Primum Mobile, Ezekiel ... a fun little romp)
When I was a kid, my brother and I were fascinated with Ufos. Strange, though, that neither one of us are huge believers; we know they're out there, but we just learned to not worry about it until such time as we saw the little gray guys themselves.
But one of the books we read, I can't tell you much about it. It's title was merely UFO or UFO's, and the title was in stylized text on the front of an Avon childrens' paperback. But the book asserted a Ufo in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, based on the
first chapter .
There are a few random pages on the subject to be found under a Google search of
ezekiel ufo. For instance, this
Angelfire page.
In my Lutheran upbringing, I encountered a preacher who literally did not know where the question of Ezekiel and Ufos came from; his answer to the question was, "You're stupid if you think that's even a question." (It should be noted that, upon being asked,
What created God, he could not give even the standard "Catholic" answer of timelessness and Alpha/Omega; in that instance, his educated and compasionate reply was, "You don't ask that question in my church.")
At Catholic school, the question came up by my prompting, and a Franciscan nun gave me an answer which, essentially, appears at the Angelfire page listed above.
This answer was repeated to me in a friendly, post-lecture conversation with Religious History professor at the University of Oregon, a scholar of the Old Testament.
I accept the answer, but for some reason am compelled to offer the following criticism of the Angelfire page's presentation:
“Firmament” (Hebrew raqia) is defined by God as “heaven” (Genesis 1:8); the word basically means “expanse,” although some critics have tried to argue that it implies a “firm” boundary of some kind. In modern scientific terminology, it could be translated simply “space.”
The
critics as such, have theological justification. The
Primum Mobile, for instance, asserts a firm boundary:
Its first feature shows a development out of earlier theological ideas. The earth is no longer a flat plain inclosed by four walls and solidly vaulted above, as theologians of previous centuries had believed it, under the inspiration of Cosmas; it is no longer a mere flat disk, with sun, moon, and stars hung up to give it light, as the earlier cathedral sculptors had figured it; it has become a globe at the centre of the universe. Encompassing it are successive transparent spheres, rotated by angels about the earth, and each carrying one or more of the heavenly bodies with it: that nearest the earth carrying the moon; the next, Mercury; the next, Venus; the next, the Sun; the next three, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; the eighth carrying the fixed stars. The ninth was the primum mobile, and inclosing all was the tenth heaven - the Empyrean. This was immovable - the boundarv between creation and the great outer void; and here, in a light which no one can enter, the Triune God sat enthroned, the ``music of the spheres'' rising to Him as they moved. Thus was the old heathen doctrine of the spheres made Christian.
And another link regarding
Scholasticism and the Primum Mobile, just because it looked good..
I am not one who generally ascribes the IHVH-god to extraterrestrials in the more vulgar sense. God is not, to my opinion, a hyperintelligent alien along the lines of Brust's
Jenoine entities (cf. Brust,
Jhereg and
Issola; I've tried to find something about them online; it is a fantastical retelling of EBE/seed theory, much like I hear from the alien-seed theorists of the real world; sadly, there aren't many good descriptions of the Jenoine, even at the fan pages.) But I'm not closed to the possibility. It just seems either sinister or irrelevant in what I peceive of the alien-seed theory: why all the secrecy? Either they don't want us to know they're here except through myth, which is chilling in and of itself, or else they have passed on from the Universe and the current Ufo possibility has nothing to do with any of it.
Thinking back, an image I have never obtained online is a Renaissance-era Madonna and Child scene, which has been featured on Discovery Channel and Sci-Fi network Ufo specials in the past. In the background of this painting is a circular object (not spherical) radiating light, and several people responding to it. Ufo enthusiasts point at this round thing, which I think is perfectly obvious in its sybolism. It does not represent an angel,
per se, as angels had undertaken their semihuman form long before this painting. But it is, in fact,
crown-shaped, and perhaps more symbolic of Christ the King than of any endorsement from Zeta Reticuli.
