Created in Man’s Image: God’s Virtual Reality: Part Three

Reality isn’t all that complicated. It resides 100% within that brain-thingy of yours. The Big Question is, is that (your brain) the sum total of reality or are their other realities outside of your own that reside as both an outside reality and in other brain-thingies? And where does the reality of a god (or any supernatural deity) fit into that Big Mental Picture? Perhaps God was created in man’s image.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

NO TWO GODS ARE THE SAME BECAUSE NO TWO BRAINS ARE IDENTICAL

I read recently that “… nothing precise can be said about God, because God is that which is beyond the scope of human thought or experience”. That’s wrong. At least I was under the impression that a whole potful of Biblical characters experienced God, like Moses. Anyway, God is totally within the scope of human thought since God’s our mental creation (recall all those human traits God has), and even if by chance God has some sort of independent existence, as per all else in life, the universe and everything, that existence is shovelled into and contemplated within something that’s human, the human mind. The human mind absorbs and reduces God down to understandably human terms. How many zillions upon zillions of words have been written and spoken about the concept of God (or Allah or whoever). 100% of those words have been generated via the human mind, so we’ve certainly spared no mental expense in dealing with the Almighty! Even if God is the sound of one hand clapping, well we can contemplate that. That contemplation might be wrong, and again every person will have his or her own personal contemplations that will all be different, but everyone comes to terms with the concept, so God (or the lack of a god if you’re an atheist) is not beyond the scope of the human mind.

Even if there is an external reality (your brain isn’t the sum total of all things), no two individuals, or rather their brains, will perceive that external reality down to the last and infinite decimal place. I believe in a god; you believe in a god, but when we compare notes, subtle shades of grey appear. How can there be such a thing as absolute reality when no two people will ever agree on what that reality is, even if it takes going down to the quantum level to find the split in the perception of that reality.

So there are as many versions of God’s (or equivalent) existence and nature as there are human minds. Quite apart from the formal definitions and distinctions between the thousands of formal religions that have been in the past and that are now in the present as to ‘who and what is god’ (all formally presented by the human mind), or even restricting things to God-of-the-Bible (the Bible by the way is the product of the human mind, as is the Koran, as are all religious texts), each individual human member of each religious sect or cult (like Christianity) has his or her own variation on the God theme, courtesy of their unique brain chemistry. So considering God apart from the thousands upon thousands of polytheistic deities (and who’s to deny their validity), there isn’t one God, but billions of Gods, each a unique God in the mind of that beholder. No two insides (minds) are identical.

GOD ON THE BRAIN

To illustrate all of the above with a specific concept near and dear to the hearts and minds of many a human, we shall further consider the lone ranger we call “God” or in more general terms the concept of a supernatural god or deity.

That God exists in one form or another is in no dispute since there are zillions of references to Him in all manner of formats, from the printed word like the Bible to what resides inside your wetware. That existence however can be akin to that of say Allan Quatermain, the creation of H. Rider Haggard. That Allan Quatermain exists is in no dispute either since there are millions of references to his existence too. But, Allan Quatermain is virtual reality – perhaps God is too.

That God is near and dear to the hearts and minds of humans is also because that’s probably what’s been taught or otherwise rammed down our collective throats by parents, teachers, church and sometimes state. Or, perhaps you have self learned about this godly concept off your own bat. Or you may have had what you perceive as having had a direct experience – a eureka moment – when God talked to you, or the angels paid you a visit, or you had some sort of defining rapturous moment that you identified with the supernatural, like your prayers were answered or you experienced a miracle.

Why would the human mind, the human imagination invent a god, or the human mind accept as given the concept of a god? Well probably because the human mind, of all the animal kingdom’s minds, is the one unique mind to have foreknowledge about personal death. Humans, like all animals who battle for survival, don’t want to die. Humans know that they will die and that they are powerless to prevent their death. But what if (a variation of the phrase let’s ‘make believe’), there was someone or something that could rescue one from this pending unfortunate state of affairs of kicking the bucket and give one a second (after) life? To do so, the imagination has to go beyond the natural to the supernatural (why not) and to a local inhabitant of that supernatural world, a god or a deity, who can make it so. 

The key word here seems to me to be ‘supernatural’ not God, since God is a small subset of alleged deities inhabiting the realm of the supernatural. It doesn’t really matter if you substitute Odin or Zeus or even the Rainbow Serpent for God – same general concept.

Perhaps because of that concept of impending finality, death, our brains seem to be hardwired or conditioned to accept the general nature of the supernatural – things which are ‘above and beyond’ the natural or normal bits and pieces we associate with the concept of a Mother Nature. For comparison, it would be interesting to have conservations with, or read the mind of, your cat or dog or an elephant or chimpanzee (our ultimate primate ancestral species) and find out what beliefs or worldviews they have in all things supernatural, like in a deity or life after death. My guess is that only humans ponder over the possibilities of deities which maybe extra evidence that someone or something impersonating a deity (i.e. - ‘ancient astronauts’) has mucked about with our wetware to ensure this.

So somehow or other, the human mind, brain, and all associated electromagnetic energy and biochemical bits that collective make up our brain’s neural networks, are quasi-hardwired to invent and contemplate and in general put faith in the reality of the supernatural and a supernatural deity, albeit, if I’m right, it’s really just virtual reality since it all stems from within the mind contemplated by the mind and not from an external outside to the mind via the five senses.  

