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Post by purr on Feb 9, 2020 10:10:37 GMT
Swamp, before you think I've gone completely off reservation: I lean towards saying the majority of Visitors hail from the cosmos / alternate realities and thus imo are truly alien, and not 'us'!
purr
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Post by swamprat on Feb 9, 2020 15:36:47 GMT
Purr, I tend to agree. If humans are going to last long enough to develope time travel and or interstellar travel, they are going to have to learn how to behave. There is still way too much violence and hatred on THIS planet! (Says this grumpy old man.) 
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Post by HAL on Feb 9, 2020 19:45:46 GMT
..they are going to have to learn how to behave...
Ain't gonna happen.
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Post by plutronus on Feb 9, 2020 20:16:25 GMT
Purr,
I find your point is interesting.
There is an interesting story regarding the creation of the Mormons. Joseph Smith was out in the desert in a camp, I don't recall the fine details, however, Joseph Smith was inside the tent, he observed three cantaloup sized glowing spheres appear, similar in description to those reported by Colm Kelleher & Eric Davis on the Sherman Ranch, (and which fit my definition of 'Luminous-Orbs'). Smith claimed that the orbs 'spoke' to him inside his mind, eg, telepathically. It was from that one event that caused Joseph Smith to begin his promotion of the Mormon Religion. And subsequently had vision regarding three gold plates depicting instructions.
Regarding luminous-orbs, there are many similar stories, they are all hard to pin down.
'Yod Heh Vav Heh' or more briefly, 'YHVH' (as I can not spell it in Hebrew since Problem Boards changed their font handling software, eliminating UniCode font coding, so I am forced to use the Latin spelling instead) these are the Mystical Hebrew spelling of the Name of GOD. 'Yod Heh Wah Heh' is a misspellinng, as the Hebrew Aleph Beyt does not contain a 'W' letter. The 'WahHeh' version is a Latinized phonetic spelling.
The Hebrews considered aurally speaking Hebrew or speaking the 'Name' to be heresy. In fact the ancients only vibrated Hebrew, they never spoke it. Hebrew was only used for praying. Although the Master Yehshuvha (YHSVH...'Jesus' Name in Hebrew) was a Hebrew, they never spoke Hebrew, but rather Aramaic. However, it should be noted that unlike Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic and Sanskrit are Divine languages.
It is insightful to attain a glimpse of how the transliteration of Mystical Hebrew into mundane Latin transitioned our understanding of Mystical concepts into the mundane plane of consciousness, for example, the Hebrew Latinized Bible says: "I and my Father are One". In Hebrew GOD's NAME is spelled 'Yod Heh Vav Heh' (YHVH), whereas the Master Jesus Name, in Hebrew is spelled 'Yod Heh Shin Vav Heh', which equals GOD's NAME plus the Hebrew power letter 'Shin', thus transliterated as "I and my Father are One".
Kind Regards,
plutronus
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Post by mryelm on Feb 9, 2020 21:24:29 GMT
MrYelm,
Circular file perhaps?
plutronus
I wrote several replies to your post defending the abalties and worth of SETI/BIONIC. Most were very long due to my uninterest sic. of English Grammer etc. Merecifully for you and our members I deleated instead of posting them! They also contained tit for tat insults or what I preceived as insults directed at my interest in SETI/BIONIC/NASA. I was more in agreement about your critical reveiw of MUFON, but not in entirely. Your adventures there were very entertaining! About the circular file comment. Your reply of the history of NASA etc had a number of undocumented claims, so until I can research the validity of those items I see no reason to challenge, or file it in the appro file.... yet.
