It occured to me today that I have not spent too much time engaging in one of my favourite activities; bible-'bashing'.That is not in any way a conventional use of the phrase, which was used in the past to denote people who actually vigourously promoted the contents of that 'holy book', but rather bashing as a synonym for debunking or ridiculing. I actually do not engage in an awful lot of 'bashing' of the actual Bible, contrary to popular opinion. Providing the tales in the Bible are not taken as word for word evidenced fact, I think that you can make a fairly good case for the Bible (Old Testament), in part, as history, albeit a very biased and unbalanced one, subject to exaggeration, and the New Testament as simple folk philosophy dressed up as (a) a sort of new religion to replace the old Jewish and Roman faiths and (b) a guide for the simple man in simple living; surely a worthy goal for any philosophy.
I was reminded of the absence of my bête-noire from recent writings by a very long film (over 3 hours) which attempted to debunk (in the main, successfully) the popular 'History Channel' series of 'Ancient Aliens'. (A version can be viewed here: http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/ancient-aliens-debunked/) It should be quite obvious to any sane individual that equating aliens with God is like equating cheap, Bulgarian plonk with Chateau Yquem; they are both wines but of orders of magnitude of difference. However, it is only a difference of value, not type. Aliens are far more intelligent and advanced than humans, or so the story goes, and God is far and away the most intelligent and advanced 'creature' in the universe. He/She did after bring it all into being.
In many ways, the allure of such ideas appears to attract the immature; both the physically and mentally youthful. In my adolescence, I actively sought out the ideas (however bizarre) of von Däniken, Velikovsky, Ley Lines, Atlantis and the power of pyramids. I swallowed the re-writing of Egyptian history to sychronise with 'Biblical history' wholesale; I even ate up 'Das Kapital' as though it spoke a truth which was only revealed to Karl Marx by a non-existent God. Find an owner of 'Das Kapital' and I'd bet you a King's ransom that they also have 'Chariots of the Gods', 'Worlds in Collision' or 'Lord of the Rings' on the bookshelf.(Change the books, or authors, depending on the decade in which you were born)
However, as we gain maturity, and knowledge about the world, we increasingly use Occam's Razor to underpin our world view, our 'Weltanschauung'; why seek after complex and complicated ideas if a simple one will suffice? It is surely less complex an idea to imagine that a combination of time, language and an ability to pass on learned skills to successive generations, and to build on those skills will suffice, than it is to imagine that some extraterrestials would cover the vast distances involved in even interstellar travel just to visit a planet in the rural backwaters of the galaxy which was populated by people scarcely out of, or still in, the stone age. In our technological age, we have difficulty in imagining that relatively primitive mankind could imagine the kinds of feats which we take so much for granted.
Why should 'Middle Earth' only be a product of the twentieth century? Couldn't, wouldn't Plato be possessed of the same imagination to visualise Atlantis; or Spenser, Fairie; Homer, Troy? Why couldn't the pyramids be built on a combination of a large labour force, an autocracy, basic copper tools and a ready supply of sandstone. It took the Romans 200 years to build the temple at Baalbek, it has taken over 130 years to build Gaudi's 'Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família', although there was a hiatus, due to Franco, and a continuing reluctance to accept funds from the Roman Catholic Church, which has extended the time taken (it's why you have to pay to get into the grounds and the church itself) and it's still not finished; and we have had the benefit of modern technology. Why does it need alien technologies, lasers, levitation, nuclear power etc etc to build the Pyramid of Khufu or Pumapunku?*
Humanity progresses by building on what has preceded it; it is the prime gift of language, and more importantly, writing which enables humans to 'stand on the shoulders of giants'; and I don't mean Nephelim or aliens. It does our ancestors a disservice to make them 'need' a God or aliens to achieve what they did achieve. It may be hubris but, honestly, humanity does not need, nor ever has needed, such mental constructs to explain its achievements.
As a Parthian shot, I should point out that, while on the whole lauding the documentary, it is not a 'skeptical' enquiry, merely a partisan one. You have to wait right until the end before you get the revelation that Nephelim (giants) walked the earth in biblical times and that the tale of 'Noah' and the 'Flood' describes an actual historical event! :)
* Because it sold, and continues to sell, books for the simple minded and makes a few people shedloads of money.
Why aren't you writing professionally?
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