UFOs and Religion and Science

Note: my main page also has some foundational perspectives on UFOs and Religion and Science, especially in the "Thoughts, Commentary, and Answers to Questions section. This page of a further examination into the phenomenon in regards to most religion(s), and science to a lesser extent. 

Religions is for many is what psychologist would call an "anchoring heuristic." What that means is that it is the anchor for their world view. A starting point or filter to understand most everything else. In the past "why does it rain?" "why do people get sick?" "why do people speak different languages?" "why are their earthquakes?" all had their answer with God, The Bible, or whatever version of holy scripture or belief one had been raised with or adopted. Now it's widely understood why it rains, what causes most illnesses, and how language has evolved through our sciences, such that we can predict rain, heal many diseases, and see the evolution of languages across time, as well as understand why some places have more earthquakes because of plate tectonics, which was ridiculed when first presented as a theory. 

UFOs are the one of the biggest of mysteries that we don't understand well: and one that, like disease and earthquakes is scary at times. Just like people looked to the bible as clear evidence of disease and earthquakes being God's judgement with The Plagues of Egypt in Exodus, David's Census and the Plague in 2 Samuel 24, Miriam's Leprosy in Numbers 12 and Uzziah's in 2 Chronicles 26 and understood Earthquakes in Isaiah 29 and Ezekiel 38 as signs of God, some people will be tempted to look at  NHI (non-human intelligence) and try to fit it into a biblical/religious narrative.  

However, what we've found is that just like with the things already mentioned science has done a far superior job understanding the material world despite often intense religious pushback and cognitive dissonance. Galileo was sentence to house arrest until he died for supporting what Copernicus figured out with observation and math that the Sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system (though at the time they thought it was the universe). It says in the bible in Ecclesiastes 1:5: "The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises." And in Psalm 93 93:1: "The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved." Passages like these made it very clear to many that it was heretical and against the divine word of God that the earth could was not the center of all creation and moving around the sun. Another examples  is the age of the earth with famously James Ussher trying to calculate the age of the world through biblical genealogies and came with the the earth being created in 4004 BC. now we know we radioactive dating that it's closer to 4.54 billion years old. There are others, but the last one I will mention is the creation of species. Genesis describes species being created according to their "kinds." Because of this most people, particularly religious people (though most scientists didn't believe it either at first), didn't believe the ideas first put forward by Darwin that species evolve. However, evidence has been built up over time to show the links between species that even the Catholic Church and many others accept evolution, and we routinely go to hospitals for treatments, and everyone believes the sun is the center of the solar system which is not even the center of the Milky Way, which is 1 of billions of galaxies. 

Science May Do Better, But it Doesn't a Free Pass Either

Like is says above science doesn't get a pass either. While Science has cured diseases, launed satellites, built airplanes, harnessed electricity and built the internet. Scientist have sometimes gotten so confident that they KNOW what reality is that they too have been unyielding to better data and have persecuted people for thinking new things that have ultimately proven to be right.  In the 1840s is was discovered by Ignaz Semmelweis that doctors washing their hands before delivering babies caused fewer deaths. Doctors pushed back and his ideas were ridiculed. I already mentioned plate tectonics before and how the idea was considered absurd by the geologists at the time, as well as scientist saying meteorites couldn't exist because "there are no rocks in space." The idea that bacteria caused ulcers caused Barry Marshall to be ridiculed, until he drank a culture of bacteria and developed gastritis. The idea of a static universe was the accepted norm, even by Einstein until observations showed it was expanding with Einstein later calling his "greatest blunder." Prions showed that not all disease needed DNA or RNA challenging a fundamental idea in biology. and thousands of sailors could have been saved from scurvy had the navies of the world more quickly accepted the theory that it's caused by a deficiency of vitamin C.  There are other examples, some I mentioned already, like germ-theory replacing Miasma, the idea of the 4 elements (earth, water, fire, and air), the concept of Ether, the rejection of now accepted neuroplasticity and adult neurogenesis, and there will be more to come.  The confidence I see in some scientists that today we have it pretty much all figured out in some areas, is the same confidence they had back then. Science largely is our best understanding with the evidence we has at the time. 

The Challenge NHI, Disclosure, and/or Open Contact Will Bring

One of the biggest challenges will be what will the NHI tell us about the world that many still use scripture or science (that NHI will instantly update perhaps) to understand. For example If NHI made contact with people in the 1600s and told us that microorganisms caused most sickness it would be shocking, and many people might be in disbelief claiming that it's clear that disease is from God, the devil, sin, bad air, etc... What if aliens told us in 1300 AD that Humans were cousins to apes and we share 96% of our DNA with them ? Or told us in 1400 that stars are just other suns and we orbit ours just like there are other planets orbiting their suns? All of these revelations would have been such ontological shock and so distressing you might get a surge in end-time  and death cults (which have happened with almost all of the big moments in history), demonic theories, or even a rejection of all science. What will we get told? We can only take guess and many have... That we are seeded here, that our model of physics is wrong in fundamental ways, that consciousness is not something unique to humans or even generated by your brain (it just receives/'filters it), that the afterlife exists but is not even close to what many people thought? That there are other "dimensions?" Who knows. But we need to realize that our understanding of reality, whether through religion, or science has often been wrong throughout history no matter how confident we've been, and surely must also then be somewaht today, even if we're further along.  More, that beliefs and practices have changed in both religion and science. Close to 100% of Christians don't use the bible to justify slavery anymore (despite Ephesians 6:5, 1 Timothy 6:1-2, etc.). And despite past interpretations of scripture, Protestants now regularly ordain women (despite 1 Timothy 2:1-12, 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35, etc.).  Divorce is much more accepted (despite Jesus himself in Mark 10: 11-12,  and 1 Corinthians 7: 10-11, etc.). Further, many churches used  scripture to teach alcohol was sinful and no longer do so (despite Proverbs 20:1,  Romans 14:21, etc.), and now except for the Amish and few other groups, many more women now feel it's acceptable to get dressed up, even for church (despite 1 Timothy 2:9–10 , 1 Peter 3:3–4 , etc.). And those are just some of the more recent 20th century examples. Science has many examples of belief changing based up better equipment, new discoveries, and more. The paragraph above this one mentions a few of these.  It's the distressing shock that some people think will happen to the world view of too many people that's sometimes cited as a reason for the decades long cover-up. I hope we can be better than that. 

