The Ancient Alien’s Bible: Part Two

Since the idea of supernatural deities is nonsense IMHO, perhaps there’s another explanation behind the more likely as not reality molehill hidden inside the traditional religious mythological mountain. That explanation could revolve around an extraterrestrial flesh-and-blood alternative.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

WHERE’S WHERE

Heaven: The name of God’s spaceship, or starship if you prefer.

Hell: The brig, located off-ship, probably on Earth, where one could be exiled to if need be.

Eastern Mediterranean (Israel; Land of Canaan; the Levant; Near East; Palestine): That part of terrestrial geography assigned to the officers and crew of the Spaceship Heaven as their area of responsibility. Contrast that with Zeus and company assigned the Middle Mediterranean; Odin and company responsible for the Norse lands; and the Great Spirit who looks after the North Amerindians; and so on.

Garden of Eden: Paradise was actually a terrestrial R&R spot for officers and crew of the Spaceship Heaven. God first had to expel human trespassers after they learned or overheard too much extraterrestrial knowledge forbidden to terrestrial ears. Later on however God gave Adam an interstellar ride in his Spaceship Heaven.

Towel of Babel: To disperse in quick-smart fashion the local population to the four corners of the globe, or even within the region, would have required considerable transport infrastructure.

Sodom & Gomorrah: The twin cities were destroyed via fire and brimstone from above, leaving no trace whatever after-the-fact. The obviously high tech weaponry might have been incendiary bombs or even nuclear weapons, but it certainly wasn’t any sort of destructive weapons technology common to that era.

WHAT’S WHAT

Miracles: High technology in action. As the late Arthur C. Clarke tended to put it, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, at least to those not technologically savvy. Among the high tech examples are the medical ones – healing the seriously sick and handicapped; resurrecting the very recently deceased; enabling very elderly women – over the hill and off the pill – to become fertile and bear offspring.

Food: Speaking of high tech miracles, what does one make of manna from heaven; loaves and fishes that multiply; wine from water? This almost makes you think of the food replication device used in Star Trek.

Noah’s Flood: A whole textbook could be written about the impossibilities of the Biblical tale of the flood and Noah’s Ark. The amount of water required can’t be produced. The boat isn’t near large enough to house and feed every species that would need to be given shelter. The crew isn’t sufficient to look after their charges. But, with just a bit of high tech tweaking, what if the Ark wasn’t for an actual universal disaster but a potential one, a real possibility given those high tech star wars, or wars between the various factions of deities (think of the ten year battle between the Titans and the Olympians; or what must have raged between God and Satan or will rage as per the forecast of Revelation; or the battle between the Frost Giants and the Norse deities; or all those aerial wars depicted in those ancient Hindu texts). Now instead of having entire forest worth of plants and all those animals requiring food and waste disposal, on board, substitute a botanical seed bank and a zoological equivalent, a repository of frozen eggs and sperm or embryos or genetic materials, etc. No need for food; no waste products; not much maintenance (crew time) required, and easily room for everything in the space allowed for the Ark in the Book of Genesis. The issue of course is that all of this is high tech way beyond the capabilities of the great unwashed of that era, the locals or natives. 

Burning Bush: This is an example of extraterrestrial hologram technology in action, employed to awe the local primitives, in this case Moses.

The Ark of the Covenant: Apparently a high and rather dangerous technological device, purpose not really well explained, but obviously more than just a storage box for a couple of stone tablets.

Clouds; Pillars of Fire; Flying Rolls; Star of Bethlehem; Aerial Chariots; Whirlwinds; Ezekiel’s Wheel, etc.: A UFO by any other name is still a UFO, and in most of these depictions, the object, say a ‘cloud’, is an actual vehicle that carries a passenger, more likely as not a Spaceship Heaven shuttlecraft. 

Germ Warfare & Biological Weapons: There are numerous examples in Biblical texts where high tech biological weapons were used against populations (i.e. – the Egyptians, even God’s Chosen People) and individuals like Job.

