Mythology: Ancient Astronauts: An Outline: Part One

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.

Introduction:

The concept that once-upon-a-time, a time long, long ago, an extraterrestrial civilization’s beings held sway and had influence over humanity has gained stature. We call those ancient beings the ‘gods’, even ‘God’. Collectively, they are now known by the popular phrase ‘ancient astronauts’. While that concept has just about zero credibility with scholars (vested interests perhaps), the general populace has had a far more open mind on the issue, at least judging from the popularity of books, movies, TV shows, documentaries, etc. that discuss the issue. 

Let’s start off with some basic assumptions. Mythology is not purely an invention of the human imagination out of whole cloth. There are grains of truth or reality within the tales. Humans are intelligent enough to separate basic facts from basic fictions, even if the facts are often embellished to make a good tale better, or misinterpreted. The mythological gods (including God) really existed. However, they weren’t really supernatural beings or deities. That’s the misinterpretation part. Tales of the gods have, I’m sure, been embellished as well.

That’s because oral traditions (language) has existed vastly longer than the written record. Thus, there’s a long oral tradition of the ancient astronaut ‘gods’ and their relationships with humans and with each other before it all started to be written down, since language proper first came to the fore less than 100,000 years ago (probably less – more like 50,000 years ago with the development of full behavioural modernity) but writing can only be traced back to roughly 6000 BC. That’s a lot of in-between time for a lot of the details to have been embellished or lost and lost too in the retellings over some 2000 generations!

When it comes to the concept of ‘ancient astronauts’ mythology when coupled with astrobiology, well that combination forms a greater dynamic duo, a more profitable source of material, explaining all relative to that of pure archaeology and related artefacts. Thusly, in dot-point form, here are some central facets to the mythology behind ‘ancient astronauts’.

Astrobiology:

*A few Type-II advanced technological civilizations exist within our Milky Way galaxy. A Type-II civilisation is one that can harness the energy output of an entire star.

*They have subluminal interstellar spaceflight capacity.

*Subluminal interstellar spaceflight violates no laws of physics.

*The time it takes to cross from one edge of the Milky Way galaxy to another is a small fraction of the age of the galaxy even via subluminal velocities.

*It is likely, even highly probable that Planet Earth was discovered by one or more such Type-II civilizations many, many millennia ago. You can’t hide or cloak a star, solar system and planet.

*These Type-II civilized interstellar travelling beings arrived on Earth in one or more spaceships way before humans existed.

Mythology:

*Our advanced extraterrestrials set up shop on Planet Earth as an R&R home-away-from-home, sort of taking dominion over this paradise / nature reserve / national park, perhaps with a view towards eventual long-term colonization. 

*In much the same way as British colonizers of Australia brought with them reminders of home, from plants and crops to cattle and sheep, not to mention rabbits, cats and dogs, so to did the ‘god’s bring with them their menagerie, like say the hydra, chimera, unicorns, Pegasus, and of course dragons.

*This would certainly explain why nearly every pre-Christian human culture independently had dragons as part of that culture. Dragons could be good (The East), or bad (The West) but regardless ‘here be dragons’. So, I suspect that at one time, thanks to the ‘gods’, dragons were anything but mythical.

*There are many other common themes that cut across several cultural mythologies involving the gods. One is that you can be turned to stone (or in the Biblical sense, a pillar of salt perhaps?). ‘Global’ floods are common in the mythological literature, not just in the Bible. Nearly all cultures have trickster ‘gods’. And in creation myths involving the cosmos, there’s nearly always a subdivision between attic (the sky or heaven, etc.); the basement (the underworld); and ground level (Planet Earth). That trilogy is probably not too surprising however since wherever we are there’s always an up, a down, and a sideways. However, the importance of near universal mythological themes between cultures with no contact between them is relatively obvious in an ‘ancient astronaut’ context.

*Such extraterrestrial beings became known collective as the gods or as deities to humans as soon as humans evolved sufficiently to develop (or were given a) language and a reasonable level of intellect. The gods are really an advanced race(s), representing a Type-II civilization(s), but to more simplistic humans, such advanced extraterrestrials were interpreted as deities.

*These advanced extraterrestrial beings will be hereafter referred to as the ‘gods’, because that’s they way humanity perceived them.

*There are numerous creation myths surrounding the ‘gods’. The ‘gods’ created heaven and Earth; living things; other ‘gods’ – you name it, they probably created it.

*’Gods’ are of course usually responsible for creating the human race and beings.

*Humans may have evolved from ‘lesser’ primates, but the ‘gods’ did some artificial selection to assist the process so as to provide the ‘gods’ ultimately with a labour force. This is how the ‘gods’ ‘created’ humanity. That the ‘gods’ created humans is one very common creation tale among many differing cultures. ‘Genesis’ has no monopoly on how the ‘gods’ breathed life into man and woman. 

*This is akin to humans establishing a horse farm say, stocking same with say wild horses and then artificially breeding them for the trait(s) you want.

*The ‘gods’ created humans to do the hard yakka (one good reason why humans, not aliens, built the pyramids and other monumental stoneworks such as cities, as temples, as buildings, as massive statues, etc). 

*If that’s the case, it would give further credence to the comments made many, many decades ago by the late Charles Fort (of Fortean or anomalies fame) that “I think we’re property”.

