Prophecy: From Science to Superstition and Beyond

Prophecy tends to be the art or science of predicting events in advance, hence knowing in advance what the future will be or is likely to be. However, the art and the science of prophecy can be drastically in opposition to each other in terms of credibility and success.

Prophecy isn’t all balderdash. I make this prophecy that the Sun will rise tomorrow morning in New York City! I also make this prophecy that New York City will experience at least one thunderstorm between May and September 2011. Further, I’ll make another prophecy that there will be at least one murder in New York City in the month of June, 2011. But, if I make a prediction that aliens will invade New York City in 2011; some New Yorkers will experience the Biblical Rapture in 2011; or that planetary alignments suggest that 90% of couples living in Manhattan will divorce in 2011, well you’d call that balderdash. So, what’s the dividing line between making balderdash prophecy and making sensible predictions?

Scientifically Near Certain: Nothing is absolutely certain except death and taxes, thus the use of the word ‘near’. However, in this case, scientifically ‘near’ certain means 99.99999% certain. Examples of this sort of prophecy are the times of the rising and setting of the Sun, the Moon, the planets and stars; the rise and fall of the tides (time of high and low tides); lunar and solar eclipses decades in advance; and other predictable events of this nature in an ordered and clockwork Universe. There is no kudos or pats on the back given for soothsaying in this category. 

Scientifically Predictable (Statistically Probable): Not everything is predictable with near absolute certainty, even in science. Some patterns are a bit too chaotic to yield to absolutes. The classic case is the weather. I’ve known predictions of a 100% chance of rain when not a drop fell! However, that’s very rare. Still, it tends to be a chance of thunderstorms, or this or that. That applies to earthquake predictions and similar events. Science can predict with 100% certainty that you’re going to kick-the-bucket. However, the exact moment in nearly all cases is uncertain.  There is no kudos or pats on the back given for soothsaying in this category either. 

Educated Guesswork (But Still Statistically Probable): The shift here tends to be from the physical sciences to the social sciences. I mean predicting the stock market and commodity futures is not an exact science but still something that more often than not you’d better get right if you want to keep your job as a financial advisor! That applies in general to forecasting trends be it forecasting trends for governments, the public sector, or the private sector. There is no kudos or pats on the back given for soothsaying in this category either if you get it right, but expect a kick in the behind if you don’t. The general term here that applies is ‘futurology’. 

Prophecy in General: Let’s just say that if you throw enough darts at a dartboard, even blindfolded, sooner or later you’ll hit the bullseye. Now just publicise that, and pat yourself on the back for your skill, but conveniently don’t tell anyone about, and forget about, all the misses! That dartboard scenario, or analogy, just about sums up the bona fides of the soothsaying profession, IMHO.

Now don’t quote me Nostradamus as (an example) of a spot-on soothsayer. His verses are quite vague. Not once does he state explicitly that on such-and-such a date, at such-and-such a place, such-and-such an unexpected event will take place. Many historical events have been, sort of, linked to one or more of his various verses, but always after-the-fact, as in gee-whiz, this event might just about fit if you stretch the meaning of this bit and ignore that bit. Translated, nobody before-the-fact saw a clear cut prophecy of his of the rise of Nazi Germany and Hitler; the assassination of JFK; the Moon landings; the events of 9/11. Of course it all became crystal clear that he indeed foretold those events – it’s obvious to blind Freddy exactly what certain verses meant, but only as interpreted after the events happened. That’s a cheat! It’s a cheat given his after-the-fact track record according to his followers’ is100%; his before-the-fact track record from a more sceptical point of view is 0%.

Personal Prophecy: When it comes down to the nitty-gritty of prophecy, we’re not usually that concerned about predictions of a solar eclipse three decades off; or even the odds that a tornado will hit us next month, or will our portfolio double or half its value over the next week. Acts of God are acts of God and we’re pretty helpless in the face of Mother Nature; portfolios, if you take the long term view, usually deliver the goods. However, we are greatly concerned with the more immediate if mundane things in our day-to-day lives: today’s success, today’s money, today’s health, today’s power, today’s love, today’s whatever, etc.  That’s why you get daily horoscopes (though you can get weekly, monthly and yearly ones too, all equally as vague in that they seem to apply to nearly anyone, anytime).

And so in order to assist our expectations of obtaining the good things in our immediate ‘now’, well wouldn’t it be nice for some powers-that-be to tell us in advance what’s coming on down the track that’s liable to have a bearing on those personal good vs. bad facets? That is, if we knew in advance of the fact, some knowledge that we could use to our advantage to maximise the good and minimise the bad, well who wouldn’t? And so, there’s a flourishing industry in astrology/horoscopes; the reading of tea leaves & chicken entrails; caressing crystal balls; using ouija boards, and any other means to get the inside tract on making today a better day. And with such expectations, like with the dartboard, you’ll tend to remember the rare spot-on bullseye hits, precisely because they are so few and far between. All the misses you easily forget because they’re so common and so prevalent. 