Transfiguration: Jesus led three of his followers up a mountain, and behold his face had a rather disquieting and unnatural glow about it (much like Moses after his CE3K). In fact Jesus, and/or his clothing, shone with some sort of bioluminescence. To add to this anomaly, Jesus had with him both Moses (long since considered the late Moses who had once been abducted) and Elias (otherwise known as Elijah, the abducted). Further a ‘cloud’ that hovered over this gathering ‘spoke’ to them, one and all, with words that implied that this was God himself doing the speaking. Then the ‘cloud’ vanished like a bat out of hell. Wow! There is surely something strange afoot going on here. By the way, in common with a lot of other Biblical tales, this is repeated several times, in the Books of Matthew, Mark and Luke. In fact, I’d suggest that if you eliminated all of the duplications, the Bible would be 10% thinner!

The Ascension: Jesus departs Planet Earth to take up his new job as First Officer on the Spaceship Heaven, sitting at the right hand of her captain.

Hologram Technology: A very useful ways and means of inspiring awe in the great unwashed. Examples that spring to mind include the ‘burning bush’ and Jesus ‘walking on the water’ and appearing in the ‘flesh’ post execution.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

There have been no verified and documented sightings of the main Biblical players (God, Satan, Jesus, angels, etc.) in way over 2000 years. Where are they? I suspect they have gone away. I further suspect God and crew were recalled to home base to stand trial for crimes against humanity, though many, like Jesus, were exonerated, having played no part or role at Sodom & Gomorrah or in the use of biological weapons and waging germ warfare. Satan and his fallen angels were recalled too, probably picked up from exile, to give account for their original mutiny. Perhaps as we read this Captain Jesus of the Spaceship Heaven (or some other interstellar vessel) is boldly going and finding new Garden of Eden locales to R&R in throughout the cosmos.  

CONCLUSION

It is clear that not everything in the Bible can be easily interpreted in an extraterrestrial context, probably because much of the text’s content tends to be rather mundane soap opera of a humans-only nature. That aside, after you take into consideration all the versions, all the translations and associated issues with that, translation and copying errors (deliberate and accidental), embellishments, artistic license, human imagination needed to fill in the gaps, plus the multiple authorship of all the Biblical texts itself, not to forget that the texts weren’t written down till decades, even many generations after-the-fact (it’s like nobody recorded and wrote down today’s news until the year 2112 – many an error would be made), I conclude that the Bible can largely be interpreted not in a supernatural way but rather an extraterrestrial one.

Unfortunately, if I am right, then all your theological baggage of an eternal life everlasting goes right down the drain – maybe not a bad thing if you thought you were Hell-bound, or even if Heaven-bound as the concept of eternal life is actually hellish as you would rather quickly be bored out of your afterlife skull, and you still have infinity yet to come.

The Ancient Alien’s Bible: Part One

Erich Von Daniken asked the question “was God as astronaut?” Traditional Christians, Muslims, and those of the Jewish faiths of course answer “No”, God was (and is) a supernatural deity. Those more inclined to be free thinkers pondering realities outside of the religious box, answer anywhere from “Maybe” to “Yes”. If the latter, how might Biblical characters, places and events be interpreted in an ‘ancient astronaut’ context. Who’s who, Where’s where and what’s what?

All interpretations are based on the text of the King James Version of all things Biblical.

WHO’S WHO

God: OIC and captain of the Spaceship Heaven. His real alien name is of course Yahweh, or in the vowelless version YHWH, but I’ll just shorten that to God, a name that all and sundry recognise.

Satan: God’s original First Officer and second in command of the Spaceship Heaven, later exiled to Hell, or at least to Earth, for mutiny. 

Fallen Angels: Fallen Angels are those officers and crew who were in cahoots with Satan in the unsuccessful mutiny against Captain God and who were court-martialed and stripped of their status and rank and exiled to Hell on Earth. 

The Seraphim: Because the Seraphim have six wings, they are probably a separate extraterrestrial race aligned with the alien race of beings to which God and company belong. [Well Star Trek exhibited a multi-species crew from the start.] One such alien was apparently someone called Metatron, an angel who acted as the ‘voice of God’, a scribe, and is the tallest and greatest of the lot. ‘He’s’ sort of the chief cook and bottle washer on the Spaceship Heaven.

The Cherubim (singular is cherub): The extraterrestrial Cherubim might be related to the Seraphim in that they are enormous four-winged beings. The definitive book in the Bible on cherubim is the Book of Ezekiel, mainly the first and tenth chapter.

