No, unfortunately, it’s not a new video game.
Via Sadly, No!, here is a series of articles called UFOs and the Gospel of Christ, by Ralph C. Barker: Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.
If you scroll way, way down past the bazillion ads on the Part 1 link, you’ll get to the meat of the article – Seems Barker saw UFOs as a kid:
The only thing I do know is that the objects I saw violated every known law of physics. They flew at very high altitudes and performed almost instant, high speed, ninety-degree turns. Nothing flying, then or now, with the exception of Superman, can do this.
… to which I would simply say that as a kid he might not have been that familiar with every known law of physics. (Who is?)
The interesting thing about this article is that Barker’s point is to attack “New Agers” and/or UFO believers – not necessarily because they are spreading what most folks consider fanciful nonsense, but because
a very strong, obvious, and evil connection does exist between UFOs and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Barker asserts that people who claim to have contacted aliens report that:
The aliens don’t seem to be threatened by Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or any other ism. They focus their attacks on Christianity. Could this be because Christianity is the only true religion? This would be my bet.
… or is it more likely that Christianity is simply the dominant religious belief here in the USA? After all, if you’re brought up in the Christian tradition and are going to dream that you were abducted by aliens, it’s not likely that the alien races you make up in your head are going to suddenly give you a lecture on Buddhism.
Now the question is who inhabits the UFOs. Are they aliens? Are they extra terrestrials? Are they from our future? Who or what are they?
I bet you want to know what Barker concludes about the aliens in Part 2, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?
In my youth I held to the idea that they were truly alien visitors. Today, I still think they are alien visitors but not visitors from another planet. I am convinced they are visitors from another dimension, a spiritual dimension. I believe they are demons.
[Emphasis mine]
Now color me crazy, but I do not see how this is any less loony than the whole alien abduction thing.
What disturbs me more than the looniness above, though, is a little later on in the article. Barker bemoans the supposed lack of religiosity in the US (which is unsurprising from a fundamentalist):
Most of us are well aware that there has been a shift in worldviews in America since the 1950s. The biblical worldview that established America and sustained it for so long is losing its place in American society. Humanism, paganism, and other isms are taking center stage.
Barker then points out that many alien monster movies “prior to the 1960s” showed aliens as hostile towards humanity, wanting to destroy or conquer the world, and so forth. He complains that
… movies began to change their perspective as humanism began to permeate our society. Aliens began to be portrayed more often as not as good guys.
Given that science fiction is often social commentary about current events, I don’t find it surprising at all that there were more “aliens as good guys” stories in the 60s and continuing afterwards. It seems to me that a big message of many of these movies was that people who are different than us in some way aren’t always that bad. And, frankly, what in the heck is wrong with that idea? I was not aware that racial tolerance – what quite a few of these “good alien” movies are promoting – was un-Christian!
I work in a mental ward and I am a licensed Psychiatric Technician. I hear delusional material everyday and some of it sounds like science fiction and more of it sounds like biblical accounts of demon possession. I am convinced after being in this environment for 30 years that evil spirits have a part in psychotic behavior and thoughts. This does not mean that biological dysfunction is not a part of the picture also which I believe it is. I think that mental illness biologically based creates a mental chemistry that makes the mind aware of a reality not normally accessible to a “balanced or normal brain chemistry and in this state evil spirits and other entities of a spiritual nature are seen and heard.
I think that mental illness biologically based creates a mental chemistry that makes the mind aware of a reality not normally accessible to a “balanced or normal brain chemistry and in this state evil spirits and other entities of a spiritual nature are seen and heard.
Any science to back that up Dan? Seems like quite the leap. People who have consumed small and large doses of hallucinogens also say the very same thing, when in truth its the chemicals changing the normal function of the parts of the brain dealing with perception. Mental illness and the chemical differences that may be present can do the same thing.
Saying that the unballanced brain chemistry allows for “evil spirits” to be more readily visible / head / felt / whatever is as bad as saying “God speaks to me”. There is no way to falsify that type of bad reasoning and therefore its sketchy at best. There are perfectly good scientific explanations for the hallucinations of the mentally ill without going to the boogieman and demons.
I think that mental illness biologically based creates a mental chemistry that makes the mind aware of a reality not normally accessible to a “balanced or normal brain chemistry and in this state evil spirits and other entities of a spiritual nature are seen and heard.
We already know that perfectly natural things acting on the brain and body can cause people to hallucinate. Are these hallucinations some \”real\” thing, or are they essentially errors made by our brains because they aren\’t operating at the usual conditions?
Without any other evidence of these evil spirits than the say-so of a few people (and considering that there are explanations for these hallucinations that don\’t involve evil spirits, why is it necessary to hypothesize that evil spirits are causing mental illness? (Or am I misreading you here?)
Barker essentially does the same thing. He (rightly) notes that there isn\’t a whole lot of evidence for aliens at the moment, but then suggests that\’s actually evidence for a demonic conspiracy against Christianity – because (he says) those people must have seen something.
(And I have no idea how those slashes got into my reply above. Hopefully my blog is not posessed by demons. 🙂 )
It might be fun.
It could be fun.