Posted on 05/02/2013 6:04:40 AM PDT by Fennie
WASHINGTON - In the midst of the Cold War on several occasions, nuclear missiles at US Air Force bases were mysteriously shut down, according to US servicemen who said they witnessed the failure of the heavily guarded missile systems.
But they don't blame America's Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union; they say aliens from space did it.
"This was something Russia could have developed, but it turns out they didn't develop this and we don't have it either - to be able to shut down nuclear weapons with a beam of light," David Scott, a former sergeant in the US Air Force, told RIA Novosti at a conference in Washington on encounters with extraterrestrials.
(Excerpt) Read more at en.rian.ru ...
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You've all read my simple illustration of the pencil and flatland, so I won't bore with it now. But the restrictions act as a protection and a blessing purveyor, since we may exercise faith where we have no tangible proof, thus we may exercise faith using our spiritual eyes and ears. we do it when we read the Bible. We do it when we give thanks to Him for His Grace. We spiritually have the substance of things hoped for (spiritual purity, through Him) as the evidence of things not seen (beyond the 3S1T realm of our senses where we remain sinners aved by His Grace).
"I find it to be astoundingly arrogant for any of us on this third-rate ball of mud to insist (or even harbor the [unfounded] belief) that our Lord and Creator was so profligate and wasteful as to leave the entire rest of His unimaginably vast Creation unpopulated."
As an atheist I used to think christians were arrogant for believing we were the only life in the universe.(I didn't actually know if christians believed that but being a$$ about face was par for the course as an atheist).After all the universe was just so big.I eventually began to think that the main reason I believed that was because if life had just 'happened' here then it must have just happened elsewhere as well.After all,there was just so much room,as if there being room somehow mandated something happening.It seems to me that you are making the same statement only placing God where 'just happened' was.Which is fair enough but to attach "astoundingly arrogant" seems a bit harsh toward christians,such as myself,who don't happen to agree.
"I certainly find no Scriptural basis for such a belief."
The Bible speaks of us being the children of God,Jesus is going to reign on Earth,from Jerusalem.The new Jerusalem is going to descend out of heaven to Earth etc.The history of the universe in the Bible seems very Earth centred though granted absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence.Still to say that it's unfounded or that there's no scriptural basis for believing we're the only physical life seems a stretch.The Bible doesn't seem to talk about any other,so I actually don't see any scriptural basis for what you are saying.
""ETs"? I will not dishonor our Creator by insisting that they were/are not in His grand plan and design."
Well,I wouldn't insist that they don't exist but I don't find anything scriptural that compels me to think they do and the universe being really really big doesn't either.When I see so much 'new age' thinking that swirls around other-worldy life out there coming to save us and see so many who reject God insisting there's other life out there I can't help being suspicious.The Bible tells us there most certainly is other intelligent life in the universe.Some of it being malevolent and maybe trying to hitch a ride on man's desire to believe in some sort of physical saviour.
Sorry to ramble but since you are obviously a FRiend of bb and AG I'll assume I'm in good company.God bless.
You asserted, "Still to say that it's unfounded or that there's no scriptural basis for believing we're the only physical life seems a stretch.The Bible doesn't seem to talk about any other,so I actually don't see any scriptural basis for what you are saying."
Actually, the Bible speaks on many occasions of other created beings. Are you ommitting Angels from your reasoning? They are created beings. In fact, ANYTHING that is IN the UNiverse of God's Creation is a created thing.
A close reading of the OT gives reference to not only Angels but to firey chariots which descend from the sky. A close reading of the NT yields conevntional Physics defying events, not the least of which is the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb without rolling away the stone and then appearing in a locked and shuttered room with his followers.
What are identified as heavenly beings (there are several species, apparently) are beyond your or my ability to classify with finality.
And finally, there may just be a very significant reason why species from across the Galaxy are visiting Earth, watching humankind. It may well be that we humans are the ONLY species of created life in this Created Universe who have a God breathed spirit within our human soul. It is not inconceivable that many sepcies arising on other planets have reached technical capabilities beyond our current own, but lacking a spirit.
Pardon the intrusion. Just thought you might want to think about that, as a Christian citing the Bible as a 'proof source'.
Not at all,I'm here to be educated and I hope my candor is not mistaken for some sort of smartypants complex.
"Actually, the Bible speaks on many occasions of other created beings. Are you ommitting Angels from your reasoning? They are created beings. In fact, ANYTHING that is IN the UNiverse of God's Creation is a created thing."
Did you not read my last paragraph?
"And finally, there may just be a very significant reason why species from across the Galaxy are visiting Earth, watching humankind. It may well be that we humans are the ONLY species of created life in this Created Universe who have a God breathed spirit within our human soul. It is not inconceivable that many sepcies arising on other planets have reached technical capabilities beyond our current own, but lacking a spirit"
What evidence do you have that the above is anything more than an assertion?
"...arising on other planets..."
Arising? So are you saying that because the universe is so large life must have arisen elsewhere? Or do you mean God must have put physical life elsewhere? Since He hasn't told us in scripture that He has I'm erring on the side of caution I think.I don't think my position is arrogant or unfounded.I just think it's possible.
