An Ufological factor in the debate between traditional Christians and New-Age Religions and Spiritualities' revisionistic views about the historical Jesus?

 In a previous post, I commented on the late ufologist and abductee Dr.Karla Turner, who based on her research, concluded that alien intelligences have been controlling and maniputaling us for years. One of the ways of alien manipulations is "appearing in such forms as Jesus, the Pope, certain celebrities, and even the dead spouses of the abductees."

According to Turner and other ufologists, the technology of these beings is impressive and some of them (the "bad" ones) use it in order to manipulate us in different ways. 

One of these ways is manipulation through religion and spirituality. Understading the human needs for trascendence and ultimate meaning, supposedly they exploit such needs promoting the creation of cults and religions, contacting (through paranormal means) certain key people and giving them spiritual information, presenting it as coming directly from some respected or influential spiritual teacher of humankind (e.g Jesus) or even God himself.

A careful survey of the most important of these New-Age cults, religions or spiritualities reveal that there are important inconsistences among the respective teachings (e.g about reincarnation), but they tend to have one aspect in common: a revisionist reading of the historical Jesus and basic Christian teachings.

As consequence, traditional Christians are interested in confronting these New-Age movements and exposing (what they believe) are false teachings desgined to mislead the public.

My purpose here is not to settle the debate between Christians and their opponents, but to provide a brief summary of the debate and how aliens (if they exist and are as Turner suggests) can be exploiting such a situation.

The Christian attitude against New-Age revisionism about Jesus has a basis in the New Testament. There, Jesus is reported as having said "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits....' (Matthew 7:15-16) and also "Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it.  For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand." (Matthew 24: 23-25)

The "sheep's clothing" mentioned there, obviously is not intented to be taken literally, but figuratively as a cover which is astutely designed to deceive and fool certain kinds of people. And one of the ways to deceive someone is to tell him what he/she want to hear. 

We have to keep in mind that what people want to hear is person-relative and culture-relative. For example, a traditional Christian won't want to hear any anti-Christian spiritual teachings or doctrines, but people hostile to Christianity and sympathetic to spiritual matters will be eager to hear any teaching about the historical Jesus which doesn't fit with the traditional view of Jesus, specially if such teaching comes from a putative revealed or paranormal source. They will tend to give credibility to the latter over traditional teachings.

In summary, for biblical Christians, it is not only previsible or possible that certain spiritual or paranormal sources or people will claim to be transmitting revisionist teachings about Jesus, but that such a thing has to be fully expected if the New Testament teachings attributed to Jesus are true. 

Regardless of the spiritual implications of this controversy, this dispute between traditional Christian and New Age revisionist views about Jesus has a clear cultural component, i.e. it has to do with the history, ideology and culture of Western societies. 

As evidence for this, we can see that such revisionist groups have mainly originated and developed in the United States of America, a country in which a certain version of Biblical Christianity is dominating (specially a fundamentalistic, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific and obscurantist version of Christianity which is at variance with the rationalistic and philosophically sophisticated version of classical Christianity and current Christian scholarship). 

Such obscurantist version of Christianity has produced a strong anti-Christian reaction, which is the breeding ground for the flourishing of alternatives spiritualities and religions (also of militant forms of atheism).

Just consider these hard facts:

1-Even though not a cult nor a religion, the so-called Jesus Seminar (a radical group of liberal scholars) was founded in United States. They're leading representatives of radical revisionistic scholarly views about the historical Jesus, views which are clearly and demostrably anti-Christian (but misleadingly some of his representatives present themselves as Christians).

2-Very influential and putative paranormal or spiritual sources of revisionist information about the historical Jesus like the Urantia Book, A Course in Miracles, Conversations with God (by Neale Donald Walsh), Mormonism, etc. comes from the United States. (I call these sources "paranormal", because the information that they supposedly received came through paranormal means like automatic writing, an "inner voice" heard by the chosen person, putative extraterrestial contact, telepathy, "visions", paranormal dreams, etc.)

It is a coincidence that all or most of these movements come from USA? I don't think so.

