An atheist's viewpoints on religion, government, culture, adding friction to the fray.
Will be talking about books occasionally, hence the title.
Blunt, mocking (gently & otherwise), shootin' straight from the hip (hopefully), a dash of humor w/liberal doses of cynicism.
Enjoy.
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Religious folks (read: Christians) are up in arms (again! Yeesh, don’t any of these people shrug and go on with their lives?).
Apparently, Madonna has stirred up a hornet’s nest:
“Religious groups have complained about the cross scene and NBC is still deciding whether to include it in a November broadcast of the tour.”
The singer remarks, “"It is no different than a person wearing a cross. My performance is neither anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous," she said in a statement.”
Apparently, she's getting crucified (literally as well as figuratively!).
So she's adopted not only the Kaballah, but also the surname of the Virgin Mary and now she's nailing Catholic symbology (all puns are intended).
Not ordinarily a big fan, but you go, girl!
(Ummm...can I pull that last one off?)
In nomine, domine, vobiscus celius selius, feely me bonny belly...
(I recall my dear departed uncle, Russ Coughlan, raging at her back in the late 80's, when he was ABC General Manager - my mom's side of the family is/was Irish Catholic)
O mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need Past the Reefs of Greed Through the Squalls of Hate Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on. It's coming to America first, the cradle of the best and of the worst. It's here they got the range and the machinery for change and it's here they got the spiritual thirst. It's here the family's broken and it's here the lonely say that the heart has got to open in a fundamental way: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Every American should have the right to make personal decisions -- about family life, reproductive health, end of life care and other matters of personal conscience.
American tax dollars should not go to charities that discriminate in hiring based on religious belief or that promote a particular religious faith as a requirement for receiving services.
Political candidates should not be endorsed or opposed by houses of worship.
Public schools should teach with academic integrity and without the promotion of religious preference or belief.
Decisions about scientific and health policies should be based on the best available scientific data, not on religious doctrine.
So waste no time – raise your voices, your fists, and be heard.
Religion, like any other right, has boundaries: it has transgressed these time and again, and in doing so, has trespassed where it has no right.
Let us not be the silent majority – rather, let us be the loud minority. The pebble that begins the avalanche.
Or, to co-opt a phrase, “Say it loud, say it proud, baby!”
Back in March of 2006, I watched an incredibly heart-breaking film – ‘March of the Penguins’.
I recall about a week or so later, I was in the video store I rented it from (I do the Netflix thing now), and the clerk asked me about it (I’m a pretty chatty fellow in person as well as online). I said, very loudly, “It’s a powerful argument against creationism.” The Hispanic lady standing next to me goggled a bit (that sideways look – you know what I mean – surprise, a little WTF? thrown in).
It’s a heartbreaker – if you’re a weeper, bring Kleenex. The narrator, Morgan Freeman, pontificates about ‘gawd’s creation’ (I’m getting more than a little tired of that pandering crapola), and then the viewer is subjected to perhaps one of the cruelest examples of evolution. (Spoiler alert!)
These cute little critters are subjected to all sorts of horrid circumstance. First, a trek to the worst part of the Antarctic, where the landscape shifts so there’s no real path, to this specific section. The mating ritual isn’t the harsh part.
The male watches over the egg, as mama penguin goes searching for food. The temperature is so freezing, that if the egg rolls out, it’s an oval icecube. If mama doesn’t find food? Baby dies. Both of these scenarios are fairly common.
How on earth can any ‘just and loving’ deity implement such a savage cycle? Such a brutal, pitiless, unforgiving, torturous trek?
The short answer is of course: there isn’t any such thing.
And now, for a breathtaking instance of antiprocess, from here:
“IT WOULD seem extraordinary that a film about penguins trekking 70 miles through sub-zero temperatures and 120mph winds could be seized upon by the American religious right as a parable about monogamy and creationism. But that was exactly what happened when March of the Penguins became the surprise hit at the American box office this year. Yesterday, days before the film’s British premiere at The Times bfi London Film Festival next week, the director hit back at the commentators he believes have wilfully misread his film. “If you want an example of monogamy, penguins are not a good choice,” Luc Jacquet told The Times. “The divorce rate in emperor penguins is 80 to 90 per cent each year,” he said. “After they see the chick is OK, most of them divorce. They change every year.”