Governor or Watcher Angels: These are your typically obedient angels who just sort of watch over humanity in general, a sort of extraterrestrial Peeping Tom some of who had an eye for the Daughters of Men.   

Archangels: Senior officers of Spaceship Heaven. Those messenger and battle ready angels. The best known of the lot were the archangels who are very high-ranking angels indeed, starting with Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, but followed by Uriel, Simiel, Orifiel and Zachariel.

Angels: Ordinary crewmembers of the Spaceship Heaven, forever running errands for the senior officers.

Sons of God: Apparently hand chosen senior crew members, perhaps literally biological offspring of Captain God. The Sons of God were apparently some or all of the Governor or Watcher Angels.

Daughters of Men: Human females.

Nephilim: The offspring of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men. They were apparently the ‘giants’ referred to ‘in the Earth’, though exactly how giant was giant isn’t spelled out.

Jesus: Another offspring of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men, albeit much farther on down the historical track, or perhaps the offspring between God himself and the Daughters of Men (well one anyway). Jesus would later rise (from the ‘dead’) to become First Officer on board Spaceship Heaven. That Jesus is an extraterrestrial is admitted by himself in John 8:23. Of note here is that Jesus probably used holographic technology to give an appearance of walking on water and/or appearing alive and in the ‘flesh’ post execution – which he survived, another sign of high technology in operation. 

Baal: God’s prime extraterrestrial rival for power and authority in the region, though there’s never any direct and open physical conflict twixt the two.

Moses: Just one of several abductees noted and logged in Biblical texts. He was abducted by a ‘cloud’ and carried on up the mountain for a close encounter with a supreme alien lawmaker. Upon his return his face had an unnatural glow about it which caused those waiting his return to be afraid of him.

Jacob: Witnessed (or dreamed about) angels ascending and descending to and from Spaceship Heaven.

Ezekiel: A human who had a close encounter of the third kind (those Cherubim) plus an associated abduction event.

Jonah: Spent three days and nights in isolation inside a technological craft.

Joshua: 1) Was in possession of high technology sonic weaponry at Jericho. 2) He later witnessed several UFOs that stood still in the sky providing illumination for his army.

Enoch and Elijah: These two human males are the only two whose ultimate fate (death) we don’t know anything about. Both humans apparently joined the Spaceship Heaven at the behest of her captain never to be seen again, albeit Elijah was spotted with Jesus by three of his disciples (see Transfiguration).

Old Age Pensioners: Methuselah, Noah, Adam as well as others, apparently lived to really, really ripe old ages, way, way, way beyond the standard three score and ten. The explanation: these were humans invited by the officers and crew of Spaceship Heaven to take a relativistic interstellar journey at velocities at a considerable fraction of the speed of light. They aged normally on board, but because of the time dilation effect, time passed more rapidly back on Earth, or more slowly on the spaceship (same difference), such that they returned home hundreds of terrestrial year’s later – Earth time - thus the false appearance that they were hundreds of years old at journey’s end but didn’t look a day over thirty because they really weren’t a day over thirty! It’s referred to as the Twin Paradox of Special Relativity, though it’s not really a paradox at all, just the logical conclusion of the equations of Special Relativity which have been verified by observation and experiment, at least on the micro scale.

Matthew, Mark, Luke & John: A quartet of roving reporters who independently investigated what was to them relatively recent history – just several generations had passed – each in his own way. The topic of their investigation was an alleged historical figure, a figure that seemed to have gained some degree of uniqueness, notoriety and prominence as a possible deity and the quartet wrote up their short biographies accordingly. 

To be continued…

My Top Religious Anomalies: A List

All of religion is anomalous, but some bits are more anomalous than others. Here are some of those bits.

GOD: This isn’t really an anomaly due to any conflict between theory and observation. There is very little of either. The anomaly here is why anyone in their right mind would believe in such a supernatural deity. The gap between observational evidence and theoretical faith is so vast that it staggers the mind – at least it boggles my mind, all the more so since the only real description of God’s bona-fides, the human penned Old Testament, exhibits Him not as a just, loving, forgiving, merciful and compassionate deity but an all-round SOB that makes Hitler look downright cuddly.