These facts are telling, they tell us a lot if interpreted in the context mentioned above about the ideological dominance of a certain version of biblical Christianity in USA and the anti-Christian reaction which it has caused there.

Just for the record: I'm extremely skeptical of the claims of all of these sources (specially of the Jesus Seminar) and of the claim that the groups mentioned in point 2 has an actual paranormal or spiritual origin. I consider all of them to be fundamentally unreliable, misleading and unscholarly sources of information about the historical Jesus. 

But for the argument's sake, let's take their word for granted and assume an actual paranormal origin of these sources.

It is curious not only that these groups were born in the United States where the anti-Christian reaction is strong, but that their main teachings and doctrines are revisionisms of traditional Christianity and tells exactly what the anti-Christian movement wants to hear, producing a new, wholly palatable to contemporary post-Christian (or anti-Christian) ears, version of the historical Jesus. Since what people want to hear is culture-relative, the ideal choosing for positing new (revisionist) information about Jesus is precisely a culture (like the American culture) in which an anti-Christian reaction already exists and is strong and therefore revisionistic theories will tend to be accepted sympathetically or at least with less rigurous critical filters.

The dream of putative manipulative aliens (and other spiritual entities with bad intentions) have come true!

If Turner is right, and aliens are interested in manipulating us, among other methods, through a bunch of new religious doctrines conflicting with the mainstream Christian view, then it seems to be likely that they use the following strategies:

1-Contact people who are part of the anti-Christian reaction, i.e. people hostile or unsympathetic to Christianity, because these are the ones who will tend to believe the new information that the aliens will provide. (Not surprinsingly, if you study the biography of the founders of these groups, many of them have been previously hostile to Christianity, some of them being even atheists. They are exactly the kind of people who will be biased in favour of any anti-Christian teaching transmitted paranormally by the putative authoritative source about the real Jesus).

2-Focus in teaching what people WANT to hear, i.e. what is emotionally satisfying and ideologically palatable. Anti-Christians want to hear that the distintive aspects of Christinaity are false or wrong. Therefore, the revisionist information has to:

-Deny or cast doubt on or reinterpret the idea that Jesus perceived himself (or was) the only son of God. In a spiritually pluralistic society, an overwhelming majority of people (even some Christians) will be sympathetic to this pluralistic concept. If you check carefully the information of these new spiritualities, you will see in most of them that a consistent feature consists precisely in putting down the exclusivistic view of Jesus, and the portraying of him as a spiritual teacher among many other, perhaps with a higher spiritual level in relation with us, but not with an exclusive spiritual status above any other teacher.

-Deny or cast doubt or reinterpret key biblical concepts like "sin", "forgiveness", or "salvation".  The reinterpretation in question is, of course, the one palatable for the anti-Christian audience. The concepts will be reinterpreted in the light of our contemporary culture, spiritual prejudices and sensibilities and wishful thinking instead of the actual historical context in which such words were uttered (e.g. the monotheistic Judaism of the first century).

3-Exploit the negative emotions and feelings typically connected with Christianity.

As an outsider (i.e. as a person who wasn't born nor educated in USA nor indoctrinated in monotheistic religions), I've observed carefully that in my anti-Christian friends and non-friends, they have an emotional discomfort with Christianity. When you asked them, they relate negative emotions and feelings of guilt, fear of punishment (by God), resentment and other negative emotions connected with their experiences in a Christian familiy and churches.

According to my observation, most of them are ignorant of the best literature of Christian theology and philosophy, and they're only familiar with the vulgar, obscurantist version of Christianity which is common in USA. As consequence, their understanding of key Christian doctrines (and philosophical debate about them in the literature) is totally abscent or extremely superficial.

By in any case, their main criticisms and objections seem to be connected with emotional factors, not with rational ones. It is not lack of historical evidence for Christianity that they complain to, but the negative feelings connected with key Christian concepts like "sin", "hell" and so forth. This observation seems to be confirmed by the fact that they new New Age spirituality that they have adopted is lacking of good scientific or scholarly evidence in its favour, but even so they accept it because it makes them feel good. In other words, it is not a matter of evidence but of feelings (otherwise, it becomes inexplicable that they accept as most reliable a source of information of the 20th century about Jesus, than the early, 1st century documents, witnesses and written sources about Jesus which support the traditional view about him).

