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Jesus was an alien and the "real" wars going on are not between "angels" of good and evil, but of aliens?   What if Jesus was one of the "good" aliens that came down to protect us and to provide morals and structure that exist with higher life forms?

What if all the profits of all religions were aliens, some more evolved than others.   What if the "evil" aliens took on the form of people such as Hitler? Would this explain all the contridictions of scriptures?   Perhaps they are only guiding or stepping stones to the laws of the universe as we could only understand it at the time, and will prevent us from learning that which we cannot grasp in our fragile human minds.

And what of "God"  Could we say that he is the all of everything, the "good" AND "bad" (which it's definition changes as we change)  So this could explain all the contridictions of us placing good in the image of man?  For he could be the image of all and everything?

Hmmmmm, just a thought I had.  :)

What if I think you smoked some really good reefer before you wrote this thread?

Honestly, you sound like Jim Breuer's character in "Half Baked".



Post Edited (09-20-04 01:37)

Naw, no refer here...just an active imagination.  Nothing wrong with that is there?  Perhaps that is why I feel a need to create in any form I can.

I'm partially into the alien/ufo thing though I usually do not discuss it. Aside from the fact that it sounds like Ash has you pegged on this thread for smoking something before writing, there is a theory among some alien consiracy people. It has been mentioned that the aliens gave us god and religion for numerous reasons (depends on who you listen to) which means that basically Jesus and all were made up by the aliens.  There are some odd theories out there, some worse than this.

The truth is out there

I want to believe

Surprisingly, it's a plot point that comes up every now and then.  I think there was an aside to it in John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS.

Of course you could always look up the master of religious paranoia, Philip K. Dick.  Especially The Divine Invasion (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679734457/qid=1095698515/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-0662362-0054307?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), probably my favorite of his "gnostic" novels.

Wow . That would make a good movie.

Sounds like a good idea for a b-movie.

**steals it**

Angels are necessarily extraterrestreals, by any reasonable definition of either term.  A lot of the apparent contradictions of Scripture do come from torturing it into appearing to not to explicitly say lots of stuff about space aliens. It dosen't seem to have any contradictions to people who believe what it actually says. The beggining of Genesis chapter 6 is a pretty popular example. The interpretation that avoids the obvious there is called the Sethite interpretation, I don't want to go into it now, but it's pretty ridiculous.

I've written one screenplay(never did anything with it), but perhaps this could be another challenge to tackle on?  Oddly enough I have been more into investigating further into religion and theories as of late.  I'll let you know if I do anything with the idea. :)

I realize the fun of "what ifs" and don't have any particular problems with them. I do it quite often myself. However, that being said, I can't see much validity in this topic outside of a bad movie plot. I have become cautious of expressing any religious views on this board as my last one was taken off (and that was just a criticism of the theological (in)accuracy of "The Last Temptation of Christ"). I locked onto one thing you said, though, that I felt I should address: the idea of contradictions in the Scriptures. I've read and reread the Bible many times over the last 20+ years, using different translations, different study techniques, etc., and I simply haven't found any of these horrible "contradictions" people keep talking about. Dave Munger talks about the convoluted logic of the Sethian interpretations of Genesis, but that isn't a contradiction in the Scriptures; it's a sample of contradictory interpretations where our information is incomplete. Most of the time when people say to me that the Bible is full of contradictions, they cannot give me any specific examples; it is simply easier to dismiss the validity of Biblical teachings if they can be labelled as "contradictory." I am not a historian, and so I cannot speak on all the historical references of the Bible. I look more to the lessons concerning the character of God and the moral teachings of how we should treat one another. In these teachings, I have yet to find any contradictions. I have indeed found some VERY difficult lessons, but none that are contradictory. God is a more complex being than we can possibly imagine; therefore, is it so difficult to believe that some of the things that on our level may seem a bit strange may indeed be perfectly logical on God's level?

Derf: That's kind of what I'm saying. The contradictions aren't present in the text itself, they're read into it for one reason or another. One reason is that European Christendom never went through a coversion experience; the job of their theologans from day one was to "reconcile" scripture with what they thought they already knew (writtings of Aristotle in particular). Instead of replacing the old, Christianity was added to the old way, like Hindus who believe in Jesus. Another reason is that the Bible contradicts conventional religiousity (which is never essentially different from ancient Egyptian idolatrous magic, IMHO), so it CAN'T possibly mean what it says. That would contradict what we already decided it said before we read it! And of course, the part about angels interbreeding with humans must really have some "spiritual" meaning, because we decided, asside from anything the Bible says, that they're "spiritual" beings, which essentially deprives them of every characteristic of objective existence.

