Is God an Alien?

[FadingW]

It is said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Or to put it another way, what can be deemed 'supernatural' may be really be the natural that is not yet clearly understood.

If modern technology were to be brought to the past, airplanes, television, it might have been thought of as sorcery or perhaps even miraculous.

Given all this, is there any supernatural account that, if true, could not be explained by advanced alien technology?

[Minimalist]

For the truly superstitious it does not even have to be all that "advanced."


http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/r...kooks.html

Even in Acts, we get an idea of just how gullible people could be. Surviving a snake bite was evidently enough for the inhabitants of Malta to believe that Paul himself was a god (28:6). And Paul and his comrade Barnabas had to go to some lengths to convince the Lycaonians of Lystra that they were not deities. For the locals immediately sought to sacrifice to them as manifestations of Hermes and Zeus, simply because a man with bad feet stood up (14:8-18). These stories show how ready people were to believe that gods can take on human form and walk among them, and that a simple show was sufficient to convince them that mere men were such divine beings. And this evidence is in the bible itself.

So, yeah, were there alien contact they would surely be considered 'godlike.'


Now all you need is evidence of such "aliens."

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Given all this, is there any supernatural account that, if true, could not be explained by advanced alien technology?

I have no idea. Usually local technology is enough.

Until I actually have some evidence of aliens here, I'll continue to call the 'god is an alien' notion 'argument from incredulity'.*

* "I'm too ignorant, too stupid, or too unimaginative to think of anything else, therefore God/an alien did it"

[superstarr]

Probably everything described in the bible like God and Angels are nothing more than extraterrestrials, but due to having a lack of knowledge with the real world, they had no choice but to make stuff up.

[annatar]

I suppose that is what mormons believe. And the scientologists. not sure though

[Shinylight]

This is the main belief of Raelians.

Raëlism is a UFO religion that believes that all life on Earth was created in scientific labs by a species of extraterrestrials. Members of this species appeared human and when having personal contacts with the descendants of the humans they made, they were mistaken for angels, cherubim, or gods.

Raelism

[DeistPaladin]

For the truly superstitious it does not even have to be all that "advanced."


http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/r...kooks.html

Even in Acts, we get an idea of just how gullible people could be. Surviving a snake bite was evidently enough for the inhabitants of Malta to believe that Paul himself was a god (28:6). And Paul and his comrade Barnabas had to go to some lengths to convince the Lycaonians of Lystra that they were not deities. For the locals immediately sought to sacrifice to them as manifestations of Hermes and Zeus, simply because a man with bad feet stood up (14:8-18). These stories show how ready people were to believe that gods can take on human form and walk among them, and that a simple show was sufficient to convince them that mere men were such divine beings. And this evidence is in the bible itself.

So, yeah, were there alien contact they would surely be considered 'godlike.'


Now all you need is evidence of such "aliens."

Off topic but I love that quote from the Bible for what it says between the lines. Ken Humphreys pointed out how there were "two Pauls" in the NT. The first was of the epistles, the bombastic religious bully who felt he answered only to Jesus and who didn't have any trouble arguing with other Christian leaders. In Acts, written much later, Paul becomes a sedate passive pawn, clearly subordinate to the other Christian leaders, particularly Peter, the poster boy for Catholicism. I couldn't help but notice in this passage that Paul is confused for Hermes, the messenger boy for Zeus, barely a god and more of a servant.

Ken's hypothesis is that Acts was written much later to co-opt the poster child for Marcionite Christianity much the same way they did with John the Baptist, the prophet for the rival Mandaens.

[HeyItsZeus]

It is said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Or to put it another way, what can be deemed 'supernatural' may be really be the natural that is not yet clearly understood.

If modern technology were to be brought to the past, airplanes, television, it might have been thought of as sorcery or perhaps even miraculous.

Given all this, is there any supernatural account that, if true, could not be explained by advanced alien technology?

I don't know but this is definitely more plausible than a magical bearded man in the sky.

[Edwardo Piet]

If God is an alien, then he's not supernatural of course. He's super and he's natural, but not supernatural.

[DeistPaladin]

If God is an alien, then he's not supernatural of course. He's super and he's natural, but not supernatural.

There's no such thing as "the supernatural". It's just a word we use for "not yet understood".

If it exists, it can be observed.
If it can be observed, it can be studied.
If it can be studied, it can be understood.
If it can be understood, it can be explained.
If it can be explained, it's part of the natural universe.