This lack of proper technical information about the religion which they happend to reject, strong wishful thinking plus the negative emotions connected with these doctrines provides the perfect breeding ground for spiritualities which promote positive feelings and emotions, even if they lack of any serious and objective evidence in its favour.

If aliens are manipulating us, it is key in their strategy to use these negative emotions to create, with a "reverse effect", a strong predisposition in favour of any new teaching about Jesus which promotes positive emotions. 

This would explain their stressing in reinterpretation or denial of key concepts like "sin", "hell", "atonement" or "salvation", which typically are the ones connected with negative emotions and feelings of anti-Christians.

At least this is what I've carefully observed and I have to admit that I haven't found exceptions in the people whom I've known. Perhaps they exist, however. 

In this post, I've taken for granted (for the argument's sake) that alien exists and Turner is right about them.  I've suggested that the alien hypothesis explains well the revisionistic views of Jesus of paranormal origin (paranormal dreams, automatic writing, etc.), not because these revisionistic views be false, but because they are strategically useful to the alien manipulations.

If the traditional view of Jesus is true or false, or whether the revisionistic view is true or false, is something that I haven't evaluated in this post (even though my current reading of the historical evidence of Jesus' teachings doesn't support these revisionistic views, which are far beyond and even run in many cases contrary to what the evidence points out.).

My purpose has been to suggest a possible connection between alien manipulation and new sources of information about Jesus in a social and cultural context apt to such religious manipulation. 

It is up to you to evaluate these sources  and connections and draw your own conclusions.

        

UFOs in the 2012 Olympic inauguration? Or a goodyear blimp?

 On the internet, some have published videos wth a supposed UFO seen in the Olympics opening:

However, I think this object is likely to be a Goodyear's blimp, as seen in this video:

If not a blimp, the object in these videos is too ambiguous as to make any warranted conclusions about its nature (let alone, about its origin).

Dr. Karla Turner on afterlife apparitions, ufology and what we have to learn from abductions

According to the research of the late ufologist and abductee Dr.Karla Turner, the abduction phenomenon, if true, has deep implications for our life. In one of her articles, Dr.Turner summarizes the main conclusions of the abduction phenomenon (two of them, emphasized in blue, is relevant to afterlife research, as I'll comment below):

If "abduction" reports can be believed--and there is no reason to doubt the honesty of the reporters--the abduction phenomenon includes the following details:

1) Aliens can alter our perception of our surroundings.

2) Aliens can control what we think we see. They can appear to us in any number of guises, and shapes.

3) Aliens can take us--our consciousness--out of our physical bodies, disable our control of our bodies, install one of their own entities, and use our bodies as vehicles for their own activities before returning our consciousness to our bodies.

4) Aliens can be present with us in an invisible state and can make themselves only partially visible.

5) Abductees receive marks on their bodies other than the well-known scoops and straight-line scars. These other marks include single punctures, multiple punctures, large bruises, three- and four-fingered claw marks, and triangles of every possible sort.

6) Females abductees often suffer serious gynecological problems after their alien encounters, and sometimes these problems lead to cysts, tumors, cancer of the breasts and uterus, and to hysterectomies.

7) Aliens take body fluids from our necks, spines, blood veins, joints such as knees and wrists, and other places. They also inject unknown fluids into various parts of our bodies.

8) A surprising number of abductees suffer from serious illnesses they didn't have before their encounters. These have led to surgery, debilitation, and even death from causes the doctors can't identify.

9) Some abductees experience a degeneration of their mental, social, and spiritual well-being. Excessive behavior frequently erupts, such as drug abuse, alcoholism, overeating, and promiscuity. Strange obsessions develop and cause the disruption of normal life and the destruction of personal relationships.

10) Aliens show a great interest in adult sexuality, child sexuality, and in inflicting physical pain on abductees.

