Skeptics and Forteans alike might be interested in knowing that Kevin D. Randle (of The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell fame) earned a Ph.D. in psychology by distance learning from California Coast University (an unaccredited, but legitimate, California-approved school) in 1999. He has also done distance learning graduate work of some kind with DETC-accredited American Military University. Cheers,
I don't know that an UnA degree is going to add to his credibility, He may have been able to do more with an accredited doctorate. Personally, I agree with the late astronomer/atheist Carl Sagan who said something to the effect that intelligent life may well exist elsewhere in the universe but there is no real evidence that is has vistited earth (much less gone around impregnating unsuspecting women). North
Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning C'Mon North, don't ruin my favorite episode of the X-Files!
Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning === Or...of Luke 1:26-37! This, indeed, was a visitation by "extra terrestrial" Intelligence!
Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning Don't laugh Bill, but I was watching the History Channel and they had a whole show dedicated to the premise that the Bible may indeed speak of extra terrestrials (Sp??). It covered everything from the Wheel Ezekiel saw to various strangers who visited Abram & Sarah, Transfiguration, etc. Some even saw in religious art objects that they have re interpreted as alien craft. Oy Vey. Talk about Projection. North
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning === Sure: Von Donikan, "Chariots of the Gods.' Old theory!
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning They mentioned that. I suppose when Jesus rose from the dead he was actually transported by an inter stellar space craft (taxi........taxi.........). As I say, I am with Carl Sagan that regardless of whether life exists elsewhere, there is no evidence that it visted earth. I am amused though, when non Christians suggest that somehow the presence of other intelligent life in the universe would cause problems for Christians. My response is not at all, it would simply enlarge the mission field for Christians. We know with rock solid certainty that the universe and everthing in it belongs to the God of the Bible. North
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning I should add that there might be a problem if Brother Pina's religious perspective is correct and we end up with aliens who say they are from near the planet Kolab. That might cause some revision North
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning === North did you get my email re ACCS today? Yep, I thought about our pal Tony. Don't want to get him going again. He usurps our place as resident theologians
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning I thought Steve Levicoff was the resident theologian!
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning I better add here that the reference to Anthony Pina and Kolab (a point/planet where Mormons believe God's throne is near) is meant in good humour (and the humour that situation above would cause for Christians). North
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning In a sense, religion IS projection, right? What else is a personal God than a transcendent entity imagined as a larger and more perfect version of ourselves? The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Xenophanes wrote: Mortals believe that the gods are begotten, and that they wear clothing like our own, and have a voice and a body. The Ethiopians make their gods snub-nosed and black, the Thracians make theirs grey-eyed and red-haired. And if oxen and horses and lions had hands, and could draw with their hands, and do what man can do, horses woud draw gods in the shape of horses, and oxen in the shape of oxen, each giving the gods bodies similar to their own. Today we are slightly less crude, but while we no longer imagine God in a human body (some Old Testament language does that and Christology might be interpreted as an attempt to justify anthropomorphism in a more philosophically sophisticated age), we still insist on investing God with a personality clearly modeled on our own. God thinks, responds and emotes much as a human would. If "He" (that word itself illustrates my point) was reduced to some kind of philosophical abstraction, or even to some transcendent apophatic cypher of negative theology, "He" would lose "His" emotional resonance for many religious believers. As I say, projection is probably inextricable from religion itself. That observation has implications for what I think of as the Flying Saucer Faith. I'm suggesting that belief in UFOs can be read as an attempt to rewrite transcendent visitations in a more modern idiom, more closely attuned to modern life in technological society than ancient Hebrew myth can possibly be. We have the Christ-like saviors from Venus imagined by George Adamski, and the more recent demonic aliens such as the reptoids. Superhuman beings wielding magic give way to superhuman beings wielding super-science. But ultimately, both are manifestations of transcendent power that exceeds human understanding. Both reinterpret earthly events as manifestations of "higher" transcendent purposes. I think that for a scholar in religious studies, the X-files-type beliefs represent a virgin field for serious study.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning Of course we as Christians see things a little differently. We worship a God quite unlike any other in history. We arrive at the things we know about Him based on scripture and logic. The Bible itself is a book unlike any other in history. More mansucript evidence for it than any other piece of ancient literature, history and archeology that secular scholars scoffed at only to have time and time again the biblical record proven accurate, amazing unity of scripture in spite of different authors over centuries, and predictive prophecy that has come true again & again (odds of it are mathematically astronomical and have never ever been equaled by secular seers & prophets). From this we as Christians take our understanding of God. Some attributes are communicable and others not. We are made in God's image and not the other way around. North
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning ...or for the extraterrestrials! Remember the three Malacandra species from C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet who had never Fallen in the first place, and subsequently had no need for redemption? Cheers,
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ufologist Earns Ph.D. by Distance Learning If you haven't already, you might enjoy reading Jung's Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky--he makes much the same point, though he takes much longer to get to it. I'd say that all metaphysics are exercises in speculative projection, but projection can sometimes be accurate. We think that other people have subjective frames of reference because we do--and they do. Materalists think that matter is all there is because that's all we know about. Whenever we make a theory about anything, we're basically projecting the known into the unknown. Projection is what lets us see dark places. Cheers,
My take on Little Gray Men, in a nutshell: I tend to believe that any extraterrestrial species advanced enough to make it to Earth from outside the solar system could certainly manage (a) not to be seen and (b) not to crash. I'm not dead set against the idea that we've been visited by grays, but I think the odds are very much against it. I suspect the grays are homunculi--Heironymous Bosch caricatures of what we're in danger of becoming in this dehumanizing automated world. Big cloaked, inscrutable eyes, frail bodies with near-unlimited power, and the ability to completely eradicate our privacy, dignity, and free will? Sounds like a very valid Earth fear to me. No need to look for it in outer space. Cheers,
Sounds very much like the owners of degree mills, who utilize pop up ads on the computer, then mesmerize the unwary Mr./Mrs. Public into enrolling in a degree mill program. So now I know where they came from--outer space.