For something even more hilarious (especially in lieu of the Religious Right seizing on using these creatures as an example):
“In early February 2004 the New York Timesreported a male pair of Chinstrap penguins in the Central Park Zoo in New York City were partnered and even successfully hatched a female chick from an egg. Other penguins in New York have also been reported to be forming same-sex pairs.[4] This was the basis for the children's picture book And Tango Makes Three. The couple about whom the book was based, Roy and Silo, would see further interesting developments in their relationship when in September 2005, Silo left Roy for a female penguin, only to come back to Roy in a few weeks. Zoos in Japan and Germany have also documented male penguin couples.[5] The couples have been shown to build nests together and use a stone to replace an egg in the nest. Researchers at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, found twenty such pairs at sixteen major aquariums and zoos in Japan. Bremerhaven Zoo in Germany attempted to break up the male couples by importing female penguins from Sweden and separating the male couples; they were unsuccessful. The zoo director stated the relationships were too strong between the couples.”
Of course, this begs the question then: has anyone tried splitting up a male/female penguin couple?
Let’s top this off with a comic from my favorite professor:
Welcome to America. Where freedom is king, and we have a written guarantee of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Where the individual and the minority have just as many rights as the majority.
Here, a snippet:”In the United States, separation of church and state is sometimes believed to be in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and by legal precedents interpreting that clause, some extremely controversial. The Establishment Clause states that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" However, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment (one of the Reconstruction Amendments) makes the Establishment Clause and other portions of the Bill of Rights binding on state and local governments as well, although it is arguable that this restriction on state and local government existed in Article VI of the unamended Constitution and that the Fourteenth Amendment was a clarification on the limitation of government power. Many other democratic governments around the world have similar clauses in their respective constitutions. The phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the Constitution, but rather is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, Jefferson uses the term "wall of separation between church and state" to show the Danbury Baptists that in both Connecticut and the entire United States, religious freedom is an inalienable right that government cannot take away. While Jefferson's letter is often cited by separationists to prove that the original intent of the First Amendment was complete separation of church and state, anti-separationists either consider it irrelevant or might say that it supports the idea that the original intention of the First Amendment was to guarantee religion the freedom to exist without government influence, and say that it makes no mention of government being wholly separate from all religious activity. This is supported by Federal Government decisions on the matter, such as Supreme court Case 43 U.S. 127; 1844 U.S. LEXIS 323; 11 L. Ed. 205; 2 HOW 127, as well as Federal Government's past involvement in printing Bibles, and using the Bible as a textbook in public schools. James Madison, wrote in the early 1800s, "Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States." Ulysses S. Grant also called for Americans to "Keep the church and state forever separate.”
The actual First Amendment reads thusly:”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
And before we get into a big soiree about the meaning (it’s there in black and white, people, c’mon!), here’s a nugget to mull over:
Article 11: “"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
From the Treaty with Tripoli, that passed in 1796 (unanimously, I might add). Again in black and white.
I find both of these clauses extremely difficult to argue with: for all intents and purposes, we obviously are NOT a nation based on religious principles. Some liars claim it’s so. There may (or may not) be the occasional influence creeping in, but this country was founded in the Age of Enlightenment, and that is, as I see it, the primary and overpowering influence that can be easily demonstrated.
So here’s my take:
Against gay marriage? Why? Because the bible says so? It’s out. Against abortion? Why? Because gawd says so? It’s out. You want to plant the Ten Commandments in courthouses? That’s a no-no – go re-read the First Amendment. You want prayer instituted in schools? Sorry, that’s a no-go. You want Creation ‘science’ (a bigger oxymoron I cannot imagine, outside ‘military intelligence’) put in the schools? SEE YA.
You want to worship, or pray? Knock yourselves out (please!).
But by no stretch of the imagination, am I ever going to let religious folks dictate their alleged ‘morality’ to me. Pray in your churches or in public, it’s all the same to me. You can have your nativity scenes on your own damn property. Hell, you can even preach out in public, for all I care. I can just keep walking.
Just keep it away from our government, our schools, and my kids (if ever I have any). Short version: not on MY dime, or MY time.
A few choice quotes here: ". . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind." – John Adams
"For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law. . . This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. ". . . if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents. These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it. But none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are all able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper on February 10, 1814 ibid.
"They all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point" -Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835 ibid. The final kicker, here: “And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.” - James Madison to Edward Livingston, 10 July 1822 - Writings 9:100--103
Go ahead and read it. It’s utterly hysterical. Fraught with false dilemmas, strawmen, unsubstantiated data; you name it, it’s in here.
I didn’t check his book sources, but I did a little checking up on his online resources – most of them choked, what a surprise.
(I went from the bottom up, by the way.)
He links up to Andrew Sullivan’s blog, all you get is the most recent post. I can excuse this. But do a search on his blog, you’ll find this:
"Stanley Kurtz is the 'EverReady Bunny' of the same-sex marriage debate, a character who moves forward unrelentingly on a quest to prove that same-sex marriages are harmful. He is sure that state recognition of lesbian and gay unions in Europe has harmed the institution of marriage. But he never quite settles on a reason why this should be so, and his most recent argument illustrates the wildly unscientific thinking behind a lot of the American opposition to same-sex marriage”
“Their new and meticulously researched book, from Oxford University Press, can be found here. It's a very thorough and scholarly account of the experience of same-sex legal partnerships in Scandinavia. If you need a respite from hysteria and ideology, it's a good place to start.”