THE END

When your wetware dries out; when your neurons cease firing; when the microbes attack and the rot sets in and the chemistry stops, then your inner reality ceases too. Whether you take life, the universe and everything with you or not is irrelevant. Your reality is just as kaput as kaput can be. 

CONCLUSION

Assuming a really real reality, an external reality (and that’s probably the way to bet) coming to terms with life, the universe and everything is a job performed by your brain chemistry. The concept of God (or equivalent) is part of life, the universe and everything, so coming to terms with the nature of God is also a function of and a task performed by your wetware. I suggest that ‘coming to terms’ with God is entirely an internal mental affair; God was created in our image.

Created in Man’s Image: God’s Virtual Reality: Part Two

Reality isn’t all that complicated. It resides 100% within that brain-thingy of yours. The Big Question is, is that (your brain) the sum total of reality or are their other realities outside of your own that reside as both an outside reality and in other brain-thingies? And where does the reality of a god (or any supernatural deity) fit into that Big Mental Picture? Perhaps God was created in man’s image.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

GOD AND THE INSIDE LOOKING OUTSIDE: IS THERE AN OUTSIDE AT ALL?

In theory there are two forms of existence – reality and virtual reality. You, or at least your brain, have reality. If someone, even yourself, dreams about you or writes a story about you, that particular version of you is a virtual reality you.

For all you know there is no external outside reality. All that is ‘outside’ is a figment of your imagination, of your mind, of your brain chemistry in the exact same way as your dreams (inside looking inside) are imaginary and not literally a part of external reality. Your dreams (while asleep) might be a dream within a daydream (your so-called external reality – life is but a dream), which is a variation on the standard simulated universe (virtual reality) scenario only substituting wetware for software. The only thing that is really real is your wetware, but that is subject to various outside forces, as noted above, assuming of course there are outside forces.

Even the body to which the brain is attached might be illusionary. There’s the famous tale of the two philosophers, one of whom said that a large rock was but an illusion and had no reality (Philosopher-I) and the other (Philosopher-R) who refuted that theory by giving the rock a really swift and violent kick, and in intense pain noted that he had indeed refuted the claim of Philosopher-I. But did he? Philosopher-I could argue that Philosopher-R was as imaginary as the rock; his kick was an illusion, and the pain therefore nonexistent. Philosopher-I could further argue that since he hadn’t kicked the rock not a thing about the reality of the rock was proved to his satisfaction. Even if Philosopher-I had kicked the rock and ended up with a black-and-blue big toe for his trouble, he could still argue that the pain was just his imagination, it resided only within his brain, and existed independently of his unreal illusory bruised big toe. All that was apparently outside of Philosopher-I’s brain, Philosopher-I’s body, Philosopher-R, the rock, the kick, etc., was just all make believe done via Philosopher-I’s brain chemistry.

So there may not be an ‘outside’ at all – your brain is the universe. But if there is an outside it could be drastically different than what you perceive it to be, as in the case of someone seeing sounds. Your brain chemistry has taken an outside reality and turned it into an alternative and inner reality, a personal reality, a reality unique to you and only you because your brain and brain chemistry is uniquely yours.

Contrast that when I’m asleep and dreaming ‘reality’ with your wide awake ‘reality’. Both can seem equally real, as anyone who has had nightmares can testify to.

Contrast your wide awake ‘reality’ to that when you are ill or exhausted or under the influence or after taking LSD or marijuana. Your ‘reality’ changes as circumstances change. Further, someone who is ill or tired or under the influence, etc. or is otherwise hallucinating, isn’t witnessing the same reality that you are.

Reality is a rather nebulous concept!

But either there is an external reality, or there is not. If there is not and you accept the validity of a god or a deity then that god or deity is a creation of your imagination and part of your fantasy world. If there is an external reality, then either a god (or gods) exists within that external life, the universe and everything or does not exist. In other words, either there is, or is not, a real supernatural deity who creates, controls and destroys, a deity that has an existence independent from your own. Regardless, let’s call this ‘is’ or ‘is not’ supernatural entity “God”. There can be no wriggle room between the two possibilities*.

Even in an external reality, Superman has no reality, only virtual reality. Superman was conceived in the human mind. In contrast, does God have reality, or just a virtual reality? If it’s the latter, then God was conceived and born in the human mind, where God resides to this very day. God is a figment of our imagination. In short, God didn’t make us in His image; we made God in our image since God was our creation. Of course if God was created in our image then it’s not surprising that what we like God likes and what we don’t like, well there’s God’s wrath we conjured up to deal with that. God’s virtual reality actions and reactions, as related in the Bible at least, are totally comprehensible to us. God is depicted as often violent, prone to temper tantrums, authoritarian, cruel, demanding, jealous, vindictive, vain, in sort, God’s human. But God’s not unique in that capacity. Zeus ain’t any better – he’s a downright sex maniac, even rapist. In fact if you examine any deity from any mythology you’ll find very, very human qualities exhibited. Hera (Mrs. Zeus) is a jealous scheming bitch; Zeus’s brother Poseidon is vindictive and bad tempered; his other brother Hades was a kidnapper. I’d better stop there; otherwise an essay turns into a full-length book!