11) Abductees recall being instructed and trained by aliens. This training may be in the form of verbal or telepathic lessons, slide shows, or actual hands-on instruction in the operation of alien technology.

12) Abductees report being taken to facilities in which they encounter not only aliens but also normal-looking humans, sometimes in military uniforms, working with the alien captors.

13) Abductees often encounter more than one sort of alien during an experience, not just the grays. Every possible combination of gray, reptoid, insectoid, blond, and widow's peak have been seen during single abductions, aboard the same craft or in the same facility.

14) Abductees--"virgin" cases--report being taken to underground facilities where they see grotesque hybrid creatures, nurseries of hybrid humanoid fetuses, and vats of colored liquid filled with parts of human bodies.

15) Abductees report seeing other humans in these facilities being drained of blood, being mutilated, flayed, and dismembered, and stacked, lifeless like cords of wood. Some abductees have been threatened that they, too, will end up in this condition if they don't co-operate with their alien captors.

16) Aliens come into homes and temorary remove young children, leaving their distraught parents paralyzed and helpless. In cases where a parent has been able to protest, the aliens insist that "The children belong to us."

17) Aliens have forced ther human abductees to have sexual intercourse with aliens and even with other abductees while groups of aliens observe these performances. In such encounters, the aliens have sometimes disguised themselves in order to gain the cooperation of the abductee, appearing in such forms as Jesus, the Pope, certain celebrities, and even the dead spouses of the abductees.

18) Aliens perform extremely painful experiments or procedures on abductees, saying that these acts are necessary but give no explanation why.....Painful genital and anal probes are performed, on children as well as adults.

19) Aliens make predictions of an imminent period of global chaos and destruction. They say that a certain number of humans...will be "rescued" from the planet in order to continue the species, either on another planet or back on earth after the destruction is over. Many abductees report they don't believe their alien captors and foresee instead a much more sinister use of the "rescued" humans.

"In every instance from this list, there are multiple reports from unrelated cases, confirming that such bizzarre details are not the product of a single deranged mind. These details are convincing evidence that, contrary to the claims of many UFO researchers, the abduction experience isn't limited to uniform pattern of events. This phenomenon simply can't be explained in terms of cross- breeding experiments or scientific research into the human physiology....... Before we allow ourselves to believe in the benevolence of the alien interaction , we should ask, do enlightened beings need to use the cover of night to perform good deeds? Do they need to paralyze us and render us helpless to resist? Do angels need to steal our fetuses? Do they need to manipulate our children's genitals and probe our rectums? Are fear, pain, and deception consistent with high spiritual motives?"

Jime's commentary

Dr.Tuner's conclusions, if correct, have a bunch of scientific, philosophical, religious and (above all) EXISTENTIAL implications, which shouldn't be bypassed by any human being, let alone by any truth-seeker. I'll comment about each point of Dr.Turner's view in future posts.

In this post, I'll like to comment briefly the points number 3 and 17, in which Dr.Tuner says that the evidence from alien abductions suggests that aliens can appear with the form of religious leaders (e.g. Jesus) and even dead spouses (and we can suppose that of other members of the family) of the abductees, or that they can take command of a person's consciousness and manipulate it at will (e.g. so-called "demonic" or "non-demonic" possesions?).

If it is true, then some putative "afterlife" apparitions are not from the afterlife at all. In this case, it would be literally an alien manipulation!.

In the same way in which most scientists are ignorant, and even hostile, to the evidence for the afterlife, I think that many afterlife researchers (and parapsychologists, for that matter) are very ignorant of the evidence from ufology. Some of them seem to think that ufology is a "pseudoscience" and that "no evidence at all" exists for UFOs, or (putautve) alien abductions. This causes a kind of lack of communication among scholars in different fields and therefore the best conclusions or speculations in one field cannot shed light on the other.

But note that if Dr.Turner is correct, then at least part of the abduction evidence is relevant for afterlife research, because a putative afterlife manifestation (apparitions of dead relatives or spouses) is actually (in some cases) accounted for by alien intervention, not by the afterlife hypothesis. 