The most famous example of a supposed contradiction that I can think of is the idea that the first and second chapters of Genesis contradict. To the reader without a chip on his shoulder, they appear to merely cover the same ground from a different perspective and with different emphases. I can't think of any other book that's considered to be self-contradictory when it does this. It's only contradictory if you really want it to be.

I'm going to try and post here again later, and stay closer to the original topic.

Isn't parts of Genesis contradictory? I forget where I read it or saw it, but there were pieces of the King James version of the Bible that contradicted themselves completely in Genesis, particularly Adam and Eve. I'm no theological scholar, and I really don't care much for religion myself on a personal level (it's not the beliefs, is those that hold the beliefs), but I do believe there are certain contradictions of the Bible.

That said, it's most likely due to the vast majority of the Old Testament being summaries and embellished stories of possible actual events (Noah's Ark being the biggest example, seeing as how it is actually impossible to have found one male and one female from every species on the planet, but it is entirely possible for a man and his wife to have built a ship to escape a flood in the area of the world where it takes place, as that area was known heavily for ancient floods).

But hey...who's up for ice cream?

Very well put, Derf.  I was pondering asking the same question (what contradictions?), but you beat me to it--- much more eloquently than I would have, I must say.

It is a very long list AND it does not even come close to interpreting the inconsistancies the scriptures hold with science and history.  Religion has also changed much because of science and progress.  I took a world religion class once and it was write an eye opener.  I will come back with more links on those too.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/inconsistencies.shtml

I took a look at that list. My first comment would be the same thing I tell my students as we begin our research projects every semester: when you find source material, you have to evaluate that source to determine whether it is one worth using (in short, "consider the source...").

The introduction to the list says, "These lists are meant to identify possible problems in the Bible, especially problems which are inherent in a literalist or fundamentalist interpretation. Some of the selections may be resolvable on certain interpretations--after all, almost any problem can be eliminated with suitable rationalizations--but it is the reader's obligation to test this possibility and to decide whether it really makes appropriate sense to do this. To help readers in this task, these lists are aimed at presenting examples where problems may exist given certain allowable (but not always obligatory) assumptions. It should be kept in mind that a perfect and omnipotent God could, should, and likely would see to it that such problems did not exist in a book which s/he had inspired." This sets an antagonistic tone from the start. At the very least, those pointing out these "inconsistencies" look at the Bible in a very condescending manner. That in itself precludes any real objectivity in assembling this list. Condescension also breeds carelessness in research; if you start out thinking that a book is worthless, you will not be particularly careful in reading it. This carelessness is painfully obvious in the portion of the list I managed to get through before becoming too frustrated to continue (I will continue through the list in short sessions as I am able). Fully half of the "inconsistencies" are simple misreadings. Others take statements out of context and compare them to other out-of-context statements. The compiler claims to make no interpretations, but he interjects snide comments throughout.

I am not saying that the Bible is without seeming contradictions (the key word being "seeming"), but to simply accept the authority of someone who starts out with an antagonistic attitude toward the source material is simply poor scholarship. As for religion changing with new scientific discoveries, I can only say OF COURSE religion changes to a degree with societal changes. The basic tenets of morality, however, do not change. Occasionally they are temporarily corrupted by hypocrites and poor teachers, but ultimately, they return to true because they are True. Do I expect you to simply accept my word as authoritative? No. I realize I have no more credibility in your eyes than you have in mine. Does that list make a few good points? Undoubtedly. Does that mean the Bible is false because a perfect God would never allow inconsistencies in His perfect book? No, because God has always worked through people, and guess what? PEOPLE AREN'T PERFECT. God doesn't remove our personalities and make us automatons; He works through our imperfections to do whatever He might be trying to do.

Since this is not the ideal forum for religious discussions, I'm not sure I will continue posting on this particular topic. I am much more of a lurker than a poster. Sometimes, though, a topic hits me that I feel I really need to chime in on. I also realize I can be quite long-winded when I get wound up. Like now.

The man who compiled this list is a scholar as well.   There are so many different interpertations to the bible and the inconsistanceies depend on someone's interprtation and why he listed the paragrapgh beforehand.  All should look at something carefully and examine it and not take it as "truth" so to speak.  I do not protest agaist religion.  In fact there  are many things I believe, but I also am fully aware at how many times the bible was rewritten.  It reminds me of the game telephone if you know what I mean.  There are so many sects and denominations that I can't imagine the "true word of God" that was filtered through human understanding is what we see today.

In fact I think that more "prophits" have come forth as our understanding and civilizations grow.  Impossible?  Not as impossible as it is to believe that profits came forth the way they did years ago.  Time does not make anything more valid.