How do we know for absolute certain that God didn’t create mankind in His image and not the other way around, as I believe? We don’t! But if God really wanted to make His humans a unique creation, really separate and apart from all else, He would not have moulded us with the same basic body plan and biochemistry as the rest of the animal kingdom. We might have been created instead with a silicon-based biochemistry and we certainly wouldn’t share any DNA with anything else, since that just confuses the creation picture. Further, the dust-and-rib scenario of Genesis is pretty ludicrous even to the relatively uneducated. Even Frankenstein’s monster is a more plausible account or act of creation than Genesis.

To be continued…

*There might be a third possibility. Something or someone masquerading as a deity, say ‘ancient astronauts’, who by artificial selection, starting with primitive primates through to the hominids and eventually to us, genetically engineered our wetware such that the concept of ‘god’ was hardwired into our brains, such that we would accept the external reality of a god(s) (with themselves in the starring role), all the better with which to control the great unwashed masses. ‘God’ carries a bigger more awe-inspiring stick than mere flesh-and-blood aliens.

Created in Man’s Image: God’s Virtual Reality: Part One

Reality isn’t all that complicated. It resides 100% within that brain-thingy of yours. The Big Question is, is that (your brain) the sum total of reality or are their other realities outside of your own that reside as both an outside reality and in other brain-thingies? And where does the reality of a god (or any supernatural deity) fit into that Big Mental Picture? Perhaps God was created in man’s image.

INTRODUCTION

God (or any supernatural equivalent deity) is a figment of your imagination and a creation of that same imagination, probably aided, abetted and reinforced by your peers, your culture and your society. God therefore has a virtual reality but not a really real reality not that of necessity there even has to be a really real reality of anything, apart from your very own mind and mind’s imagination, imagination that has its ultimate foundations and is rooted in brain chemistry.

INSIDE: THE BRAIN RULES THE ROOST

You are defined by your brain. You are not defined by your big toe or your set of lungs or your good looking facial features or how much you weigh or how old you are. What makes you, you is all that which is contained within those cubic centimetres of grey matter, wetware, the brain, the mind (a subpart of the anatomical organ), whatever you wish to call it.

Your brain, or more to the point your brain chemistry, defines you. Everything that you are resides in your brain under the control of wetware chemistry. Consider the following list of things that are you and that are part and parcel of holding residence in your wetware: Awe, wonder and a sense of mystery; spirituality; a sense of purpose; all learning; all memory; all your emotions; all your likes and dislikes; all that you see, hear, taste, touch and smell; all of your thoughts; all pleasure and pain; all of your creativity; all your questions (but not always the answers); art appreciation; your sense of right and wrong or of morality and ethics; your values, beliefs or faiths; your all encompassing worldviews; all of your behaviour; your sense of self; your ego; your intelligence; your choice of spouse or partner or for that matter, choice or decision making – full stop; your ability or affinity to learn languages; your degree of numeracy; and of course and finally your perception and acceptance or rejection of the supernatural, including supernatural beings like deities, like God (for example). All this and more in such a limited space, but it’s true.

All this and more comes to the fore via your five senses, perhaps starting even before birth (a sense of warmth, wetness, body sounds like a mother’s heartbeat) but certainly the moment you pop out of the womb. Throughout your life, all of this input via your five senses, brought to you courtesy of life, the universe and everything, all of this data, is filtered and refiltered and mixed and matched and contemplated and broken down and constructed and deconstructed and reconstructed again and manipulated into one you, one personality, one mind, one unique worldview albeit forever changing, until the day you are finally declared brain dead.

But all of the above traits and abilities of the human brain says bugger-all about the reality of a deity, which is a bit of an abstract concept in its own right.

Brain chemistry ensures that humans (probably uniquely so) can try, but not succeed, in coming to terms with other abstract questions like what’s the maximum number of leprechauns that can hold a picnic using a dime for a blanket; what is the sound of one hand clapping; what’s south of the South Pole; what’s the nature and extent of infinity; and what transpired before the Big Bang?

One has to be careful of not reading too much into abstractions. We often see messages or meanings where there is none to be found, like seeing ‘pictures’ in clouds or the face of Jesus on a piece of toast or, for example, people who listened to Aaron Copland’s musical composition “Appalachian Spring” would comment to the composer how that music so perfectly described an Appalachian spring day. But Copland said the composition had nothing to do with the Appalachians or with spring and the title was chosen to please his benefactor or sponsor. It was all wishful thinking on the part of the listener.

Images are all in the mind, perhaps aided by the power of suggestion as in the case of the title “Appalachian Spring”. Now not every listener in the audience would have had identical mental images when hearing the music. Even the same listener could have had a slightly differing mental image upon a later hearing. Does the “Grand Canyon Suite” really conjure up a picture of the Grand Canyon (if say you heard the piece without knowing the title) or might it suggest a different place or a lot of different places or maybe it’s just a nice piece of music full-stop, just as a god or God can be a nice abstract concept, full-stop.

Humans can mentally conjure up an image of the Appalachians or the Grand Canyon from a piece of music (with a suggestive title) just like they can conjure up and contemplate the existence of a god or a deity (from something equally suggestive like the Bible or from a sermon), but that doesn’t mean any god or deity actually exists in any shape manner or form, any more so than “Appalachian Spring” or the “Grand Canyon Suite” of necessity requires the actual existence of a mountain range or a time of year or a hole in the ground in Arizona. 

