be nuanced in several ways;

C. That the New Testament writer is often *not* quoting the Hebrew text of the Old Testament when quoting the Old Testament — the text is often the Greek Septuagint, or (frankly) something the author is quoting from memory;

D. That prophecy is *not* always fulfilled “literally” [i.e., the ideas in the Old Testament have one-to-one correspondences in fulfillment in the New Testament]. If we look carefully (in the Hebrew and Greek texts, not the English), we notice that prophetic fulfillments are declared by New Testament on the basis of analogy, or typology, or echoes and cycles of partial fulfillment.

What does this mean for UFO religions and the Christian fundamentalist view of UFOs and aliens?  In a nutshell, it means that connecting ETs and UFOs with things like the rapture is a very tenuous thing at best. If this view fails biblically, then a lot of what is tied to it would also be incorrect.

How to help readers realize the uncertain nature of this prophetic viewpoint is the problem. I don’t want to turn this into a theology blog (I have one of those). I’ve actually been blogging through the problems with eschatology over on The Naked Bible, but I don’t want to direct you there just yet. Let’s start more simply. Here is a post that’s a bit old that overviews the presuppositional problems / issues I alluded to above in #1. I’ll give readers a chance to digest that before guiding you through more detailed posts on presuppositions in end times viewpoints.

Technorati Tags: aliens, Christianity, end times, eschatology, fundemantalists, millennium, rapture, UFOs