If Ruins Of An Ancient Civilization Are Discovered On Mars, Will You Lose Your Religion?

According to polls, a majority of people could accept a genuine ET reality without losing their faith in God.

by Thomas Horn
RaidersNewsNetwork.com -- NASA's recently released ultra high resolution pictures of the "face on Mars" reveal details as small as a few inches across including what some believe to be girders, windows and walls from ancient structures. Richard Hoagland and his Enterprise Team believe this is the smoking gun. "The debate is over," he says. "I no longer need to prove that these are ruins, my critics need to prove that they are not."

A few years ago the movie "Mission to Mars" sent NASA Commander Luke Graham (Don Cheadle) with a crew of four astronauts to the red planet. While exploring strange geological formations on the Martian landscape, the truth about the Face on Mars and the origin of mankind was discovered.

At the time, director Brian De Palma admitted, "Mission to Mars is set in 2020 because that’s the date the experts predict we should have a manned landing on Mars."

The film insinuated that, when we do set foot on Mars, the discovery of past alien presence could be made near the Sphinx-like "face" and pyramidal shapes photographed by the Viking Mars probe.

Benevolent Creator Astronauts Theory (ET=God)

A staple doctrine among many ufologists is that such a discovery would lead to the conclusion that the origin of myth as well as the creation of man was the direct result of intelligent extraterrestrial activity, or benevolent creator astronauts.

In the introduction to his bestselling book, CHARIOTS OF THE GODS?, Erich von Daniken, who, it might be argued, is one of the fathers of modern ufology, said:

"I claim that our forefathers received visits from the universe in the remote past, even though I do not yet know who these extra-terrestrial intelligences were or from which planet they came. I nevertheless proclaim that these "strangers" annihilated part of mankind existing at the time and produced a new, perhaps the first, homo sapiens."

As was illustrated in the Hollywood films Contact and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Erich von Daniken's hypothesis took America by storm in the 1960's with the proposition that mankind was possibly the offspring of an ancient, even ongoing, extraterrestrial experiment.

Ufologists like Daniken assert that the Sphinx, the Pyramids and myths of ancient cultures are potential evidence of an encounter with these other-worldly beings. They claim ancient men would have considered space travelers as gods and would have recorded their arrival, their experiments, and their departure, in hieroglyphs, megaliths, and stone tablets as a "supernatural" encounter between gods and men.

Mr. Daniken continues:

"While [the] spaceship disappears again into the mists of the universe our friends will talk about the miracle—"The gods were here!"....they will make a record of what happened: uncanny, weird, miraculous. Then their texts will relate—and drawings will show—that gods in golden clothes were there in a flying boat that landed with a tremendous din. They will write about chariots which the gods drove over land and sea, and of terrifying weapons that were like lightning, and they will recount that the gods promised to return. They will hammer and chisel in the rock pictures of what they had seen:"

Von Daniken also claims that the odd appearance of some of the gods as depicted in various hieroglyphs (human-like creatures with falcon heads; lions with heads of bulls, etc) could be viewed as evidence that "aliens" conducted experiments of cloning and cross-mutating ancient people and animals.

Daniken's hypothesis is accepted by some as an alternative to the traditional account of creation. It's uncertain how many people believe the Daniken (and Sitchen) theory, but approximately 70% of Americans believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Some, like the 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult that committed suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California and believed they were being summoned by a UFO trailing the Hale-Bopp Comet, take it a step further. They merge ufology and religious cosmology to produce hybrids of conventional religion and/or esoteric mysticism. Of course the remaining 30% minority reject the entire notion as ridiculous.

Malevolent Non-Creator-Astronauts Theory (ET=Satan)

One of the more troubling aspects of the benevolent creator-astronaut view is the related "abduction" scenario associated with certain types of aliens--the taking of a person against their will, often followed by intrusive probes, genetic tinkering, embryo farming and other experimental processes. The abduction by shadowy forces for reasons unknown is viewed by most experiencers and researchers as impersonal, malevolent, demonic.

Associate professor of psychology Elizabeth L. Hillstrom points out in her book, Testing the Spirits, that a growing number of academics also associate UFOnauts--whoever, or whatever, they are--with historical "demons".

She writes:

"From a Christian perspective, Vallee’s explanation of UFOs is the most striking because of its parallels with demonic activity. UFO investigators have noticed these similarities. Vallee himself, drawing from extrabiblical literature on demonic activities, establishes a number of parallels between UFOnauts and demons....Pierre Guerin, a UFO researcher and a scientist associated with the French National Council for Scientific Research, is not so cautious: "The modern UFOnauts and the demons of past days are probably identical." Veteran researcher John Keel, who wrote UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse and other books on the subject, comes to the same conclusion: "The UFO manifestations seem to be, by and large, merely minor variations of the age-old demonological phenomenon."