More to the point of the imaginary, and musical compositions stem from the imagination, actual objects like Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon exists in our culture, like God, though there’s way more evidence for those space heroes vis-à-vis God, as kids who routinely attended the Saturday matinees in the pre-Sputnik era would (if still alive) testify to. 

And that’s another concept we have that animals probably don’t; the ability to conjure up the imaginary. Animals probably don’t have a world of make believe or fiction. There are human fans, even fanatics, of all manner of make believe human characters like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, James Bond, Batman, Captain Kirk, to Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes, even down to those who follow Greek mythology, the life and times of the Olympians, demigoddesses like Helen (of Troy), and demigods like Hercules. Even aliens like those in Star Trek or say Superman are still human otherwise we couldn’t easily relate to them. All of these and a whole lot more besides were created in man’s (and woman’s) image as the product of the human imagination. So let’s just add God to the list of imaginary beings created in the image of God’s collective creator. Why? Because it is not surprising or beyond the realm of possibility that God et al. also fits into that category of make believe, especially since there’s not any trace of any evidence that any supernatural deity, God included, has ever existed.

But is brain chemistry, the ultimate cause of all things mental, really all that important? We’ve all seen the unfortunate results of what can happen when brain chemistry malfunctions or misfires due to disease, genetics, physical damage or injury, drug use and abuse, so there is no doubting the importance of brain chemistry and the relationship between it and what makes you, you. It can produce all kinds of oddities as well like mathematical wizards who can do mentally in seconds what it would take you minutes to do using pen and paper. Then too there are the strange cases of people who can hear colours or taste sounds, etc. 

GOD AND THE INSIDE LOOKING INSIDE: OUR FANTASY WORLDS

Your mind can examine the intricacies of your mind. Your wetware has an existence independent of anything else. Your brain could be the be-all-and-end-all of life, the universe and everything. If nothing else, you can only come to terms with life, the universe and everything after it has been tucked away into one of those recesses within your mind. In other words, you exist inside the universe, but the universe in all its entirety has to exist inside of you, or your mind. Life, the universe and everything can only be dealt with after it has found a home within your brain and can thus be contemplated via your brain chemistry.

“I think, therefore I am” is a widely bandied about quote, but it’s a case of your inside wetware contemplating itself. Even if you are removed from external stimuli, say in an isolation tank, you can still think, imagine, compose, invent, daydream, and if you fall asleep, dream. I think of things, therefore they are too. Your mind creates internal fantasy worlds full of things. For example, children often have imaginary friends and playmates. As an adult, we sort-of outgrow that, but we still create every day in every way internal fantasy worlds as part of our worldviews.

As such, your creative mind is akin to being a god, an inventive mind which creates and controls and perhaps destroys all sorts of mental fantasy worlds. Haven’t you often pictured the sorts of things you’d really like to do to Person X or Country Y if only you could get away with it?

While ‘day-dreaming’, you will often hold imaginary conversations with others in imaginary scenarios as rehearsals for dealing with all those possible scenarios that the real outside reality of life, the universe and everything could throw at you: which leads itself to the next section…

To be continued…

The Ancient Alien’s Bible: Part Two

Since the idea of supernatural deities is nonsense IMHO, perhaps there’s another explanation behind the more likely as not reality molehill hidden inside the traditional religious mythological mountain. That explanation could revolve around an extraterrestrial flesh-and-blood alternative.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

WHERE’S WHERE

Heaven: The name of God’s spaceship, or starship if you prefer.

Hell: The brig, located off-ship, probably on Earth, where one could be exiled to if need be.

Eastern Mediterranean (Israel; Land of Canaan; the Levant; Near East; Palestine): That part of terrestrial geography assigned to the officers and crew of the Spaceship Heaven as their area of responsibility. Contrast that with Zeus and company assigned the Middle Mediterranean; Odin and company responsible for the Norse lands; and the Great Spirit who looks after the North Amerindians; and so on.

Garden of Eden: Paradise was actually a terrestrial R&R spot for officers and crew of the Spaceship Heaven. God first had to expel human trespassers after they learned or overheard too much extraterrestrial knowledge forbidden to terrestrial ears. Later on however God gave Adam an interstellar ride in his Spaceship Heaven.

Towel of Babel: To disperse in quick-smart fashion the local population to the four corners of the globe, or even within the region, would have required considerable transport infrastructure.

Sodom & Gomorrah: The twin cities were destroyed via fire and brimstone from above, leaving no trace whatever after-the-fact. The obviously high tech weaponry might have been incendiary bombs or even nuclear weapons, but it certainly wasn’t any sort of destructive weapons technology common to that era.

WHAT’S WHAT

Miracles: High technology in action. As the late Arthur C. Clarke tended to put it, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, at least to those not technologically savvy. Among the high tech examples are the medical ones – healing the seriously sick and handicapped; resurrecting the very recently deceased; enabling very elderly women – over the hill and off the pill – to become fertile and bear offspring.

Food: Speaking of high tech miracles, what does one make of manna from heaven; loaves and fishes that multiply; wine from water? This almost makes you think of the food replication device used in Star Trek.

