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.
Continued from yesterday’s blog…
Unresolved Questions:
*One ultra-super-major question arises – if we can’t crossbreed with even our closest living terrestrial evolutionary relations, and I know of no even short-term viable union between human and other primate gametes (i.e. – there are no gorilla-human or chimpanzee hybrids in even just the earliest of embryo stages) then how can we breed with the ‘gods’? We’re terrestrial; they’re extraterrestrial – a goldfish should have a higher probability of successful mating with a petunia since their both terrestrial species. Well, I can only conclude that the ‘gods’, in their artificial selection program to create humans for their own purposes (including sexual) had the ability in advanced genetic engineering techniques to make successful mating viable. Clearly from their point of view, human-‘god’ offspring would result in better overall stock than just human-human breeding. The potential proof of that pudding is that modern humans went from hunter-gathering on Earth to hunter-gathering on the Moon, not in millions of years or hundreds of thousands of years, but in less than ten thousand years. No other species on this planet has accomplished so much so fast. That’s in view of the fact that overall there’s apparently no real natural evolutionary pressure towards higher intelligence. Will a smarter cat catch more mice, or will a faster cat and/or one with sharper vision and better reflexes catch more mice?
*One interesting question is that are all the motley collection of ‘gods’ (including ‘God’) and associated ‘pets’ and the ‘half-and- halves’ all one genetically-related race (like all terrestrial life-forms are), or many? If one takes concepts like “Star Trek”, “Star Wars”, “Stargate”, etc. at face value, the galaxy is teeming with many races many at similar technological levels. Given the diversity already mentioned I’m inclined to go with the ‘gods’ (including ‘God’) representing more of a (in “Star Trek” terms) a Federation.
*This Federation of extraterrestrials is further postulated by yet another range of apparently mythological beings – the wee folk, or in general the fairy folk. Tales of elves, fairies, leprechauns, sprites, etc. are also quite commonplace throughout the world’s culture. Were it not for the UFO greys, I might dismiss them, but modern UFO occupants show a diversity akin to that of ‘ancient astronauts’ (the ‘gods’ and ‘God’ and ‘pets”) and presumed ‘ancient astronauts’ – the wee fairy folk.
*Another question needs to be asked, could the polytheistic ‘gods’ and ‘ancient astronauts’ be two entirely different things? IMHO, the answer is “no”. If you remove the polytheistic ‘gods’ as being part and parcel of any ‘ancient astronaut’ consideration, and that’s including God from the ancient astronaut equation, then there’s no remaining suggestive evidence for ‘ancient astronauts’.
*Yet another reasonable question is that is the ‘ancient astronaut’ gods (including God) mythology one general overall story with many differing cultural variations in the telling, or are there many actual differing tales unique to differing cultures? That distinction probably remains to be worked out in detail yet; it’s probably a bit of both. Overall, because there are so many common (creation, paradise, sky being, etc.) themes between cultures, I’m inclined to endorse the former. However, many individual cultures probably have some myth or two or twenty that’s pretty much exclusive to them.
*Translated, with respect to similarities vs. differences, can one reasonably suggest that An or Enlil (Mesopotamia) = Zeus (Greek) = God (Christianity) = Jupiter (Roman) = Indra or Brahma (India) = Odin (Norse) = Fuxi (Chinese) = Quetzalcoatl (Aztec) = Viracocha (Inca), and so on and so on down the line, or are they all different ‘gods’ ruling different kingdoms? The same applies to ‘lesser’ gods – does Eros = Cupid or are they two separate beings? Is Ares (Greek) the same person as Mars (Roman)?
Rival Ideas:
*Highest Probability: That the gods (including God) really existed or still do exist in some cases, but are really flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials as outlined above.
*Next Highest Probability: That the gods (including God) never existed and never had any sort of physical reality. This might imply that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations with interstellar spaceflight capacities don’t exist; they exist but somehow missed our planet; or found it uninteresting and moved on.
*Lowest Probability: That the gods (including God) really existed and still exist as supernatural deities.
Conclusions:
*If technologically advanced extraterrestrials arrived on Planet Earth, say some six to eight thousand years ago, you could be pretty certain that…
*Humans would come up with legends of ‘sky gods’.
*Humans would interpret technology as magic or the supernatural.