*The ‘gods’ brought culture, arts and crafts, trades, fire, agriculture and all the other civilized products (i.e. science, writing, language) to early human societies. That might be one reason why the transition from primitive hunter-gatherers to sophisticated settlements and ‘civilization’ was apparently reasonably quick in many, but not all parts of the world. Some African and Pacific cultures (i.e. the Australian aborigines) remained nomadic, but their ‘gods’ and mythologies are also hard to mesh with the European, the subcontinent and Asian cultures. This might be another case of division of labour – this lot of ‘gods’ took sole responsibility for this geographical area; this other lot of ‘gods’ looked after another geographical area. The styles of these differing collections of ‘gods’ might have differed enough to account for why some parts of the world developed ‘civilization’ and some didn’t, even though all parts had ‘gods’.

*As a possible example of advanced knowledge given humans, reinterpreted by mankind in the only way possible given their limited understanding of modern cosmology, we have creation myths involving the ‘cosmic egg’. The basic story generally goes roughly like this: in the beginning there’s this dark void, or an endless dark and still ocean; in this darkness there was an egg, often a golden egg. For reasons unexplained, the egg breaks open and hatches, often associated with an outpouring of light. There’s usually a deity or deities in the egg who then go on to create the rest of, well, creation, including the heavens, the Earth, the underworld, and of course life. Now variations on this basic story will be found in at least ancient Egypt, Greece, India, China, Africa (the Dogon and Mande peoples), Japan, Finland, Tibet, Borneo and Oceania. In the 20^th Century, early cosmologists postulated the Ylem or the primeval atom as the ‘cosmic egg’ equivalent. Today, the ‘cosmic egg’ we’d now call ‘before the big bang’; the hatching would be the big bang; the associated deity or deities would be the natural process of physical, chemical and ultimately biological evolution that created, well, the rest of creation.

*Now humans, not knowing any better when subjected to various natural disasters like local, but intense, floods, were prone to blame the gods for being pissed off at humanity – maybe they were!

To be continued…

The Biblical Forty: Part Two

You can’t read much about Biblical lore without running across the pure number forty. It appears very often. Why? Was it a lack of imagination on the part of the mortals who penned the texts? Was it coincidence? Is it just statistical probability? Does it have some deeper significance? There’s no apparent obvious answer to this – it just is and it just is interesting.

The number 40 appears quite frequently in the Bible (at least in the King James Version anyway). You’d think that there would be equally as good a probability that 39 or 41 would appear as frequently, but no, apparently not. 39 and 41 hardly get a mention. That alone is a bit odd. Anyway, here are some more of the numerous examples of “40” in the Bible (King James Version).

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

NEHEMIAH

*Forty shekels of silver get mentioned.

*Yet again some further references to those 40 years in the wilderness.

PSALM

*Someone suffered a grievance about a certain generation for 40 years.

EZEKIEL

*Some reference to the inequity of the House of Judah being beared for 40 days.

*The land of Egypt shall be laid waste and desolate for 40 years.

*The length of a temple was 40 cubits.

AMOS

*Yet again more details about those 40 years spent by the Israelites in the wilderness.

JONAH

*It will be 40 days before the city of Nineveh is overthrown and cooked like a Xmas turkey.

MATTHEW

*Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.

MARK

*Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days, threatened by beasts and tempted by Satan and went on a starvation diet to boot!

LUKE

*More about Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days.

ACTS

*Some rather vague reference to Jesus and his 40 days while speaking of things relating to the kingdom of God.

*Back to Moses, that burning bush and 40 years that had elapsed prior to that flaming event.

*Yet again, references to those 40 years in the wilderness. 

*Now its Saul’s turn for his 40 years.

HEBREWS

*Some comparisons are made between Moses and Jesus and temptations, with special reference to those 40 years. 

Interestingly, the pure number 40 doesn’t appear in the most anomalous of Biblical books – Revelation. Anyway, back to 40!

We note that in the Bible it’s not 39.5 or 40.5 but precisely 40 (days, years, cubits, etc.) on the dot. You’d think there would be some slight variation. I mean if it rained for 40 days but only 39 nights, what’s the problem? 

Some numbers have special significance: the number 7 is lucky or perfect; the number 13 is however unlucky; we all know what 666 means, but 40?

The number 40 doesn’t really seem to have any real significance in the real world. None of the physical constants equal 40. The mathematical concept of Pi, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of any circle is, (rounded off) equal to 3.1416. Forty certainly doesn’t equal the human lifespan, then or now. Forty isn’t the square (1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, and 49) or cube (1, 8, 27, and 64) of any whole number. Time tends to be measured in multiples of 12 (60 seconds/minute; 60 minutes/hour; 24 hours/day; 12 months/year). No month has 40 days. We have 5 fingers and toes for a total of 20 digits. 100 is a common and significant number, and quarters of 100 are 25, 50 and 75. Few if any monetary denominations come in bills or coins equal to 40 units. The musical octave is 8. There are 360 degrees in a circle, and when quartered (the four points on the compass) you have going clockwise 90 (east), 180 (south), 270 (west), and of course 0/360 (north). 40 is just a very ho-hum number of no special significance. It has no real symbolic numerology.

In some contexts 40 is significant. Minus 40 degrees Centigrade equals minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Forty is also the sum of the first four pentagonal numbers (1, 5, 12 & 22). It is also a pentagonal pyramidal number (1, 6, 18, 40, 75, etc.). Venus returns to the exact same point in the sky every 40 years. A woman is pregnant for roughly 40 weeks. Forty has significance in some sports, none of which were played in Biblical times. Forty appears in some common phrases like “forty winks” or “life begins at forty”. Forty years of marriage is the ruby wedding anniversary. Then there’s “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”.

