Flying Saucers and Other Fairy Tales

NYT ^ | 12/23/2017 | Ross Douthat

[BenLurkin]

It is... good for Harry Reid and his little-green-men-obsessed billionaire pal for keeping the flame of weird curiosity alive.

But I also doubt that such research will ever prove that the strange lights and vessels filmed by human pilots actually belong to a starfaring species that’s come to our planet to study, experiment and eventually offer us a hand up or else ruthlessly invade....

Other sapient species may indeed be out there, but the most parsimonious explanation for all the U.F.O. encounters since Roswell is not that our nuclear testing or space program finally inspired the galaxy to come see what humanity is all about.

This was the argument of Jacques Vallée, a French-born scientist and a wonderful character in the annals of ufology, who wrote a wild book in the heady year of 1969 called “Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers,” which The Times’s U.F.O.-spending scoop gave me an excuse to read.

Vallée’s conclusion is basically the reverse of Erich von Däniken’s thesis in “Chariots of the Gods,” published to better sales the prior year. Where von Däniken argued that old myths and biblical tales alike contain evidence of ancient alien visitations ...Vallée suggested that contemporary U.F.O. narratives are of piece with stories about Northern European fairies and their worldwide kith and kin — and that it’s more reasonable to think that we’re reading our space age preoccupations into a persistent phenomenon that might be much weirder than a simple visitation from the stars.

[Telepathic Intruder]

The thing about creationists, to me, is that they think it’s either one or the other. Either evolution doesn’t exist or God doesn’t exist. A narrow view, but I’m a little hesitant to say anything that will shatter their religious beliefs, even though I think there is no necessary contradiction between them.

[The Duke]

Please ignore .. changing my rogue tag line!

[The Duke]

I just cannot bring myself to hear the accounts of thousands of credible witnesses and dismiss them out of hand just because those objects defy the physics WE know.

I agree. I'm not qualified to question, for example, the observations of Gordo Cooper, or dozens of other professional pilots.

[a fool in paradise]

Then Alex Jones is right in calling this Prison Planet???!!!

[a fool in paradise]

‘Creationist’ is a misused term.

Anyone who believes in God as ‘Creator’ is a ‘Creationist’.

‘young earthers’ are a subset of those who believe in God as Creator.

There are only a few possibilities in the initial event:
God created it
God sprang forth from the Big Bang
‘Gods’ sprang forth from the Big Bang
God was minding His own business and the Big Bang just happened (and surprised Him)
God doesn’t exist

Timeframe of events, mechanisms of change, etc is debating details of the universe, theology, and creation.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Young earthers, then. John Paul II actually acknowledged the Big Bang as the act of creation, meaning God created it, not the other way around. That was 13.8 billion years ago, not 6,000. I don't see why God would create a world only 6,000 years ago complete with 100 million year old dinosaur fossils unless he's trying to fool us all, and I don't think he works that way. I believe in a world of causality where things can happen on their own without needing God's direct involvement. But he can also divinely intervene.

Creationists (young earthers) often use the analogy of a pocket watch. Life on earth, for example, is like a pocket watch suddenly appearing. Wouldn't that pocket watch need a creator, rather than just random evolution? First of all, evolution isn't random, although the phenomenon that drives it, mutation, is. In the same sense, however, doesn't a watchmaker make a watch so that it can run on its own, without him needing to push the second hand once per second? The universe is probably similar, I think. But the watchmaker can still made adjustments if he wants. That's divine intervention.

[himno hero]

... the original planet Australia.

We’d probably be a total danger to mankind if we get off this planet....

Once you frame it that way its pretty easy to understand art work over the ages. It become easier to understand we are being surveilled. It pretty easy to understand how we have treated one another over the ages...

and the gift of the Supernatural Christ..... and how the test worked out... and how he lingered as an instructional aide.

I’ll buy prison planet / it’s consistent with the original planet Australia...