Noah’s Flood: A whole textbook could be written about the impossibilities of the Biblical tale of the flood and Noah’s Ark. The amount of water required can’t be produced. The boat isn’t near large enough to house and feed every species that would need to be given shelter. The crew isn’t sufficient to look after their charges. But, with just a bit of high tech tweaking, what if the Ark wasn’t for an actual universal disaster but a potential one, a real possibility given those high tech star wars, or wars between the various factions of deities (think of the ten year battle between the Titans and the Olympians; or what must have raged between God and Satan or will rage as per the forecast of Revelation; or the battle between the Frost Giants and the Norse deities; or all those aerial wars depicted in those ancient Hindu texts). Now instead of having entire forest worth of plants and all those animals requiring food and waste disposal, on board, substitute a botanical seed bank and a zoological equivalent, a repository of frozen eggs and sperm or embryos or genetic materials, etc. No need for food; no waste products; not much maintenance (crew time) required, and easily room for everything in the space allowed for the Ark in the Book of Genesis. The issue of course is that all of this is high tech way beyond the capabilities of the great unwashed of that era, the locals or natives. 

Burning Bush: This is an example of extraterrestrial hologram technology in action, employed to awe the local primitives, in this case Moses.

The Ark of the Covenant: Apparently a high and rather dangerous technological device, purpose not really well explained, but obviously more than just a storage box for a couple of stone tablets.

Clouds; Pillars of Fire; Flying Rolls; Star of Bethlehem; Aerial Chariots; Whirlwinds; Ezekiel’s Wheel, etc.: A UFO by any other name is still a UFO, and in most of these depictions, the object, say a ‘cloud’, is an actual vehicle that carries a passenger, more likely as not a Spaceship Heaven shuttlecraft. 

Germ Warfare & Biological Weapons: There are numerous examples in Biblical texts where high tech biological weapons were used against populations (i.e. – the Egyptians, even God’s Chosen People) and individuals like Job.

Transfiguration: Jesus led three of his followers up a mountain, and behold his face had a rather disquieting and unnatural glow about it (much like Moses after his CE3K). In fact Jesus, and/or his clothing, shone with some sort of bioluminescence. To add to this anomaly, Jesus had with him both Moses (long since considered the late Moses who had once been abducted) and Elias (otherwise known as Elijah, the abducted). Further a ‘cloud’ that hovered over this gathering ‘spoke’ to them, one and all, with words that implied that this was God himself doing the speaking. Then the ‘cloud’ vanished like a bat out of hell. Wow! There is surely something strange afoot going on here. By the way, in common with a lot of other Biblical tales, this is repeated several times, in the Books of Matthew, Mark and Luke. In fact, I’d suggest that if you eliminated all of the duplications, the Bible would be 10% thinner!

The Ascension: Jesus departs Planet Earth to take up his new job as First Officer on the Spaceship Heaven, sitting at the right hand of her captain.

Hologram Technology: A very useful ways and means of inspiring awe in the great unwashed. Examples that spring to mind include the ‘burning bush’ and Jesus ‘walking on the water’ and appearing in the ‘flesh’ post execution.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

There have been no verified and documented sightings of the main Biblical players (God, Satan, Jesus, angels, etc.) in way over 2000 years. Where are they? I suspect they have gone away. I further suspect God and crew were recalled to home base to stand trial for crimes against humanity, though many, like Jesus, were exonerated, having played no part or role at Sodom & Gomorrah or in the use of biological weapons and waging germ warfare. Satan and his fallen angels were recalled too, probably picked up from exile, to give account for their original mutiny. Perhaps as we read this Captain Jesus of the Spaceship Heaven (or some other interstellar vessel) is boldly going and finding new Garden of Eden locales to R&R in throughout the cosmos.  

CONCLUSION

It is clear that not everything in the Bible can be easily interpreted in an extraterrestrial context, probably because much of the text’s content tends to be rather mundane soap opera of a humans-only nature. That aside, after you take into consideration all the versions, all the translations and associated issues with that, translation and copying errors (deliberate and accidental), embellishments, artistic license, human imagination needed to fill in the gaps, plus the multiple authorship of all the Biblical texts itself, not to forget that the texts weren’t written down till decades, even many generations after-the-fact (it’s like nobody recorded and wrote down today’s news until the year 2112 – many an error would be made), I conclude that the Bible can largely be interpreted not in a supernatural way but rather an extraterrestrial one.

Unfortunately, if I am right, then all your theological baggage of an eternal life everlasting goes right down the drain – maybe not a bad thing if you thought you were Hell-bound, or even if Heaven-bound as the concept of eternal life is actually hellish as you would rather quickly be bored out of your afterlife skull, and you still have infinity yet to come.

The Ancient Alien’s Bible: Part One

Erich Von Daniken asked the question “was God as astronaut?” Traditional Christians, Muslims, and those of the Jewish faiths of course answer “No”, God was (and is) a supernatural deity. Those more inclined to be free thinkers pondering realities outside of the religious box, answer anywhere from “Maybe” to “Yes”. If the latter, how might Biblical characters, places and events be interpreted in an ‘ancient astronaut’ context. Who’s who, Where’s where and what’s what?

All interpretations are based on the text of the King James Version of all things Biblical.

WHO’S WHO

God: OIC and captain of the Spaceship Heaven. His real alien name is of course Yahweh, or in the vowelless version YHWH, but I’ll just shorten that to God, a name that all and sundry recognise.