I will say in the original (deleted/not posted) drafts that even though I mostly respect NASA/SETI I wasn't lauding or hugging up to any of them. Additionally, because I am new here at UFO Casbook I used entities like NASA as examples to (attempt to) show I had some experiance in the science, UFO, and releted fields. Nothing more. That's why I also included a bit of somewhat personal info. That experience included observational astronomy (planetary and deep space objects i.e. M objects,, asteroid monitoring, and best of all UFO stuff, et al) ,cosmology and my interest on all things science/Science fiction. I hope I have demonstrted even though I am a new comer here at UFO casebook I am sort of a veteran in the UFO field. Again I hope to be an asset for UFO Casebook and Alien's. GodSpeedLighspeed to my friends and et al :{>
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Post by plutronus on Feb 9, 2020 22:43:51 GMT
Mr Yelm,
I'm saddened that you inferred my post as being insulting. I apologize. I am sorry. It was not my intention.
As for the undocumented NASA/SETI claims, I learned that information while I was a posting guest-member of the SETI-I and later, I had it documented on my SETV website along with information source citations. Then there was another form of information that was gleaned while I was a posting member of the now dark SETI-L forum. Members at one time joked about the 'hidden' meaning of HRMS, jokingly, citing it as meaning, "He Really Means Seti", in lieu of 'High Resolution Microwave Search".
I was also a posting member of the MUFON Forum before that intelligence quack, James Carrion took it down without notice. He was a jerk, in my opinion. There were so many screwy things happening when he was director. The first time I joined MUFON, was back in 1992. I joined that time to gain access to their sighting database, only to learn that, 1) there was no computer database, anywhere in MUFON, and 2) each MUFON chapter was actually an independent, volunteer organization that shared a copyrighted national organization name and logo. Each operating entirely independently of all the other chapters. That's why one must pay for chapter membership and then pay for nationaI membership! I did meet a number of well informed people before dropping out. When I joined MUFON the second time, around 2009?, I joined the national organization to gain access to their CMS database only to discover that one could only access 6 records on any wild-card search. And then learned from others the problem of disappearing sighting records. In order to acquire the requisite priveledge to access the full database one needed to become a STAR investigator or some such bull-shit. Sleazy, very sleazy. I suspect that somewhere within MUFON there is an authentic investigation group, a clicque of investigators who utilize the MUFON membership base to fund their investigative activities. But in any case all the good data disappears. While I am bad mouthing MUFON Headquarters, the chapters have been very informative over the years. And I have enjoyed giving lectures at several MUFON chapters when invited to do so, and am willing to do so again. It might be possiblle that MUFON could have changed? I have heard some pleasing rumors. I hope so.
Re; the circular file comment...I was kidding. My business partner in our research company used to joke about a lot of our miitary gadget proposals, when we received replies, regarding their appropriate filing, hah hah hah! It was a painful joke. We'd sit up night after night working our asses off writing proposals to meet RFP posting deadlines, while working full time during the days on our ongoing military contracts and then receive a quaint reply, "we'll appropriately distribute your solicitation!" Right into the circular file...garbage can! One out of every 10 of those 30 page proposals we wrote bleary eyed, received an 'appropriate filing reply'. It was carry-over!
So, please don't feel that I was being rude, and if it felt that way, I am sorry..
Best Regards,
plutronus
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Post by SysConfig on Feb 10, 2020 2:04:19 GMT
This is fantastic reading. I haven't read stuff like this since Incident at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce..please do carry on!
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Post by mryelm on Feb 13, 2020 20:52:18 GMT
Hi plutronus! I knew you were a stand up Guy! Sorry for the late reply. I appreciate the apology. I too apologize for misreading some of your statements and intent! So, good stuff all the way around! I wanted to write this,, but don't have time for a proper reply. Will return soon.
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Post by HAL on Feb 13, 2020 22:06:04 GMT
Purr,
..I hope you are not missing the point I'm attempting to make: Great Faiths are remembered to have begun with encounters with non-human visitors, making the Encounter the starting point for centuries of Theology...
No, I'm not missing your point. But It isn't the same point I refer to.
All faith rely upon a God who is unknowable. That is why it is called faith.
