Heretic

When you see Vigo Mortensen as Lucifer and Christopher Walken as Gabriel in teh movie Prophesy then that would be a justified fear.

"Little Tommy Daggot! How I'd love to listen to your prayers. Then you'd turn off the light and jump into bed so afaird I was under there... and I was." -Vigo Mortensen, Prophesy

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"Enough!!" -so rang Barack Obama's voice off the walls of Mile High Stadium

Gaia

Good Movie!

And there it is! The thought of some invisible being watching me, all the time, day and night. Can you say P a r a n o i a? I am very sensitive and have a lively imagination, and being told such things when I was still too young to know better, did alot of damage to my psyche and peace of mind. Took most of my adult life to get my head right again. Well.. as best as possible, some of those "teachings" never leave your mind. No wonder people are snapping left and right.

You are a writer, so you're openminded. So I can run this by you and you won't think I'm nuts.

I think God was a Space Man, and the Angels were his Crew. His second in Command (lucifer/devil, etc) had a problem with the way God was doing things, and they had a falling out, Lucifer (for lack of a better name) stayed behind, either voluntarily, or they left him here on purpose, when God and the rest of the Angels departed, to go to wherever it was they came from.

What were they doing here to begin with? Perhaps some sort of Genesis Project. The Garden of Eden Story smacks of genetic engineering/cloning.

All these Stories about People coming from the Sky. Appearing out of nowhere and then disappearing in a likely fashion. They could fly. They had "wings". Allover the world, in all cultures, such stories are told. There is a seed of truth in all tales, no matter how farfetched they seem.

They came here when Humans began to stop being nomadic and transitioning to staying put, domesticating animals and farming the land. Of course such people would think these beings, able to fly and materializing out of nowhere, were Gods. What else would they think? They were afraid, because Fear comes from not understanding. So they sought to placate these Beings by worshipping them. And some of them liked being worshipped, and went on a power trip.

That's what I think might have happened.

Heretic

I don't recall the author's name, but look up Demons At Rainbow Bridge. Excellent science fiction hinting at the divine.

Flying around with wings is just as easily a metaphore for travelling the realm of spirit. Creation myths likewise capture the birth of human thought and inquiry into their own origins.

The first Alien Versus Predator has it that the hunter aliens use religion to get humans to build for them huge pyramids for the purpose of the hunter alien's rite of passage in killing the parasitic aliens with willing human sacrafices to provide hosts... all in Antarctica of all places.

But in reading Jared Diamond's works the shifts in human living methods makes more sense as what worked best under a give set of conditions. Some saw sedintary as situationally better than nomadic lives or farming and pastoralization as better than hunting and other times giving those up to return to hunting and gathering because that worked best under new or different conditions. The Polynesian exploration of the Pacific Islands is a perfect microcosm of cultural/technological adaptation to varying conditions along with climatic changes, with the simpler and "more primative" ways working better than others.

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"Enough!!" -so rang Barack Obama's voice off the walls of Mile High Stadium

Gaia

I know my little "theory" has alot of holes in it. I think alot, and sometimes, in the wee hours, I have an "Aha!" moment, and God having possibly been a Spaceman is one of them. I lack blind faith, and the theology I was indoctrinated into, leaves alot of room for speculation, which should not be so, if it were the ultimate truth, as so many believe.

First, there was nothing. NO thing. Darkness. No light. No life. Anywhere. And then, out of no-thing, dark-ness, there miraculously appeared God, who created himself out of this darkness and nothingness, and then there was light, and somethingness, and he created everything else. How in the World can someone base an all-or-nothing Theology on this?? How is this "Reason"?

So, in order for me to stay sane and survive, spirituall, physically, I planted my feet firmly into Mother Earth and her sacred Mysteries. Doing so has granted me great insight, and I am able to extend my Spirit outward, into the Universe. My trinity is the Earth, the Moon and the Sun, because them being in Harmony is all important to my existance.

Nobody knows where we came from, and nobody knows where we are going. There exist many many theories. But there is very little solid proof of anything. Maybe we "can't handle" the truth. Maybe there is no universal truth. Lots of maybes. As far as current popular religious matters go, I stumble mostly around in the dark. It just does not make sense to me.

Heretic

There's a cartoon short using the classical composition March Through Time where a guy in a spacesuit throws away a coke bottle from which all life evolves.

But any spaceman in our past would've had to be four billion years ago, because everything after that we can explain without him.

You'd love George Lucas' college project:

"First there was darkness. The Earth was void and without form. then I moved upon the face of the darkness. and I said... let there be light-" BOOOOOMMM!!!!! -Bomb 20, Darkstar

There is a fair bit of ground being made on how self replicating chemistry led to living organisms.

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"Enough!!" -so rang Barack Obama's voice off the walls of Mile High Stadium

Gaia

Regarding Religious Discussion...

Well...I guess we've beat THIS particular Horse to death. Metaphorically speaking, of course, I love Horses. But there's only so far religious discussion can go, before it hits the Wall.

Oh well.

itsmeeeeeee

well, i admit, i don't profess to have the answers, but i can tell you that odin is one of my very best pals! i can't tell you how many lost objects he's led me to! and he always gives me great advice and insight when i ask him to.

debates on which gods are legitimate, etc, don't really interest me since i studied comparative religion and realized all religions, past and present, basically same the same thing.

much like you don't have to understand all the mechanical processes involved under the hood of a car to turn the key and drive it, i tend to accept that there's something behind the curtain, without asking to know and understand precisely what it is.

my personal take on the spiritual world is that there are as many different ways to connect to it as there are individuals... and no two people will share the exact method of connecting with it because we are each unique (no duplication) and we all dance to a slightly different frequency.

consequently, i don't believe in dogma of ANY kind and despise all organized religion. i think organized religion actually KEEPS an individual from finding their "channel" as often as it not, and creates a lot of spiritual mixed signals, frustration and confusion.

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Heretic

It's interesting that ravens have crept back into Utah over the past couple years, about the same time I got into thinking of human society as just another jungle.

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"Enough!!" -so rang Barack Obama's voice off the walls of Mile High Stadium

mentor

Surely you've seen "The Gods Must Be Crazy". It starts out with a guy throwing a coke bottle out of an airplane. One of the best movies ever!

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The Darwinian Revolution is over. Darwin won.

djack

Mondo Cane a very old film examines the cargo cults of the south Pacific where primitive people who came in contact with advanced societies build replicas of airplanes and worship them as gods. Believing the people who fly them have gained control by magic.
Some Amazonian natives were found with a carving of a cassette player that was their god.
E-man is just emulating his ancestors. If you see it and can't explain it then it must be magic and deserves worship.

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