God, Aliens, and Other Stuff

This is an updated post. Back story: The first century Apostle Jude wrote a short letter to the church in the New Testament warning against false apostles and teachers in the emerging Christian movement. He wrote,  "Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah," (Jude 11). There’s a whole sermon right there about those 3 characters, which I will not bore you with at this time. Briefly, the way of Cain could be described as envy and violence . The error of Balaam would include occultic/psychic cursing for profit , and Korah’s rebellion was just that… rebellion against legitimate authority . Cain’s story is told in Chapter 4 of the book of Genesis. I will present a loose Midrashic synopsis here, but understand that I'm approaching the narrative as a metaphor. Adam and Eve are the first humans placed in a special garden by God. Tempted by a serpent entity with many human...

Is the universe dangerous or benevolent? I had a discussion with my family once about whether the universe was basically benevolent or dangerous. My United Methodist mother-in-law and my Unitarian sister-in-law voted for benevolent, because they have always been nice people and feel blessed and protected. They are projecting their world view and experience into a cosmic philosophy. They've never been shot or raped or robbed at knife point.  I took the opposite view because, although I haven't personally experienced the above crimes, I'm aware how fortunate I am that I haven't, and I attribute a most of my good fortune to having been religious in one way or another most of my life, meaning I also feel blessed and protected, but some of that is cultural. I've never lived in a high crime area. I also believe that, although God does not spare Christians all loss, pain, and grief, our lot could be a lot worse without His presence in our lives. We talked about demons and ...