Yet if a portion of "flying saucer" activity is in the biblical sense demonic, what nefarious purpose would be served by the stealthy nature of UFO phenomena?

According to some, the answer is diabolical. UFO-ism, they say, is aimed at preparing the earth for an extraterrestrial "return of the creator gods." To put it bluntly, some believe we are being prepared for the collapse of man's dominant religions. This will happen in two ways:

First, alien religion--as reported in hundreds of abduction cases--is one of evolutionary humans "on the verge of extraordinary telepathic and technological emergence" in which transhumanism will pave the way for harmonic and spiritual convergence to the community of space brothers.

Second, from a technological standpoint, UFO sightings challenge the claim of human superiority and dispute our unique role in the universe. We are made to feel shallow, undeveloped, unenlightened if we consider rejecting the new universal religion.

ETs bearing this message often point out that "they" will be reappearing at any moment to assist us in this--our next big evolutionary, spiritual, and technological step forward.

Supported By Historical and Religious Texts

Claims of extraterrestrials visiting the earth in ancient times and interacting with men is referenced throughout ancient history, including sacred texts. As illustrated in the two views above, ufologists differ in the definition of who these creatures were and what they were doing. For instance, both Daniken and Sitchen refer to the figures in the Bible here (Interlinear Hebrew):

"The benei Elohim saw the daughters of Adam, that they were fit extensions. And they took wives for themselves from all those that they chose...The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and even afterwards when the benei Elohim came in to the daughters of Adam, and they bore to them—they were Powerful Ones which existed from ancient times, the men of name. (Gen. 6:2,4)"

We are told these benei Elohim were "extraterrestrial" creatures known elsewhere as "watchers," "sons of God," and "rephaim." These visited the earth during antiquity and used the daughters of Adam as "fit extensions" or instruments through which they extended themselves into the physical world. They represented themselves as "gods," and their offspring, the Nephilim ("fallen ones"), made war with the Hebrews.

Yet some think these beings could be planning something now, an "alien invasion" or discovery designed to deceive the human race. We are entering the 'end times', the theory goes, where "...fearful sights and great signs...from heaven" (Lk 21:11) will be seen.

2 Thessalonians 2:8-12 is often added to this theory:

"And then shall that Wicked [one] be revealed....whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders....And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

The message is: Beware if world authorities begin "disclosure" by pointing to ancient mysteries, megaliths, pyramids, the Face on Mars, UFOs or anything else as proof of an ancient visitation of planet earth by creator ETs. Deception, we are told, will follow. We will be instructed to believe that ancient astronauts--not God--created the human race, and a great "falling away" of the earth's major religions will follow.

ET=Neither God Or Satan

Others argue that to depict ET as either godly or satanic is to trivialize the debate; that in a sense ET is neither... and both! Just as "good" and "bad" angels exist or "good" and "bad" people exist, ET comes in all personality types, races, and temperaments. The Grays, who are most usually associated with abduction, might be perceived as evil (or at a minimum impersonal), while other aliens are good guys.

"Don't buy that for a second," we hear the conservative ufologist shout. "Satan comes as an angel of light!"

Yet I digress.

If evidence of ancient "civilizations" or UFOs are discovered elsewhere in the galaxy, will YOU lose YOUR religion?

BOOKS BY TOM HORN

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FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

If Ruins Of An Ancient Civilization Are Discovered On Mars, Will You Lose Your Religion?

Making No Sense of a Massacre by Peter Levenda

PETER LEVENDA'S BLOG

The author of the Sinister Forces trilogy discusses related matters...

The latest edition of Time magazine has just appeared, dated April 30, 2007. (Walpurgisnacht, the Witches’ Sabbath made famous in the Bram Stoker novel, Dracula, for anyone interested in the resonances.) And the cover story is about the Virginia Tech massacre, with the caption “Trying to Make Sense of a Massacre.”

It’s about what you would expect of Time. Pious musings, faux sensitivity. There are some unintentionally ironic moments, however. The court-ordered evaluation of Cho following his stalking incident in November of 2005 bore writing by a judge who claimed that Cho posed “an eminent danger to self or others”. Eminent, not imminent. Cho strove for both.

In addition, his first victims in the classroom shootings were students attending a German language course; next on the list was the engineering class being taught by a Romanian Holocaust survivor who lost his life while heroically saving those of his students, so many years after his survival of the death camps and on the day known as Yom ha-Shoah, “Holocaust Remembrance Day”. Thus, as in every such event, synchronicities pile up.