Would you care to comment on my last paragraph in post 223?
grace and peace to you MHGinTN
Your post was not internally consistent. You started with one persepctive then shifted to a near 180 degree different perspective by the last paragraph, IMHO. Pax vobiscum
God bless
Whether a person believes there is physical life elsewhere than earth or not surely is not a poison pill in his walk with the Lord.
I suspect Abraham would have had no reason to think about extra-terrestrial physical existence even though he had direct personal experience with a created being not of this world though he was in this world, e.g. Melchizedek in Genesis 14.
But then "world" to Abraham was probably limited to what he could physically sense with his eyes, ears, etc. And although Melchizedek brought forth bread and wine, we cannot say based on Scripture whether he was a spiritual being appearing as an illusion - or a physical being intersecting Abraham's 4D existence - or perhaps even a visitor from some other location in the universe.
Indeed, we cannot really know whether we are entertaining angels.
Perhaps God never created another "living soul" that way. He doesn't say that He did.
God's Name is I AM.
I agree A-G and you make a good point re:Melchizadek.It does seem he appeared physically to Abraham.However there are others,sinister and malevolent who might well be hitching a ride on man's worldly desire for a physical (carnal,natural) saviour.ET would fit that bill all too well (and the morphing of little green men into 'interdimensional beings' these days only reinforces that.
There seems not to be any real evidence of physical life anywhere but here,many and varied assertions notwithstanding.So I disagree that erring on the side of caution is arrogant and scripturally unfounded.
Anyways thanks for tolerating my nose up against the window.Maybe I was just simply offended.Which would be dumb.
Grace and peace to you both.
I wonder where/when stood the body of the one who reached into Belshazzar’s palace party central to write on his palace wall? I mean, there is a where/when no further away that the length of whomever wrote on the wall ... unless you would believe the rest of the being was not in a where/when yet the arm and hand reached into a where/when of the Bbaylonians (ref: Daniel Chapter five).
Your posts on this are fascinating but to be honest a lot of the time I'm grasping at straws to keep up with you all.I simply rambled out a concern or two and am thankfull to God and to you lot for being allowed to without being flayed for it.
I'm looking up and hopefully learning.
Please forgive my repetitions. So few have actually read the story from a different perspective, so I repeat it from this different view I have.
So,in light of John 6:29,I'm thankfull whenever it crosses my sight.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights and thank you for your encouragements!
Well at least in the where/when of Everett's mind, according to his chosen measure.
Yet just from the practical standpoint, I wonder: What is the meaning of saying a "choosing event" manifests the collapse of a path [a pretty de rigeur observation for quantum mechanics] ; but that all other paths are just as feasible (just not chosen yet, not "selected"), and exist altogether in some other multidimensional spacetime? And therefore are not accessible to us, just as would-be "unselected quantum events" are not knowable to/by us human observers? [Because we weren't observing them, we have nothing to say about them at all. At least, that appears to be Niels Bohr's view.]
That's pretty interesting. But what does this insight do to the human moral sense, which depends on the foundational idea that all human choices have actual consequences, for good or ill? The entire idea of Justice human, but most especially divine Justice, which is the measure of human justice depends on people agreeing about human actions having real and direct consequences. For which they are personally responsible and accountable to others.
This is a really tough question and I certainly don't know all of the answers. So I am deeply grateful for the insights from my dear sisters and brothers in Christ and all people of goodwill.
[Plato had a few good ideas on this topic. But he is rather out of fashion these days....]
Especially let me thank you now, dearest sister in Christ, for your splendid, luminous essay/post!
And please do bring any appropriate insights from Plato - I find ancient wisdom to be particularly illuminating considering what was knowable to them and that they were not subject to the "noise" of the modern world.
I believe that would be the most piercing and painful judgment of all for me, not only knowing the bad choices I made but how they hurt others.
To God be the glory, not man, never man!
From your #237...
"...I find ancient wisdom to be particularly illuminating considering what was knowable to them and that they were not subject to the "noise" of the modern world"
Well herein is a marvelous thing,for I've actually thought that exact same thing for a long time now,ie:I've actually grasped something that A-G knows!God trully is no respecter of persons!
Grace and peace to you dear sister.
I think it's safe to say, dear Kevmo, that you have a strong conjecture that reports of "alien sitings" are "side shows"; and that the U.S. military is involved with propagating such false reports. You may be right about this!
So you definitely go on my little list of potentially credible alternatives to the standard space alien/UFO myth that has been widely propagated in our society, thanks to speculations about Area 51 and its "contents."...
Anyhoot, at the time I heard the accounts just described, I quite independently took notice of the fact that U.S. military installations were then close-by, from simple recollection of contemporaneous local knowledge.
This probably puts me closer to your strong conjecture than I am to the standard Area 51 claims.
Thank you ever so much for writing, dear brother Kevmo!
I really wish you would read that book “Intercept UFO”. It’s a good read, almost as good as the book you published. The technology is actually pretty straightforward, until 1952. Then things get astounding, and “instantaneous” accelerations start to be reported. But that doesn’t have any weight towards the ORIGIN of these secret aircraft, which appeared in 1947, just 2 years after the allies won WWII and the designs were implemented.
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