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Review of Ancient Aliens S11E10 "The Prototypes"

7/22/2016

68 Comments

 
This morning I had two tabs open in my browser. One of them was an op-ed piece about the apocalyptic nightmare vision in Donald Trump’s speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination. The other happened to be an older piece on Tor.com from a science fiction writer explaining how he developed a vision of post-apocalyptic America. I must have clicked the wrong place while reading the first article, and I ended up in the second. The frightening part is that the two articles merged together so seamlessly that I did not notice the jump from one to the other for several paragraphs. In many ways Trump’s speech was the culmination of the great national freak out that began with 9/11, curdled now into a revitalization movement that promises a fiery purge to purify the world.  
The Tor.com article opened with a still frame from Planet of the Apes, the famous closing scene in which the ruined Statue of Liberty testifies to the fall of human civilization. That movie was a sort of inverted ancient astronaut theory—no surprise given script writer Rod Serling’s interests—but it also reminded me that the longing for a revitalized country and a savior to purge and cleanse the world of sin is also one of the key themes of fringe history. Ancient Aliens, for all its goofball stupidity, was the canary in the coalmine, testifying to that existential longing for a new cosmology and ideology that the old order of liberal democracy and scientific rationalism have been unable to satisfy.
 
Despite the very obvious differences between Trump and Ancient Aliens, Ancient Aliens shares with Trump an eclectic disrespect for every form of traditional authority, a celebration of the dilettante and the amateur, a lust for overturning and destroying anything and everything to satisfy petty grievance, and an obsession with vague conspiracies tied, ultimately (though often without the participants’ knowledge) to ideologies of hate. And both imagine a transcendent future where the will of the people and the niceties of democracy and civil society are subsumed before the benevolent rule of a savior figure—but not until the world has been purged through a nightmarish reign of terror and fear, where people are no longer safe in their own homes and mysterious forces of unimaginable power can strike them down at any time without warning.
 
Ancient Aliens rarely makes this dystopian vision explicit, unlike Trump, but it is always present behind the façade of quasi-scientific “investigation,” a sort of New Age parallel to the lustful longing for the Apocalypse that has animated Christian death cults for a thousand years or more.

But enough of that depressing thought. Instead let us discuss this depressing episode, which joins Christian conservatives in denying the reality of evolution in favor of a supernatural origin for each human and prehuman species.
​
Segment 1
Our episode opens with UFO abduction research by David Jacobs and the oft-repeated claim that space aliens are performing genetic experiments on human beings during anal probing abduction events. Jacobs alleges that abductees’ hallucinations of seeing alien-human babies in flying saucers really happen in the physical world, but the show doesn’t bother to go into this in any detail. Within seconds we are off to South Africa to discuss the 2013 discovery of a new human ancestor, Homo naledi, which as of today has yet to be dated and therefore cannot be placed in the human evolutionary tree.
 
David Childress describes the existence of various human species 50,000 years ago or so as “like something out of Lord of the Rings,” while the narrator suggests that the existence of different human species requires a rewrite of Darwin’s theory of evolution. No one on this show understands evolution, least of all Nick Redfern, who alleges that evolution would predict “a steady, slow progression” from one species to the next. Punctuated equilibrium, proposed decades ago, has long since offered an alternative to “steady and slow,” while the existence of many related species of animals such as cats (lions, tigers, lynxes, pumas, etc.) and birds ought to be enough to prove that the earth can and did hold more than a single species of a given type at any one time.
 