But what was annoying were the reflections by Jeffrey Kluger and David von Drehle, which focused on the narcissistic aspects of the crime and the criminal who committed them. Kluger – in “Why They Kill” – begins by asking “If you want a sense of just how terrible Monday’s crimes were, here’s something to try: imagine yourself committing them.” His point is that it is easier for us to imagine ourselves as victims than as killers. I guess Kluger has never played a violent video game. I guess Kluger never served in the armed forces. I guess Kluger is not old enough to remember Vietnam’s My Lai massacre in which young, red-blooded American boys with automatic weapons – told to “shoot anything that moves” – did just that. Of course, Kluger might respond, that was war. This is different. This is peacetime. A college campus. No “eminent” threat.

With the increasing – the exponentially increasing – amount of technology available in our materialist society and the proportional lack of spiritual or moral elevation, we are reduced to using this technology to visualize fantasies of pornographic violence. In these fantasies we are rarely, if ever, the victims. We are usually the perpetrators. Of course, in these fantasies we wear the white hats. We are killing drug dealers, or terrorists, or gang members. During basic training our men and women are taught that the enemy is a target, an object, not a human being. No one accuses our troops in Iraq of being narcissists, though.

Our technology has enabled us to create powerful works of art, vast multi-media creations linking music and image and text into spiritually-elevating experiences that demonstrate our love for culture and artistic expression … except that, well, we don’t use it that way. Instead, we project our own homicidal impulses onto the computer screens and with virtual Glocks murder hundreds, thousands, of virtual … whatever, whomever. For some of us, this represents a safety valve, a release of these impulses and tensions as they are grounded in a virtual world where no one really dies and no one is really to blame. For the rest of us, though, it’s training.

Kluger emphasizes – as does von Drehle in his article “It’s All About Him” – the role that narcissism plays in the minds of mass murderers and serial killers. As usual, the mass murderer and the serial killer are conflated, taken to be representative of the same violent impulse when of course they are not. The serial killer is a “lust killer” in the old terminology; the crime has a definite sexual element. The dead body itself is an object of desire, a focus for sexual acts and fantasies. The mass murderer, however, is not concerned with the bodies he (it’s usually a male) creates. He’s not concerned with quality, only with quantity, like a solder on a battlefield or a gamer at the controls. The people he kills are not people; they are objects and not even sexual objects. Instead, they represent the nameless and unnamable forces arrayed against him.

To relegate the entire phenomenon of mass murder to one of narcissism and clinical depression is to miss the point. Narcissism and depression are not the cause, they’re the symptoms of an underlying disorder. Narcissism is a defense mechanism, a way of keeping the identity intact in a world that has lost its moral compass; and by “moral” I don’t mean only knowing right from wrong (although that would be a welcome development), but something deeper than that.

In the United States, a country made up of people from virtually every country on earth, we have lost a shared sense of connection. We don’t know to whom we belong: what family, what race, what ethnicity, what religion … what history. An immigrant from South Korea in 1992, how could Cho be expected to identify with the American Revolution, or Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, or the inaugural address of President John F. Kennedy? Yet he did identify with the assassinations of Marilyn Monroe and John Lennon. Pop icons took the place of cultural identification. “American” was probably an artificial identity for Cho; as was Virginia Tech. None of these things – social and cultural constructions invented by white people – provided any kind of real human connection for Cho. It’s hard enough for the rest of us, those of us born and raised here, to claim American “roots”: the whole idea is pretty problematic, especially if your ancestors were slaves, or illegals, or Nazis brought in under Operation Paperclip … My own ancestors showed up here from Eastern Europe in the first decade of the twentieth century. How much of American history, then, do I share with my neighbors?

The whole point of America was to do just that: to create an artificial environment that would guarantee a certain level of freedom for all its citizens regardless of their background; a country removed from considerations of monarchy and therefore from considerations of hierarchies, classes, even race, religion and family. It was an escape route from religious and political persecution in Europe. Well … for white people, anyway.

According to the statistics published in this issue of Time, most mass murders are carried out by men, both black and white (about evenly divided). In dissecting the mentality of mass murderers, though, the articles in question focus on the idea of narcissism and avoid questions of race and ethnicity. It is assumed that the motivation for one is the motivation for all, regardless of race. That seems intellectually dishonest to me.

Further, von Drehle compares Cho to Ted Bundy, and this is where his analysis starts to spring leaks. Bundy was a serial killer, a sexual psychopath and sadist, who killed women by first convincing them that he needed their help and then taking advantage of their kindness by knocking them out, kidnapping them, and then killing them. He was handsome, charming, with an easy smile and ingratiating manner. To all intents and purposes, he was socially integrated. Cho was anything but. While Cho may have had psycho-sexual problems – as seems evident from his stalking of women, and taking photos of them with his cell phone when they weren’t looking – the murders he committed had none of Bundy’s sexual dimensions (unless, of course, all murder is to be considered in terms of a sexual impulse). Von Drehle, however, sees the narcissistic impulse as the core impulse, the unifying characteristic, of both killers. He writes “Only a narcissist could decide that his alienation should be underlined in the blood of strangers.”