Of course all this sort of personal prophecy is pure nonsense. It’s harmless fun unless you actually base your day-to-day life, behaviour, decision-making, etc. around them. I’m pretty sure that 99% of people, who consult the astrology column in their daily paper, know full well that what they read there is just vague and general so as to have no real practical and specific application to their personal calling-of-the-shots today. It’s a daily 10 second diversion that’s a bit of fun. Still, it’s a rather sad reflection on how nonsensical superstition, even in the enlightened 21^st Century, can still be viable enough for people who know better (but don’t care) to actual earn a living by pulling the wool over the eyes of the great unwashed. But that’s nothing compared to the wool pulling by religion.

End of the World Prophecy: However, there’s a dark side to the forces behind prophecy. The central focus, as always, is me, myself, and I. If you’re reading the astrology horoscope, what it predicts for your next door neighbour is probably of no consequence to you. However, if someone predicts that the world is about to go down the gurgler; that the end is neigh, well, you’re part of the world, so you’re heading down the gurgler too! Now that may, or may not, upset you. For religious reasons, many look forward to the world going down the gurgler, because that means that they, while going down the gurgler too, get deposited at the other end of the tube into an eternal paradise. Or so they believe. 

There’s one really main problem with end-of-the-world prophecy, and it doesn’t matter a hoot what you’re ultimate source is that you base, or believe, the prophecy on – to date, 100% of all end-of-the-world predictions have failed (that’s bloody obvious isn’t it? I mean we’re still here; we’re still standing)! If I’d received a fiver for each failed doomsday prediction, I, my bank manager and the tax man would all be happy little campers. A 100% failure record - that’s a pretty piss-poor track record, 100% opposite to science predicting a solar eclipse three decades down the track. Now if there have been just a handful of these the-end-is-neigh predictions, and I mean down to the exact day of the year, well that could easily be dismissed. However, when the absolute number of them, over the millennia, have been such that if you’d collected a fiver for every one, and that collection of fivers would make you one of the wealthiest persons on the planet, well you’ve have to conclude that there’s an awful lot of deluded people. A 100% track record of failure inspires bugger-all confidence that the next quack or gaggle of quacks that comes along with an ‘end-is-neigh’ sign can be taken seriously, such as the 21^st of May 2011 or the 21^st of December 2012 (see below).

Unfortunately people who are suckered into believing that on such-and-such a date they, along with everybody else, are going to meet their maker, well that can have serious consequences. There are more than a handful of case studies which have shown that ordinary people, caught up in the end-of-the-world hype, lacking the qualities of logical and critical thinking, have sold off all their worldly goods, left their homes and families, to await the end – which never came. Some have banded together to form end-of-the-world doomsday cults which have required suicidal philosophies as the alleged end drew near. Human delusion can have tragic consequences.

Most end-of-the-world prophecies tend to have religious overtones, as in Armageddon and the Biblical Book of Revelation. I’ve noted on the Internet one 54 year old Californian religious loony who is absolutely convinced he will be part of The Rapture on the 21^st of May, 2011. That’s it – that’s the Judgement Day, the Second Coming of Christ, the end-of-the-world as we know it. I predict that he will be very disappointed when he wakes up in his California abode on the 22^nd of May 2011 in a totally un-Raptured state. I really shouldn’t single him out, it wasn’t he who came up with that date, yet still he got sucked into the frenzy. Over the millennium he’s but one of millions of loonies who got sucked into the-end-of-the-world frenzy!

It’s a pity that so many peoples’ lives are so miserable that they literally look forward to someone else (i.e. – God or J.C.) ending their mundane existence of everyday mortality and transporting them into another one of peaceful eternity, although who really knows, maybe it’s a case of going from the frying pan into the fire! 

But say now, what if you absolutely and firmly believed that within three days the entire world was history. What sort of constraints, the kind normal society places on you, would now have an impact? Probably none. I mean if the end was neigh, what constraints would stop you from stealing, rioting, or murder? Well, let’s face facts, there wouldn’t be any. Now, what if a significant percentage of the population believed that? What might happen? Mob rule? Total anarchy? Rioting in the streets? The total breakdown of society and society’s rule of law and order? All that and more? What if you had an absolute dictatorial ruler who believed that? Why wouldn’t that leader, who say hated this other nation for whatever religious or ideological reason(s) decide that’s there’s nothing to lose now by pressing the nuclear button.

