Musings on aliens, religion, history…

[DarkRange55]

Humans have a tendency in their curiosity that they can't help themselves when they see a place that is far, far away to go there and reach it. But if you look up in the sky, I think the first thing that you will realize is the distance between us and the stars. So it's always been not fascinating but it's always been an intellectual fetish trying to figure out how can we get rid of this distance with us and the stars. If you're a kid, you're always wondering whats beyond the mountain. Since the primitive ages, early humans probably wondered how they could reach the stars. And then at a time, they realized they probably couldn't. So they had to make up stories, they had to give themselves an explanation. Why the stars are there, who's living in them.

We've always been looking at the stars and I just think that our nature as humans we are very curious and we just love exploring the mysteries of life and the universe and I think the idea of life beyond earth makes us think about how vast the universe is. And a classic sentence is by thinking about that we also think about our own place in the universe and what it means to be alive.

When you get a good glimpse of the moon and see a bunch of people all taking photos of it, it's not surprising that we thought deities lived on there. Its almost a god-like thing look down from the sky on us, its super bright. If you read ancient literature, people are always talking about having a full moon outside, they can see everything at night, it's hard to imagine in our modern world. Imagine thats the only light source, it's a very humbling experience.

The old stories form ancient times, when you look across all these ancient civilizations from Mesopotamians to Egyptians to Indians to Chinese to the Greeks, these parallels emerge in all these current that portray these divine beings, gods, as influencing the human understanding of the universe. And if you look at these beings for example, they all kind of are described in these stories as key architects of the universe. And there is also a frequent mention in these stories of different realms that these gods inhabit and they all different powers in these realms and they all made humans think a different way about the world and how its all connected.

What is the correlation between these gods and for lack of a better word, aliens?

From what I see, parallels emerge when you think about in these mythical interpretations that these encounters with aliens described as gods and then people look at that mythical text through modern UFOlogy they kind of make the comparison that these encounters with gods are actually encounters with aliens. Like "Ancient Astronaut Theory." There are symbolic similarities between the two because they are both powerful being beyond human comprehension.

There's a Chinese science fiction where the author asked the question, why don't we worship deities in China anymore. China is very light on worshiping and religion. Maybe once a year burn some paper money to the goddess of the land and thats it. Because agriculture production has been important for a long time. But overall we don't see the same type of worshiping behaviors or religious behaviors similar to ancient Greeks or Egyptians. And then he wrote a story basically saying, we think that there were gods but until one day a guy, in ancient Chinese history he is like their first inventor. He had a debate with one of those gods and proved that they don't know everything. And then the gods realized humanity was mature enough and they just left.
It sort of just gave a modern explanation on why we're having all these weird thoughts.

If you think of all the gods especially in ancient Greece or ancient Chinese culture, there's always a god that takes care of one aspect of agriculture production. There's a god of rain, one of thunder, one natural phenomenon is taken care of by one god. And now of you look at how we look at aliens is because I think back then people believed in myth and now people believe in science. In the sense of the science method but a lot of people actually worship science. It's a different framework now, science is the framework. So back then you'd look at all these natural phenomenon and wonder whats the personification of the highest or the most powerful personification of the earthquake and you basically create a personality around it. Now it's basically like whats the personification around the highest scientific achievement and you call them aliens. These all powerful beings. So I think there is a layer in here of almost worshiping. Which is something science has tried to get rid of. But a lot of people today treat science as a new religion. A lot of people don't actually buy into the scientific method because they don't really know what it is. They don't believe that science will bring them the ultimate truth. They just think that science is like the new type of Christianity. Consequently they treat atheism as almost like having a religious feature now. So I just feel like aliens are kind of like a new Marvel type of thing.

All these myths about gods, they're all kind of fucked up. A lot of incest and horrible beings all about vengeance. Why can't we just imagine something being great without 50 Shades of Greying them? Something probably to do with sacrifice. The whole giving up on something in order to get something else down the road. I think there's a lot of that involved. Because I think when these gods, these religions came into play we kind of moved into agriculture. So we started thinking about the future more. Probably as humans. Planning more. What we do today is going to reflect whats coming down the road.

Across different cultures, you always imagine that the good gods are in heaven and all the gods that can take care of us and we really depend on are all in the sky. And whats beneath the earth is always something like hell, like the underworld, it's for dead people. And then if you read the folklore, the gods in the sky are basically assholes. But for example the god of death, like how you pass, where you're going after you die, there's a certain level of compassion to it. I think we realized there's this random in nature. You were just working on the land and all of the sudden there's an earthquake or a flood coming so you probably think that those gods don't have a good temper. So you start to envision them being dicks all around just messing around with people. But death is certain and we have this sympathy and empathy towards deceased people. So we imagine that when they die maybe they're in some peaceful place. Maybe they needed to explain to themselves because there's a lot of unpredictability in life and especially in nature so maybe we offended the gods in some kind of way by not doing something they wanted us to pay attention to. And I think that's where the whole sacrifice thing comes in.

I don't think this is a comprehensive explanation but in the past 100 years, we can actually fly now. Most people will never see a rocket launching into the sky or a 5th generation fighter, how they maneuver in the sky. So when you just catch a glimpse, it's unreal. I was at an airshow one year and I saw an old Chinese jet fighter and you would think there's no way they could move like that but they do. Maybe technology is so advanced but for most people their conceptualization hasn't caught up yet so see something and think it must be aliens. So that's just one explanation.