I’ve seen some suggestion that the 40 year cycle of Venus might have some significance, but the word “Venus” doesn’t appear in the Bible, and neither does “evening star”. “Morning star” does appear, but it’s made clear that Jesus is referring to himself (pat, pat, and pat some more) as the “morning star”. A common adjective for Venus, “Cytherean” fails to get a mention either.

All up, there seems little basis here to attribute the special significance to 40 that the Bible apparently gives it.

Of course maybe it’s some sort of Biblical code, sort of cryptic. Maybe it’s a clue to string together every 40^th letter or word in the Bible. I haven’t actually tried that on the assumption it would be a waste of time. I’d bet dimes to donuts that the result would be gibberish in any translation or in the original for that matter.

There are a final few Biblical bits that relate to 40; though I’m sure way more could be found if one looked hard enough. 

Moses' life is divided into three 40-year segments, separated by his fleeing from Egypt, and his return to lead his people out.

Forty days was the period from the resurrection of Jesus to the ascension of Jesus.

In modern Christian practice, Lent consists of the 40 days preceding Easter. 

The Biblical Forty: Part One

You can’t read much about Biblical lore without running across the pure number forty. It appears very often. Why? Was it a lack of imagination on the part of the mortals who penned the texts? Was it coincidence? Is it just statistical probability? Does it have some deeper significance? There’s no apparent obvious answer to this – it just is and it just is interesting.

The number 40 appears quite frequently in the Bible (at least in the King James Version anyway). You’d think that there would be equally as good a probability that 39 or 41 would appear as frequently, but no, apparently not. 39 and 41 hardly get a mention. That alone is a bit odd. Anyway, here are some of the numerous examples of “40” in the Bible (King James Version).

GENESIS 

*It rained 40 days and 40 nights.

*The flood was 40 days upon the earth.

*At the end of 40 days Noah released a raven.

*Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah.

*Esau was 40 years old when he married Judith.

*The Egyptians and Joseph embalmed and mourned his daddy for 40 days.

EXODUS

*Children of Israel ate manna for 40 years in the wilderness.

*Moses went up on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights.

*There were 40 sockets of silver noted and logged.

NUMBERS

*It took 40 days to search and spy out the Promised Land the Israelites were looking for and get word back about the goodies there

*God condemned His Chosen People to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

DEUTERONOMY

*More is related about those 40 years in the wilderness.

*More about Moses staying 40 days and nights on the mountain, starving and dying of thirst, waiting to receive those tablets of stone inscribed with the Ten Commandments.

JOSHUA

*Again, more info about those 40 years in the wilderness.

*Joshua was also 40 years old when he went on that spying mission.

JUDGES

*Israel had 40 years of peace between God’s judgments.

*There was 40 thousand in Israel and the big question was there a spear or shield among the lot of them?

*Abdon had 40 sons.

*The children of Israel did naughties and were tuned over to the Philistines for 40 years.

1 SAMUEL

*Eli judged Israel for 40 years.

*A philistine, Goliath apparently, menaced the armies of Israel for 40 days.

2 SAMUEL

*Saul’s son was 40 years old when he started his reign.

*David reigned for 40 years.

*David slew 40 thousand horsemen of the Syrians.

*Absalom after 40 years asked to be let go and pay a vow.

1 KINGS

*A bit more info about David reigning over Israel for 40 years. 

*Solomon had 40 thousand stalls for his horses.

*Solomon’s house was 40 cubits long.

*One laver contained 40 baths.

*Solomon reigned in Jerusalem in Israel for 40 years.

*Elijah journeyed 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

2 KINGS

*Jehoash began a 40 year reign in Jerusalem.

1 CHRONICLES

*More about David and those 40 thousand Syrian footmen.

*More about David reigning over Israel for 40 years.

2 CHRONICLES

*More about Solomon who was strutting his stuff in Jerusalem, thus over Israel for 40 years.

*Joash reigned in Jerusalem for 40 years.

To be continued…

Biblical Tall Tales: Jonah and Joshua

Ah, the Bible! The Bible is an endless source of inspiration. Inspiration that is for trying to figure out how to deal with the idiocies contained within. Some tales are plausible like David and Goliath; many aren’t, like Jonah and the whale or large fish; and some, like Joshua at Gibeon (Gideon) violate so many laws of physics that no sci-fi authors in their right minds would perpetrate such nonsense on their reading public. 

It never ceases to amaze me that an awful lot of people take every word in the Bible literally. I consider that a very poor reflection on the human intellect and the ability to think logically. To believe the Bible as literal truth today is now akin to believing that the Earth is flat and that the Sun goes around it. Once upon a time it might have been understandable, but those days are long gone. 

However, scholars who don’t accept Biblical truth as the undisputed literal word of God, when stumped for an actual alternative physical explanation, retreat to nebulous and wishy-washy concepts and start throwing buzz words like parable, metaphor, archetype, symbolism, ancestral memory and other psychological mumbo-jumbo around – anything that’s an alternative to 1) pure make-believe or 2) a real and unexplainable event. But those are my alternatives: the tales of Jonah and Joshua are either just make-believe or reality. Make-believe is more way more plausible, but it’s boring. So, let’s try for reality, but not supernatural reality – that’s a contradiction in terms.   

