By: Aldag Stone
From growing up as a young boy in a religious family where my grandfather was the pastor of our church, originally a Baptist church that he later changed to a Trinity Bible Church, I can tell you that I was conditioned from a very young age about the beliefs in God, Satan, heaven, hell, Jesus, sin, etc…. and the fear that coaxes people to conform to the teachings of this particular religion.
Of course, to me, these teachings were coming from people that are close to me, my family who loves me. I bought and believed every bit of it much like a child believes in Santa Claus. In fact, I vividly remember when I learned the truth about Santa Claus; I remember feeling very betrayed, fooled and duped in some way as if I couldn’t believe that people who loved me could deceive me like this. This is where I began to think, “If they could tell me a story like this and make me believe in something that wasn’t truly real, what other falsehoods could they eventually enlighten me with?” Needless to say, my mind went quickly to “God” and this is where I secretly began to ponder and question the notion of Heaven, God, and everything that I had been taught to believe in regarding faith.
I recently had the pleasure of watching Bill Maher’s documentary called “Religulous” which is a combination of the words religion and ridiculous. I must say it was as entertaining as it was enlightening. In this documentary, Maher makes light of the fact that there are at least over 2,900 different religions in the world and each one of them believe that their particular religion is the ONLY one that is going to enjoy the benefits of the afterlife called heaven. Maher doesn’t necessarily condemn anyone for what they choose to believe — He simply claims to be from the religion of “I don’t know.” That’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard because really, how could he, or anybody, really know?
As far as I know, no one has ever died, gone to the other side of this life, documented it, and come back with indisputable proof of an existence beyond this life here on earth. Not even Jesus, or say, Houdini. Now, certainly the notion of heaven and an afterlife is appealing and is sort of a fairytale-like fantasy that sounds wonderful – like Santa Claus. But, there’s one little piece missing —–> proof. And without proof the notion of God, religion, heaven, hell, etc., is a very difficult thing for a person of logic and reason to swallow and accept simply based on faith alone. In fact, reason and logic tend to conflict with faith and belief in general.
So, this makes a person wonder how and why religion could’ve ever gotten started and become such a large part of our cultures and societies. After doing some research, the only conclusion that I, as a logical person, can come up with is that the idea and notion of God and religion was invented as a very clever means of controlling masses of people through strict, moral laws (The 10 Commandments) and instilling fear and the notion of hell as an eternal punishment to those that don’t conform to these laws & religion. This approach was actually very effective; demonstrated by our current, collective existence.
Moses, who according to the Bible was regarded as many things including a highly respected politician, military leader, farmer, and provider, goes up to the top of a mountain to speak with God ALLLL by himself – later coming down the mountain with the 10 Commandments – the “laws” that were commanded by God for people to follow and abide.
This turns out to be a very effective means and way of controlling people. It is GENIUS on the part of Moses; using his highly respected position to provide a moral guideline ultimately assisted him in controlling large masses (societies) of people — even to this day.
As an ex-christian, in my experience, I personally think that religion is one of the biggest and best legalized scams going on out there toady and maybe even in history. Asking for at least 10 percent of your income – while doing a public collection offering – I’m sure is, by design, to put peer pressure on you to participate because you don’t want anyone watching and thinking that you’re cheap or enjoying the benefits of church without giving your part.
Is this how Jesus would have arranged it? I’m not so sure. Unfortunately churches are now, more than ever, getting a bad reputation as a lot of them, pure and simple, have an hidden agenda (especially mega churches) of making money. And a few of the clever ways they do this, and keep you coming back brainwashed, is by either keeping you in fear of places like hell and/or making you feel like a guilty sinner so that you’ll continue to come back asking for forgiveness. And oh, “Don’t forget to invite your sinful family and friends! Bring them too and at least 10 percent of their income. And oh, don’t forget our Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday night services as well.” – gimme a break, ha!