No one, and I do mean no one at all, has ever actually seen this God.
They only have stories passed along by people have been re-hashing the same stuff for centuries.
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Post by mryelm on Feb 14, 2020 1:40:32 GMT
Yes of course there is a phenomenon, as a MUFON and SETI (bionic) member among other things* I support the goal of forcing government transparency, that is we say to Government' ; 'tell us the truth about UFO's!' And use an respectable amount of government funds for discovery (of aliens technology etc) I as well as the members of UFO casebook are 'believers' and participants to varying degrees. But what I was saying and to clarify, I have no knowledge of an organized, established religion that worships Aliens' UFO's etc. I used the word sect because some definitions of 'Church' or 'religions' are very strict. And I do not worship anything except for God/Jesus Christ. Could the creator of this universe be ET? That depends on the definition of both the creator and ET !
*….(for example as an amateur astronomer it's not just stars I am looking for via telescopic observation! I'm not saving my coins to build a small radio telescope to look for emitters of radiation! Anyone want to donate for a good cause? lol)
Hi Mryelm, I hope I am not taking a great discussion off track here, but your remark about having "no knowledge of an organized, established religion th[at] worships Aliens/UFOs" somehow struck a chord, seemed to connect with my own curious reading on History, including the role various religions and (very early on) human imagination played in bringing us to the present day, with all our technological wizardry, our insanely complex cultures and measurable increases in civilization and self awareness. What has been measured is a trend towards becoming a less deadly species, with both waging war and number of war deaths declining over the past 100,000 year span. Source: The Better Angels of our Nature, by Steven Pinker
And obviously religion was vital to the human experience, both in fighting/going to war for one's God(s), and sowing the seeds for a future decent, compassionate society. I think I agree with you that if we travel back in time the emergence of culture and civilization becomes indistinguishable from the spiritual imaginations, religious and magical practices and spirit ancestors at every tribe and people's core. That said, going back in time even further, say hundreds of thousands to millions of years our early human and hominid ancestors must have had a loooong phase where they just lived/survived as yet lacking a mind capable of imagining God or the Spirit World. At least according to Evolutionary Theory. This to offer a bit of context.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend..."
Exodus 33:11 AKJV
The question your post seems to pose is: how to differentiate between the modern UFO experience and the Great Faiths of Mankind.
I wonder if the way the UFO community (like the UFO Casebook membership), the world public and our governments are engaging UFOs is by means of theoretical/personal interaction with the observations and various explanations of the UFO phenomenon (including blanket denial and disinformation) and changing our minds gradually towards a form of acceptance, or BELIEF in these strange visitors. Today we are getting to know apparent strangers, it doesn't make sense to 'worship' or even 'trust' or 'like' them, who/whatever they are. (If these are our future selves, what the hell happened to us?!) To mind comes the experience of so called Abductees and Contactees who may encounter often bizarre and terrifying non(?)-humans and then with tremendous difficulty form a kind of bond with the alien entities, like accepting the recurring encounters, or even a friendship. UFO and Alien experiences cause a change in the Experiencers, and I suspect, over time, in the world.
Could established religions constitute the outcome, after having developed over thousands of years, of a similar engagement and interaction with wonderful visitors and their ships coming down from the heavens? Maybe it is a pattern (Human-Visitor interaction leads to a Relationship, then to Belief, which over many centuries develops into the traditions and theologies of 'Established Religion') that repeats itself throughout human history. The Bible tells us a story describing a repeat Visitor named YHWH (or Jahweh) entering into an alliance with Abra(ha)m around 1800 BCE, who later on even sent his human son Jesus to be born and walk among us. Jesus initially made a dozen close friends as well as powerful enemies who felt so threatened by him they actually had him crucified. My point: these are 'encounters' that first lead to personal relationships, for instance the text suggests Jewish Lawgiver Moses was Jewish Deity YHWH's friend. It took several centuries before the memories and written records of these extraordinary to unbelievable events consolidated into the Great Faith of Christianity and its orthodox theology.