Moreover, if aliens can do such a thing, cannot they to produce (artificially) other manifestations suggestive of an afterlife? After all, if they can appear like Jesus... (I'm thinking in the Jesus "apparition" that Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, claimed to have experienced. Also, I'm thinking in contemporary mystical or paranormal sources of information and messages which, supposedly, come from Jesus himself... assuming for the argument's sake that these reports are veridical, which is not clear either).

Also, since aliens can take our consciousness, then it is not definitive that each case of mediumship evidence can be explained with the afterlife hypothesis alone. This suggestion would sound ridiculous to many hard-nosed spiritualists, but not to other truth seekers (specially the ones informed by ufology) who want to consider all the relevant hypotheses.

I think we have to be extremely careful here, avoiding to dismiss evidence from other fields which are relevant to own cherished beliefs.

As an reader and student of the ufological literature, I'm increasingly becoming convinced that something very interesting is happening in the best cases of UFOs. I have not clear if we're at presence of an "extraterrestial" manifestation, but the evidence is suggestive. Also, I think this phenomenon is strongly connected with religion.

I'm convinced that an inter-disciplinary approach to these questions  (sound intellectual formation, including good understanding of natural and social science, philosophy, parapsychology, religion, theology, ufology, etc.) is absolutely necessary to have an all-around, objective and accurate picture of what the hell is happening in the best cases of ufology and, particularly, of the abduction phenomenon.

Just think about it and think hard about Dr.Tuner's points mentioned above.

William Lane Craig on UFOs, Ufology, Extraterrestial Intelligencies and Christianity

Some Christians that I've known and discussed with the topic of UFOs are unsympathetic and even hostile to the whole matter. They seem to assume that human beings are the "locus" of creation and hence, not other beings could exist outside the Earth, what is just dogmatic and unwarranted. (By the way they use the same arguments of atheists and materialistic pseudoskeptics against ufology).

However, in this interesting podcast, Christian philosopher William Lane Craig has commented sympathetically about the possibility of the existence of advanced extraterrestial intelligences, and how it is perfectly compatible with Christianity.

Moreover, I've found very useful Craig's insight that the existence of alien beings is more likely given theism than given naturalistic atheism (so, I think, we have a new but undeveloped argument for God's existence based on alien beings... this argument cannot be developed yet because the existence of aliens is too controversial as to be part of a persuasive argument for God's existence).

But clearly, in a naturalistic worldview, the existence of intelligent beings is just a cosmic accident (and an extremely improbable one). But in theism, the existence of intelligence and spirit is basic and essential to the fabric of reality (since God is supposed to be an intelligent spiritual being) and hence it wouldn't be a great surprise that intelligent (spiritual) beings can be found in other parts of the universe.

Moreover, the conditions necessary for the emergence of intelligent life (including intelligent alien life, if it exists) in the universe are, itself, evidence for theism:



Even though hard-core atheists and pseudoskeptics are enemies of ufology too, they have appealed to the existence of putative alien beings in order to avoid the evidence for theism. A crushing example of this is Michael Shermer's Last Law, which I've discussed here.

Also, it has been reported that atheist Richard Dawkins is sympathetic to the "alien hypothesis" as a substitute for God in order to explain the origin of life, saying that he "was more receptive to the theory that life on earth had indeed been created by a governing intelligence – but one which had resided on another planet.

The best book on Ufology that I've read is Leslie Keen's book UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record

Absolutely a must read!

Dr.Roger Leir and the Scientific Study of putative Alien Implants

Dr. Roger K. Leir presents physical evidence of implants by putative alien beings

National Geographic documentary: The Truth Behind UFOs

Budd Hopkins - Alien Abduction Lecture - 7th July 2004

Debunking the UFO Debunkers - Stanton Friedman lecture

Nuclear Physicist-Lecturer Stanton T. Friedman received his BSc. and MSc. Degrees in physics from the University of Chicago in 1955 and 1956. He was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist by such companies as GE, GM, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell Douglas working in such highly advanced, classified, eventually cancelled programs as nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and various compact nuclear powerplants for space and terrestrial applications.