Let’s take a look at that. In the first place, who gave us the term “alienation” and how was it used? Probably the first time it was employed in any kind of a methodical way was by Erich Fromm. In "The Art of Loving", he writes:

Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life forces as an investment which must bring him the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions.

Alienation, therefore, is the result of a materialist society that turns human beings into commodities, i.e., objectifies them so that they have lost their essential humanity. By directing one’s “life forces” into materialist goals, a human robs himself or herself of basic humanity, becomes – in Holden Caulfield’s words – a “phony”. In order to sell oneself, one has to be concerned with packaging, with advertising, with spin: these are all concepts we have inherited from World War II and its aftermath, from a black art known as “psychological warfare” but which has come down to us as “communications science” and its ugly offspring, advertising. We live in a culture where people no longer communicate with people, they no longer touch; instead, you read my ad and I read yours. My people will call your people. We’ll do lunch.

Lest someone think I am going off the deep end here, let’s look at Cho’s writings. He blames the rich and the decadent. His focus – self-serving and narcissistic or not – was precisely materialism. To go back to von Drehle’s statement above, we would have to characterize virtually all revolutions, all civil wars, all wars in general, as acts of narcissism. They all promote one identity above all others; one nation, or race, or religion, or political philosophy. We belong, you don’t. We are the solution, you are the problem. You are standing in the way of my happiness. You enslave me, if only with your thoughts; your way of life; the way you pray; the way you vote.

The difference between acts like Cho’s and – let’s say – the Russian Revolution led by that great narcissist V.I. Lenin is that Cho’s alienation is a symptom of spiritual disconnectedness, of spiritual impoverishment. In order to survive the slow death of one’s identity – the inability to frame one’s identity in terms of status goods, or credit cards, or nice hair – one focuses on one’s identity, creates an enhanced identity that is consistent with one’s inner life, one’s inner anger and hatred.

As I mentioned in the previous post, suicide bombers share more than a little in common with Cho. Are they also narcissists? Isn’t that a simplistic characterization of their motivations? A suicide bomber is a mass murderer who ends by killing himself or herself in the process. A suicide bomber leaves a video or written testimony and mails it to the press. Complains about oppression. Kills innocent people.

I submit that my linking Cho with suicide bombers is just as valid a comparison as that used by von Drehle and Kluger in their articles. Using “narcissism” and “depression” as reasons for what happened at Virginia Tech is lazy and facile; pop psychology masquerading as insight.

Cho was sick, no doubt about that. He was mentally ill. But those are terms whose meaning we no longer recognize because they are labels that can be applied so easily it’s a wonder they don’t come with a solvent, just in case. Cho was a “crazed, lone gunman” to be sure; but that doesn’t answer any questions, doesn’t solve any problems. All the work the government tried to do in the wake of the Columbine massacre resulted in not very much, because the perspective was all wrong. As usual, we like to focus on symptoms and not on root causes. We could have prevented VT with … what? A pill? If only Cho had taken his meds …

Years ago, R.D. Laing wrote that schizophrenia was a spiritual disorder that should be respected as such. His approach made some headway until it was discovered that schizophrenia could be treated with chemotherapy. With drugs. Schizophrenics were no longer wandering the streets, mumbling to themselves, hearing voices. As long as they took their meds, we were safe from them. So, Laing’s work became discredited, a quaint reminder of the kind of thinking that went on during the Sixties. But what do the drugs actually do? It is recognized that they do not cure schizophrenia, they only mask or reduce the symptoms so that schizophrenics can function in society, enabling them to bring themselves “the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions”.

Yes, Cho was ill. Dangerously, radically ill. But by dismissing his case as easily as do Kluger and Von Drehle, we run the risk that other Chos will rise, enabled by his example; because those market conditions still exist and alienated narcissism is the only survival mechanism available to those who can’t quite make a sale.

BOOKS BY PETER LEVENDA

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FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Making No Sense of a Massacre by Peter Levenda

Jay Bakker's Sermon - 04-15-07 - Jesus vs. Religion (Randy McCain)

04-15-07 - Jesus vs. Religion (Randy McCain)

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Pastor Randy McCain of Open Door Church in Sherwood, AR spoke for us on Sunday. You might recognize Randy from episode 2 of the show. He did a wonderful job - the sermon is entitled "Jesus vs. Religion" .

Click here to view the Revolution Podcast page on iTunes.

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FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Jay Bakker's Sermon - 04-15-07 - Jesus vs. Religion (Randy McCain)