UFOlogy does not lend itself to 'worship' or a Religion because it is in an encounter phase. We are just getting (re?)acquainted...
purr
P.S. Not meaning to leave out of course that the painstakingly copied and preserved scriptures of the Jewish Nation from Before Christian Era formed the basis for another closely related Great Faith: Judaism.
Looking back from the present, with all our technological wizardry, our insanely complex cultures and measurable increases in civilization and self awareness. Image by Cassini-Huygens spacecraft (NASA/ESA/ASI mission to Saturn) looking back at Earth while orbiting Saturn 2004-2017, visible as a tiny dot at left beyond the outer bright white ring.
Hi purr! Your thread was fantastic and of professional quality, and I am not going for points just stating truth. Its possible that ET and UFO's are described in the bible. I am sure alien's were visiting Before Historical Jesus time because of written accounts in the old testament, the most famous being the wheel within a wheel described in Ezekiel one. I am also interested in Sumerian history as it relates to possible UFO involvement. Mayan and other south American aboriginal peoples are also fav as well because of their civilizations and the temporal link to the time of Jesus. The reason I don't research other huge religions like Hindu, Buddhism and other Asian isn't because they are uninteresting or boring the reverse is true, the reason is the sheer volume of material relating to our favorite subject! So I had to specialize. Is God of the Bible an alien? My personal opinion is there is no empirical evidence to support that statement. But my opinion of empirical evidence is the same as Gödel's! I think a more relevant and answerable question for me and 2.2 billion other Christians and maybe some non-Christians may be this ; why should it matter or have a bearing on our faith if God came from or is an Alien?
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Post by mryelm on Feb 14, 2020 1:43:15 GMT
Purr, ..I hope you are not missing the point I'm attempting to make: Great Faiths are remembered to have begun with encounters with non-human visitors, making the Encounter the starting point for centuries of Theology... No, I'm not missing your point. But It isn't the same point I refer to. All faith rely upon a God who is unknowable. That is why it is called faith. No one, and I do mean no one at all, has ever actually seen this God. They only have stories passed along by people have been re-hashing the same stuff for centuries. Hmm' When you say no one has seen God what you mean is ? Do you mean no one that has claimed to have seen God is being truthful? Many have claimed too have seen God as I am sure you are aware. |
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Post by purr on Feb 14, 2020 17:32:58 GMT
Purr, ..I hope you are not missing the point I'm attempting to make: Great Faiths are remembered to have begun with encounters with non-human visitors, making the Encounter the starting point for centuries of Theology... No, I'm not missing your point. But It isn't the same point I refer to. All faith rely upon a God who is unknowable. That is why it is called faith. No one, and I do mean no one at all, has ever actually seen this God. They only have stories passed along by people have been re-hashing the same stuff for centuries. HAL, my dear Atheist brother (responding as Christian sister)  the point you so eloquently address I did not make! I am not calling on your or anyone's faith, but on a reading of the actual religious-historical record to invite a comparison of the modern experience of UFOs and Aliens with the earliest memories recorded of the Saints and Prophets meeting God, which we now know led to the emergence of the Great Faiths of Christianity and Judaism (plus arguably followed by Islam and the Holy Roman Empire and in the past five centuries by Protestantism dividing up in innumerable denominations and alternative doctrines). Again, the point I was making: religious memory (as recorded in both the Jewish Torah and Christian New Testament) seems to tell us everything began with an encounter of a human person with a initially strange and 'wondrous' Other, which led to a kind of alliance/treaty that bound together the fates of a tribe and their God for generations, centuries even lasting thousands of years. Modern UFOlogy of course has its 'Encounters' and rumored 'Treaties' too, maybe a bit early to say where these will lead eventually.
