Clash of the Gods, or Perhaps Here Be Aliens! Part Two

Has Planet Earth been home to thousands of gods, or just one God, or both, or neither? If neither, then our over fertile active imaginations have run riot populating the four corners of the globe with fictitious characters. Perhaps the gods and/or God exist, but not in any sort of theistic sense. Enter ET, stage left!

Throughout human history humans have populated their world with thousands of gods (like Zeus), goddesses (like Hera – Mrs. Zeus) and demigods (like Hercules, son of Zeus, but not of Hera), along with many associated assortment of beasties, often half-human, half-something else (usually animal), or else humanoid with associated ‘defects’ like the one-eyed Cyclops or the Medusa. Add to that zoo, our monotheistic God and associated hangers-on, like angels, etc. What are we to make of this menagerie? 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Postulate Three: Some or all of these beings exist but do not reside in the realm of the supernatural. Perhaps they are terrestrial flesh-and-blood natives! But if they are terrestrial flesh-and-blood life forms, they are extinct now, which is, as far as we’re practically concerned, the same as their non-existence in the first place. There’s no fossil evidence for any of the assumed mythological beasties (like the Minotaur – half bull; or satyrs – half goat; or centaurs – half horse; or a sphinx – half lion), or tombs or gravesites for the gods, goddesses or demigods with actual bodies in them. That might not be surprising seeing as how they (gods and goddesses and demigods) are supposed to be immortal.

Postulate Four: Some or all of these beings exist but likewise do not belong to the realm of the supernatural. Since they aren’t terrestrial, they must be extraterrestrial.

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 or even benign.

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.

Taking another approach, 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 as noted earlier, though that doesn’t mean they can’t be bumped off. They’re immortal, but not invincible or invulnerable. To a human, especially humans living thousands of years ago, immortality 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 ET from there (wherever there is – somewhere out there among the stars) to here (Planet Earth).

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 ET. 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 but yet odd. 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. 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 stellar planetary systems.*

Last, but hardly least, is, as noted above, one of the interactions between the gods and humans is sex – by trickery, by force, by any means fair or foul, often with disastrous consequences – as demigod Hercules, or Medusa could testify to. In modern UFO lore, sex or sex-related themes, albeit of the more impersonal kind, is a common theme in abduction cases. Whether or not there’s any connect I don’t know, but it’s an interesting ‘virgin’ area for further research. 

Conclusions: All the gods and God and all their associated supernatural baggage are total inventions of our fertile imaginations, OR, some or all of those gods (probably including God) are actual flesh-and-blood extraterrestrial entities. The middle ground, belief in the supernatural, gods and/or God with actual magical powers, is not really a credible option, IMHO.

*Sagan, Carl & Shklovskii, I.S.; Intelligent Life in the Universe; Holden-Day, San Francisco; 1966; p.455-462.