Of course, AiG does not speak for all Christians. The Jesus People rocker Larry Norman sang
And if there’s life on other planets
Then I’m sure that He must know
And He’s been there once already
And has died to save their souls
He’s an unidentified flying object
You will see Him in the air
He’s an unidentified flying object
You will drop your hands and stare
You have my vote. The Earth may not be unique, but I think it rare. The cosmos can be a rough neighborhood. After all, life has been close to the brink even on Earth at times.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
62
So let’s assume [the worst case by their computer model] that there are 10^2 less galaxies. That’s after the Hubble found [by observation] that 200,000,000,000 was 10x too low. So, we have 2 x 10^11 x 10 / 10^2 = only 2 x 10^10! Only twenty billion galaxies!! Oh no!!! Only OOM 10^21 stars, 10^22 planets, 10^24 moons, 10^25 asteroids.
Please try to write a better sentence so I can tell just what you are saying. “Sons of God” means divine beings according to the Harper Study Bible, which is from the Society of Biblical Literature. And we are talking about ancient biblical Hebrew.
C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy has an interesting take on such topics. (Earth being fallen, but other worlds not).
About the only conclusions on intelligent alien life we have enough data to reliably make are: they might exist; they are not common in our own solar system; they have not visited earth in any way that would make detectable traces; they did not tell Hindus about eliminating the dinosaurs with advanced nuclear weapons (the radioactive bones are Jurassic, not Maastrichtian, and nuclear bombs do not produce microtektites or iridium clay layers, gods fighting multi-headed snakes with fire-orbs is not the same thing as aliens nuking dinosaurs); they did not give Solomon a laser pointer to create smooth blocks for the temple (lasers do not work to cut rocks, unless they vaporize them, in which case it’s not a clean cut; a piece of harder rock is all you need to smooth out limestone blocks); they did not build a spaceport at Teotihuacan that had a giant electrical device (big temple) blow up (mica is an insulator, but so is the rock the temple is made of; pyrite is not a great conductor, neither is mercury).
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
67
Yeah, I’m unique, just like everyone else. And what does your singular single sentence corollary follow from by the way? And can you you substantiate your claim that Earth is uniquely magically protected from universal wicked radiation - that actually had a part in evolution of course - please? And by what magical intervention apart from the magical evolution of a magical atmosphere from an already magically protecting magical ocean? I feel like I’m the central character in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
68
That false dichotomy does not apply. All infinite worlds where shared intentionality has evolved are in the same existential ark. The best that Christianity can hope for was hoped by Jesus-Paul-Barth, even Lewis on a good day. That all is well for the eternity of all who have gone before thanks to the faithfulness of the Son in, as each world’s Messiah.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
69
So are the Jews. None of whom interpret it as xenophilia.
The sons of God are always used to refer to God’s chosen people such as the Israelites
Deuternomy 14:1 “You are the sons of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead. 2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.
Psalm 82:6 I said, “You are gods, And all of you are sons of the Most High.
Could this be talking to angels? Not according to Jesus in John 10:34.
The New Testament makes it clear that angels are servants and it is human beings saved in Christ who are to be the sons of God: Matthew 5:9, Luke 20:36, Romans 8:14-19, Galatians 3:26
What about Job? The sons of God are spoken of but it never says that these are angels it is talking about.
No the obvious meaning of “sons of God” in Genesis 6, consistent with the rest of the Bible, is the descendants of Adam and Eve, saying they took their wives not from sisters never mentioned but from the daughters of all those other people who filled the earth, so much that Cain was afraid they would kill him if they wandered about.
2 Likes
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
71
Can you put a number on that they might not? In our galaxy, let alone our infinitesimal universe with only 10^21 stars (downgraded from 10^22 by the University of Michigan’s computer model…)
Thank you dear lady… my point exactly.