To answer to your point postulating God is unknowable: guys (as well as some gals like one lady named Ruth and another Mary Magdalene) like Abram, Moses, Samuel, David, Elijah, Elisa, John the Baptist (who was according to Xian tradition the last of the Hebrew prophets) and Jesus Christ expressed a sense of knowing God 'personally'. Jesus for instance even used the familial Father and Daddy in prayer.
"Rehashing the same stuff for centuries" equals to my way of thinking the Recording, Preservation and Study of History. (And mankind in the past has been particularly magical, spiritual and yes religious, so we have to study that aspect of our psychological make up and evolution too imo.) purr
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Post by mryelm on Feb 14, 2020 18:46:31 GMT
Mr Yelm,
I'm saddened that you inferred my post as being insulting. I apologize. I am sorry. It was not my intention.
As for the undocumented NASA/SETI claims, I learned that information while I was a posting guest-member of the SETI-I and later, I had it documented on my SETV website along with information source citations. Then there was another form of information that was gleaned while I was a posting member of the now dark SETI-L forum. Members at one time joked about the 'hidden' meaning of HRMS, jokingly, citing it as meaning, "He Really Means Seti", in lieu of 'High Resolution Microwave Search".
I was also a posting member of the MUFON Forum before that intelligence quack, James Carrion took it down without notice. He was a jerk, in my opinion. There were so many screwy things happening when he was director. The first time I joined MUFON, was back in 1992. I joined that time to gain access to their sighting database, only to learn that, 1) there was no computer database, anywhere in MUFON, and 2) each MUFON chapter was actually an independent, volunteer organization that shared a copyrighted national organization name and logo. Each operating entirely independently of all the other chapters. That's why one must pay for chapter membership and then pay for nationaI membership! I did meet a number of well informed people before dropping out. When I joined MUFON the second time, around 2009?, I joined the national organization to gain access to their CMS database only to discover that one could only access 6 records on any wild-card search. And then learned from others the problem of disappearing sighting records. In order to acquire the requisite priveledge to access the full database one needed to become a STAR investigator or some such bull-shit. Sleazy, very sleazy. I suspect that somewhere within MUFON there is an authentic investigation group, a clicque of investigators who utilize the MUFON membership base to fund their investigative activities. But in any case all the good data disappears. While I am bad mouthing MUFON Headquarters, the chapters have been very informative over the years. And I have enjoyed giving lectures at several MUFON chapters when invited to do so, and am willing to do so again. It might be possiblle that MUFON could have changed? I have heard some pleasing rumors. I hope so.
Re; the circular file comment...I was kidding. My business partner in our research company used to joke about a lot of our miitary gadget proposals, when we received replies, regarding their appropriate filing, hah hah hah! It was a painful joke. We'd sit up night after night working our asses off writing proposals to meet RFP posting deadlines, while working full time during the days on our ongoing military contracts and then receive a quaint reply, "we'll appropriately distribute your solicitation!" Right into the circular file...garbage can! One out of every 10 of those 30 page proposals we wrote bleary eyed, received an 'appropriate filing reply'. It was carry-over!
So, please don't feel that I was being rude, and if it felt that way, I am sorry..
Best Regards,
plutronus
As promised a bit more. Yes everything is good now. Your comments and information helped me understand why you are not happy with SETI and MUFON. In addition I think we both misread each others intent! Its not just you I too mistrust the claims of some organizations especially those that are unusual or authoritative in their dealings. Still I rarely get into politics of an organization I am interested in because I shouldn't' need to, life is too short, lol. However, If I mistrust a organizations claims or information or feel its not what it proports to be, I become very involved, sometimes covertly so. So I like SETI and don't have a reason to go fishing, because so far I trust them . I love NASA and there is something to fish for in that sea of CYOA'ers and worse is the reason there are so many in NASA that must CYOA. That reason is NASA has been a military CIA/NSA organization from the 1950's ! That's the reason the USA doesn't have a manned mission on Mars, which in 1972 they said was possible by 1985! So I have been angry with NASA since I found out about the real NASA by accident as a low level PsyOps Army guy working on AG row. So you see we are not happy with these groups but for somewhat different reasons.