Actually to be fair, churches do good things for the kids and communities, sure. But unfortunately, if you pull back the curtains a bit further, some churches are becoming more widely known for financial & sexual corruption. Sad, but true! It’s a real turn off to tithe 10 percent of your income to individuals using religion to line pockets of legalized scam artists. It amazes me how many times I witness self-proclaimed Christians acting un-Christ-like.
Finally, this brings me to Aliens. The idea of Aliens is A LOT more believable option to me. We have far more evidence and proof of Alien visitations to our planet than proof of a celestial afterlife. And on top of that, it just makes more sense. With the vastness of space, it’s only logical to conclude that there is an existence or race that is far more advanced and developed with the ability to see, monitor, and perhaps use multi-dimensional ways to travel further than we have ever dreamed or imagined.
The History Channel makes a lot more credible argument for the possible existence of Aliens than any pastor or church makes for the possibility of a ‘Heaven’ or ‘Hell’ type of an afterlife. And to be clear, I’m all for wanting to live beyond this physical life. But if it’s not so, the only thing I can logically imagine is that if, in fact, there is no afterlife when we die we just go back to wherever it was we were before we were born which is simply unconsciousness. I don’t remember it being painful?!
Perhaps this life we’re given here on earth is simply a short vacation from unconsciousness? And if there is an afterlife, and we’re here on “Earth School,” — I imagine that our main purpose, while here, is to learn how to love and be loved. In any case, love is one of, if not the most powerful and shared energies of our physical existence.
What your view on Aliens, God, Heaven or Santa Claus?
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God, Santa Claus, Religion & Aliens,
Einsteinlite
30 Mar 2011Aldags’ position on religion is not an unfounded one. Criticizing organized religion is not a difficult task and has been taken up with enthusiasm by what the media calls the new atheists. But Aldag starts his thesis with Moses, who, whether he really existed or not, is simply an early figure in Jewish mythology. The roots of religion go much further back and no doubt arose from fear, ignorance and the need to explain the cold, cruel uncaring universe. We have evidence from primitive hominids that burial rituals go back tens of thousands of years and were even performed by our unfairly maligned thick-necked cousins, the Neanderthals. That control freaks took over religion and used it to their perverse advantage is also a rather easy argument to make. As the aforementioned Bill Maher’s says, ‘religion requires a suspension of critical thinking’. This is one of many observations made by the new atheists, namely, besides Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, but we can return to those gentlemen at a later date.
I must take issue with Aldag’s position on aliens however. I believe the evidence for aliens is identical to the evidence for God, namely a big fat zero. In fact, I propose that the same primitive human need is fulfilled by both mythologies. To wit, someone is watching over us, someone powerful, someone who can come to the rescue, we’re not alone, everything will turn out Ok; perhaps they will sweep us away to an eternity of bliss through science just like the religionists’ claims for heaven. Anything to deny the apparent truth of the universe; namely, that no one is watching over us, that death is the end and that there is no meaning to it all. Now I’m not stating these declarations to be undisputed truth, only that a scientific, rationalist, materialistic perspective leads to no other conclusion. If there is evidence of aliens and it’s being concealed by governments – that’s one thing – and of course we all await these revelations.
I do agree with Aldag that’s there’s no scientific reason that we couldn’t be visited by others from beyond but despite string theory, wormholes and other theoretical musings arising from quantum mechanics, the space-time barrier is still a rock hard impediment (I hope the rock hard keyword doesn’t bring in the wrong searchers!). If such creatures were here, the question then arises, why won’t they reveal themselves and their purpose? Please get on with it for Heaven’s sake. Secretly flittering about in wormhole wagons seems a bit trivial. Again, I could be wrong about this and when solid evidence is proffered I’ll be the first to admit my shock and awe and humility. Until then however, I’ll stick to my rock hard rationalism (Whoops, there I go again). Actually, I’d throw aliens in with ghosts, sasquatch, the Loch Ness monster and conspiracy theorists; all the product of the unrivalled human imagination!