Here's a response I typed to a YouTube user directing me to a video about demons and aliens and how some must be demons:

​Quantum physics contradicted classical physics so much that even great scientist at the time couldn't believe time dilation, superposition, and gravity and space-time being intertwined, etc... Now, it's just standard physics. My point is that a pastor who believes in demons are going to see demons in craft he can't explain, when really the answer is he just can't explain it. Scripture was used to explain how the earth is at the center of the universe Psalm 93 93:1: "The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved." and now we know that's not true. It was used to describe the age the the earth, and how languages differed and more. All things science later figured out. My point it that scripture is a poor guide to use to understand how things that we see and touch work. It's o.k. simply to not know and have humility and that goes for scientists too by the way. But I would bet science will find the answer before religion, just like science built the internet I am now typing across as well as the Mars lander, antibiotics, GPS, etc...Religion hasn't built much. But it does give us hope, solace, community, and other very important things. (typos taken out for my webpage) 

Here's the video they had sent me to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSSspoLQYWE

Extra Section: Could it Be that UFO Content Made It Into Our Religions?

A book I mentioned on the main UFO page, "Chariots of the Gods," by Erich von Daniken was one of the first books to really get people thinking that maybe some of what we see in our religions was ancient people's interpretations of what we now think of as UFO, UAP, and NHI flying overhead, or even interacting with us.  Daniken's work is mostly rejected by the academic community, and his personal life and legal troubles (convicted on counts of fraud and embezzlement) don't paint a good picture of his life and his work.  Nonetheless, the idea caught on and work has been carried on by others, wondering if some of the stuff in our religions was just the best way the people of the time could describe a UFO.  

A quote I've used before is from Arthur C. Clark, who wrote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." We know that many things of the world we now understand better were magical and not understandable to ancient humans. Religion all over the world was used to describe weather, creation, why crops grow or fail, where animals come from, what how children are conceived, where disease comes from, how to protect ourselves from a variety of harms, why some people are lucky and other not, and for some of these and many people it still is. The idea Daniken and many others had that has caught fire and left many people wondering is, what if a  shinny metallic flying craft came down out of the sky and flew around. How could they possibly describe it as an advanced flying craft and wonder what metals it might be made up and how it's achieving life and what powers it and who pilots it. To them it would be something from the heavens. And if beings with technology came from the sky and walked the earth at some point they would probably be seen as "star people," gods, or some variant or combination of them.  Below are just some of the art and passages from around the world that some of these authors and others have speculated with differing levels of confidence could have been inspired by encounters with aliens or some other NHI. None of these I take too seriously, but some I consider more than others. Nevertheless, I don't look to any of them as evidence for my beliefs.

Let's start with the bible and the account of Ezekiel who in Ezekiel 1:1-28 describes something coming down from heaven. While most of it seems bizzare and not what would be imagine an angel would look like, some people think some of the accounts sound like how a many who knows nothing of technology might describe a rotationg UFO perhaps with lights all around it.  Here's a copy of the text I am referring to from BibleGateway.com :

Some people think there are UFOs in some early Christian Art was well. Here are a couple of the more talked about pieces. I'll show some below. But even better perhaps is this article by ListVerse:

The site of Pumapunku in the Andes of Western Bolivia. A complex of almost perfectly enginnered blocks that still baffles engineers as to how they could move, and shape and stack the blocks which we think were built sometime from 536 to 600 AD

The Mayans

In Western Australia there are the Wandjina figures, painte by the Aborginal peoples. Many people think they look like Greys and interpret that it must mean that they had had contact with them.

Finally, there are other works that are interpreted in these ways. There are the Sumerian Anunnaki stories, the Hopi Ant People claims (which some think means the insectoid or mantis types aliens), the Ancient Indian vimanas, the 1561 Celestial Phenomenon over Nuremburg, the Quimbaya Artifacts and more.  I'll leave this section with two pictures of the Quimbaya Artifacts. These were made by the people of the Quimbaya civilization of the Middle Cauca River valley of Columbia from around 300-1000 AD. Archeologist say they are gold 2-3 inch gold pendants that are suppose to be stylized depictions of flying fish, insects, or birds. Look at them below and you can see how some people think it has to be precious gold relics inspired by ancient flying machines made by a more advanced NHI?