My philosophy tends to be that behind every mountain of mythology lies a molehill of reality. It’s just a matter of trying to figure out what that hidden needle-in-a-haystack reality might be without access to the actual needle. Take the case of angels. I think a better reality would have them as angelic extraterrestrials relative to the mythological ‘winged’ entities that really aren’t represented as such (winged, that is) in the Bible and similar texts.
It’s been recently reported in, the “Huffington Post” on the 23rd of December 2011, for example, that nearly eight out of ten Americans believe in the reality of, the actual physical 3-D existence of Biblical angels (no doubt winged and all – the traditional image). Presumably that polling result would also apply to similar monotheistic countries like those in the United Kingdom , New Zealand , Australia , Canada and much of Europe (as well as other locations).
To be perfectly honest, in the here and now, there’s equal rational, based on images, texts and traditions, to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and even “The (Curse of the) Mummy”. But I digress, so anyway, back to belief in angels.
Now belief doesn’t of necessity make it so, but it does require some logical explanation(s).
Well, the obvious visibility of angelic beings isn’t one of those logical explanations. They might exist in the here and now, but reported sightings recorded in the press or in police records, photographs and films, interviews with them on chat shows, add up to one big bugger all zilch.
You’d think that maybe the religious higher ups, those with real influence with the Big Man upstairs, could arrange for an actual angel to give a sermon or a guest lecture at a theological course. Well, maybe angels are just really shy.
A more likely explanation is their presumed reality; images of what was but no longer is, has been passed down from generation to generation, orally and in texts, from parents to children, lecturers to students, religious officials to their sheep, oops, sorry, their flocks or congregations
After a hundred generations of this angel reality regurgitation, everything is in a right royal muddle, but you believe because you put your trust in high authority who believes, just as those higher authorities who you trust, in turn trusted in the beliefs of the generation of high authority figures before them.
Maybe the traditional image of angels is wrong. Maybe they are here but it’s the image that’s all wrong and so even if you do see and maybe film one you’re none the wiser; you haven’t a clue.
If you see angels depicted by actors in the movies or on TV shows or in staged productions, in kiddie plays, as little girls (especially) dressing up as make-believe angels, in manger scenes, on Xmas cards, in religious artworks, images in books or on angel-themed calendars, well what do you see?
Well, angels are white – Caucasians only need apply for the part, and even though that’s not really politically correct anymore, we’ll let that observation slide. Also angels are male, though I gather they are really asexual, androgynous or transgender beings. But the really big giveaway is of course they have WINGS!
Now if someone tells you about their guardian angel that flutters over them with their large wings, you know they have been smoking (or drinking) the good stuff or adding magic mushrooms to their Irish stew, chicken pot pie, or pizza. Why? Because traditional Biblical angels do not have wings! Oops! And another one bites the dust!
On what authority you may ask do I rely on such that I can make such a blasphemous statement. Well, I cannot find any association between angels and wings in the Bible, at least the King James Version, presumably the authority on the matter of what traditional angels look like.
You have in the Bible flying (winged) serpents and flying eagles and flying creeping things and flying birds and flying fowl but no flying angels. That’s despite the thousands, indeed tens of thousands of images in Biblical illustrations, paintings, stained glass windows, Xmas cards, films – you name the visual; the angels will more than likely as not have wings. Wrong!
In the Bible we have angels ascending and descending; they come and they go; they carry things. But we do not have Biblical angels described with wings. My online search brought up 70 references to variations on the word “wing#” in the King James Version of the Bible. There were 283 hits on variations to “angel#”. There were zero, zip, zilch matches for angel# AND wing#. The holy angels in the Bible, where they appear, are always described as men (or transgender beings) without wings. Only cherubim have wings in the Bible, but cherubim are not called angels in the Bible. I’ll have more to say about cherubim later on.
So angels with wings are a human invention, which might have been a logical assumption 2000 years ago. Why? Because angels were messengers – postmen – between the Big Boss upstairs and the common folk downstairs – we humans that is. Angels are forever ascending and descending. How else do you go from upstairs to downstairs and upstairs again without a staircase or ladder? You have to fly of course and for that you must have wings, sort of like that father and son duo from Greek mythology, Daedalus and Icarus (the concept of Superman not being yet in vogue). It’s obvious since there is no ladder, no going up the down staircase or down the up staircase or even using that imaginary escalator to the sky (another concept unknown back then).
So how do angels get to and from Heaven, ascending, descending, through the atmosphere, often carrying things as well as messages, if not by flapping wings, an obvious logical assumption made by the ancients but totally unsupported or disproved by reading the texts of the Bible?
Okay, how would angels without wings go from upstairs to downstairs and back again today. Well, there’s always the “Beam me down, Scotty” approach – then again, perhaps not. The physics required by the standard Star Trek shortcut of getting from Point A to Point B in quick-smart fashion are a bit on the highly improbable side for all sorts of technical reasons not required viewing in this context. What about a vehicle; say a hotrod custom-made no expense spared version of the Space Shuttle or Star Trek shuttlecraft? That would work!
And so what if angels are really real, reaffirming the nearly eight out of ten of the public’s belief in that regard, but extraterrestrial? That too would work and no need of wings. Of course that would mean the Big Boss upstairs is also an ET, but then a flesh-and-blood ET is far more plausible to the more rational of the faithful than a supernatural deity. There’s no first principle extrapolation or chain of logic that generates supernatural transcending-the-physical-law deities, but not so when it comes to ET, who can’t transcend the laws, principles and relationships of universal cosmic physics. And by the way, as far as ET is concerned, if you stop to think about it, we, the common folk, human beings, are an ET to them. If that possibility does or just doesn’t sit well, well any similarity between what you might want to believe and what actually is might all be purely a matter of coincidence.
So if angels are ET that explains why they don’t mirror our racial diversity and why they appear as transvestite weirdoes, because from our point of view they are androgynous or asexual. That might ring a responsive chord – the modern day UFO ‘Grays’ also appear to be asexual in appearance.
Now we have to admit that angels are ‘sky beings’. They are associated with ‘up there’ somewhere or ‘out there’ somewhere. That’s where they live, work and presumably play and relax and maybe watch some terrestrial television. They probably love the antics and plot developments in the TV show “Supernatural” starting with Season Four onwards featuring one of their own, the fictional character, Angel Castiel.
To be continued…
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