Which links here, a clear refutation of this idiocy.
His next online link comes up so: “The page you are trying to view doesn't exist. We have recently redesigned our web site and apologize if you are experiencing any difficulty. Please use our new navigation and search feature or point your browser to PrisonFellowship.org.”
I can let that go. He should update his ‘work’ more periodically.
The next link comes up with: “Marriage: Still the Safest Place For Women and Children by Robert E. Rector, Patrick F. Fagan, and Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D.
March 9, 2004
The institution that most strongly protects mothers and children from domestic abuse and violent crime is marriage. Analysis of ten years worth of findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has conducted since 1973, demonstrates that mothers who are or ever have been married are far less likely to suffer from violent crime than are mothers who never marry.”
No causal link here. What a surprise. What’s this got to do with gay marriage? NOTHING.
“Why is it in the Government's Interest to Save Marriages? By Michael J. McManus
February 25, 2002
As President of Marriage Savers, a national non-profit organization whose goal is to reduce the divorce rate, strengthen marriages and restore hope to children in distressed marriages I enthusiastically endorse House Bill 1301 Sponsored by Rep. Gary Hopper and Reps. Hills, Gillman, Graf, Stohl, Coos, Boyce, Roberge, Johnson and Matthew Quandt.
This bill would permit no-fault divorce on grounds of irreconcilable differences for couples without minor children. However, if there are minor children, the person who wants a divorce would have to prove the other person is at fault having committed adultery, been arrested for a felony or been physically abusive. New Hampshire could lead America in reforming unilateral divorce.
As President Bush asserted last year, "We know that children who grow up with absent fathers can suffer lasting damage. They are more likely to end up in poverty or drop out of school, become addicted to drugs, have a child out-of- wedlock or end up in prison." Statistically, children of divorce are twice as likely as those from intact homes to drop out of school and are six times as likely to be poor or to commit suicide. Fatherless girls are three times as apt to give birth to out-of-wedlock children themselves, expanding the welfare culture into the next generation.”
It’s a pretty fair article, but again, this has no causal link to gay marriage whatsoever. Quite off the beaten path, I’d say. I’m foursquare against the government having a say in whether or not a couple should remain married, children or not. That’s too much control for an administration that can’t even run its own nose if it had a bad cold.
Next link:Illustrates the positive effect of marriage. I’d say this shoots the asshat right in the foot.
Next link is from Johnny Asshat, an extraordinarily bad piece of investigative reporting:
“MARRIAGE IS SLOWLY DYING IN SCANDINAVIA. A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Not coincidentally, these countries have had something close to full gay marriage for a decade or more. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood. The Nordic family pattern--including gay marriage--is spreading across Europe. And by looking closely at it we can answer the key empirical question underlying the gay marriage debate. Will same-sex marriage undermine the institution of marriage? It already has. More precisely, it has further undermined the institution. The separation of marriage from parenthood was increasing; gay marriage has widened the separation. Out-of-wedlock birthrates were rising; gay marriage has added to the factors pushing those rates higher. Instead of encouraging a society-wide return to marriage, Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.”
This bozo doesn’t provide any link between hetero- and homosexual marriages other than they’re in the same country. This sort of bullshit is irritating, to say the least. Here’s a PROFOUND piece of stupidity:
Out-of-wedlock birthrates were rising; gay marriage has added to the factors pushing those rates higher.
You may ask, “What the fuck?!?!?” I asked the same thing. How on earth does anyone come to such a stupid conclusion? Are more unmarried women having children doing so because of gay marriage? Are gay men procreating with unmarried women? The author applies the slippery slope in such a way, that he slips and breaks his fragile ass.
I have debunked this asshat’s arguments here – but this yobbo uses the same stilted arguments every theist does. Think of the children! Real Americans aren’t gay! He says "gender is essential. (There’s only one race—the human race-- but there are two genders.)" – Showing a profound ignorance on the subject. Claims that it would be special rights (more bigotry), and here is more twaddle:
Why allow traditional marriage but prevent same-sex marriage? a. Because traditional marriage is our national immune system. It protects us from disease and social costs. When our marriages are strong, our society is strong. When our marriages are weak, we all suffer. b. Traditional marriage: i. Improves health and lengthens the life span of the man and the woman. ii. Protects women from uncommitted men. iii. Lowers welfare costs to society. iv. Lowers the crime rate (marriage civilizes men and focuses them on productive pursuits). v. Procreates and encourages an adequate replacement birth rate c. Children from traditional marriage homes are: i. Seven times less likely to live in poverty ii. Six times less likely to commit suicide iii. Less than half as likely to commit crime iv. Less than half as likely to become pregnant out of wedlock v. Healthier physically and emotionally when they reach adulthood vi. Do better academically and socially d. Children from fatherless homes account for: i. 60% of America's rapists ii. 63% of America’s youth suicides iii. 70% of America’s long-term prison inmates iv. 70% of America’s reform school attendees v. 71% of America’s teenage pregnancies vi. 71% of America’s high school dropouts vii. 72% of America’s adolescent murderers viii. 85% of America’s youth prisoners ix. 85% of America’s youth with behavioral disorders x. 90% of America’s runaways e. Same-sex marriage would not benefit, but hurt traditional marriage and society.
Does he provide any substantial proof that same-sex marriage would impact ANY of these things? No. He uses studies from ANOTHER country (note that he doesn’t pull any studies from France, Germany, Portugal, Hungary, or someplace more American, like Massachusetts, Conneticut, or Vermont – and he applies that bullshit old chestnut, those nasty ole ‘activist’ judges routine to those), and draws a weak premise based on his own noxious discrimination bias. He plays the ‘patriot’ card, the ‘protect the children’ card, and ‘indoctrination’; oh, you name it, he uses every shit piece of argumentation. Love this piece of trash:
“First, everyone in America has the same rights. We all have the same right to marry any qualified person from the opposite sex. What homosexuals want is special rights– the special right to marry someone of the same sex. But why stop there? If homosexuals have a right to get married, then how can they say a man has no right to marry his daughter, his dog, his father, or three women and a poodle? Should bisexuals be permitted to marry two people?”
How is the choice to marry the person you love ever a special right? Answer: it’s not. This is the bigot’s response. This is a limpdick effort to establish that one subsection of humanity is somehow lesser than the ‘norm’. And then lumping it in with incest, bestiality, polygamy combined with bestiality? What a fucktard.
“Indeed. Homosexuals want the courts to grant them legal and, therefore, social approval for their lifestyle because they know that they cannot win such approval by a fair vote of the people.”
Argument from popularity.
Finally, while proponents of same-sex marriage cast this as a moral issue (that’s why they use the word “rights”), they lack any moral authority for their position. By whose standard of morality must same-sex marriage be legalized? Certainly the Constitution says nothing about same-sex marriage. Is there a standard beyond the Constitution? Yes, God-- but God is the last subject homosexual activists want to bring up. If they appeal to God and His absolute Moral Law– the Moral Law the Declaration of Independence says is “self-evident”– then they have to make the case that God believes same-sex marriage is a right. That’s anything but self-evident as the entire history of religion, human civilization, and the design of the human body attests.
Newsflash, asshole: this is just a weak effort to get your ‘god’ into the Constitution – a clearer violation of the First Amendment, I haven’t seen yet. So those of us who don’t believe get it shoved down our throats? Yeah, real patriotic, thanks. Entire history of civilization? Not a history major, obviously. Design of the human body? Why does anyone derive any pleasure from it, if that’s so?
All through this obnoxious document are littered efforts to poison the well, a grab bag of logical fallacies that would be vastly amusing – if this were an effort at satire, that is.
Yeah, the ‘smoking gun’ misfired already – right into this mental midget’s foot.
Final analysis: fanatic fucktard.
I’m through being nice about this. When an opinion I oppose becomes a law – even the effort at making it a law – then it’s an opinion no longer. If a piece of legislation demands that a subsection of humanity is deprived of their rights, due to their sexual proclivities involving consenting adults, then that’s bigotry. Pure and simple.
That’s hate, finely nuanced, but hate nonetheless.
Let’s make a perfectly valid comparison here. The exact same arguments were used by the Nazis about the Jews, over seventy years ago. All efforts to dehumanize a human target.
A recent poster mentioned this name, and having never heard it before, I thought I’d look into it.
St. Anselm was the Archbishop of Canterbury back in 1093, and was canonized in 1494, two years after that fateful voyage of Columbus, “and is considered one of the most influential thinkers of medieval Europe and Christianity. His motto credo ut intelligam ("I believe so that I may understand") reflected his intention to explain faith in God by reason. St. Anselm is most famous for his argument for the existence of God, called the ontological argument. It goes like this: we understand God to be the greatest possible being; we agree that if God only exists in our minds, we can imagine a greater being that exists both in the mind and in reality; and since God is, by definition, the greatest possible being, he must exist in our minds and in reality.”
(Snip)To begin his argument, Anselm must first establish that God is the equivalent to "something that which nothing greater can be thought." Since the idea of God is an idea of perfection, the common explanation for God at the time of Anselm was just that. Since perfection cannot be improved upon, then nothing greater can be imagined. From here, he takes a look at the passage in the bible that says, "The Fool has said in his heart, there is no God." He begins to contemplate if and why this statement is true. He decides that it is true, and he comes to the conclusion that they must be a fool because that very statement contradicts itself. He argues that in saying the word "God" you are acknowledging that you have an idea in your mind of something than which nothing greater can be thought. From here he states that because we are able to conceive of such a perfect being, then one must exist. If one did not exist then that would mean that it wasn’t perfect, and therefore there is something out there that is greater. The idea of a being that nothing greater can be thought of had to be put there by something, and that something is the real being, which is God. He argues that we couldn’t have just come up with it since we as humans are flawed and are incapable of perceiving perfection unless it has been shown to us by something that is perfect. “ (Snip) ”His proof has been accepted, and has been denied. It has been called one of the greatest, and one of the worst proofs for the existence of God. None the less, it has made an impact on philosophy from the day it was published, all the way up to present time.” (End snip)
Obviously, this is sophistry at its worst. Pure existential projection. I hear the echoes of this in John C. Lilly’s work, who once said, “In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits.”
Yeesh, and to think I never really cared for Renee Descartes’ philosophies.
Anyways, the short version is: the universe doesn’t really care about us. It saddens me, but I can’t make up a bunch of metaphysical hogwash to make me feel better. The facts are the facts, and no amount of spin will change that.
All we really have is each other, and those random acts of kindness that sweeten our lives.
“I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused,” – Elvis Costello
In my tireless, ongoing efforts to bring you, my beloved readers, the wilder examples of baroque meritocracies gone wild, I stumbled across this precious gem.
(In my best Rod Serling voice) “Submitted for your approval. Witness if you will, ordinary folk subsumed with a meme built to stand against the loneliness of their mediocre existence…”
TITLE:UFOs: A Demonic Conspiracy Fr. Thomas Kulp, Flying Saucer Review, Volume 45/3, Autumn 2000
Summary: There are still a surprisingly large number of people who seem to take all UFO reports with complete equanimity and, as it were, refuse to see anything "nasty" anywhere in it. Then, on the other hand, there are others, like Father Thomas Kulp, the author of this article, who take the opposite view and hold that every single case, without any exception whatsoever, is something straight out of Satan's bag.
Does that include weather balloons?
And, finally, there are also a few of us who think that the truth of the matter probably lies somewhere in the middle, and that by the very nature of things, there are bound to be some "*Goodies*" (i.e. the ANGELIC FORCES) somewhere around.
New FOX series! ‘ABDUCTED BY AN ANGEL’, starring Mel Gibson, Jenna Elfman, and any other celebrity lunatic you can name!
We shall have to go on probing all possible aspects of the question until we begin to feel that we can see a bit more clearly. (For example, while I feel strongly as anyone that there really are absolutely demonic forces active in and among mankind, there are sudden new hints, new angles, and so on, which suggest that possibly even the "Little Greys", so much abhorred by so many of us so far, might not be the real Demonic Enemies after all! But more of this later!)
Whoa! Probing what, exactly? Demonic forces? Honky please! And people wonder what I have against allegory.
Father Thomas Kulp is a priest of the Orthodox Church, and lives in the State of Wisconsin, USA, with his wife and seven children. Paul Inglesby, MA, (Oxon.) and a former Lt. Commander in the Royal Navy, is a Sub-Deacon, also in the Orthodox Church.
Orthodox? Orthodox what, is my question. The Divine Church of the Unitarian UFO ? Who’s the Bishop? Von Daniken?
As Fr. Kulp declares, many UFO researchers have noted the similarities that seem to exist between the historic descriptions of demonic attack and the current accounts of "alien abductions", and he concludes that this is no coincidence.
Since the term "flying saucer" was coined in the 1940s, the UFO phenomenon has intrigued and mystified serious investigators and has profoundly influenced the imaginative content of popular culture. Of particular interest are the numerous reported encounters with aliens. There can no longer be any doubt that something significant is happening. On the whole, the reported incidents can neither be regarded as hoaxes, nor as some bizarre form of collective hallucination.
As we can see here, there’s more than enough evidence to suggest otherwise: ” Explanations and Opinions Statistics compiled by U.S. Air Force studies found that the strong preponderance of identified sightings were due to misidentifications, with hoaxes and psychological aberrations accounting for only a few percent of all cases. Nevertheless, many cases remained unexplained. An Air Force study by Battelle Memorial Institute scientists in 1954 of 3200 USAF cases found 22% were unknowns, and with the best cases, 35% remained unsolved. Similarly about 30% of the UFO cases studied by the 1969 USAF Condon Committee were deemed unsolved when reviewed by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).[29] The official French government UFO scientific study (GEPAN/SEPRA) from 1976 to 2004 listed about 14% of 5800 cases as inexplicable. [30] Despite unexplained cases, the general opinion of the mainstreamscientific community is that no UFO sighting requires extraordinary explanations. On the contrary, such sightings can be explained by the following prosaic explanations: ordinary misidentification of natural and man-made phenomena deliberate hoaxes, psychological phenomena such as optical illusions or dreaming/sleep paralysis (often given as an explanation for purported alien abductions) . Skeptics point out that most evidence is ultimately derived from notoriously unreliable eyewitness accounts. Very little in the way of solid physical evidence has been reported, and because UFO sightings are transitory events, there is no opportunity for the repeat testing called for by scientific method. Ockham's razor is invoked by such skeptics since it is considered less incredible for the explanations to be the result of scientifically verified phenomena rather than resulting from novel mechanisms (e.g. the extraterrestrial hypothesis). “
That comes out to about 25.25%, according to my calculations. About ¾ of the phenomena resolvable. This lunatic makes it sound like 100% unresolvable.
Must we concloude, then, as many have, that extraterrestrial beings are visiting Earth? This is, in fact, the message that has been communicated by the aliens themselves on various occasions, a message often cloaked in New Age terminology. A common motif is that Earth is on the verge of a dire catastrophe from which the aliens, as representatives of a more highly evolved race, can save us.
Aye caramba! Humanity as the damsel in distress? “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” –Pogo. Where did he get this ‘common motif’? An episode of TNG? ‘My Favorite Martian’? Or ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’?
This is the stuff of science fiction. It is, of course, comforting to believe that we are not alone, that there are beings somewhere out there older and wiser than ourselves, ready and willing to save us from our own folly. Perhaps we should cast aside the apocalyptic prophecies of doom and prepare ourselves for a new age of universal peace and brotherhood. Does this scenario seem too good to be true? As the saying goes, it probably is.
Closest this yotz comes to being rational, I’d say.
Indeed, as Whitley Strieber writes concerning his own experiences, "The beings I was encountering weren't the wise and benevolent creatures that films like Close Encounters might have led one to expect. They were absolutely devastating_."
Shouldn’t’ve eaten the worm, I think.
Strieber relates how he awoke in the middle of the night and sensed a presence in his room. "I felt an absolutely indescribable sense of menace. It was hell on Earth to be there, and yet I couldn't move, couldn't cry out, and couldn't get away. I lay as still as death, suffering inner agonies. Whatever was there seemed so monstrously ugly, so filthy and dark and sinister. Of course they were demons. They had to be."
That’s what you get for watching ‘Xtro’,‘Xtro 2’, and ‘Xtro 3’ in the same evening.
In the end, however, Strieber rejected the possibility that these beings could really be demons. He did so, I suspect, not because of the evidence, but rather because the concept of the demonic simply does not fit into his worldview. In fact, this prejudice against an objective personification of evil is widespread today, even while the idea of angels is enjoying a renewed popularity.
Argument ad numeram – three million kooks can’t be wrong, right?
Nevertheless, if we are indeed being visited by extraterrestrial beings, no unified and coherent hypothesis has yet been offered to explain the multifarious worldwide manifestations of alien contact.
Only if you haven’t bothered to go look.
For a while, it appeared that perhaps the visitors were engaged in little more than a routine geological survey of Earth. Beings have been observed taking samples of rocks and other objects many times over a period spanning decades.
Note distinct lack of citations.
Then suddenly we discover that the aliens are not simply taking rock samples. They are abducting humans and conducting scientific tests, taking samples of blood and semen, even conducting breeding experiments between humans and aliens. The reports come pouring in from around the world, becoming more and more bizarre.
Hmmm…I wonder if anyone took a blood sample from these ‘witnesses’? Again, no citations.
Running through the data of purported encounters, however, is a definite thread of the irrational and absurd. Often the observed behaviour of the beings makes no apparent sense, or is downright silly.
Hey! First clue!
Consider an incident that occurred near Buenos Aires in 1968. A teenaged boy was approached by two *seemingly* ordinary men except for their unblinking gaze and their transparent legs. They told him, "*You are going to know the world.*"
They promised to take him on a flying saucer, which they showed him, and then gave him an ordinary envelope and told him to dip it in a puddle. When the boy did so, this message appeared in a very juvenile script: "*You are going to know the world. F. Saucer.*"
Transparent legs? Maybe they were wearing nylons? Unblinking eyes? Disappearing Ink? What? No citation provided.
It can be hypothesized that the purpose of the innate absurdity and sheer overwhelming quality of UFO encounters is mental confusion and a realignment of human consciousness. In other words, there is a conscious agency involved that is attempting to subtly alter and control human thought patterns and beliefs.
I’d go with the ‘mental confusion’ part. Do these people even USE an empirical method, or is it all anecdotal? I’d guess the latter.
If this is so, then the UFOs, even if they possess a real physical dimension, (which has not so far been convincingly demonstrated), are at least in part a psychic manifestation.
Mix ‘n match away, oh priest of pandemonium.
According to Strieber, "*Precognition, apparent telepathy, out- of-the-body perceptions, and even physical levitation, are commonplace side-effects of contact with the visitors. *" Indeed, experiences of alien contact seem to involve altered states of consciousness, an almost dreamlike trance state despite the apparent reality of the events described.
Er, ummm, yeah, that’s usually what happens when you take drugs.
Moreover, the psychic repercussions upon those whom I can only describe as victims are often devastating, leading to confusion, obsession, disruption of life patterns, and even -in extreme cases- suicide. Can beings responsible for so much mental and spiritual anguish be truly characterized as benevolent or even morally neutral?
Could it be that your witnesses are in the upper percentile of the walking wounded?
EVIL ALIENS. Let's consider several cases that seem to suggest a non-physical dimension to the UFO phenomenon. In 1955, near Riverside, California, children observed a disk-shaped object spinning overhead. Subsequently, there appeared a "recurring series of spectral-like shapes_. They were semi-transparent."
Did they have glow-in-the-dark frisbees back then? Children? How many? Names, history of mental illness in the family? Children? Yeah, real reliable witnesses.
In 1963, in Kent, England, four teenagers watch a glowing ovalloid descend into a wood. Suddenly, "A shambling human- sized figure with no head but with bat-like wings appeared and moved toward them_."
Teenage translation: “That’s why we stole the whiskey outta your liquor cabinet.”
In 1952, a UFO was sighted landing in Flatwoods, West Virginia, "and when the witnesses surged forward to see what had happened, a monstrous spectral-like figure with a blood-red face and glowing greenish-orange eyes floated down the hill toward the by now terrified observers." In past centuries, these apparitions would have been unequivocally labelled as demonic. Now, in our supposedly more enlightened age, we fail to see the obvious.
How many observers? Two, ten? How old? How much of an effort was made to verify this?
In 1967, in Surrey, England, a young couple stopped their car in an isolated spot and observed a hideous creature through the window, accompanied by an odour as of burning meat or a stink bomb. It is interesting that a bad egg smell (hydrogen sulphide) has been reported in numerous cases, considering that such an odour has long been associated with demonic manifestations.
And gas leakages. Again, no citations.
More dramatic is a case that occurred on October 25, 1973, in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. The main victim of what appears to have been a classic case of demonic infestation was a young man named Steven Pulaski, but also present was a law officer and, later on that night, a group of UFO investigators.
See here for a thoroughly hysterical recitation of this anecdote.
The affair began when a bright red ball was seen hovering over a field. As it descended, its colour changed to bright white. Next, two strange bestial creatures appeared. Someone fired a gun at the monsters and they were apparently hit, but with no result.
Throughout the night, these elusive creatures continued making their presence known. Witnesses glimpsed the creatures and heard strange sounds coming from the woods. At one point, a strong sulphur odour was detected by the observers.
It was then that Steven himself began behaving like a wild beast, as one possessed, having gone totally berserk. It was during this fugue that he recited prophecies of doom in a mocking tone of voice, accompanied by derisive laughter.
And a clear indicator of an unreliable witness.
I would suggest that in instances such as this one, the demonic element responsible for the UFO phenomenon is showing its true face. At the very least, there is a sinister, dark side to these preternatural experiences that must be seriously considered.
Cue the weird whistle from the theme of the ‘X-files’.
Yet if we are indeed dealing with predominantly psychic manifestations, we must be very cautious of accepting as objective reality the outward appearances.
Objective reality? Is he kiddin’ me, folks? Apparently not.
We should be aware, too, of traditional signs of demonic presence. For example, UFO occupants have been observed to avoid light, as in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1955, where the beings always approached from the dark side of the house and not when outside lights were on.
(Cue ominous foreshadowing music)
In other cases, alien beings accost victims at crossroads, which are traditionally associated with an aura of danger and the demonic. Crosses were often placed at crossroads for this very reason. In general, the fear and confusion so often infused into the minds of victims is a sign of demonic presence.
Oy gevalt, a clear appeal to wonder.
DEMONIC ORIGINS. At this point, a word about the origin and nature of demons should be useful. According to Christian traditions, based on works by Milton and others, God created orders of so-called bodiless powers, including angels and archangels, before creating humans.