The show then alleges that mythological accounts of failed first versions of humans (such as the Wood people of Mayan mythology) provides a correct account of aliens trying out a few different forms before settling on special old us. In discussing this, the show quotes nearly verbatim and without acknowledgement part of Zecharia Sitchin’s Twelfth Planet ​to the effect that “Sumerian texts, too, speak of deformed humans created by Enki and the Mother Goddess (Ninhursag) in the course of their efforts to fashion a perfect Primitive Worker.” (The text really does exist; there is a poem about Ninhursag getting drunk and creating barren women and eunuchs. It is known as “Enki and Ninmah (or Numah)” and appears in Sumerian Mythology by S. N. Kramer, from which Sitchin learned of it. A more recent translation is here. However, it is only one variation on the creation myth and is contradicted by several others.)
​
Segment 2
The second segment deals with the so-called Hobbits of Flores in Indonesia and the Denisovans in Russia. Redfern doesn’t quite understand the idea of isolated populations developing their own genetic traits, so he believes that these different species popped up independently of the rest of humanity. Here the narrator brings up the concept of punctuated equilibrium, but David Childress doesn’t quite understand what the narrator just finished saying about this view of evolution. Therefore, instead of following the narrator in suggesting that space aliens are creating the conditions that lead to sudden change, he and the other talking heads speculate whether species “come out of the incubator” on the aliens’ timetable. The narrator asserts that aliens killed off other human species to make room for us.

Segment 3
The third segment discusses Neanderthals and their relative cultural sophistication and mental acuity. Redfern alleges that aliens killed the Neanderthals to “purify” our species because humans were having too much sex with Neanderthals. George Noory says that the aliens used Noah’s Flood to do this, despite the show having literally done whole episodes devoted to placing Noah’s Flood in other time periods, specifically at the end of the last ice age.
​
Segment 4
The fourth segment deals with haplogroups, particularly haplogroup X, which is shared by people in both the Old World and the New. The show alleges that science cannot explain this (untrue: the same variant of haplogroup X occurs in native Siberians, the likely origin of Native American haplogroup X) and therefore aliens must be involved, via the Giants (the Nephilim), whom David Childress thinks were carriers of this haplogroup. This lets the show discuss the familiar old material about the Smithsonian records of giant bones, and the Adena burial mound that the show filmed back in January, and which I discussed back when they did the filming. William Henry alleges that the Smithsonian has been suppressing these reports, a claim that David Childress invented out of whole cloth in the early 1990s. Henry says that giant bones prove evolution is false, and Childress offers up the giant bones as proof that the Sons of God really did mate with human women. This is about as logical as arguing that the existence of fire proves Prometheus was real.

Segment 5
The isolated and unusual Basque language, and the Basque population’s high concentration of Rh-negative blood, are used to suggest alien intervention. This is because Rh-negative blood is incompatible with Rh-positive blood, and none of the talking heads can fathom the idea of a mutation emerging spontaneously in an area such as Europe. George Noory says that Rh-negative people “evolved” from a “different species” than other humans. This is roughly like arguing that people with blue eyes come from another planet. It’s hard to convey just how little these people understand about even the most basic high school level evolutionary concepts. However, rather than harp on it, I will instead remind you that Ancient Aliens borrowed this material from a common claim circulating among David Icke, Nick Redfern, and online clickbait sites, which in turn has also given rise to wildly racist rants.
​
Segment 6
As the show grinds to an ignominious close, David Wilcock tells us that human beings are currently undergoing rapid evolution, recycling false claims from earlier episodes that human genes are 7% different than in 3000 (or 5000) BCE. William Henry tells us that the aliens are changing us into “celestial beings” who will fly off into the stars. Linda Moulton Howe has a darker vision, and she says that we are “being replaced” by a new hybrid alien species. In other words, illegal aliens are outbreeding us into extinction and taking over our country through their fertile, fertile loins—a Trumpian notion entirely of a piece with the current political climate. 
68 Comments
Ph
7/23/2016 12:12:41 am

I am seriously in need of a dose of Richard Dawkins after that.

Reply
Time Machine
7/23/2016 03:47:50 am

Richard Dawkins reminds of a baby that was marooned on a desert island that had never heard of God, religion, miracles or The Bible,

You can only know about such crass and rubbish if you have been inculcated into it.

None of those things are a natural process of life,

Reply
Only Me
7/23/2016 12:24:19 am

Such...virtually nonexistent...understanding of evolution, mutation, environmental factors that affect them and genetics. Now I know why it's aliens. These people really don't know what they're talking about and lack both imagination and the ambition to learn.