Satan: God’s original First Officer and second in command of the Spaceship Heaven, later exiled to Hell, or at least to Earth, for mutiny. 

Fallen Angels: Fallen Angels are those officers and crew who were in cahoots with Satan in the unsuccessful mutiny against Captain God and who were court-martialed and stripped of their status and rank and exiled to Hell on Earth. 

The Seraphim: Because the Seraphim have six wings, they are probably a separate extraterrestrial race aligned with the alien race of beings to which God and company belong. [Well Star Trek exhibited a multi-species crew from the start.] One such alien was apparently someone called Metatron, an angel who acted as the ‘voice of God’, a scribe, and is the tallest and greatest of the lot. ‘He’s’ sort of the chief cook and bottle washer on the Spaceship Heaven.

The Cherubim (singular is cherub): The extraterrestrial Cherubim might be related to the Seraphim in that they are enormous four-winged beings. The definitive book in the Bible on cherubim is the Book of Ezekiel, mainly the first and tenth chapter.

Governor or Watcher Angels: These are your typically obedient angels who just sort of watch over humanity in general, a sort of extraterrestrial Peeping Tom some of who had an eye for the Daughters of Men.   

Archangels: Senior officers of Spaceship Heaven. Those messenger and battle ready angels. The best known of the lot were the archangels who are very high-ranking angels indeed, starting with Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, but followed by Uriel, Simiel, Orifiel and Zachariel.

Angels: Ordinary crewmembers of the Spaceship Heaven, forever running errands for the senior officers.

Sons of God: Apparently hand chosen senior crew members, perhaps literally biological offspring of Captain God. The Sons of God were apparently some or all of the Governor or Watcher Angels.

Daughters of Men: Human females.

Nephilim: The offspring of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men. They were apparently the ‘giants’ referred to ‘in the Earth’, though exactly how giant was giant isn’t spelled out.

Jesus: Another offspring of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men, albeit much farther on down the historical track, or perhaps the offspring between God himself and the Daughters of Men (well one anyway). Jesus would later rise (from the ‘dead’) to become First Officer on board Spaceship Heaven. That Jesus is an extraterrestrial is admitted by himself in John 8:23. Of note here is that Jesus probably used holographic technology to give an appearance of walking on water and/or appearing alive and in the ‘flesh’ post execution – which he survived, another sign of high technology in operation. 

Baal: God’s prime extraterrestrial rival for power and authority in the region, though there’s never any direct and open physical conflict twixt the two.

Moses: Just one of several abductees noted and logged in Biblical texts. He was abducted by a ‘cloud’ and carried on up the mountain for a close encounter with a supreme alien lawmaker. Upon his return his face had an unnatural glow about it which caused those waiting his return to be afraid of him.

Jacob: Witnessed (or dreamed about) angels ascending and descending to and from Spaceship Heaven.

Ezekiel: A human who had a close encounter of the third kind (those Cherubim) plus an associated abduction event.

Jonah: Spent three days and nights in isolation inside a technological craft.

Joshua: 1) Was in possession of high technology sonic weaponry at Jericho. 2) He later witnessed several UFOs that stood still in the sky providing illumination for his army.

Enoch and Elijah: These two human males are the only two whose ultimate fate (death) we don’t know anything about. Both humans apparently joined the Spaceship Heaven at the behest of her captain never to be seen again, albeit Elijah was spotted with Jesus by three of his disciples (see Transfiguration).

Old Age Pensioners: Methuselah, Noah, Adam as well as others, apparently lived to really, really ripe old ages, way, way, way beyond the standard three score and ten. The explanation: these were humans invited by the officers and crew of Spaceship Heaven to take a relativistic interstellar journey at velocities at a considerable fraction of the speed of light. They aged normally on board, but because of the time dilation effect, time passed more rapidly back on Earth, or more slowly on the spaceship (same difference), such that they returned home hundreds of terrestrial year’s later – Earth time - thus the false appearance that they were hundreds of years old at journey’s end but didn’t look a day over thirty because they really weren’t a day over thirty! It’s referred to as the Twin Paradox of Special Relativity, though it’s not really a paradox at all, just the logical conclusion of the equations of Special Relativity which have been verified by observation and experiment, at least on the micro scale.

Matthew, Mark, Luke & John: A quartet of roving reporters who independently investigated what was to them relatively recent history – just several generations had passed – each in his own way. The topic of their investigation was an alleged historical figure, a figure that seemed to have gained some degree of uniqueness, notoriety and prominence as a possible deity and the quartet wrote up their short biographies accordingly. 

To be continued…

My Top Religious Anomalies: A List

All of religion is anomalous, but some bits are more anomalous than others. Here are some of those bits.

GOD: This isn’t really an anomaly due to any conflict between theory and observation. There is very little of either. The anomaly here is why anyone in their right mind would believe in such a supernatural deity. The gap between observational evidence and theoretical faith is so vast that it staggers the mind – at least it boggles my mind, all the more so since the only real description of God’s bona-fides, the human penned Old Testament, exhibits Him not as a just, loving, forgiving, merciful and compassionate deity but an all-round SOB that makes Hitler look downright cuddly.

CREATION, THE CONCEPT OF: One of the biggest mysteries to me is why anyone in their stark raving right mind would assume anything and everything had been created from scratch, as in Genesis for example. You cannot make that assumption from first principles based on personal observations and human history. Knowledge that there were in fact creations therefore must be based on information passed down from those with way more insight or knowledge than you could possess. Who passed that information on down the line?