Mostly from 70 years ago and what had happened in that time we had two world wars and an explosion in development and experimental rockets and aircrafts that people weren't ready for. The rise in fiction in the last 150 years because if you go back you can't really find a lot literature that deals with the topic of advanced extraterrestrial life. There's bits and pieces but especially in the last 150 years with novels, movies, tv shows. The line between reality and fiction for most people got blurred. I also think especially in the past but even now, people not being well educated enough to understand weather patterns or maybe celestial bodies like a comet or another planet or some crazy weather type event there's plenty of people who aren't well enough educated on that. We have a completely different realm of thinking now. If you see a fireball in the sky back in the day you'd probably think it was a fire ball. But today people might think it's aliens because we've started to think thats a solid possibility now.

A lot of these stories and claims happen in the States.

Even today the Chinese still don't know how the Americans made some specific types of alloys for their jet engine turbines. That material cannot be reverse engineered. So even today they're still like 20 to 15 years behind in terms of material science. They were implying that maybe if they can't reverse engineer it that they got inspiration from somewhere else. But it's a circumstantial hypothesis. You have to assume they have contact with aliens and all this makes sense. Or it could just be the case the Americans threw a shit ton of money at this and they tried all sorts of combinations and they came up with one. So even today in terms of rocket science, on that part the Americans are still very, very ahead of the world. So maybe that part is kind of consistent with what that guy said. But at least 30 years, hasn't changed a bit.


Just some ramblings…

 

[Pluto]

While I'm not on board with the 'science worship' mentality, I can't help but quote Neil deGrasse Tyson who points out that unexplained phenomena is classically attributed to aliens and/or gods.

On the alien front, Tyson criticises the conflation of UFO/UAP reports with extraterrestrial spacecraft, since the very definition of unidentified means that we do not know what they are and therefore further investigation is needed. Further, we can say that we now live in a world where most of the population is walking around with a high quality camera in their pocket, yet there is no convincing footage to be found.

As for the gods, a relevant historical transition was that of astronomy replacing astrology. We named the heavenly bodies after various gods, hence the names of the 7 days of the week, only to discover Newtonian mathematical equations that basically explain all movement of all objects in the universe. He laments the continued existence of astrology as a reflection of people's reluctance to surrender their imaginations in the face of facts.

Where my own belief system departs from this narrative is in the obligation to view materialistic science as an infallible truth-seeking apparatus. The problem is not with the scientific method itself, but the mindset that it must never be applied to any areas outside of 'approved' areas of study.

For clarify, I am defining the scientific method as 1) a willingness to be wrong, 2) raising theories and speculations, 3) carefully testing ideas and 4) drawing conclusions while acknowledging experimental limitations. This is exactly what the scientific community does not do when faced with matters that challenge the reductionist-materialist-atheist paradigm. Instead, the culture is one of taboo, dismissal and mockery.

One example that I've studied for decades is NDE reports. Millions of people have had experiences. There have been countless instances of 'dead' people later being revived and being able to recount verbatim conversations that occurred in other rooms, verified by medical professionals. Many are profoundly changed.

Researchers like Raymond Moody have painstakingly researched the phenomenon and described the frequent patterns of experiences, including reported insights into the higher nature and purpose of life. Yet the science hardliners say that we cannot give this matter consideration and must dismiss it as someone's imagination or malfunctioning brain. This is the same unwillingness to openly pursue truth that they would criticise astrologers and religious bigots for.

Another notable example is the range of phenomena associated with advanced states of consciousness. Eastern philosophy has not only described such matters for millennia, but also backed it up with logical argumentation and a broader framework for a more advanced understanding of reality. To merely call this religion, implying some imaginative belief system for world-weary simpletons, is a gross miscalculation.

The flipside is that the world is changing. Existential threats are taking humans out of the business-as-usual comfort zone. YouTube is now flooded with NDE reports, spiritual awakening how-tos and all sorts of respectable figures like Professor Donald Hoffman proposing advanced theories of consciousness in order to apply the scientific method to, rather than ignore, legitimate reports of spiritual phenomena. Modern understandings like quantum field theory are being found to be compatible with ancient Buddhist teachings.

The implication is that God will make a comeback, but as a more advanced understanding of life itself. A far cry from the primitive, angry Abrahamic God that has somehow remained enmeshed in our culture since the Dark Ages and prior. Each society's deities are a projection of their own level of consciousness, and humanity might finally be ready to graduate from spiritual kindergarten.

A theological book that I often reference, Conversations with God, describes the state of otherworldly wonderment as a major part of the purpose of the human experience. This takes a bit of explaining but I will try to summarise.

God is described as a synonym for life itself, thus is the underlying true nature of all that is. (Humans, animals, aliens, afterlives, universes, dimensions, etc.) It is inherently infinite in nature.

The cosmic dilemma is that its profundity can only be appreciated from outside of itself, yet there is nothing outside of God. Therefore, the solution was to create a virtual universe with virtual people and virtual tragedies like so-called death. The process of returning to God is the divine experience that is desired. Though people on Earth certainly have fun with the primitiveness of our animal physiology.

Thus, in conclusion, we return to the wonderment of the inner child as it ponders all the possibilities for the future, the scale of the cosmos, the lives of more advanced beings on other planets, the Pandora's boxes of other lifetimes, the finest technology of today, the mystery of our own nature and the underlying divinity that people occasionally glimpse. It is all hinting at something unspeakable; a call to give up the mundane illusions of flesh-and-blood mortality and heed the deep inner calling to return home to the place we never left.