CREATION, THE CONCEPT OF: One of the biggest mysteries to me is why anyone in their stark raving right mind would assume anything and everything had been created from scratch, as in Genesis for example. You cannot make that assumption from first principles based on personal observations and human history. Knowledge that there were in fact creations therefore must be based on information passed down from those with way more insight or knowledge than you could possess. Who passed that information on down the line?

HEAVEN & HELL: If they exist, heaven and hell have to be physical places with some sort of celestial and terrestrial coordinates respectively. Despite all these millennia that have flowed under the bridge since Methuselah was in diapers, nobody has sighted heaven up there or pinpointed where hell is located down here.

BIBLICAL OLD AGE: Though Methuselah is the best known, there are a whole pot-full of Old Testament males-only who reach ripe old age way, way, way in excess of three score and ten. The anomaly here is that even with the best of diets, exercise regimes, health and medical care, and outstanding personal habits (sound sleep, no drugs, no alcohol, no smoking, etc.) no human alive today can come within a bulls roar of the longevity achieved by Methuselah, Adam, Noah, and a host of others. The anomaly is easily resolved in this case – the Bible is full of it; “it” being rather messy and smelly.

NOAH’S FLOOD: A whole textbook could be written about the impossibilities, not just the anomalies, of the Biblical tale of the flood and Noah’s Ark. The amount of water required can’t be produced. The boat isn’t near large enough to house and feed every species that would need to be given shelter. The crew isn’t sufficient to look after their charges. That doesn’t seem to discourage those from spending vast sums of money not to mention time and energy boldly gong where others have gone before and like those who went before, returning empty-handed!

EXODUS, BOOK OF: There are multi-dozens of anomalies, things that just can’t be, reported in the Bible. Of all of these, the most anomalous is the Book of Exodus, because some of the events recorded there can be checked against another independent historical source. If the history in the Book of Exodus is found wanting, and it is, then if one holy book goes down the gurgler, then all the rest of the books are suspect too.

The anomaly here is that the Book of Exodus features the land and peoples of ancient Egypt fairly prominently. A couple of key Biblical characters play leading roles there – Moses and Joseph – not to mention thousands of alleged Hebrew slaves. Nasty things happen to that land and those peoples like the ten plagues and the drowning of pharaoh’s army. The anomaly here is that you’d expect ancient Egyptian records to verify and collaborate and substantiate the Book of Exodus, but you don’t find anything of the sort. It’s as if the Biblical version took place in a parallel universe – or in the imagination of the all too human author.

BIBLICAL MIRACLES: Then there’s this Biblical bit about Joshua commanding the sun to stand still (at least that’s the way I recall it). That’s a tall tale or myth but whatever, it can’t be a physical reality. But wait, there’s more! There’s Jonah and the whale; Eve’s creation from a rib; walking on the waters; the walls of Jericho tumbling down at the sound of no doubt out of tune trumpets or rams horns. In the Bible we have this tale of the multiplying of loaves and fishes out of virtually nothing.

Miracles are part and parcel of any and all supernaturally based religions. Miracles of the supernatural kind (and that’s the only kind of miracle that counts here) violate one or more laws, principles or relationships established by science. There can be no such thing as a supernatural miracle in theory. However, there have been numerous reports of supernatural miracles.

Reported events cannot violate the natural state of things. If they do violate that natural state of things, then they must be supernatural. There’s no known theory that can accommodate supernatural events. That’s part of the conflict between science and religion. The conflict is an anomaly.  

THE AFTERLIFE: A concept that closest to the hearts and minds of nearly all humans and human cultures past and present is what happens to us after we kick the bucket. The answer is we transcend into another life – an afterlife. Every culture, past and present, has an afterlife concept, a life after death concept, or some sort of an eternity or immortality worldview. However, the concept of eternal life is actually hellish as you would rather quickly be bored out of your afterlife skull, and you still have infinity yet to come.

Not all of the versions of the theoretical afterlife can be correct however. Idealistic theoretical expectations that when you die you won’t stay dead, versus practical reality that observations show that dead things stay dead, are indeed conflicting, therefore anomalous. However, nobody has ever come back from the dead to prove the reality of an afterlife to the satisfaction of any unbiased referee.