Reply
bkd69
7/23/2016 01:39:14 am

They're actually beginning to convince me. I can see where mere humans might be unable to understand natural philosophy and all its attendant branches, without the intervention of aliens, uplifting them, and granting them the gifts of critical thought, reasoning and deduction, and even the ability to transit the boundaries between educational institutions and the rest of the planet.

Reply
TONY S.
6/29/2019 12:49:22 pm

Have you see what they've claimed about marine life? There is no branch of science these imbeciles understand in the slightest; none they won't insult with their drivel.

Reply
John
7/23/2016 04:50:28 am

"William Henry tells us that the aliens are changing us into “celestial beings” who will fly off into the stars."

It makes sense he would bring this up, since it evokes the image of Theosophy's Ascended Masters, and Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End." These idiots, yet again, have no shame.

Reply
Time Machine
7/23/2016 05:38:02 am

And the Apocalypse

Reply
David Bradbury
7/23/2016 11:27:56 am

Time Machine:
Show one example from Christian texts of the second or third century giving a reference to the Second Coming.
Supply this reference.

Time Machine
7/23/2016 11:49:32 am

The accounts of Jesus Christ given in the Gospels is given in past tense, therefore the Apocalypse is depicted as something that is going to happen in the future..

In first century Christian literature, it is mentioned in present tense. The Apocalypse is imminent in first century literature.
.

David Bradbury
7/23/2016 11:57:57 am

Time Machine, I repeat:
Show one example from Christian texts of the second or third century giving a reference to the Second Coming.
Supply this reference.

Time Machine
7/23/2016 12:01:32 pm

Matthew 24:27

David Bradbury
7/23/2016 02:39:18 pm

The synoptic tradition includes a concept "the days of the Son of Man", described in similar terms as a future event (e.g. see Luke 21:28) beginning with an arrival everywhere simultaneously, in Mark 13:24-27, Luke 21:25-27, and Matthew 24:29-31. In these synoptic Gospels, the concept is explained by Christ to his disciples, without labouring the point that these events will take place after his apparent death (though in Mark 13:34 he likens the situation to a man going away and leaving his servants to take good care of the house until he returns).

Paul, writing after the Crucifixion and Resurrection, accepts the absence, at that time, of the living Christ. In 1 Thessalonians (probably the earliest of his epistles) he explains that
(4:14) Jesus died and rose again, and God [Theos] will bring back [future tense] with him believers who have also died
(4:15) for the avoidance of doubt, the living faithful at the time of the Lord's [Kyriou] coming do not have precedence over the dead faithful in these coming events
(4:16) the descent of the Lord [refers to both Kyrios and Theou] from heaven will be of the triumphal nature described in the synoptic tradition
(4:17) the living faithful will join the Lord [Kyriou] and the dead faithful in the clouds, as described less clearly in the synoptic tradition [hence the need for 4:14-15]

The New International Version is a bit naughty with verse 4:14; translating the word for "him" ("auto", indicating "himself" i.e. God) as "Jesus". A literal reading of this Greek text in isolation leaves open the possibility that the risen Jesus is still wandering around on Earth somewhere. However, verses 1:9-10 are explicit about the need for the faithful to await Jesus the son of God, "from the heavens". In other words, from the very first chapter of his very first epistle, what Paul (followed by Matthew) calls the "parousia" ["coming"] explicitly involves a return of Jesus to earth from heaven.

Time Machine
7/23/2016 02:57:17 pm

The existence of written Gospels was first given by Justin Martyr during the second century and his quotations were not identical to what appeared later in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Evidence from the existing Church Fathers dating before Justin Martyr reveal they did recognise Gospel material.

Just to put all that what you have given into historical context.

Time Machine
7/23/2016 02:59:22 pm

>>>Paul, writing after the Crucifixion and Resurrection<<<

Never put as a historical event by Paul.
Reason behind his never mentioning the Second Coming.