I too am happy we have cleared this up. : )>
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Post by HAL on Feb 14, 2020 18:52:31 GMT
Mryelm,
Indeed many claim to have seen God. But many also, with equal fervor, claim to be reincarnations of every famous person from Jesus to Hitler. Some qualify this by saying things like 'I see God in everything around me' Which is really a non answer. They are seeing the product of millenia of evolution.
Odd, perhaps, that lots of people who claim to see God do so while in some kind of trance or under chemical influence. Same people occasionally see things crawling out of the walls; strange thing, the mind.
Purr,
.. but on a reading of the actual religious-historical record ..
But this kind of thing goes back so far there is no way anything back in the beginning can be verified.
Things like the Patriarchs living for hundreds of years. If this were factually true, why did they suddenly stop living so long ? Seems more like a device to 'pad-out' the time scale.
If you want a modern example of the risks in following these kind of things, take the Rendlesham Forest incident.
I, like many here, was around at the time it happened. And read the reports at the time. I even have one of the first copies of the Halt Tape.
Now the story is blown completely out of proportion and is getting further beyond the realm with every iteration.
Never forget that organised religion is a control system.
Absolutely nothing wrong with people believing in any kind of deity they wish. But when it becomes mandatory to follow that teaching 'or else' then religion's true nature becomes apparent.
If there is a God (singular) then it isn't doing a very good job of keeping it's adherents on the straight and narrow.
HAL.
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Post by purr on Feb 14, 2020 19:08:51 GMT
Hi Mryelm, I hope I am not taking a great discussion off track here, but your remark about having "no knowledge of an organized, established religion th[at] worships Aliens/UFOs" somehow struck a chord, seemed to connect with my own curious reading on History, including the role various religions and (very early on) human imagination played in bringing us to the present day, with all our technological wizardry, our insanely complex cultures and measurable increases in civilization and self awareness. What has been measured is a trend towards becoming a less deadly species, with both waging war and number of war deaths declining over the past 100,000 year span. Source: The Better Angels of our Nature, by Steven Pinker
And obviously religion was vital to the human experience, both in fighting/going to war for one's God(s), and sowing the seeds for a future decent, compassionate society. I think I agree with you that if we travel back in time the emergence of culture and civilization becomes indistinguishable from the spiritual imaginations, religious and magical practices and spirit ancestors at every tribe and people's core. That said, going back in time even further, say hundreds of thousands to millions of years our early human and hominid ancestors must have had a loooong phase where they just lived/survived as yet lacking a mind capable of imagining God or the Spirit World. At least according to Evolutionary Theory. This to offer a bit of context.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend..."
Exodus 33:11 AKJV
The question your post seems to pose is: how to differentiate between the modern UFO experience and the Great Faiths of Mankind.
I wonder if the way the UFO community (like the UFO Casebook membership), the world public and our governments are engaging UFOs is by means of theoretical/personal interaction with the observations and various explanations of the UFO phenomenon (including blanket denial and disinformation) and changing our minds gradually towards a form of acceptance, or BELIEF in these strange visitors. Today we are getting to know apparent strangers, it doesn't make sense to 'worship' or even 'trust' or 'like' them, who/whatever they are. (If these are our future selves, what the hell happened to us?!) To mind comes the experience of so called Abductees and Contactees who may encounter often bizarre and terrifying non(?)-humans and then with tremendous difficulty form a kind of bond with the alien entities, like accepting the recurring encounters, or even a friendship. UFO and Alien experiences cause a change in the Experiencers, and I suspect, over time, in the world.