Regarding the Immaculate Conception, have scholars resolved the definition of
virgin yet? The selfish
born-again virgin movement of American neo-Christianity did the entire paradigm disservice when it tried to confuse the definition of
virgin by calling up an obsolete standard which implies virginity to mean a woman who has not given birth. Short of that issue, and crudely put, the Immaculate Conception was probably a dry hump--
femoral intercourse (cf. Kenyatta,
Facing Mt. Kenya)--gone wrong.
Nonetheless, I am not entirely dissuaded from alien-seed theories. I'm just not a big supporter of them; they would explain a lot, but like I noted, something seems sinister about their refusal to confirm their existence, as such.
Having said that, I would like to turn again to the Angelfire page addressing the Ezekiel-Ufo idea. The author summarizes his editorial points:
Let me start off by saying that I don't think there’s much intelligent life on this one
But we do know that God created the Earth and all the other planets with it. But there is no evidence in scripture that God created creatures on any planet other than earth, and heaven.
God is able to do so if he chooses, but it seems to me that God would be wise to tell us if there was life on other planets (if there was), because we would eventually find out anyway.
The fact that the Bible is silent about life anywhere else but earth makes me think that there may not be.
You'll notice that the author is applying the dangerous standard of
What the Bible says, which standard, as we see at Sciforums, is a difficult point to stand on. At some point,
everybody extrapolates the Bible. Alien-seed extrapolations are not the most extreme ideas derived from the Bible; I might point toward the Seventh-Day Adventist obsession with the Devil and politics, which culminates in fears of worldwide UN occupation and the execution (by electrocution, no less) of all Sabbatarians. (I'm not making this up; you can get that crap at
any SDA bookstore; it's amazing what those folks will choose to be afraid of.)
And in this light, then, it would be worth asking
why God needed the
whole bloody Universe to hide in while he played out the living experiment on
merely one planet. If that was the case, the boundaries of the
primum mobile would have sufficed. If, as the Ezekiel-Ufo author suggests, there is life on this planet only and in Heaven ....
I'm almost unwilling to consider such assertions as the restriction of life to this planet.
Europa, people. We need to get to
Europa. And then we can put this one-living-planet myth into the ground where it belongs.
And while, on the one hand, I'm sorry to keep rambling on, this whole notion of Ufos and the Bible has got me just ... well .....
Okay, so if there's life on this planet only and in Heaven, what is Hell? It would appear that Hell, indeed, becomes the grave, and the fire reserved for the Devil and his minions ... but then again, the Bible
does say there is an everlasting fire. Hmm ... that means Hell is either on this planet, or in Heaven. Of course, there
could be a planet out there populated solely by the
dead, but aren't we playing semantics if the dead can
populate anything?
I'm quite sure that there is life all over this Universe. I just want to get someplace where I can almost guarantee we'll find it. Oh, say, Europa? And there's an interesting thing: when I say that there is definitely life elsewhere in our solar system, I think I understand something Christianity could never convey to me. Sure, I think I have justification for the assertion of life elsewhere in the solar system, but I'm also aware that for me to say I
know this is tantamount to declaring it in faith. And on such a point, I have great faith that I am not mistaken. It is not real, but it is; specifically it is not
yet real. And if I'm actually hitting that sense of faith Christians could never quite explain, and, by the feel of it, never quite attain, then I can understand why the redemptive tale of the Bible is such a comforting faith. And that's a hugely interesting perspective point to me, though one which, naturally, reinforces my prior assessments of the faith.
But I should be wrapping it up; the last couple of paragraphs have lost any sense of direction, eh? Suffice to say that while I don't wholeheartedly endorse alien-seed theories, the Bible does, in many ways, serve as one hell of a testament to them. I mean, what if the reason nobody really shows themselves as responsible for the human spark is that it was an accident--a key mutation inspired by radiation from the proximity of ET vessels?
And that would put interesting spin on another point: to come too close to God, to see God itself, will destroy a person. This could be a primal instinct from being around the vessels.
Okay, okay ... I said I should be wrapping up. Cool topic,
Lightbeing, and welcome to the forums.
thanx,
Tiassa