Jonah First:

Despite a large percentage of people taking a literal interpretation of all things Biblical, including the ‘Jonah and the Whale’ of a tale, now you know, and I know since we can think for ourselves, that while it might be theoretically possible for a very large fish, or some whales (like the sperm whale) to swallow you alive and whole (thus avoid biting you in half in the process), it’s unlikely in the extreme because no marine creature currently known exhibits that sort of feeding behaviour. Large fish or toothed whales have teeth for a reason, and humans are fairly large prey – we’re not minnows. Other very large fish like the whale shark (an endangered species that needs your help) don’t have teeth the shark in “Jaws” would have been proud to display, rather they are filter feeders. Filter feeders include the very large baleen whale – but it couldn’t swallow you without choking to death. So, you’re gonna be bitten and chewed first before being swallowed. Further, you’re not going to survive in their stomach for very long – minutes at most in all likelihood. If you don’t drown first, the lack of oxygen will soon do you in or the digestive acids will soon turn you into digestible fish food. So the ‘Jonah and the Whale’ story is rubbish, unless the whale were really a submarine that was embellished and given flesh-and-blood in order to provide the narrator and reader with something in a more familiar context. But then there weren’t no subs back then were there?

So the story of ‘Jonah and the Whale’ (or large fish) is in all likelihood just another of the numerous Biblical tall tales. It can not be a literal event. However, let’s play that ‘what if’ game again.

I interrupt the story here to point out that 1) behind all mythology, including Biblical mythology lurks a tiny grain of historical truth and that 2) God isn’t a supernatural deity but just one of many extraterrestrials who have arrived on Earth eons before and have divided jurisdiction over various terrestrial geographical areas among themselves. God’s patch of turf to oversee and govern of course is what we now call the Middle East. The logic behind that is too long and complicated to go into again; I’ve done that previously. Let’s just say if you believe in God then you actually believe in extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial intelligence and ‘ancient astronauts’. 

Now if I get the story right, God (the E.T.) sends Jonah on an errand. Jonah doesn’t want a bar of this and heads off in the opposite direction that involves a sea journey*. God ain’t amused at mutiny and so causes this storm at sea, which makes the sailors very unhappy indeed. The sailors, a superstitious lot, make Jonah walk-the-plank or otherwise heave Jonah overboard, actually at Jonah’s own suicidal suggestion. Now that throws a monkey wrench in God’s plans. God therefore had better save his errand boy from drowning and so Jonah is rescued by one of Captain God’s Starship Heaven’s shuttlecraft, or a UFO. But, Jonah gets punished with a three day and night solitary confinement prison sentence for his disobedience, locked away inside this so-called ‘fish’. But, Jonah, inside the belly of the ‘beast’ is eventually released (regurgitated) unharmed, repents and is able to complete his mission for Captain God. A happy ending!

Now Jonah, being a rather typical Biblical character, unsophisticated in the ways of high technology (and you can’t blame him for that – you couldn’t exactly enrol for a Ph.D. in engineering way back then) found himself floundering in the ocean one moment, then locked inside something strange for three days and nights before being deposited on dry land. The only logical explanation to such a Biblical lad lacking an engineering Ph.D. was the whale/large fish alternative. In fact to his mind, there was no alternative – that had to have been the only possible explanation.

Now Jonah wouldn’t of necessity have to have actually seen the aliens piloting the UFO shuttlecraft sent by God (the E.T.) that rescued him from certain death.

So, in conclusion, here are your options: 1) Supernatural God works a miracle and allows Jonah to get swallowed alive by a large marine creature and live to tell the tale after surviving a lack of oxygen and digestive acids for three days and nights; 2) There was no such person and no such marine creature, rather the author of the Jonah tale was on some sort of Biblical-era LSD – the option any sane betting person would take; 3) the story has some sort of foundation, in which case the ‘fish’ had to have been something technological complete with oxygen supply and no digestive juices.  

*Obviously Jonah didn’t perceive God as all-knowing and all-powerful, otherwise he would have known that ‘resistance is futile’!

Joshua Second:

Then we have the tale of Joshua, a relatively minor figure in the Bible, a sort of sidekick apprentice to Moses during all those Exodus bits, at least until he gets his very own Biblical book, the “Book of Joshua” (how original). He was a sort of Biblical James Bond and military officer who commanded the Israelites in the destruction of many places, like Canaan and Jericho. But it was at Gibeon (Gideon) that everlasting historical fame, if not fortune, awaited Joshua, for at Gibeon he asked God to cause the Sun and the Moon to stand still, so that he could finish his battle, a battle on behalf of God, in daylight.

The exact quote from the King James Version is:

Joshua: 10: 12 – “Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.”

Joshua: 10: 13 - “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.”

Now the first and minor objection is that if the Moon and the Sun are in the sky at the same time, the additional lighting the Moon provides is so marginal that the average person wouldn’t even notice it. The Full Moon, when you get maximum illumination from the lunar orb, only rises at about the same time the Sun is setting; setting when the Sun is rising in the east. As long as the Sun was up and shining, Joshua had all the light he needed.

Now the second and major objection is that in order to get the Sun to stand still – hover in the sky – Planet Earth has got to stop rotating on its axis. God would have had to cause the Earth to brake very suddenly. Now, what happens if you’re driving along at a rapid rate of miles per hour and all of a sudden have to apply the brakes full force? Well anything not tied down inside the car is going to keep on travelling in a forward direction. Apply that principle to the Earth, which is rotating a hell of a lot faster than any family car, and anything not tied down, like you, will go shooting off into space! So, the Sun standing still in the sky would result in the Mother of all Disasters down here on not so terra-firma. Since that didn’t happen, the Joshua story is another example of Biblical bovine fertilizer.