Could established religions constitute the outcome, after having developed over thousands of years, of a similar engagement and interaction with wonderful visitors and their ships coming down from the heavens? Maybe it is a pattern (Human-Visitor interaction leads to a Relationship, then to Belief, which over many centuries develops into the traditions and theologies of 'Established Religion') that repeats itself throughout human history. The Bible tells us a story describing a repeat Visitor named YHWH (or Jahweh) entering into an alliance with Abra(ha)m around 1800 BCE, who later on even sent his human son Jesus to be born and walk among us. Jesus initially made a dozen close friends as well as powerful enemies who felt so threatened by him they actually had him crucified. My point: these are 'encounters' that first lead to personal relationships, for instance the text suggests Jewish Lawgiver Moses was Jewish Deity YHWH's friend. It took several centuries before the memories and written records of these extraordinary to unbelievable events consolidated into the Great Faith of Christianity and its orthodox theology.
UFOlogy does not lend itself to 'worship' or a Religion because it is in an encounter phase. We are just getting (re?)acquainted...
purr
P.S. Not meaning to leave out of course that the painstakingly copied and preserved scriptures of the Jewish Nation from Before Christian Era formed the basis for another closely related Great Faith: Judaism.
Looking back from the present, with all our technological wizardry, our insanely complex cultures and measurable increases in civilization and self awareness. Image by Cassini-Huygens spacecraft (NASA/ESA/ASI mission to Saturn) looking back at Earth while orbiting Saturn 2004-2017, visible as a tiny dot at left beyond the outer bright white ring.
Hi purr! Your thread was fantastic and of professional quality, and I am not going for points just stating truth. Its possible that ET and UFO's are described in the bible. I am sure alien's were visiting Before Historical Jesus time because of written accounts in the old testament, the most famous being the wheel within a wheel described in Ezekiel one. I am also interested in Sumerian history as it relates to possible UFO involvement. Mayan and other south American aboriginal peoples are also fav as well because of their civilizations and the temporal link to the time of Jesus. The reason I don't research other huge religions like Hindu, Buddhism and other Asian isn't because they are uninteresting or boring the reverse is true, the reason is the sheer volume of material relating to our favorite subject! So I had to specialize. Is God of the Bible an alien? My personal opinion is there is no empirical evidence to support that statement. But my opinion of empirical evidence is the same as Gödel's! I think a more relevant and answerable question for me and 2.2 billion other Christians and maybe some non-Christians may be this ; why should it matter or have a bearing on our faith if God came from or is an Alien?
Hi Mryelm, glad you had a good read! And you are making several good points. As you point out, the Book of Ezekiel should pique our curiosity since it includes a vision of the Jewish Deity YHVH (with thanks to member Plutronus for improving my spelling!) flying and landing in a mode of transport called Cherubim, which has properties like being 'alive', moving in response to thought, and most intriguingly being described as having the shape of a wheel on its side, either resting flat on the ground or flying 'without turning' (noting the absence of visible rolling or changes in orientation, in contrast to how earthly wheels or flying birds are known to move), and when described by an observer on the ground (Prophet Ezekiel) it is seen as towering over him, this disk is absolutely huge. Yelm, the God of the Bible is no stranger to Flying Saucers, the Good Lord even flies one, say callsign YHVH Airforce One. The above is highly speculative, it is taking Theology / UFOlogy to the edge of what we may know or understand. So I agree theorizing and brainstorming on our wonderful subject need not have bearing on personal faith. Personal faith is for example my conviction that Jesus is my best friend and ultimately capable guardian of my immortal soul, that God exists (and that He/She has no problem with those of an Atheist persuasion like esteemed member HAL, I actually think God loves a challenge!), my Bible is a book filled with timeless wisdom revealing the mind of God, and last but not least, the various experiences of other believers going back thousands of years. Tells me: keeping the faith is no picknick, but a decision and struggle spanning the fullness of life.
And HAL is right, our disagreement notwithstanding: Faith is not Science, although for many they may exist side by side, as different modes of awareness in our daily lives. purr
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the point you so eloquently address I did not make!