*Humans would deify the beings as ‘gods’.
*The ‘gods’ would in reality be our modern concept of ‘ancient astronauts’.
*Lastly, regardless of the speculations, it’s not going to be 100% possible to totally separate out reality from mythology. Even if the ‘gods’ (including ‘God’) were flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials, many of the tales surrounding them will still have some mythological elements to them. Currently scholars will argue that its 0% reality; 100% mythology as far as the polytheistic ‘gods’ are concerned. Enthusiastic and fundamentalist-oriented monotheistic believers have 100% reality for ‘God’; 100% mythology for the ‘gods’ – what they think of ‘ancient astronauts’ probably varies from disbelief to high probability, as long as it doesn’t involve ‘God’. I put my money on 75% reality for the ‘gods’ + ‘God’ = ‘ancient astronauts’; 25% that the ‘gods’ and ‘God’ are total mythological.
Summation:
Several hundreds of thousands of years ago, a technologically advanced race of alien beings landed on Planet Earth, perhaps with the idea of colonization. They selected the most highly suitable ‘intellects’ on the planet, the primates, in order to genetically engineer an intelligent enough species to basically be their subjects, if not downright slaves to do all the hard work. This was pretty much accomplished by about 8000 years ago, when said aliens began to educate the now intellectually sufficiently race of Homo sapiens. The transition from unsophisticated primitives to sophisticated urbanites had begun. The alien race became the gods (in modern terminology, ‘ancient astronauts’); human’s dealings with them our mythologies. Perhaps we were too much of a good thing, for ultimately they withdrew from our obvious presence, however still maintaining down through our modern era a presence via the phenomenon we call the UFO (and associated baggage).
Glossary:
*Ancient Astronauts: The gods (including God) and associated beings (like angels, etc.) who came to Earth multi-thousands of years ago from a place or places unknown.
*Demigods: Offspring resulting from the mating between a god and/or goddess and a human.
*God: One of thousands of (falsely presumed) deities albeit in the top echelon and who briefly assumed Top Dog status before His demise.
*The gods: The combined officers and crew of a fleet of interstellar starships who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. The gods includes God within those ranks.
*Half and Halves: The apparent outward appearance of some mythological beings that reflects a part-human/part-animal hybrid. Some gods are also half-and-halves (i.e. – the ancient Egyptian gods tend to have animals heads).
*Jesus Christ: The Son of God, but now a dead ancient astronaut, executed by humans.
*Paradise : Planet Earth.
*Shape-Shifting: The apparent ability of the gods (or at least many of them) to alter their outside appearance when it suits their purpose(s).
*Starship Asgard: Captain Odin’s spaceship and command, which includes an accompanying battle-fleet including the Starship Valhalla.
*Starship Heaven: Captain God’s spaceship and the ship under His command.
Further readings on which much of this is based:
Allan, Tony; The Mythic Bestiary: The Illustrated Guide to the World’s Most Fantastical Creatures; Duncan Baird Publishers, London
Bierlein, J.F.; Parallel Myths; Ballantine Books, New York
Brown, Nathan Robert & Smith, Evans Lansing; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Mythology; Alpha Books/Penguin Group, New York; 2007:
Burgess, Dana L. & Osborn, Kevin; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Classical Mythology; Second Edition; Alpha Books/Penguin Group, New York; 2004:
Crossley-Holland, Kevin; The Penguin Book of Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings; Penguin Books, 1980:
Davidson, H.R. Ellis; Gods and Myths of Northern Europe; Penguin Books, London
Hathaway, Nancy; The Friendly Guide to Mythology: A Mortal’s Companion to the Fantastical Realm of Gods, Goddesses, Monsters and Heroes; Penguin Books, New York
Impelluso, Lucia; Myths: Tales of the Grek and Roman Gods; Abrams , New York
Ions, Veronica; Hamlyn History: Mythology; Reed International Books, London
Leeming, David; The Oxford Companion to World Mythology; Oxford University Press, Oxford
National Geographic Society; Essential Visual History of World Mythology; National Geographic Society, Washington , D.C.
Ryan, Donald P.; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ancient Egypt; Alpha Books, New York
Tyldesley, Joyce; Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt ; Allan Lane/Penguin Books, London
Various authors; The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology; Chancellor Press, London
No comments:
Post a Comment