Now the third and also a major objection is that since the Moon goes around the Earth, stopping just the Earth’s rotation wouldn’t stop the Moon from travelling across the sky. God would have had to stop the Moon dead still in its orbit. But that adds the complication that the gravitational attraction between Earth and Moon would then cause the Moon to start dropping like the proverbial stone – right towards target Earth (actually the Earth would also head towards the Moon as well; each celestial object gravitationally attracting the other). It’s only because the Earth orbits the Sun that prevents us from colliding with it; ditto the Moon orbiting the Earth in constant motion results in no lunar-terra collision. Of course God also needed to freeze the Earth’s rotation since that too would cause the Moon to move in the sky from east to west.

Now what sort of natural or even unnatural but closer-to-home terrestrial objects might substitute for a stationary Sun and Moon? Well, nothing really comes to mind. Since there were no helicopters, flares, blimps or balloons, or spotlights back then, and no other natural source of light, say ball lightning, stands still, then we’re left with either a total fabrication or something extraterrestrial. 

So the only escape clause as I see it, apart from the observation that the tale is pure fiction, is that the objects weren’t the Sun and the Moon at all, but UFOs under Captain God’s command. Brightly glowing UFOs could hover overhead, for as long as this was required, providing the illumination required for Joshua to complete his military rape and pillage, which of course God gave His stamp of approval to.

P.S. The moral to these stories is that once you reject the literal interpretation of any one of the Biblical tall tales (The Brothers Grimm should have written so many), like Jonah and Joshua, then you have to question the literal aspects of all the texts; every Biblical book, chapter and verse.

Was Jesus Christ an ‘Ancient Astronaut’? Part Two

The mythological and supernatural gods, even the monotheistic God, have been stripped of their mythological and supernatural status by those proposing that they were actually ‘humanly’ flawed flesh-and-blood beings ‘who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men’ (apologies for stealing Superman’s introduction). In other words, the gods (including God) were ‘ancient astronauts’. One being not usually cited in the ‘ancient astronaut’ literature is Jesus Christ. However, I see no reason to exclude him from consideration and speculation. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…. 

Now it maybe impressive for J.C. to have miraculously healed someone of, say cancer. But, it would have been far more impressive for J.C. to have come up with an overall cure for cancer – surely within the powers of a supernatural (but maybe not an extraterrestrial) being. In any event, there’s no stunt or miracle that J.C. pulled off that you can’t also find in the annals of the various polytheistic gods. Raise the dead? That’s old hat stuff – that trick don’t impress me much anymore!

One other thought at this particular juncture comes to mind. One often repeated theme in mythology when it comes to the gods is the conflict between father and son. Sooner or later, the son grows up and ultimately poses a threat to daddy and daddy’s power. Gods were known to plot against their own kids, sometimes swallowing their newborn in order to prevent any further on down-the-track rivalry for power with their legitimate heirs. Daddy gods could be and often were jealous of their own offspring. So what about the relationship between J.C. and God?

Well our monotheistic God is indeed a jealous God by His own admission via the Ten Commandments, so it stands to reason that He’s going to be miffed that His son J.C. has stolen His limelight. That is, J.C. had achieved better P.R. overall and perhaps a greater following than God Himself commanded 2000 years ago.  However, God laughs last and best because obviously J.C. didn’t get to follow Dad home, alive at least, since he of course met his waterloo nearly 20 centuries ago. One would think that an all-powerful God could have easily saved His son from execution via The Cross, if He had wanted to. However, allowing the execution to go ahead was a really easy and guilt-free way of eliminating a future rival. Actually our extraterrestrial ‘God’ wasn’t totally without compassion for His executed son (the straw that broke the camel’s back?), so before departing He no doubt ‘beamed’ J.C.’s body aboard His Starship Heaven, and in so doing explains J.C.’s resurrection and his empty tomb!

What I’m speculating here is that God has left the building. The basis for suggesting this is that even if you take the evidence for God’s existence as revealed in the Bible at face value – burning bushes, pillars of salt, universal floods, etc. there has been nothing one can hang one’s hat on for the past several thousand years in the way of evidence for God. No interviews, no photographs, no new Commandments, no verified miracles that God and only a God could preform, total and apparent wilful ignoring of the pope’s prayers for all the sorts of things popes go on and on about (like praying for world peace – a futile gesture if ever there was one), etc. Now, if God were really not God, but ‘God’, an extraterrestrial, well Starship Heaven and crew might have left the building (Planet Earth) eons ago and sought greener pastures. I mean God’s Old Testament temper tantrums got Him nowhere; we still take His name in vain and curse Him “God damn it”; His Ten Commandments are often ignored by the great unwashed; J.C. seems to get more press coverage and positive P.R. as noted above; God has lots of competition from other deities, as well as other goods and services that rival His. I mean God can no more compete with prime time reality television and rap music and cell phones and iPods and the Internet’s MySpace and Facebook, than J.C. can now compete with consumerism and commercialism on the 25^th of December! No, I think ‘God’ (the extraterrestrial since I don’t believe the supernatural God exists) has voluntarily give humanity the ‘big finger’ and taken his bat and ball and gone home to sulk. Or perhaps ‘God’ has been involuntarily exiled. I mean if ‘God’ exists, then perhaps the ‘gods’ must also exist, and because there are many, many ‘gods’, (in this context God is outnumbered many thousands upon thousands to one) well I mean even the schoolyard bully can be sent packing with tail tucked between legs if enough of the bullied gang up and fight back. There’s no love lost between God and the gods since God ascended the Top Dog throne and Commanded that the gods be considered persona non-grata.

However, that aside, J.C.’s ‘mission’ seems to have been somewhat akin to our terrestrial missionaries who spread out to the four ‘corners’ of the globe, including way too often knocking on your door; spreading the ‘good word’ (although often that’s often different words for different missionaries). So, J.C. comes to Earth (probably via Dad’s Starship Heaven) to spread the good news about intelligent life in space, our ‘space brothers’, which was totally misinterpreted and moulded into a supernatural context by our ancient ancestors. That’s understandable – J.C.’s strutting his high tech stuff wouldn’t be comprehensible to the masses 2000+ years ago.

I’ve deliberately used the phrase ‘space brothers’ above, because I want to make a connection between J.C. as an angelic-like extraterrestrial being, and the way more recent (1950’s) contactees who claimed to have had personal contact with and messages from angelic-like extraterrestrial beings, often called by the contactees our ‘space brothers’ who have come to Earth in their ‘flying saucers*’. 

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 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.

In the light of J.C. as a role model, passing himself off as a deity acceptable to the populace rather than as a technologically advanced extraterrestrial which might be beyond the comprehension of that same populace, so too 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, back to J.C. as template, the contactees, simple folk, were the sort of folk that – if you believe traditional Biblical J.C. mythology – J.C. 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!

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.

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 Biblical J.C. as generally described, would have fitted right into that picture. J.C. 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.   

As an interesting, but possibly irrelevant aside, the Visoki Dečani is a major Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery located in Kosovo. Within are various murals. On the "The Crucifixion" (of J.C.) fresco, painted in 1350, objects similar to UFOs can be found. They represent two comets that look like space ships, with two men inside of them, and are often cited by those interested in ‘ancient astronauts’. The images are certainly striking and again, Google Images can bring up the relevant pictures. You have to decide for yourself, but if not representing really real ‘ancient astronauts’, well then I’m pretty well stumped. 

So, was J.C. an ‘ancient astronaut’? Only you can be the judge. But if you interpret J.C. related events of roughly 2000 years ago firstly as having been embellished, but secondly when viewed in light of current and projected terrestrial technologies, then it’s not that hard to view J.C. not a saviour, but as an ‘ancient astronaut’ – a dead ‘astronaut’. But if J.C. really was an ‘ancient astronaut’, that just might give a whole new credibility to those 50’s contactees.

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

Was Jesus Christ an ‘Ancient Astronaut’? Part One

The mythological and supernatural gods, even the monotheistic God, have been stripped of their mythological and supernatural status by those proposing that they were actually ‘humanly’ flawed flesh-and-blood beings ‘who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men’ (apologies for stealing Superman’s introduction). In other words, the gods (including God) were ‘ancient astronauts’. One being not usually cited in the ‘ancient astronaut’ literature is Jesus Christ. However, I see no reason to exclude him from consideration and speculation. 

Erich von Daniken – of ‘ancient astronaut’ fame (though hardly the one and only in that field, he wasn’t the first to think up the ‘ancient astronaut’ idea, but he really helped to popularize it) – has had many best selling book titles exploring that theme, when translated into English (von Daniken was Swiss) became known as “Chariots of the Gods”; “Gods from Outer Space” and several others of like ilk. Presumably the ‘gods’ refer to the general run of polytheistic gods. But the back jacket cover of my “Chariots of the Gods” tome he asks the question ‘was God an astronaut?’ presumably the monotheistic God. Of course the plural gods could incorporate the singular God. In any event, the index to either of these first two noted volumes doesn’t mention Jesus Christ (hereafter J.C.). I suspect the main reason why, was that von Daniken focused more on archaeology and artefacts, and there just isn’t much in the way of J.C. archaeology and artefacts. I personally think mythology offers an equally if not better field in which to play, and there’s a lot of J.C. mythology. The question I now ask, was J.C. an ‘ancient astronaut’?

If you’re a rational being you probably tend to think all things supernatural (ghosts, telekinesis, astrology, deities, etc.) are a load of codswallop. On the other hand, you, as a rational being, probably acknowledge there’s historical evidence that J.C. existed, though that’s not accepted by all scholars. If so, if you think J.C. really existed, you have a problem since J.C. is considered by the multitudes to be a supernatural being. But, that paradox can be resolved, not just by denying J.C.’s very existence, but somehow attributing J.C.’s so-called supernatural abilities in a more, well not so much a down-to-earth way as in an up-to-space context. The very question explains all – was J.C. an ‘ancient astronaut’? That is, was J.C., instead of a supernatural being, an extraterrestrial being?

Let’s start at the beginning.

We have no idea what date J.C. was ‘born’, if a virgin birth can be interpreted as being somehow naturally born. The 25^th of December is a pure invention on the part of the Christian Church – even the exact year is uncertain. The so-called ‘Star of Bethlehem’ is of little use. Despite speculation that the ‘star’ was a conjunction of two or more stellar and/or planetary objects, the ‘star’ would still resolve itself into two or more points of light, even though apparently in very close proximity. Further, that two or three individual points of light connection would also have been obvious to observers in the days and weeks before (as the points of light grew closer together) and after (as they drew apart again). A supernovae or a comet would have been visible for many days’ even weeks. A ‘shooting star’ would visually last way too short an interval. No, the ‘star’ must have been a one-off short duration event. Let’s call a spade a spade here – the ‘star’ was a classic UFO sighting! The proof of that pudding is that the so-called ‘star’ led people, wise men or otherwise, to a very, very specific geographical location, something no astronomical object could do. 

Piling on the speculation, let’s say our UFO was, say if not the Starship Heaven (the extraterrestrial and ‘ancient astronaut’ God’s spacecraft), at least a shuttlecraft from same. If the infant J.C. were, in a manner of speaking ‘beamed down’, well that would be something akin to a ‘virgin birth’. Modern UFO abduction lore would suggest that our modern aliens, the greys say, do have some sort of beaming technology.

Now it’s my understanding that there is quite some considerable ‘missing time’ gap between J.C.’s early years and the start of his ‘ministry’ at roughly age 30 or thereabouts. J.C. apparently went walkabout for quite a while and any official J.C. biography will have a large timeline gap in it. That a person of such importance as to attract a crowd at his ‘virgin’ birth, the messiah, the Son of God, could just vanish for years on end just staggers the imagination. The question is where did J.C. go for all those years? Perhaps he returned home for a bit of R&R, or reflection. My best guess is that J.C. returned home (somewhere out there) for instruction, training and overall preparedness for what was to come, that is, his ‘ministry’ or whatever. Again, it is strange that someone of his historical stature would have just vanished off the face of the planet for quite some considerable time.

Then we have the so-called ‘miracles of Jesus’ which tend to fall into four categories: exorcisms; control over nature; medical cures; and raising the dead. Even if J.C. existed, there’s no consensus that he performed anything supernatural as in miracles. In fact, just one general miracle is mentioned in all four of the Gospels – feeding the multitudes with loaves and fishes on apparently two occasions. That might be explainable – a simple cell phone call to God on the Starship Heaven – “Hey Daddy, can you beam me down some more supplies please?” Somehow along the line, Matthew, Mark, Luke or John overlooked one or more of J.C.’s other miraculous accomplishments. In fact, slightly less than half of J.C.’s miracles merit only a single mention from one of the four Gospels. Further, many of J.C.’s miracles seem pretty trivial like walking on water and cursing a fig tree. Anyway, I don’t see anything here that’s beyond the technical capabilities of an advanced extraterrestrial civilization.

Exorcisms – even ordinary Catholic priests can cast out a minor demon or two, but of course if there no such thing as demons then there’s nothing to actually exorcise. Instead, just use the application of a bit of mumbo-jumbo; the power of suggestion; the application of a bit of pop psychology – that should do the trick. The placebo effect ‘cures’ the demonized.  

Control over nature – well nothing a bit of slight-of-hand coupled with some sophisticated technology, including the ‘beam me up Scotty’ variety couldn’t accomplish. Sure, some of J.C.’s miracles appear impressive, but if Matthew, Mark, Luke and/or John could witness some 20th and 21^st Century technology, what tales I’m sure they would spin!

Cures – nothing modern medicine couldn’t handle. To the simple peasants of 2000 years ago, from their point of view, our 21^st Century MD’s do a bang up job in cures for probably most of the ailments that would have inflicted them. 

Raising the dead – or was it walking up the sleeping as J.C. himself admitted in one of only three such cases involving him? Now actually resurrecting the dead is a very common theme in deity-based mythologies throughout the world, and thus hardly something unique to J.C. Actually, and again from the perspective of 2000 years down the track, our modern medical technology does a reasonable job in resurrections of the apparently (i.e. – those under general anaesthesia) and sometimes even clinically dead, via the use of electric heart thumpers, administering oxygen, etc. Then there’s that other J.C. resurrection – J.C.’s own return to the ‘living’. If J.C. appeared to people post execution, well it’s amazing what holographic projections can do, especially if you have no concept of hologram technology. Of course maybe the extraterrestrial medical technology available on the Starship Heaven could resurrect the dead or the fact that J.C. was an extraterrestrial – he didn’t have purely human physiology – might also explain it. 

To be continued…

A Biblical Quiz: Part Three

Believing in the reality of Biblical stories is, IMHO akin to accepting the reality of the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and the Adventures of Superman. Or, perhaps it’s more akin to accepting the reality of that other Holy Trinity – Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy! Next time your local clergy starts shooting off at the mouth about the reality of all things Biblical, the Glory and the Greatness of God, here are a few awkward questions to pose (or perhaps just forward this on to your local place of worship along with a “please explain”).

I’ve said it before but it probably bears repeating that the moment you question the bona-fides of any part of the Bible you have got to question the lot. So here are a few questions of mine which if truth be known could easily be expanded to monograph lengths.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

TEN COMMANDMENTS REGARDING MURDER: One well known part of Biblical lore are the Ten Commandments issued by God and once such commandment goes something along the line of “Thou shalt not kill”. Yet God kills.

Quiz question: Why does God kill if God says “Thou shalt not kill”?

TEN COMMANDMENTS REGARDING LUST: Another commandment refers to not desiring or coveting thy neighbour’s wife.

Quiz question: Now that’s downright sexist. What about not coveting thy neighbour’s husband? I don’t believe that got a mention anywhere! Why not?