He became interested in UFOs in 1958, and since 1967 has lectured about them at more than 600 colleges and 100 professional groups in 50 U.S. states, 10 Canadian provinces and 18 other countries in addition to various nuclear consulting efforts. He has published more than 90 UFO papers and has appeared on hundreds of radio and TV programs including on Larry King in 2007 and twice in 2008, and many documentaries. He is the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident and co-authored Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident. TOP SECRET/MAJIC, his controversial book about the Majestic 12 group, established in 1947 to deal with alien technology, was published in 1996 and went through 6 printings. An expanded new edition was published in 2005. Stan was presented with a Lifetime UFO Achievement Award in Leeds, England, in 2002, by UFO Magazine of the UK. He is co-author with Kathleen Marden (Betty Hill’s niece) of a book in 2007: Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. The City of Fredericton, New Brunswick, declared August 27, 2007, Stanton Friedman Day. His book Flying Saucers and Science was published in June 2008 and is in its 3rd printing. His newest book, also co-authored with Kathleen Marden, is Science Was Wrong released in June 2010.

Ufological Theology: A preliminary reflection about the possible links between ufology and religion

Currently, I'm studying intensively the up-to-date scholarly literature in English and German about the Historical Jesus and the case for and against Jesus' Resurrection, and also the best literature on ufology.

On a intuitive level, I feel the UFO phenomenon is a missing link in the study of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Most scholars in religion (and scholars in other areas) are wholly ignorant of the literature about ufology, in part because there are a lot of books on ufology which are not serious and in part because pseudoskeptics and other atheistic charlatans and dogmatists have stigmatized this field in academy.

By the phrase "Ufological theology" I'll refer to the hypothesis according to which religion in general, and Biblical Christianity in particular, are closely linked to the UFO phenomenon, and can be only understood properly in the ufological context.

For the record, I have no idea whether this hypothesis is true or false. I'm going to publish this article just for the sake of posing ideas and letting the readers to think hard about these questions.

A key website which explores this UFO-BIBLE connection is this, and I suggest the readers to study the material there.

THE UFOLOGICAL THEOLOGY HYPOTHESIS:

This hypothesis argues that the origin of religion and Christianity is connected by the UFO Phenomenon. In the Bible, there are a lot of references about flying objects/lights which were interpreted as God, angels, etc. because the religious contexts and the lack of technological knowledge prevented the people of that time to realize the true nature of the phenomenon in question.

Let's to take some examples:

In the Bible, in the book of the Exodus, you can read:

"And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night: He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people." (13:21)

And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses (33:9)

In Nehemiah you can read: "Yet thou in thy manifold mercies for sookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go." (9:19)

It is obvious that the term "pillar" refers to some object with that form as seen by the people in that time. (The biblical writer used the concepts and terminology common in this time. The analogy of "clouds" is logical because in that time the only permanent objects seen in the sky by day are clouds, so the putative UFO in question would be compared with a cloud; and "fire" because by night the UFO in question was lighting).

Now, for people familiar with the ufology literature, UFOs with the form of "pillars" are well-known. Just examine carefully the following UFO pictures:

Now I ask you: Assuming for the argument's sake that all the above pictures are real (if they're not, it is irrelevant, because many reliable witnesses have observed objects like that), is not the term "pillar of cloud" (e.g. as a description of the object seen in the last picture) or "pillar of fire" (in the first and third pictures) a rather accurate description of what currently we would call cigarratte-shaped UFOs? Is it not argueably the same kind of phenomenon or object with different (and accurate!) descriptions?

Watch these videos:

















Note that by night or afternoon, the UFOs are lighting, and by day they tend to look just white or black. (If some or all of the above videos are real or fake is hard to say, but it is besides the point. There are a lot of witnesses around the world who have argued to have seen cigar-shaped or cylinder-shaped UFOs, and even members of the army and military groups have seen these objects. The above videos are just for the purposes of illustration of my point).

It seems to be a least possible that the Exodus (and other parts of the Bible) is actually describing an actual UFO phenomenon.