Mythology, like all human stories, has a base point in reality, as we are incapable of imagining anything beyond what we can know: Re the need for Special Revelation from Elohim God for the spirit Realm. General Revelation is left up to us to discover which our friend @mitchellmckain is so excellent in detailing. (John 3:1-14) Yet that very focus is that which has “hidden” the spiritual warfare and deeper meaning behind so much of modern interpretations of Christianity.
Why I think Demons are a more likely explanation than Aliens:
All human mythology is based on some event or perception of fact from the past. We cannot invent something beyond our existence. Re Special Revelation from Elohim God. We have no insight into the spiritual world other than what the Bible gives us. That does not mean it is an exhaustive account. General Revelation is left up to us to discover on our own.
Aliens are a new concept in human history. Angels, fallen or otherwise, are well documented. Aliens are a speculative extension of the “scientific” rational world-view. If we are the product of the (godless) evolutionary process, then there are certainly other beings of similar nature “out there.”
Humans with superhuman power is not just a figment of past religious stories. Hence Marvel movies of superhero’s (genre invented by a group of disenchanted secular Jews yearning for a Messiah figure – go look up Marvel Comics history! (including the “golem” stories of the 1600’s). The modern alien is very much in the same vein of invention. It carries more believability for some portion of our population hoping for the “revelations” they will bring.
What do “demons” look like? What does Satan look like? We know he is an “angel of Light” who has fallen. But what is his appearance? A roaring lion? YHWH spoke through a donkey. Cannot demons play maskirovka and appear as benevolent aliens “To Serve Man”? (a most memorable Twilight Zone episode).
We live in a complete Spiritual/Physically enmeshed universe. It is more than likely demons use the current alien mania to exhibit their activities, just as they always have done in the past. They are just as capable of performing misleading signs and wonders to match the current world-view of the people they are enticing.
The current plethora of sightings of strange lights in the sky are increasing. Enough photos and video has been shot to verify that something is occurring that is not within the ken of our technology.
Groundside evidence, doubted by so many of the scientific minds doing the verification process, has an impressive volume that certainly cannot explain how so many people could manufacture so many crop-circle patterns and not get caught doing it! And the technology required to accomplish it in limited timeframe is equally impressive. Certainly far beyond any group of alien enthusiast out for a night of cow slaughter and corn-field fun!
There is more, but that is the general outline.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
75
It’s either a three thousand year old figure of speech for guys and dolls or interstellar alien astronaut human males who must be our ancestors (fertility wouldn’t work with parallel evolution) or actual fertile incubi. What’s the most rational here I wonder? And what does any of it have to do with Christianity?
For this the Drake equation is useful:
10^21 stars*
~0.5 with planets*
~0.2 Earth-like and habitable zone*
unknown proportion with large planets in the outer system (to reduce impacts)*
unknown proportion without hot jupiters messing up orbits*
unknown proportion with a large enough moon to provide long term stability*
unknown number with a decently strong, long-lasting magnetic field*
unknown proportion that develop life (sample size is 1, and it’s not exactly random)*
unknown proportion with life that develop intelligent life (sample size is 1, and it’s not exactly random)
So the honest answer at present is “we don’t have enough data to make any reliable conclusions”.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
77
Of course we do. Even if the Earth is the only planet in the universe out of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 potential habitats where life has evolved to shared intentionality, universes are from forever. Therefore there are infinite conscious species and already have been. At one per universe. Let alone one per galaxy. Let alone one every 10kly. Let alone…
I don’t think Job is historical. I think it concocts a setting for the theological discussion which dominates the book. So I agree this setting is not the most reliable source for information about angels and the sons of God. But the point is that it doesn’t even say the sons of God mentioned in Job are referring to angels and so there is not much justification for thinking that it is intended to mean angels.
What about the book of Enoch, “Paradiso,” “Doctor Faustus,” “Fallen,” and “Silence”? Although there is far more fiction about angels in modern times, angels have long had a role in our fiction for entertainment. These of course make up all kinds of things about angels, and half breed Nephilim. I enjoy such stories and films a lot too, just as I enjoy Star Trek and Star Wars.