TEN COMMANDMENTS REGARDING PARENTS: Yet still another commandment says that you should honour thy father and thy mother.

Quiz question: Should that commandment apply to those kids who were abused, even sexually abused, or sold into slavery, or had other atrocities fostered upon them by dear old Mum and Dad?

MOSES: You’d think that after all the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifices that Moses made for God as related in Exodus, etc., that God would have at least had the decency to allow Moses to reach and step foot in the Promised Land before dying. No such luck, or rather compassion and consideration from dear old God.

Quiz question: Why was God such an ungrateful SOB to Moses?

JERICHO: One of the few places noted in the Bible that can be pinpointed on the map is Jericho. In fact that location was first settled from around 8000 BCE. Now the Bible tells the rather bizarre story of a six-day ring-around-the-rosy blockade of Jericho by the Israelites followed by a concert and lots of shouting on the seventh day which had the remarkable effect of shattering Jericho’s solid stone defences – and the walls came tumbling down (but the rest of the story that follows isn’t fit viewing for the kids). Now all that took place within a timeframe around 1300-1100 BCE. But, and there’s always that fly-in-the-ointment ‘but’ to contend with. Archaeologists inform those of us willing to listen that Jericho was already in ruins by the period 2400-2300 BCE, probably due to the numerous earthquakes that are part and parcel of the area and sparsely inhabited. There were no walls left to tumble down.

Quiz question: So why is the Biblical version of events akin to smelling of long dead fish? Something indeed is fishy somewhere. 

ARK OF THE COVENANT: There is a certain Biblical relic or artefact known as the ‘Ark of the Covenant’ that features in the Old Testament (41 times). It apparently contains the original Ten Commandments tablets and has certain powers, powers for example demonstrated in the film “[Indiana Jones and the] Raiders of the Lost Ark”. The operative word is “lost”. One would think that such an important and historical Biblical relic wouldn’t be lost. It would be in a museum, or in the Vatican, but it wouldn’t be lost, as in “Atlantis, the Lost Continent”.

Quiz question: Where is the Ark of the Covenant?

HOLY GRAIL: Another holy relic (in fact the holiest of holies) that featured in the film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, and equally features in the various King Arthur legends, is something known as the “Holy Grail” which I gather had some connection to Jesus and his last days as in the Last Supper. For some unexplainable reason, this relic gets no mention at all in the Bible, at least under that common phrase. And if such an artefact actually exists, it is equally as lost.

Quiz question: Why isn’t the Holy Grail mentioned by that name in the Bible, and if it exists, where the hell is it?

SAMSON’S HAIRCUT: An astounding fact of human physiology is revealed by the Bible when Hercules wannabe Samson gets a trim and as a result suffers superpower losses like Superman exposed to kryptonite.

Quiz question: Why don’t the medical textbooks mention this relationship between hair length and physical strength?

DAVID: The Almighty is displeased with David, so God kills David’s newborn baby! You gotta love the logic in that!

Quiz question: Should God be compelled to attend an elementary course in bonehead logic?

PSALM 137: Many Biblical poems, etc. have been turned into classical and especially popular music. Psalm 137 is one such poem translated into a popular song – “By the Rivers of Babylon”. Fortunately in the public interest the ending was left out of the song.

Quiz question: If the Bible is all about love and peace and forgiveness and mercy and compassion, all those warm and fuzzy things that derives ultimately from God, why does Psalm 137 ultimately end in pure barbarism?

UNICORNS: The Bible mentions and gives credibility to the existence of the creature commonly referred to as the unicorn (for example Isaiah 34: 7).

Quiz question: If unicorns don’t exist, why does the Bible mention then on several occasions?

DOOMSDAY ACCORDING TO SCHOLARS: Biblical scholars have made intense study of the Bible’s prophesied ‘end of days’ for over 2000 years, and predictions based on their studies and authority have been made, and made again, and again and again and again – hundreds of times over in fact.

Quiz question: Why have their scholarly forecasts or prophecies regarding doomsday resulted in a 100% failure rate?

DOOMSDAY ACCORDING TO JESUS: J.C. told his followers that Armageddon, the ‘second coming’, the ‘end of days’ whatever you care to call it would happen within the lifetime of many to whom he was speaking. He didn’t know the exact time and place, but did know it would happen within a generation or two of his ‘now’.

Quiz question: Why hasn’t Armageddon happened since anyone and everyone who ever saw and heard J.C. has long since been turned dust and become food for the microbes?

QUOTATIONS: The New Testament quotes Jesus many times; the only source I might add. However, the gospels weren’t written until many decades after his demise. There were no tape recorders around in that era, so how can it be that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (and others) collectively comprise the quotable Jesus?  They weren’t even around back then to interview him!

Quiz question: Can you really believe the accuracy of what Jesus said when his words weren’t recorded down until numerous decades after-the-fact? Should the New Testament quote him at all under such circumstances?

SATAN’S FATE: After all those trials and tribulations part and parcel of Revelation, Satan is defeated, several times over in fact, and as his final punishment is consigned to a lake of fire and sulphur  (brimstone). Since Satan’s natural element is heat, fire and brimstone (remember Hell, anyone), that’s akin to exiling a polar bear to the Artic or condemning a fish to live eternally in water!

Quiz question: Is this the best that God can do? I’m not impressed.

ANSWERS: 1) The Bible is primarily a work of fiction and what little history there is, is embellished and distorted beyond all recognition and hope of recovery. 2) God, the supernatural deity, does not and never has existed.