Let me repeat – there have been thousands of end-of-the-word prophecies from the religious Armageddon as given in the Biblical book of Revelation to predictions of alien invasions to nuclear suicide as per the “On the Beach” scenario or maybe some ‘the-sky-is-falling’ alarmist who’s convinced there’s an undetected and undetectable asteroid that’s heading our way – ground zero; target Earth.  It ain’t happened – the asteroid anyway – to us, but T-Rex would tell a different tale methinks. T-Rex aside, anyone who places any sort of faith that the next prophetic quack has got it right is in serious delusion. The odds favour the exact opposite. Mother Earth will go on her merry way for a long time yet. If you’re anxiously awaiting The Rapture – well, be prepared to wait a lot longer.

The 21^st of May 2011 aside, the next predicted doomsday biggie is the 21^st of December 2012 for a whole potful of various reasons that’s relatively easy to find out about given hundreds of books, articles, Internet sites and blogs, DVDs, etc. all devoted to the subject. Well, I’ll go on the record now as prophesizing that it’s going to be quite safe for you to plan your 2012 Christmas and post-Christmas activities and holidays and welcome in 2013 with the usual New Year antics we’ve all come to love and participate in.  

Now, to end on a downbeat note, let’s return to scientific prophecy. Our world will end! That’s 100% certain! At the very least it will end when the lifespan of our parent star, the Sun, ends. Just like your car has a limited supply of fuel in its gas tank, so too our Sun has a limited supply of fuel that keeps it burning forever. When the Sun exhausts its fuel, well you can kiss life on Planet Earth goodbye. However, least I scare you into losing a good night’s sleep, that’s still some roughly five billion years in the future, or so modern astronomical prophecy dictates. Even if that’s off by 10%, well that still gives you plenty of time to enjoy the good life, including a good night’s sleep. 

Further reading:

Guyatt, Nicholas; Have A Nice Doomsday: Why Millions of Americans Are Looking Forward to the End of the World; Ebury Press, UK; 2007:

Kirsch, Jonathan; A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization; Harper-Collins, New York; 2006:

Price, Robert M.; The Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church Was Left Behind; Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York; 2007:

Willis, Barbara & Willis, Jim; Armageddon Now: The End of the World A to Z; Visible Ink Press, Detroit, Michigan; 2006:

The Contactees: A Reassessment or Re-evaluation

If the subject of UFOs brings embarrassment to the scientific community, then the subject of the contactees brings embarrassment to the UFO community! Shortly after the dawn of the modern UFO era (1947), an offshoot appeared; humans claiming to have been contacted by the extraterrestrials of those UFOs. Unfortunately, those making the claims, the contactees (as they came to be called) told such outlandish tales that not only did they discredit themselves, but took nearly the whole UFO subject down the gurgler with them. Perhaps it’s now time for a reassessment or reevaluation of the contactees: perpetrators or victims? Did the contactees knowingly try to hoodwink the public with tales of the “Space Brothers”, or did real “Space Brothers” hoodwink the contactees, at least in part, into telling on the surface rather outlandish tales?

Certain privileged humans (called ‘contactees’) have claimed to have had personal and/or mental (psychic; channeling) contact with friendly, completely human-appearing space aliens – at least claimed by their own admissions. These angelic-like UFO related extraterrestrial beings, fully human in appearance, were pretty much a stand alone staple of the (mainly 1950’s) contactees who claimed to have had personal contact with and feel-good cosmic messages from said like angelic-like extraterrestrial beings, often called by the contactees as our ‘space brothers’ who have come to Earth in their ‘flying saucers*’.  Of course many contactees were further privileged to have been taken for rides in these ‘flying saucers’, and traveled into space and to other planets, usually the home abodes of their angelically-human hosts, most often Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. Well actually the ‘flying saucers’ were more akin to Star Trek’s shuttlecraft; the real alien vessels were the orbiting ‘Mother Ships’, akin the Star Trek’s NCC 1701 Enterprise, and it was these ‘Mother Ships’ that usually zipped our contactee passengers on a grand tour of our solar system and their home planet.

It was unfortunate that such claims tarnished the wider subject of UFOs (as possible evidence that extraterrestrial intelligence existed). However, in some degree of historical hindsight, when perhaps tarnished then, that clearly might not be quite the case now.

The contactees were often bucketed as total loonies back then (in the 50’s) by the mainstream, even mainstream people interested in extraterrestrial life and UFOs, including myself. That’s no less so today if someone is still foolish enough to mention them – like me here and now. But a question remains on the grounds of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, did the contactees (collectively) invent these angelic-like extraterrestrial beings, the ‘Nordics’, with the intent of fraud; or to have some fun and hoax the public and pull the wool over their unsuspecting eyes; or perhaps they just, collectively, had some serious mental issues, say delusions of sorts. Or, perhaps the contactees were relating the truth as they thought they had experienced it, when perhaps the angelic-like extraterrestrial beings were being less than 100% honest with them for reasons best known to themselves, though one can speculate.