A key point here is to consider that Jesus' Second Coming will be (explicitly, by Jesus' own words) manifested in the sky, in the clouds:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (Matthew 24:30)

And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven. (Mark 13:26)

If the hypothesis we're commenting here is correct, then the correct interpretation of Jesus' Second Coming will be in the form of a massive UFO-like phenomenon, in which certain people will be elected (presumibly, in order to save them from the destruction of the Earth) and carried to other place (the "heaven" could refer to another planet or dimension where such people will be carried).

Thinking of Jesus literally flying like superman in the clouds is hard to believe; but thinking of him as a commander of a fleet of UFOs (angels?) coming in the sky, in the clouds, to save certain people (the spiritually more advanced people?) in order to save the human race from destruction (e.g. by nuclear war or a massive asteroid coming to the Earth) is less implausible, specially if we take into account the reality of UFOs and their consistent (putative) presence in all the books of the Bible.

The obvious objection against this hypothesis is that it assumes that UFOs are real and from extraterrestial origin, and this is not known to be true (or at least it is highly controversial).

The objection is right. But I think we can think of this hypothesis in terms of a conditional: IF the UFO phenomenon is real and from extraterrestial origin, THEN an ufological interpretation of the Biblical texts seems to be plausible and make sense, and at least it deserves serious consideration.

In any case, I have not idea of the true explanation of the UFO phenomenon and hence if the hypothesis of "ufological theology" has some actual merit.

Just think about this and other possibilities.

Larry King Live:UFO Debate with Bill Nye, Bill Hastings, former USAF Captain Bob Salas, Bill Jameson, and Dr.Bob Jenkins

Dean Radin and The Enduring Enigma of the UFO: A first-rate noetic scientist and parapsychologist comments about ufology

As a rule, parapsychologists, psi researchers and noetic scientists don't typically address the field known as ufology. And ufologists, as a rule, don't seem to have any deep knowledge of psi research.

In an interesting article entitled "The Enduring Enigma of the UFO", first-rate scientific researcher of psi phenomena, Dean Radin, shares some ideas and reflections about the ufo phenomenon.

Personally, and after being initially skeptical of ufo phenomena, I've became convinced (after studying some literature on ufology and discussing the topic with many very well informed people) that the so-called ufo phenomenon deserves a carefully and scholarly study.

A preliminary conclusion about it is that any simplistic answer to the phenomenon is wrong. It seems the phenomenon is highly complex, and it involves not only possibly the existence of extraterrestial intelligence (as many people think), but deep aspects of consciousness and even of spiritual realities or phenomena.

In any case, read Radin's article and think hard about it.

Religion and UFOs:

For unknown reasons, I've been asked frequently if in my opinion Christianity conflicts with UFOs or the existence of aliens. Not being myself properly a Christian (nor a "Christian scholar"), I don't consider myself competent to answer this question in any authoritative way. However, in my humble opinion, I don't see any reason to think that the existence of aliens (if they actually exist) conflicts with Christianity.

In any case, a prominent Christian scholar (William Lane Craig) has given some ideas about Christianity and aliens in this podcast.

I agree with Craig that the existence of aliens would be improbable given metaphysical naturalism, since in such worldview the phenomenon of life and specially consciousness are a kind of monumentally improbable cosmic accidents. And, even assuming that life were common in the universe, in the naturalistic-materialistic worldview, there is not reason to think that such life will evolve to produce intelligent, conscious and rational beings "out of brute matter".

Consciousness, normative properties and values and rationality are phenomena at variance with naturalism and ontological materialism. Therefore, if naturalism is false (as I think it is), we'd expect precisely that life, consciousness and spiritual-rational beings in general (in several degrees of evolution) exist in other parts of this universe, and hence that intelligent aliens will exist too (if they're actually visiting us or not is separate question).

The point is that spiritually evolved and intelligent aliens are more probable to exist given the falsehood of naturalism than in case of naturalism being true. And given that we have strong philosophical, ethical and scientific reasons to think that naturalism is false, we're rationally forced to conclude that it is likely that spiritually evolved beings in other planets (i.e. aliens) actually exist.

Budd Hopkins 3-7-2004 UFO Abduction Lecture

Budd Hopkins is one of the top researchers of the phenomenon known as "alien abduction". In this lecture, Hopkins discusses his latest research work in the field of UFO / alien abductions.

The evidence seems to suggest that abductees are psychologically normal people (i.e. they're not mentally ill) and they believe that they had a real experience. However, by itself, it doesn't show that they have been actually abducted by aliens. It's still an open question, even though researchers like Hopkins, John Mack and David Jacobs have concluded that the evidence strongly supports the alien hypothesis of the abduction experience.

You'll draw your own conclusions.

Read an interview with Hopkins here.

Reverend and Presbyterian minister Barry Downing on UFOs and religion

Rev. Barry Downing, author of The Bible and Flying Saucers, discusses UFOs and religion in this clip from an interview conducted in 2001 In Irvine, California, where he was speaking at the 2001 MUFON Symposium.

The fourth kind: A movie based on actual case studies about alien abductions. Plus a History Channel documentary on alien abbuctions

TRAILER:

I tend to avoid commenting about movies in my blog, but the content of many movies are relevant for the psi and afterlife topics (and the related philosophical problems) discussed in this blog.

Regarding the movie "The Fourth Kind", it is not properly about psi or the afterlife, but about the topic of ufology (to which I've became recently interested).

I enjoyed this movie, even though alien movies in general are not of my special interest. As far I know, this is the first movie dealing entirely with alien abductions (contrasting with other alien movies, which refers to more generic themes like alien invasion of Earth, or good aliens helping human beings).

The term "fourth kind" refers to an actual classification in ufology, refered to alien abductions specifically (the "third kind", for example, refers to the direct, physical observation of aliens beings by human beings)

The movie is apparently based on actual case studies and investigations about alien abductions (we can think in actual researchers like John Mack, Budd Hopkins or David Jacobs).

I suggest you to watch the movie, and then compare it with real-life documentaries about putative cases of alien abductions, like the following (aired on the History Channel):

UFOs in the Bilble documentary

Most serious UFO researchers agree that the ufo phenomenon (whatever is its origin) has existed for millenia. Each culture has offered different interpretations of basically the same phenomena.

In sacred texts, ancient documents, etc. we can read descriptions of phenomena which, in the light of our current understanding, they seem to be clearly phenomena that we would consider as belonging to "ufos".

Personally, I have not doubt that ancient cultures experienced the same phenomena that we currently "UFOs", but what's at stake is the origin of such phenomena. Are they caused extraterrestrial beings? Or by beings of other dimensions? Or by human beings coming from the future? Or are they psychic projections of human beings? Or is the explanation of UFOs a combination of all of these hypotheses? We don't know for sure.

Another important question is: Do UFOs, assuming (for the argument's sake) that they're from extraterrestrial origin, undermine the belief in GOD (or broadly in a spiritualistic worldview), and support materialism and metaphysical naturalism?

Personally, I think the answer is NO. Given metaphysical naturalism and materialism, the origin of life is an extraordinarily rare and improbable phenomenon, almost a cosmic accident. But even if life were consistent with materialism, the problem of the origin of consciousness and rationality (and how natural selection could select conscious beings, given that consciousness is non-efficacious in materialism) remains. So, it seems extremely unlikely that, given naturalism and materialism, intelligent life and rational, conscious beings would exist in the universe.

Therefore, it seems to me, the existence of extraterrestrial life is more likely given a spiritualistic worldview. Life, rationality, normative properties and consciousness aren't property of physical objects, but of spiritual beings.

So, I think that, given a non-naturalistic worldview, we could expect the existence of intelligent life and consciousness in many other parts of this large universe, if the physical conditions for them are adequate (after all, if spiritual beings exist in a physical universe, they need a correct, adequate physical instrument in order to operate here).

However, the existence of (extraterrestrial) UFOs in the Bible could undermine some religious interpretations of its texts and hence affect some of the basic religious doctrines. And I guess this is not a small or irrelevant point, specially for biblical scholars.

Watch carefully the documentary and draw your conclusions.