HEAVEN & HELL: If they exist, heaven and hell have to be physical places with some sort of celestial and terrestrial coordinates respectively. Despite all these millennia that have flowed under the bridge since Methuselah was in diapers, nobody has sighted heaven up there or pinpointed where hell is located down here.

BIBLICAL OLD AGE: Though Methuselah is the best known, there are a whole pot-full of Old Testament males-only who reach ripe old age way, way, way in excess of three score and ten. The anomaly here is that even with the best of diets, exercise regimes, health and medical care, and outstanding personal habits (sound sleep, no drugs, no alcohol, no smoking, etc.) no human alive today can come within a bulls roar of the longevity achieved by Methuselah, Adam, Noah, and a host of others. The anomaly is easily resolved in this case – the Bible is full of it; “it” being rather messy and smelly.

NOAH’S FLOOD: A whole textbook could be written about the impossibilities, not just the anomalies, of the Biblical tale of the flood and Noah’s Ark. The amount of water required can’t be produced. The boat isn’t near large enough to house and feed every species that would need to be given shelter. The crew isn’t sufficient to look after their charges. That doesn’t seem to discourage those from spending vast sums of money not to mention time and energy boldly gong where others have gone before and like those who went before, returning empty-handed!

EXODUS, BOOK OF: There are multi-dozens of anomalies, things that just can’t be, reported in the Bible. Of all of these, the most anomalous is the Book of Exodus, because some of the events recorded there can be checked against another independent historical source. If the history in the Book of Exodus is found wanting, and it is, then if one holy book goes down the gurgler, then all the rest of the books are suspect too.

The anomaly here is that the Book of Exodus features the land and peoples of ancient Egypt fairly prominently. A couple of key Biblical characters play leading roles there – Moses and Joseph – not to mention thousands of alleged Hebrew slaves. Nasty things happen to that land and those peoples like the ten plagues and the drowning of pharaoh’s army. The anomaly here is that you’d expect ancient Egyptian records to verify and collaborate and substantiate the Book of Exodus, but you don’t find anything of the sort. It’s as if the Biblical version took place in a parallel universe – or in the imagination of the all too human author.

BIBLICAL MIRACLES: Then there’s this Biblical bit about Joshua commanding the sun to stand still (at least that’s the way I recall it). That’s a tall tale or myth but whatever, it can’t be a physical reality. But wait, there’s more! There’s Jonah and the whale; Eve’s creation from a rib; walking on the waters; the walls of Jericho tumbling down at the sound of no doubt out of tune trumpets or rams horns. In the Bible we have this tale of the multiplying of loaves and fishes out of virtually nothing.

Miracles are part and parcel of any and all supernaturally based religions. Miracles of the supernatural kind (and that’s the only kind of miracle that counts here) violate one or more laws, principles or relationships established by science. There can be no such thing as a supernatural miracle in theory. However, there have been numerous reports of supernatural miracles.

Reported events cannot violate the natural state of things. If they do violate that natural state of things, then they must be supernatural. There’s no known theory that can accommodate supernatural events. That’s part of the conflict between science and religion. The conflict is an anomaly.  

THE AFTERLIFE: A concept that closest to the hearts and minds of nearly all humans and human cultures past and present is what happens to us after we kick the bucket. The answer is we transcend into another life – an afterlife. Every culture, past and present, has an afterlife concept, a life after death concept, or some sort of an eternity or immortality worldview. However, the concept of eternal life is actually hellish as you would rather quickly be bored out of your afterlife skull, and you still have infinity yet to come.

Not all of the versions of the theoretical afterlife can be correct however. Idealistic theoretical expectations that when you die you won’t stay dead, versus practical reality that observations show that dead things stay dead, are indeed conflicting, therefore anomalous. However, nobody has ever come back from the dead to prove the reality of an afterlife to the satisfaction of any unbiased referee.

Armageddon

When it comes to the end of the world, at least in Biblical mythology, including prophecy, you get various buzz phrases like: Book of Revelation; the Apocalypse; Armageddon; the Second Coming; the End of Days, etc. There’s been more than just a minor industry spawned by this concept. So, we’ve had the hype, where’s the substance?

  

Biblical prophecy forecasts the end of the world, the end of days, doomsday, the apocalypse, Armageddon, call it what you will. Well, maybe yes, and maybe no. On the “yes” side of the fence are the true believers, the loony rightwing of the Christian faith.

It would seem that every time there is a natural disaster (even oil spills qualify), anywhere in the world, but especially in America, right-wing Christian fundamentalists and television evangelists jump for joy, do high fives and are more than happy to point out, even gleefully telling “I told you so”, and the more the destruction, the better the mayhem, the greater the death toll, the higher they jump, the happier they are and the more they rub their hands gleefully together. Why? It’s to them yet another sign that the end of days are near. Yet…

In mythology (or religious mythology) there really is no permanent end of the world. There’s always a rebirth, be it the Christian Armageddon or the Norse Ragnarok or within the Hindu mythology in India or even the various cyclic Mesoamerican cosmologies.