I am not saying all these are true inconsistencies, but there are many worth considering and looking into.  Someone wanted a list and I provided it.  What you dod with it is up to you.

What I was going to do way back but didn't for some reason was recomend Jesus On Mars http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0523401841/qid=1095889977/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-7247036-1198357?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
by Philip Jose Farmer. He's generally really good with the conjectural stuff about the Bible.

I have some misgivings myself about turning this into a religious debate thread, so I'm going to try to at least be pretty brief about these type of things. I think that what Drezzy Mac reffers too is the famous supposed contradiction(s) between Gen 1&2. Supposedly these prove that Moses copied them from two different sources. But Moses did expect his writtings to be taken seriously as having been revealed by God. If he were faking it, it's unlikely that he'd have just copied contradictory material and presented it back to back like that without fixing it. I hope I don't sound fanatical when I say that things like this increase scriptural verisimilitude to me, because literarily competent frauds (which the Prophets and Apostles would have to be if they are not what they presented themselves as) would not have included them in the finished text. Anyway, looks to me like chp 1 is chronological, chp 2 is more in order of importance, from a POV closer to that of humans.

I think that the following things get read into Genesis too much: modern taxonomy (reading "kind" as "speicies"), turning "world" (usually reffers to the Medditeranian area in the Bible and other stuff from that period; Alexander conquered "the world") into "planet" or "globe", and ... damn, there was deffinetly a third one. Anyway, all these are particularly exemplified by the Noah story.

I've got a little bit of a problem with the idea that always comes up that the Bible was changed a little every time it was traslated. Like any other book that's been translated a lot of times, they went back to the earliest source material they could get every time. It's not like a game of telephone. The individual words that could have been translated otherwise are pretty clear in context.

Regarding your last paragraph, I do fully believe that they'd find the earliest examples possible of written text, but phrases and figures of speech change over time. You know how it says Jesus walked on the water? During that time, as I have read, the phrase "walked on water" meant walking over a bridge or next to a body of water.

(On the interpretation of Jesus and/or God being alien:  was this not the premise of Stargate?)

I just scanned over the longer posts, so some of this may have already been said.  There are three important things to remember about the Bible:

(1) It was written BY people.  I did notice someone else pointed this one out.

(2) It was written by people in an OLD language; much of what we argue about in the Bible is translation 'error.'  For example, many Jewish people smile at the thuoght of modern Christians interpreting Adam in Genesis as a single person.  Adam is a translation of the word meaning 'first man,' not a specific individual, but symbolic of the beginning of humanity.  Or even more specifically, symbolic of the beginning of humanity as a sentient race capable of seeing a higher power in the universe.

Language itself is very, very abstract.  Often, in our day-to-day lives, we give language a certain concreteness, but that is very artificial, especially when dealing with translations and translations of translations, and again especially when dealing with sometimes partial texts and texts based on oral tradition.

(3) Many of the stories, especially in the OT, were passed orally for generations before being written down.  That's why the basic authorship ofthe original story is hotly debated among biblical scholars.

The book is deeply mysterious, as is the basis of Christianity anyway.  Anyone claiming to fully "understand" it is deluding themselves, in my opinion, whether that claim is based on agreeing with it or not (ie, finding inconsistencies).

Ulthar,

Your point about language is very true. As an English teacher, I can attest that many have problems understanding English from 100 years ago. The OT was written on scrolls in Hebrew, with the writers leaving out the vowels of words to save space. As if translation of ancient languages isn't hard enough, add this little fact to it and we see how hard it can be. Copy errors do creep in, however careful the copyists are. Idioms change in any language, and trying to convert idioms clearly from ancient times and ancient languages to modern times and modern languages is a daunting task.

As far as your statement that the Bible is too mysterious a book to understand fully, I must disagree...with reservations. No, no one can FULLY understand it. But can we grasp enough of it to make sense of it? Certainly. As I said before, the moral tenets of the Bible are consistent throughout: in a nutshell, we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This first appears in Exodus 20 and is re-emphasized by Jesus in the Gospels. Is that too mysterious a truth to grasp? Hardly. Is it easy to do? Hardly.

Derf wrote:

>
> As far as your statement that the Bible is too mysterious a
> book to understand fully, I must disagree...with reservations.
> No, no one can FULLY understand it. But can we grasp enough of
> it to make sense of it? Certainly.

I agree...I simply meant that the Bible relates things and events that are spiritual and often bigger than our understanding.  There is more than simply literal stories or historical record.  It's deep.  And thought provoking.  At the very least.

:)