Unfortunately, they didn’t provide much in the way of actually evidence in their own defence. Sometimes a supporting witness or two; perhaps a plaster cast of a sandal imprint (the ‘space brothers’ tended to wear quasi-ski gear and sandals. Also in support of their claims, some early 1950s contactees produced photographs of the alleged ‘flying saucers’ (sometimes known as ‘scout ships’) or the much larger often cigar-shaped ‘Mother Ships’ though rarely of the ‘space brothers’ themselves. More than a number of ‘genuine’ photos of  typical extraterrestrial ‘flying saucers’ were noted to bear a suspicious resemblance to mundane terrestrial artifacts like a commonly available chicken egg incubator, complete with light bulbs serving as ‘landing gear’. Pretty obviously faked photographs did nothing to assist their credibility quotient.

However, let’s start with the assumption that the contactees are or were in fact innocent (until proven guilty) and told their stories as actually perceived or as it seemed by them.

In the 1950’s our ‘space brothers’ only told as much of their story as would be comprehensible to the relatively simple people of that era. Now truthfully, the contactees (George Adamski say as an example of the general contactee stereotype) were relatively simple folk. They weren’t university deans, or theoretical physicists, or four-star generals, or diplomatic statesmen and legal eagles and MD’s, etc. That brings up an obvious question, why would our ‘space brothers' bother with the great unwashed when they could just as easily land on the White House lawn and be addressing Congress within hours? Well, the contactees, simple folk, were the sort of folk that our gentle hippy-like ‘space brothers’ would have associated with. However, the contactees were fed enough bovine fertilizer that their idealistic philosophical messages got buried along with their tall tales of trips to Venus and Saturn, etc., where the ‘space brothers’ lived. Although then again, you have that angelic-like ancient Near Eastern goddess Inanna or Inana (Ishtar) identified with the celestial planet Venus, so who knows where the ‘gods’ have actually set up camp!

I mean here that any advanced technological civilization can boldly go and thwart Mother Nature’s hostile environments with a bit of can-do effort. Obvious terrestrial examples show how humans can now live on the polar icecaps; under the ocean; in extremely arid regions; even on the lunar surface. So, who’s to say the ‘space brothers’ didn’t have an HQ on Venus or Saturn or the far side of the Moon? 

Now about the cosmic messages from the ‘space brothers’; dead and buried hogwash, or did those 50’s idealistic ‘space brother’ philosophical messages really get buried? Perhaps our ‘space brothers’ are a bit more clued than given credit for. The contactees thought that universal truths and consequences would be accomplished very simply by the ‘space brothers’ or extraterrestrial brotherhood spreading a message of love and associated brotherhood ideals across the world via themselves. That wasn’t to be then, it isn’t now, but (there’s always a ‘but’ somewhere along the way).

I can’t help but wonder, maybe it’s no coincidence that almost immediately following the heyday of the contactees came the era of the Hippies and counterculture with their idealistic philosophical concepts (influences which have filtered down to this very day and age) of “hell no, we won’t go”; burn your draft card; bra-burning; flower-power; love; peace; brotherhood (and sisterhood); the dawning of the Age of Aquarius; free love, drop out, tune in, etc. You can’t help but feel that the ‘space brothers’ as generally described, would have fitted right into that picture. Our ‘space brothers’ might have been more at home with people who smoked pot and attended Woodstock than lunching with politicians and generals smoking cigars, drinking scotch-on-the-rocks and sanctioning the dropping of napalm and Agent Orange on Vietnam.   

However, there’s nothing overly unique about the 50’s and our contactees. Apart from, though not directly linked to ‘flying saucers’ or UFOs, or the 50’s contactees, there is a rather long history of claims of contact with non-earthly intelligences, if by non-earthly intelligences you include all things supernatural – the deities/gods of mythology. Most of the world's polytheistic religions involved ongoing contact between ordinary humans (or more likely as not rulers like kings and emperors) and a supernatural source of wisdom, such as the gods in human form or, moving on to monotheism, an angel(s) or equivalent. It might be predictable therefore that many of the 1950s contactees, or their followers, would form their own religious cults, with the contactee usually as sole spiritual leader. And so that too came to pass, almost invariably.

There might be another historical connection. It’s been speculated that the ‘gods’ (including ‘God’ were really ‘ancient astronauts’ – presumably that would have to include Jesus Christ. So, was J.C. an ‘ancient astronaut’? If J.C. really was an ‘ancient astronaut’, that just might give a whole new credibility to those 50’s contactees. J.C. was a near clone of the 50’s ‘space brothers’.

For example, the ‘space brothers’ are often labelled as the ‘Nordics’ – Fully human in appearance, they tend to be tall, blond hair, rather long-haired in fact, blue-eyed, with athletic builds (male), or Playboy figures (female). In fact, the ‘space brothers’ sort of resemble the Greek (Titan and Olympian), Roman and Norse gods – physical perfection, profound wisdom, all things bright and beautiful. You can also identify with J.C. as a ‘Nordic’ type and he’d fit right in on a ‘flying saucer’ in the 1950’s chin-wagging with the contactees.

The purpose of the ‘space brothers’ is quasi-missionary, not religion so much as preaching morality, ethics, ecology, profound wisdom, brotherhood, make-love-not-war, ban-the-bomb, things of cosmic importance, all the sorts of things one associates with Hippies and the New Agers. You can associate with J.C. as a sort of New Ager Hippy type and thus as a typical ‘space brother’ as the ‘space brothers’ were considered to be highly spiritually evolved beings.

Of course there’s another possible explanation. Might the ‘contactees’, and through them their readers, have been the victims of cosmic pranksters – the trickster gods of mythology, who in the modern context are the ‘gods’ – flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials and sometimes hangers-on from the glory days of the polytheistic gods who weren’t really gods but ‘gods’? The reader is reminded that every ancient mythology not only has a pantheon of gods, but at least one trickster god in every pantheon, with accent on the word “trickster”. The ‘contactees’ could easily have been relatively innocent victims of a massive hoax. You can hear the tricksters now – “ha, ha – fooled you – again”.

There is an interesting quasi-parallel between the 50’s contactees and the later abductees, even though the “Nordic” “Space Brothers” appear vastly different than the abductee’s “Greys”. The contactees were pre-Hippy New Ager types. In contrast, many abductees seem to undergo quasi-New Age lifestyle changes post abduction(s). They may have become vegetarians, gave up smoking or drinking, joined community groups, started participating in charity work, developed ecological concerns and/or become overall a more spiritually-oriented being.

*Contactees didn’t use the term UFOs or the phrase ‘unidentified flying objects’ because to them there was nothing unidentified about them.

The Bible: Just Science Fantasy and Tall Tales? Part Two

The Bible is often a treasured book in the homes of most people, and usually found in motel and hotel rooms to boot. But, is The Bible really the word of God, or at best pure mythology; at worst, pure fiction, an early forerunner to the science fiction dystopian novel? Well, actually the Bible is really more an anthology of short stories authored by many individuals over a long period of time, and heavily edited (as to what it would and would not contain) by other people. It’s all pretty ad hoc.

The Bible is apparently one of the best, if not the best selling books of all times. Why it isn’t for sale though in the mythology or fiction section of bookstores (or available in similar locations in libraries) is beyond me. Simply put, The Bible isn’t believable as non-fiction and as a historically accurate record of those ancient times.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Then there’s the concept or character of Jesus Christ (JC), the alleged son of God. Kids have Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny; tweens and teens have whatever pop idol is flavour of the month (or week – what’s in and what’s out change fast), but adults have JC.

While there is little doubt in my mind that there really was an historical figure who went by the name of Jesus Christ (but there are those who would, and do, argue that JC was as totally a mythological figure as Zeus and Apollo, or for that matter Santa), and who was executed, I suggest that JC was still a person who was very human, died, and has remained dead ever since.

I suggest that there existed a very charismatic character, which, alas, could have been mentally ill. Our mental institutions or asylums are full of people who sincerely believe that they are this person, or that person, or a reincarnation of this or that historical figure, but in reality, are totally delusional. I’m sure this syndrome is not unique to this era. There have been lots of charismatic religious figures over the centuries, which, in another time and place, if claiming to be the Son of God, would have attracted a massive following, and a near mythological aura. Perhaps JC just happened to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right personality to pull the charade off – in fact JC probably sincerely believed his own story.  I’m no expert on what exactly JC said about himself, or has been alleged he said. Perhaps he made no claims at all and it was only others who embellished him as something he never claimed to be. If that’s the case, then of course he wasn’t mentally ill. I just mean that I’m sure mental illness existed some 2000 years ago – then as now – and it’s possible that JC could have suffered to some greater or lesser degree assuming he made some extraordinary claims about himself. Regardless, the bottom line is that JC was the son of a man and a woman, not the Son of God.

Therefore, there wasn’t a virgin birth was there? Come on, pull the other one. Where’s the real objective and conclusive evidence? Was there a qualified medical doctor on the spot to witness and testify to that alleged miracle? Now if the virgin birth account is accurate, which I doubt, then JC had no biological father. Therefore, all of his genetic material came from his biological (virgin) mother. That being the case, JC should have not only been a woman, but probably a clone of his mother! Since the authors of the relevant Biblical books could hardly have been aware of modern genetics, their ‘oops’ is understandable – but it’s an ‘oops’ nevertheless.

Now someone is bound to mention that there is such a concept in biology known as parthenogenesis. That is, a normally sexually reproducing female gives birth without benefit of any sperm fertilizing her egg(s). Unfortunately, this doesn’t occur naturally in mammals, although it has been induced artificially in laboratory mice and rabbits. If the Biblical virgin birth was the result of natural parthenogenesis, something medical science denies is possible, then it was such a rare event that it has never happened before or since, or else laboratory techniques where far more highly advanced back then, even relative to today’s medical technology. However, because there’s always a slight, however incredibly slight, change of a natural parthenogenesis event, then the alleged virgin birth can not be claimed to be a bona fide miracle, and as such, offers no proof for God’s existence.

If God or His scribes wished to make crystal clear the ideas and events and chronology central to ‘the end of the world’, Revelations, Armageddon, the Rapture, the Second Coming, etc., He or they failed – miserably. Any dozen Biblical scholars will give a dozen different interpretations of the ‘end of days’, from the literal to the metamorphic. Revelations, apparently that is, was intended for those of that era; that it was intended for generations far removed from those times is apparently not the case according to Biblical scholars. If you’re not going to make your point clear, well, what’s the point? How many hundreds upon hundreds of times have Biblical scholars prophesied the end of the world, or the end of days, or Armageddon, or the Second Coming, or Final Judgment (take your pick of relevant phrases) based on the Biblical verse? Well, we’re still here! We are indeed still here, so, so much for the reliability of The Bible, or God’s word, and/or the competence of so called Biblical experts. So, the next time some Bible-thumping Fundamentalist tells you that the ‘end is nigh’, take said message with a proverbial grain of salt and don’t lose any sleep over it!

Then there are the time discrepancies to explain. According to Biblical scholars, by studying all the various begat events and generations in the Bible, the world must have been created in 4004 BC – or maybe 5005 BC – or maybe 10,010 BC – or whatever. The point is that whatever the Biblical scholarly calculation, it falls way, way short of that figure obtained through geological and astronomical means. In fact there’s not even the most remote reconciliation between the origins of the world as given in the Bible and as given in science, far less that of the entire Universe. I gather various Biblical scholars are more interested in the Rock of Ages than the ages of rocks.

Learn from the lessons of history: Here are a couple more flies in the Biblical ointment.

Can The Bible really be a true historical account? Not likely. It’s written by a multitude of authors, over eons of time, and has suffered through dozens of translations. I like an analogy of a row of twenty people – whisper a sentence into the ear of person number one and have that person whisper that sentence to person number two, hence person number three, and so on down the line. Have person number twenty then relate the sentence back to you. Odds are that there will be little similarity between what you originally whispered and what you ultimately heard after the twenty translations. 

God maybe and JC probably, are historical figures, as are all the other characters in the Old and New Testaments. Apparently many of the texts within The Bible weren’t written down until many decades after the fact. What does that tell you about the reliability of the texts being literally accurate? History is a very inexact science, patchy at best, and the farther one goes back in time, the patchier it gets. Historians often have a hard time documenting and agreeing on who, what, where, when and why of happenings 200 to 500 years ago. So how can we put faith in events 2000 to 5000 years ago?

Anyone can make up or embellish stories and write them down – and frequently do. Our bookshops and libraries are full of books labelled ‘fiction’. Can anyone absolutely state that those who authored the various testaments, chapters and verses of The Bible weren’t sort of making it up as they went along, or at least padding things a mite? Humans at best like to embellish stories and tell little white lies (even whoppers) and at worst invent pure fiction (in the guise of truth) for their own purpose(s).

Lastly, as has been often pointed out, history is written by the winners. Perhaps it would be interesting to have had Adam and Eve’s side of the story, or Satan’s side instead of just God’s version of events!

Aliens: The New Religion? Part Two

Aliens, as in extraterrestrials, are popular. The number of sci-fi novels, short stories, films, TV shows, factual documentaries, and the popular non-fiction literature (books and articles) must number in the multi-thousands. Are our interest and belief in, and search for, aliens, just a way of a substitution for a lack of belief in God? Do we have to believe in a higher power (advanced technology?), and if it’s not God, then extraterrestrials?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

However, part of the overall perception problem doesn’t lie solely with UFO contactees spreading the word about their ‘space brothers’. Some of the ‘aliens as the new religion’ perception must rest with some of the more serious scientist ‘alien hunters’ who seek out new intelligent life forms and their civilizations.

Some of these scientists are partly to blame for this mythology citing as a rational, caught up in their enthusiasm, for their SETI quest, that contact and communication with extraterrestrial intelligence could lead to a Golden Age where we would be given the Encyclopaedia Galactica, the cure for cancer, and pollution free energy. They would, by being their own best example, show us how to avoid war and nuclear Armageddon; give us the ways and means of achieving global peace and disarmament – double balderdash, squared (well, sort of). It’s almost a (albeit slightly tuned down) version of the messages contactees spread.

Personally, I don’t think aliens are going to lift us up by our bootstraps – we’ve got to do that, all by our lonesome. So, whether it is contactees and New Age UFO Cult societies or SETI scientists promoting the salivation-from-the-skies ideas to help justify their work, it’s, IMHO, pure pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking.

What of the general public? There is widespread interest in, and believe in the existence of, advanced extraterrestrial life. Does that mean that millions are leaving their religion; not attending church, instead setting up telescopes at home or go UFO hunting? The truth may be out there, but I seriously doubt its any threat to either organised religion or people’s supernaturally-themed religious convictions.

Okay, so balderdash (well sort of) aside, yes, there is some truth to the perception that belief in aliens can be taken as a form of religion, well quasi-religion, but I see no real evidence that this is in any way detracting from societies’ established supernatural-based religions. I imagine many individuals believe in both aliens and God. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Some people believe in God, not aliens. Others, like me, suggest aliens are infinitely more a probable viability than a supernatural creator God.

Finally, any organisation trying to claim aliens as the centrepiece of their ‘church’ is going to find getting those standard religious tax concessions rather hard to come by!

At least believers in aliens don’t have a history of imprisoning, torturing, murdering or executing, exiling, ridiculing, etc. those who have interests and beliefs more focused in a down-to-earth direction. Alien hunters don’t demand you have some of your private parts snipped off or that you have to observe various foods, dress, time of day/day of week, sexual or other personal relationship ritual do’s and don’ts. SETI scientists have no ‘thou shall or shall not’ demands; ufologists demand no animal sacrifices or attendance at Sunday weekly UFO conventions. There is no such a thing as an infallible alien bible. No hymns are sung in praise of ET. You don’t have to, every hour on the hour, face towards the constellation of Orion, bow down, and give thanks to the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire for your very existence. And nobody wears the Southern Cross on a chain around their neck.

SETI scientists don’t engage in a Holy War against UFO buffs or vice versa; ancient astronauts enthusiasts don’t hold an Inquisition against SETI scientists or vice versa; UFO buffs don’t have Crusades against those who like the idea that ancient aliens assisted a fledging human race thousands of years ago or vice versa. Alien hunters may not always be one happy family, but compared to organised religion(s).

Also, alien hunters don’t go doorknocking trying to convert the unbelievers!

Alas, alien hunters won’t get to heaven (not that there is such a place) by discovering ET, but at least they won’t go to hell (no such place either) if they don’t! There is no 11^th Commandment along the lines of ‘Thou shall seek out my other creations among the firmament’; nor a 12^th, ‘Thou shall not worship my other creations among the firmament’!

Absolutely finally, if aliens are the new religion, well, they have light years left to travel before overtaking God, and Company as a force to be reckoned with.

But wait – an afterthought. Popularity isn’t the same thing as worship or belief, but in terms of perceptions of the God vs. alien possibilities, despite church attendance, we probably spend more time interacting with aliens than with God – if one interacts with God at all. Of course unless you are a professional astrobiologist or SETI scientist or an avid ufologist or one of those UFO abductees, you probably don’t interact with real aliens (or the concept of real aliens) either. However, over the course of a period of time, we tend to be exposed more to the concept of extraterrestrials than things Biblical; more often as not through films and TV shows. Certainly the amount of shelf space in book stores and libraries (home as well as public) devoted to aliens (usually sci-fi in the main) vis-à-vis the section devoted to religion – well, more people buy and read sci-fi than study their, or any other, religion. I know the Beatles got into hot water for claiming they were more popular than JC, but I’d bet a TV series featuring aliens gets higher ratings than one featuring Christianity.

Further readings:

Curran, Douglas; In Advance of the Landing: Folk Concepts of Outer Space; Abbeville Press, New York; 1985:

Lewis, James R. (Editor); The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds; State University of New York Press, Albany, New York; 1995:

Reece, Gregory L.; UFO Religion: Inside Flying Saucer Cults and Culture; I.B. Tauris, London; 2007:

Thompson, Keith; Angels and Aliens: UFOs and the Mythic Imagination; Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts; 1991:

Aliens: The New Religion? Part One

Aliens, as in extraterrestrials, are popular. The number of sci-fi novels, short stories, films, TV shows, factual documentaries, and the popular non-fiction literature (books and articles) must number in the multi-thousands. Are our interest and belief in, and search for, aliens, just a way of a substitution for a lack of belief in God? Do we have to believe in a higher power (advanced technology?), and if it’s not God, then extraterrestrials?

There are those who suggest that our obsession with ancient astronauts, UFOs, SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence), and the like is nothing more than a religious fever under a different disguise. Instead of looking towards the heavens for salvation and ultimate truths in God, we reject God and instead we look towards the heavens and seek out new intelligences and new civilizations to boldly lead us on the path to a universal brotherhood; aliens that in their eternal wisdom will show us the one true path and give us all the benefits of their experiences and knowledge, knowledge that which gives us warp drives, a universal truth and justice, and the golden brick road that leads towards the cosmic way (the way of the cosmos?).

Balderdash! Well, sort of. 

God, assuming a God, is about supernatural explanations for creations like the origin of our planet and of us.

God is supposedly about good vs. evil; heaven vs. hell, salvation vs. damnation, and a warm fuzzy eternal afterlife.

God is about morality (never mind the lack of His own).

We don’t look to aliens for creation mythology; the afterlife; and our moral codes.

Certainly SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientists do not sit in worship at their radio telescope cathedrals that great alien in the sky that they seek. Seek they do, but not to worship. However, some do go a bit over-the-top in suggesting the types of societies they are likely to find and communicate with – it’s their version of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. See below for more elaboration.

Assuming ancient astronauts, and assuming ancient astronauts were aliens, then the peoples of those ancient times obviously worshiped said ancient astronaut aliens. However, people interested in ancient astronaut aliens today hardly worship that what takes their interest. It’s just another facet of SETI (even if traditional SETI professionals would be horrified at having the study of ancient astronauts lumped in with what they do).

UFOs are slightly different kettles of fish to SETI (well, sort of) or ancient astronauts; different horses of many other colours. One such colour – at least to most people - is the cultist ‘giggle factor’ or ‘silly season’ colour. To the minority of others, well, they (cultists) believe in the ‘space brothers’ and are usually called contactees and they form various - for lack of a better phrase - New Age themed UFO societies. They do indeed worship, if not quite as gods, at least as ultra advanced supreme beings, who, for all practical purposes are as close to godlike and perfect as makes no odds. All is peace and harmony and enlightenment and utopia and perfect health and beauty and eternal rainbows in and on the worlds (including Venus and Saturn, etc.) of the ‘space brothers’. The ‘space brothers” collectively make even our most saintly of saints look like hardened criminals behind bars if not on death row!

UFO ‘space brother’ contactees or cultists often ‘preached’ their sermons of gloom and doom while offering salvation and enlightenment to the great unwashed via the messages they conveyed from those uppity-up pure-in-heart-and-mind aliens. Somehow the ‘space brothers’ offered us the one true pathway away from our destruction, often literally, as in the end of the world.

If I had some $$$ for every time the end of the world had been predicted, lets just say my bank manager and the tax office would both be pleased. I’m sure not a year goes by, probably not even a month, without someone (not always by any means UFO cultists) calling out loud and clear that ‘The sky is falling; the end is here; prepare to meet thy doom’.  For those misguided beings who take one such ever ongoing prophecy seriously, it might, I guess, be more logical to put your salvation eggs in an extraterrestrial basket carried around by UFOs. There’s way more evidence for the UFO ETH (ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis) than for God. God hasn’t been seen (for at least 4000 years or so), tracked on radar, left physical trace marks on our environment, nor has He been filmed or photographed.

But some of these New Age Themed UFO societies can be hazardous to your health. The Heaven’s Gate group in 1997 were going to hitch a ride with this UFO concealed in the Hale-Bopp Comet as it swung around the Sun. There was one catch however - to get from terrestrial ground zero, to Hale-Bopp, you had to do yourself a fatal mischief. According to the “M*A*S*H” theme song, suicide maybe painless but it is still suicide. [There have been several other instances of mass suicide among the membership of religious cults – the Branch Davidians (Waco, Texas) and followers of Jim Jones and his People’s Temple (Guyana) – but these had nothing to do with aliens.]

Other New Age themed UFO societies are more harmless to your physical health (not sure about your mental health however), like the Unarius [Educational Foundation] Society; the Etherean Society; the Aetherius Society, and dozens more, both major and minor.

It has got to be said that bona fide UFO investigators dislike these cultists for muddying the UFO waters and turning what should be serious study into a joke within the larger general community. Riding with your racially pure white ‘space brothers’ in their UFOs to visit their home worlds (which either no one has ever heard of or which scientists have proven to be hellish enough, way beyond incapable of supporting complex life) and delivering their New Age words of cosmic truth and wisdom is going to generate a lot more column inches in the tabloids than serious investigations will in the major metropolitan press.

Fortunately, these contactees, and the New Age contactee movement were primarily a 1950’s fad. While there are those still around, they now have little real impact or influence today. However, their damage has been done, and the UFO field can not totally shake off their immense contribution to the UFO ‘silly season’ ‘giggle’ factor. 

In general however, serious UFO investigators who take the phenomena, well, seriously, most certainly do not worship whatever aliens, if any, may pilot said UFOs. I’ve never seen any evidence that UFO investigators are any different from the general population in terms of religious affiliation or church attendance.

To be continued...