These active, intelligent spirits were intended to serve and glorify God. Like all rational beings, these invisible, angelic spirits possessed free will. It transpired that one of them, Lucifer, rebelled against God. Blinded by pride, he thought to exalt himself above the throne of God.
And off we go again. I took the liberty of truncating some of the more obvious nonsense: the interested reader can skim the article, but rest assured, it’s nothing new.
Nor should the apparent mingling of physical and psychic manifestations in the UFO phenomenon surprise us. As one noted spiritual authority observes, "Demons also have 'physical bodies,' although the 'matter' in them is of such subtlety that it cannot be perceived by men unless their spiritual 'doors of perception' are opened, whether with God's will as in the case of holy men or against it (as in the case of sorcerers and mediums.")
And who said this, exactly? Again, assumption of acceptance.
There is not a single UFO incident on record that cannot be explained as a demonic deception or apparition.
Has this clown even LOOKED at the US Air Force’s research? I’m guessing NOT.
What is not always clear is the motivating purpose behind some of these bizarre manifestations. For example, I must admit that the whole breeding experiment scenario baffles me, except that these incidents do confuse and profoundly frighten the victims, thereby opening the human mind a bit more to the intrusion of the demonic.
Breeding experiment? Did this guy watch ‘Femalien’ One and Two a hundred times, or what?
What does seem clear, from a spiritual perspective, is that the ultimate purpose of the UFO phenomenon is to help prepare the collective consciousness of the human race for the coming of Antichrist as foretold in the Bible.
All signs point to the fact that the end of human history is at hand. The final stage is to be the universal reign of the Antichrist, who will create a new world order and a false one- world religion. Those who through demonic deception will worship the Antichrist will be lost, while all others will be persecuted.
Bad news, padre. Author of Revelation was on drugs, and was talking about the current Roman regime.
A prophetic leader, Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, wrotte in the last century, "*The miracles of Antichrist will be chiefly manifested in the aerial real* where Satan chiefly has his dominion*. The signs will act most of all on the sense of sight, charming and deceiving. Again, the Antichrist will even make fire to come down out of Heaven upon the Earth in the sight of men."
And finally, he drops another name. Someone from about 140 years ago, that is.
I submit that the demonic explanation for the UFO phenomenon is inherently no less likely than any other explanation that has been offered so far.
‘Inherently no less likely’!?!?!? Howzabout ‘inherently noodle-brained’?
If we are open-minded enough to at least accept the possibility of demons, then a great deal that is presently obscure becomes understandable.
You should change your name from ‘Kulp’ to ‘Gullible’.
There is no lack of evidence and testimony regarding the reality of demons in Christian spiritual literature during the past two millenia. We should be most foolish to discard it all as mere antiquated relics of the past, while accepting as gospel the myriad New Age teachings that have permeated our society over recent decades.
“Many of these signs or symptoms can be explained away by modern medical science. Seizures and convulsions are symptoms of epilepsy. Personality changes can indicate hysteria, or schizophrenia, or other psychological malfunctions. Lewd and obscene acts can indicate mental disorders. Having sexual thoughts, if taken seriously as a sign of demonic possession, would indicate nearly all of the modern population is possessed, especially the men. Distended stomachs can indicate malnutrition and other medical disorders. Also, having knowledge of future events or information is known as clairvoyance by many occultists and Neo-pagan witches which they consider a special spiritual gift. In light of such evidence it seems the term demonic possession is hardly functional anymore. Such advanced knowledge is the reason why the Catholic Church has cautioned their priests to investigate the medical and psychological aspects of the person before performing the rite of exorcism. At present, the one main basis for declaring a person possessed seems to be a violent revulsion toward sacred objects and texts.”
Now, more than ever, it is imperative that we be wise and sober, discerning the spirits to make sure that they are truly of God, refusing to be led astray by the deceptive illusions of the Evil One.
Wise? Sober? Who’s this guy kidding, anyways?
So let’s wrap this up. There are angels and demons, they don’t blink in and out of existence, they simply touch down in their spaceships, and molest people sexually, and of course the great Beast will set down in the Mothership on the End of Days (gee, this clown left out the Whore of Babylon – no doubt that explains all the sexual ‘interbreeding experiments) and…. drum roll please…we’ll be raptured up in UFOs, by latin-speaking extraterrestrials in long robes and pointy hats, all singing ‘Ave Maria’.
Let's end this on a more humorous note, from one of my favorite comedy groups, 'The Kids In The Hall':
I've become a sort of 'Renaissance man' w/o intending to, having done all sorts of interesting bylines, from carny to computer programmer, wild child to novelist, etc.
Reinvention is key to the progress of the individual.
Religious folks (read: Christians) are up in arms (again! Yeesh, don’t any of these people shrug and go on with their lives?). 