Take the Norse Ragnarok. The gods and the giants battle it out and the gods come out second best. But, there are survivors who start things up all over again. It’s reflected in the Richard Wagner conclusion to his epic four linked opera series “Der Ring Des Nibelungen”. The final opera, “Gotterdammerung” (“Twilight of the Gods”) ends with the destruction of the gods, but a rebirth and a new beginning. The very characters who started off the whole Ring Cycle are the very same and only survivors at the end. Will history repeat itself?

Take the Christian version: Well there’s no disputing the Biblical (tall) tales that ‘document’ some sort of domestic disagreement between ‘God’ and some sort of entity we call today ‘Satan’. If you believe those Biblical tall tales, the end result of that domestic dispute, Armageddon, isn’t in fact in dispute. There’s a decided element here of “This ain’t over till it’s over; this ain’t finished yet; I’ll be back”! However, when all is said and done, there will emerge from the ashes a new earth and a new heaven. Now we have the first fly in the ointment.

If you believe the Bible and the Book of Revelation, then you realise that Armageddon should have taken place over 1900 plus years ago, at least according to Jesus Christ. He said that the final battle between good (‘God’) and evil (‘Satan’) – I bet he was biased in deciding who was what – would take place within a generation or two of his utterances. So, if it took place way back then it took place off planet and out of human sight – a real life ‘Star Wars’. But if it hasn’t happened yet, assuming ‘God’ and ‘Satan’ are really real extraterrestrials instead of mythological entities, then it probably isn’t ever likely to. I mean you can only hold off a grudge match so long. Maybe they’ve kissed and made up, or…   

If God or His scribes wished to make crystal clear the ideas and events and chronology central to ‘the end of the world’, the Book of Revelation, 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. The Book of Revelation, 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!

It wasn’t quite the end of the world, but the Biblical tale of the global flood is in fact global! Cultures from around the world tell similar tales to the Biblical flood. The argument is that therefore the story must be true as these diverse cultures had no contact with each other. My answer to that is related to bovine fertilizer! End of the world tales, or myths, the concept of Armageddon, punishing the wicked with total catastrophe was as common and popular then as now. We all love a good ‘end of the world’ story that has a moral attached. Alas, the choices or mechanisms available for said end of the world stories to myth makers’ way back then were rather limited. They had no knowledge of supernovae or gamma-ray bursts or massive solar flares or nuclear war and resulting holocausts or killer asteroids smacking into Planet Earth, etc. All they had to work with was the day-to-day sorts of routine natural events part and parcel of their daily lives. In fact, many tale-spinners might not have been familiar with, say, volcanoes, and while most relatively violent weather phenomena, like tornadoes, may be destructive, they aren’t destructive enough to wipe out the wicked that populate a wide area.  However, everyone would have experienced rain, heavy rain, even torrential rain say from hurricanes, etc. that resulted in minor flooding, or say witnessed storm surges from the sea that inundated the land, and/or witnessed rivers, ponds and lakes overflowing. It doesn’t take that much imagination to notch up minor real events, in the guise of storytelling, to mega disaster proportions. If it rains heavily for one day and there’s some local flooding, up the ante to 40 days. It’s difficult to imagine any storyteller from 5000 years ago coming up with any other sort of end of the world scenario!

The one point to the end of the world, mega disaster stories is that there must be at least one survivor to tell the tale! I gather in this case that includes survivors such as Noah and kin.
I have read of one other explanation for universal flood stories. If I recall correctly, a student of Freud came up with the idea that the tellers/inventors of flood tales got the idea from dreams in their sleep. And they dreamed the dream all because they were asleep with relatively full bladders. Personally, I think that’s a piss-weak explanation!

Now most of the end of the world prophecies tends 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 would 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 was very disappointed when he woke 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 (God or Jesus Christ) 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! 

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. 

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.

There are several downsides to end of the world prophecy. It’s not the same sort of harmless fun as consulting your daily horoscope in the paper. Firstly, there’s the letdown, trauma, disappointment, humiliation, etc. suffered by the true believers when their idiocy is revealed for the entire world to see. There’s the often bizarre behaviour of true believers before-the-fact – the break-up of family units, giving away all worldly goods and possessions, joining doomsday cults, sometimes to the tune of ritual suicides.

Then there’s the lack of moral, ethical, law and order constraints – I mean if you really wanted for once in your life to live the good life, the best foods, the best wines, the most expensive resorts, the best women money can buy, all the fantasy dreams of the great unwashed, and you truly believed you only had a week to go before The End, well there’s this bank down the road just begging to be robbed and a certain snooty little teller who’s been asking for an extra hole in her head right between the eyes – how dare she turn you down for a date – well, why not? You’re dead in a week anyway, so nothing much to lose is there?

Now extrapolate that up to a true believer who does hold some high position of real power. What if you could manipulate foreign policy in such a way as to ensure or bring forward Armageddon? Or, if the world’s going to end tomorrow anyway and you believe that with all your heart and soul that’s going to be the case, well you may as well press the nuclear button now. The leader of your most hated foreign power is laughing at your stupidity, so you’re going to want to make sure it’s doomsday for them too! 

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 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. So, hands up please for all of you who have total conviction that the next end of the world prediction will bear fruit, 21 December 2012. Thought so!  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. How so?

There’s one really main problem with end of the world prophecy, and it doesn’t matter a hoot what your 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-nigh 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.

Further reading: The end of the world in prophecy.  

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: