When Different Forms of Woo Mix: UFO’s and Christianity
January 17th, 2009
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I always find it a bit funny to think of what it might be like when various subscribers to wacky ideas of the paranormal, conspiracy theories, magic and other such things were to get into an argument over whose beliefs are right. The thing about many of these beliefs is that, although their sponsors may seem to congrigate together, some are completely incompatable. For example, you can’t be both a moon landing denier and at the same time claim that NASA encountered extra teresterials on the moon.
It’s easy to see how ridiculous things start getting when you start mixing the ideas of various dogmas and weird beliefs. For example, if a group of aliens is out looking for a human to probe anally and happens across a bigfoot, are they surprised at what they see or do they say “Yo, foot man! Havnen’t seen you since the last meeting of the non-existant entity society.” Do chemtrails pose a threat to the Loch Ness Monster and if so and Nessie dies, would the ghost of Nessie haunt those who sprayed the chemicals over Scottland?
But I digress..
What got me thinking about this is an article from UFO Digest:
Alien Abductions Stopped By the Name of Jesus Christ
Dirk Vander Ploeg, the Publisher of UFO Digest, recently asked me if I knew of alien abductions having been stopped by the utterance of the name of Jesus. He told me that “apparently this information is being withheld by Mufon and other reporters, investigators etc.”
I reminded him that I had written about the possibility of such occurrences in several articles including, Extraterrestrials Tremble at the Name of Jesus, UFO Digest March 29, 2007, and more recently The Birth of Christ caused the Extraterrestrial Fallen Angels to Tremble, UFO Digest, December 3, 2008.
The word of God tells us that demons (as well as fallen angels, i.e. extraterrestrials) tremble at the name of Jesus (James 2:19) because God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above all names (Philippians 2:9). At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow of those on the earth, and those under the earth and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10).
Now that’s interesting. So we’re mixing a few things here but it seems that these UFO’s are not simply confined to the standard psuedo-science that claims they are subscribers to Christian dogma and the powers of the name Jesus too. So… they’re what? From hell or something? Also, did Jesus die for their sins or just those of humans? Or…. do they have their own Jesus? Like, does God send a son to die for each inhabited planet in the universe?
Finally, I wonder if the word “Jesus” has to be in the correct context to make it clear that the person being abducted is actually referring to the biblical Jesus. In English speaking countries this might not seem like an issue because the name Jesus is generally only used for the Christian messiah. However, in Spanish-speaking countries things could be a little more complicated. In such countries does the name of Jesus stop the aliens, or only if its clear they mean the bible dude?
There’s really no answer to that question becasue this whole thing is just absurd. It’s funny though.
Translation of Image to the right: My name is Jesus and I am but a humble farmer of watermelons. Why are you taking me?
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 10:55 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Humor, Just LAME, Not Even Wrong, Paranormal, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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January 17th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
What about “Jesus Christ” as an expletive. As in “JESUS CHRIST! I just got a colonoscopy last month!”
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January 17th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Christianity and UFO’s have been bedfellows since Ezekiel saw the wheel:
4 I looked; a stormy wind blew from the north, a great cloud with flashing fire and brilliant light round it, and in the middle, in the heart of the fire, a brilliance like that of amber, 5 and in the middle what seemed to be four living creatures. They looked like this: They were of human form.
6 Each had four faces, each had four wings. 7 Their legs were straight; they had hooves like calves, glittering like polished brass. 8 Below their wings, they had human hands on all four sides corresponding to their four faces and four wings. 9 They touched one another with their wings; they did not turn as they moved; each one moved straight forward. 10 As to the appearance of their faces, all four had a human face, and a lion’s face to the right, and all four had a bull’s face to the left, and all four had an eagle’s face.
11 Their wings were spread upwards, each had one pair touching its neighbor’s, and the other pair covering its body. 12 And each one moved straight forward; they went where the spirit urged them, they did not turn as they moved. 13 Between these living creatures were what looked like blazing coals, like torches, darting backwards and forwards between the living creatures; the fire gave a brilliant light, and lightning flashed from the fire, 14 and the living creatures kept disappearing and reappearing like flashes of lightning.
15 Now, as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel touching the ground beside each of the four-faced living creatures. 16 The appearance and structure of the wheels were like glittering chrysolite. All four looked alike, and their appearance and structure were such that each wheel seemed to have another wheel inside it. 17 In whichever of the four directions they moved, they did not need to turn as they moved. 18 Their circumference was of awe-inspiring size, and the rims of all four sparkled all the way round.
19 When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the living creatures left the ground, the wheels too left the ground. 20 They moved in whichever direction the spirit chose to go, and the wheels rose with them, since the wheels shared the spirit of the animals. 21 When the living creatures moved on, they moved on; when the former halted, the latter halted; when the former left the ground, the wheels too left the ground, since the wheels shared the spirit of the animals.
22 Over the heads of the living creatures was what looked like a solid surface glittering like crystal, spread out over their heads, above them, 23 and under the solid surface, their wings were spread out straight, touching one another, and each had a pair covering its body.
24 I also heard the noise of their wings; when they moved, it was like the noise of flood-waters, like the voice of Shaddai, like the noise of a storm, like the noise of an armed camp; and when they halted, they lowered their wings; 25 there was a noise too.
26 Beyond the solid surface above their heads, there was what seemed like a sapphire, in the form of a throne. High above on the form of a throne was a form with the appearance of a human being. 27 I saw a brilliance like amber, like fire, radiating from what appeared to be the waist upwards; and from what appeared to be the waist downwards, I saw what looked like fire, giving a brilliant light all round. 28 The radiance of the encircling light was like the radiance of the bow in the clouds on rainy days.
Ezekiel then crapped himself.
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January 18th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Your Spanish sounds a bit odd. This sounds more natural:
Me llamo Jesús y soy un granjero humilde de sandías. ¿Por qué ustedes me están tomando?
Man, reflective verbs are weird.
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January 18th, 2009 at 1:08 am
DV82XL said:
I’ve heard of that, but the bible is full of weird stuff going on like brimstone falling from the sky or people turning into pillars of salt and water turning to blood, columns of fire and stuff.
I was unaware that the UFO people were linking their beliefs in aliens to Christianity. I figured they were too schools of thought entirely. Religion is usually based on the idea of an all powerful god with supernatural powers and such and UFO beliefs are more atheistic, or maybe not atheistic, but they’re a belief that is based in flawed science or something. Like UFO groups don’t say that the aliens are beings from heaven or hell or spirits or something. They usually say that they’re advanced humanoid organisms which have some kind of super technology like fusion and warp engines and invisibility cloaks and stuff.
The best way to describe it
UFO’s: Science fiction
Paranormal: Fantasy and Magical fiction
Religion: Epic fiction/mythology
They’re related genres but they’re not perfect mix.
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January 18th, 2009 at 1:12 am
Peter said:
You’re probably right. I took Spanish in high school but was never great at it. I hit up a translator and a dictionary and what I came up with appeared to me to be gramatically correct, but you’re probably right that it didn’t really come out natural, even if technically adhering to the rules of grammar and vocabulary. I will replace it with your suggestion post haste!
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January 18th, 2009 at 1:38 am
Mister Fisk said:
I included the whole excerpt of Ezekiel’s vision of the wheel because any reading of it is quite evocative of the classic flying saucer. My theory is that this passage is the ROOT of most of the later descriptions of UFOs. Of course others choose to see it as historical proof that we have been visited in the past. Although I haven’t seen a good reason why those aliens would have instructed Ezekiel in such minutiae as how many days he could sleep lying on each side of his body and the exact weigh of meat he was to consume on a daily basis. (Eze 4:4-17)
It is also apparent that the number of UFO and close encounter when up as reports of miraculous visions and other religious apparitions went down. Frankly I don’t think this is a coincidence.
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January 18th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I think that the number of UFO close encounters goes up as miraculous visions goes down because of the fact that people are just attributing things they can’t explain or their need to be part of something greater to a different source.
However, I disagree with DV82XL about the source of UFO descriptions. the fact that the 20th century was dominated by reports of round flat objects is attributed to a man by the name of Kennith Arnold. He claimed to have seen a number of strange aircraft which he said were thin and flied like saucers. He didn’t say the craft were round in shape but the incident was reported on heavily using the terms ’saucer’ and ‘disc.’ It seems the technicalities of the event were lost on people. After this reports of ufo’s exploded and all of them looked like a disc, saucer, pie plate or upturbed hubcap.
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January 18th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Gordon said:
You may well be right, however the 1950’s were a time when more people attended church regularly, ‘Ezekiel saw da Wheel’ was a popular spiritual song, and many commenters were quick to make the connection. If the passage wasn’t the source of the descriptions per se, I still contend it was very influential at the time.
The Biblical account has largely been forgotten now but that would not have been the case back then.
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January 18th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
UFO’s are very much products of their time. n the late 1800’s, before the airplane and when people thought that the future of aviation would be dirigibles and the cutting edge were a few experimental airships with motors or rudders, the UFO reports were almost entirely of long cylindrical and basically described as being “airships.”
UFO’s of the 1920’s and 1930’s were more rocket-like, something like a Buck Rogers vehicle
The second big rush of UFO’s came in the 1940’s and into the 1950’s and 60’s. Looking back it’s amazing anyone took them seriously as being from another civilization because they are very retro-mid century in the way they look. They were metallic, had streamline trim and bubble tops or slanted windows. They looked like the hubcap off of a Buick or a concept car or something.
The 1970’s saw some of the same but also they got fat and rounder and seemed a bit uglier, but then, everything in the 1970’s was. I never really understood the style of the 1970’s. No matter what context I try to put it in, putting fake wood grain on the side of a station wagon or a video game console never looks good. I don’t get it. People honestly thought orange shag rugs and green and brown appliances were attractive…
But I digress. The 1980’s saw the more “organic” UFO, fatter and such. Possibly inspired by the turnip in E.T.
The 1990’s saw a big shift in UFO’s shiney and metallic was totally out by the 1990’s and suddenly the triangular UFO, which had been a secondary thing for a long time, was in full force. Triangular and generally angular and dark was the rage. This would have been around the time of the first Gulf War, you know, the time when the F-117 was all over the TV.
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January 18th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
As Arthur C. Clarke famously said, any sufficiently advanced technology would look like magic to people newly exposed to it. Since magic, superstition, and religion are basically variations on a non-rational theme, any technology or unknown or rare phenomenon (e.g., ball lightning) will be explained as manifestations of something only the high priests can explain.
The three most trouble-some and useless religions were founded by strange men who probably suffered heat stroke, brain damage and hallucinations while mucking about in deserts.
While no organized religion brings anything to the search for truth of the universe, at least the ones from more temperate climates seem to be at least a bit more humane. I may be wrong.
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January 18th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
In the days of Ezekiel, it wasn’t Christianity.
A Biblical quote more relevant to Christianity: “My kingdom is not of this world.”
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January 18th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Good point here being since the name of “Jesus” is different in different languages, which one do the aliens speak and the other thing is does it only work if they use it in a holy way and not “JESUS CHRIST Don’t put that in my butt!”
Why would anyone think this though?
“At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow of those on the earth, and those under the earth and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father “
Somebody say the name Jesus and watch me not kneel and bow down to earth. Seriously, I can totally do it. It doesn’t make me do anything.
Oh yeah. Why do aliens constantly stick things in people’s butts anyway? Is it a free colon cancer screening or do they just sit around wondering what the inside of a human anus looks like
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March 17th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
crazy.
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March 17th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Protocologists from Outer Space? Maybe they’re medical students who need more clinical hours than they can get on their home plantets.
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November 30th, 2011 at 5:26 am
No hay palabras para explicar lo que voy a decir, porque durante muchos años e intentado mostrar y hablar de algo que e descubierto sobre PI y los ovnis, y todo gracias a unos cálculos matemáticos que e descubierto, de verdad no me gustaría que alguien pensara que quiero quitar la razón a matemático, físicos o intelectuales en la materia de la ciencia, porque esa no es mi meta, mi meta es mostrar lo que yo e descubierto, por si alguien pudiera ayudarme,
A qui tenéis esta dirección para poder leer y ver de lo que hablo,
http://nuevopi.blogspot.com/
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November 30th, 2011 at 6:28 am
Google Translate gives:
Which is pretty bloody incomprehensible.
A translation of the link indicates that UFOs and numerology have mixed there.
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