Posted on 06/09/2023 4:39:13 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Similar but different in some important ways.
Jesus Christ is the single most attested historical actor in the ancient world, even though only a handful wrote about their experiences with Him (perhaps eight New Testament writers knew Jesus directly, and only two of the Gospel writers were of the Twelve). Of what was written, we know from it that many, many thousands saw Him before the Crucifixion, and as late as thirty years after his death, 450+ could still attest to personally having seen him after the Resurrection. And, of the many direct witnesses before and after the Crucifixion, at least 2,000 were killed for their testimony.
Had modern communication and literacy existed in the 1st century AD, as John wrote, there wouldn’t be enough books in the world to fill the pages of the eye-witness testimony.
You need to walk back your claim.
Thousands of such witnesses do, in fact, build toward a clear understanding.
No, I don’t and I won’t.
“Thousands of such witnesses do, in fact, build toward a clear understanding.”
They are not witnesses of the same event.
As I said, WHEN, we have an event observed by masses of the public at the same time ...............
which has not happened yet.
You can lead a horse...
Please don’t kill yourself when you learn your thinking is too narrow.
“As I said, WHEN, we have an event observed by masses of the public at the same time ...”
I would be very wary of even such an event and believing that it was aliens from another planet. I obviously don’t know - but I doubt that physics allows for interstellar space travel of any living form. At the moment I believe that aliens (and their craft or whatever it is that people claim to see) are demonic, or perhaps “spiritual” to include angelic beings as well.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-12
The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
My thinking is not narrow.
I am an agnostic on UFOs, neither compelled to believe they are what some folks say they are, nor compelled to believe in the possibilit(ies) of what they are.
Without sufficient evidence I am broad minded enough to be one the sidelines for now.
Learning too far in either direction with this topic is bound to cause a fool to emerge.
Many many thousands of people claim to have been abducted by aliens—probably hundreds of thousands of people claim to have seen UFOs with “impossible” flight characteristics.
Many of these folks have written books about their experiences.
There is a long and deep literature on this topic.
About ten years ago I took my wife to a UFO conference in Laughlin, NV.
I wanted to talk in person to people who claimed they were abducted by aliens.
I wanted to listen carefully to what they had to say and look them in the eye.
I consider myself an excellent judge of character. I can usually spot liars and frauds by their body language, facial expressions, method of speaking. In the workplace over five decades not one person ever fooled me.
In my opinion not one of these folks were lying to me—and the details that they provided, often not in any UFO literature, were specific and stunning.
They had no axe to grind, in almost all cases gained no financial benefit, in many cases hurt relationships with family and friends.
These folks were speaking their truth.
I view them as heros.
That is why I get an “attitude” when folks accuse them of being mostly frauds.
In re your comments:
“I would be very wary of even such an event and believing that it was aliens from another planet. I obviously don’t know - but I doubt that physics allows for interstellar space travel of any living form. At the moment I believe that aliens (and their craft or whatever it is that people claim to see) are demonic, or perhaps “spiritual” to include angelic beings as well.,,,,,,,”2 Thessalonians 2:9-12.....
“The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”
The Bible relates that Satan was tossed down to earth, and various old and new testament scriptures point to his continued presence in the earthly realm, in some way. There is certainly the possibilty that it - Satan’s presence - is within a dimension we normally do not observe.
There is also the possibility that the “visitors” some people see, and the means by which the “visitors” presence is made known, is also not an “other worldly” incidence but is via other dimensions around the earthyly realm.
I am open to all possibilities, but agnostic on all of them at this point.
As far as intersellar travel goes, and your comment on it, and the claims of humans who said they saw on “other worldy being”, I think it could be considered that if such things actually occurred and among the event was an “other worldly” craft, that the “beings” on board were not the beings that sent the craft, but were biological DNA manipulated made-in-a factory, and controlled, “drones” built specifically to survive long inrterstellar flight. But then again, I digress.
There may well be a “long and deep literature on this topic,” as there is for many things. But in comparison to that for the Lord, which your friend on this thread claims is less than for UFOs, time to take a breather.
We are discussing numbers of witnesses, amount of documentation, historical record.
Facts are facts.
“I am open to all possibilities, but agnostic on all of them at this point.”
Same. Although my first inclination would be to doubt that they are from another planet and assume they were demons. And then “test the spirits” or whatever that verse is in the Bible.
C.S. Lewis had no idea either, but pondered about beings living on other planets. He wrote about how if there were - had any of them been able to follow God’s commandments from the beginning and thus still lived in their “Garden of Eden”.
Yes they are, and the witnesses for UFOs are far, far fewer than for the historical Christ. I don’t even know why that comparison was necessary for the arguments here — I do know it’s ludicrous.
Did a flying saucer deliver the money to Joe Briben and his son Humper?
UFOs are seen all over the world:
https://www.artangel.org.uk/witness/ufo-sightings-from-around-world/
Can we please just put the lid on this?
Being sensitive is completely understandable, but you know it wasn't intended as an insult nor was it intended to be inflammatory. Whether accurate or not, it was still just a figure of speech.
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