David Bradbury
7/23/2016 04:04:26 pm

From the very first chapter of his very first epistle, what Paul (followed by Matthew) calls the "parousia" ["coming"] explicitly involves a return of Jesus to earth from heaven.

Time Machine
7/23/2016 04:55:16 pm

Paul refers to the Apocalypse, that was imminent.

Besides, it's impossible to harmonise Paul with the Gospels. What Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4 is not found in the Gospels.

Time Machine
7/23/2016 05:05:00 pm

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first."

Not the Second Coming.
God himself will come down.

A Buddhist
7/23/2016 06:07:54 pm

But David Bradbury, please give a verse from the undisputed verses of Paul that refer to Jesus returning, or coming a second time. I believe that my fellow anti-Ishvarist is saying that within the undisputed verses of Paul that refer to Jesus's coming, none refer to his coming a second time or returning. Does this help you to refute him?

Time Machine, although a fellow opponent of the idea of Ishvara, is not an ally to me. He should learn skillful means and realize that religious impulses are natural.

David Bradbury
7/23/2016 06:18:31 pm

From the very first chapter of his very first epistle, what Paul (followed by Matthew) calls the "parousia" ["coming"] explicitly involves a return of Jesus to earth from heaven. However, as also indicated in, for example, Mark 13:32, the return of Jesus from heaven will be initiated by the Father.

Paul's account of the Second Coming in 1 Thessalonians fits perfectly with the key concepts of the synoptic tradition: a day will arrive when God the Son (through the power of God the Father) will return to Earth and those who have remained true to him (identified by Paul, with the benefit of hindsight, as believers in his death and resurrection) will be taken up to heaven.

No date is set for this event (1 Th 5:1-3), though it is implied that it will not be beyond the lifetimes of all Paul's readers (but it feels as if Paul is attempting to backpedal a little on the synoptic tradition suggested by Mark 13:30).

David Bradbury
7/23/2016 07:08:45 pm

Dear Buddhist,

As I indicated earlier, 1 Thessalonians 4:14-15 and 1:9-10 (both generally accepted as genuine work of Paul) show, between them, that the heart of Christian belief in the time of Paul was that Jesus had died, and rose again, and was at that time in Heaven, and would at some future time come, by the power of his Father, to Earth to take the faithful to Heaven.

The text of the New Testament does not use a phrase which would literally translate as "second coming", but the lifetime which ended on the Cross is (almost) universally understood to be the First Coming, the Resurrection is understood to be a demonstration of power over death, and the above-mentioned future descent from Heaven is the Second Coming.

A Buddhist
7/23/2016 07:53:17 pm

Mr Bradbury,

Would it be fair to admit that there is no explicit reference in Paul to a Return or Second Coming? Must one, like a gandharva, create such references by stitching together the Gospels and the letters of Paul?

David Bradbury
7/23/2016 08:19:58 pm

Dear Buddhist,

No, it would not be fair. The two passages in 1 Thessalonians, taken together without any reference to the Gospels, are sufficient in themselves. Other references throughout Paul's writings make clear his belief that (a) Jesus died and was resurrected, and (b) Jesus will appear on Earth at some time in the future to judge both the living and the dead.

What is interesting about the relationship of those passages to the Gospels is that, unless Paul's writings (and indeed all other New Testament writings purporting to date from the first century) are later fakes, they imply the existence of a common core of beliefs about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, which were firmly established and spread across much of the Roman world, within the lifetime of people such as St. Peter who, unlike Paul, is stated to have participated in many of the alleged events.

A Buddhist
7/23/2016 09:34:10 pm

Mr. Bradbury,

With all due respect, I believe that we are converging upon the same set of conclusions:

According to the words attributed to Paul:

1. Jesus died.

2. Jesus rose from the dead.

2. Jesus will come to judge the world.

We also seem to agree that the following ideas, while not explicated in the writings of Paul, are implied:

1. Jesus suffered and died upon the Earth.

2. Jesus, having died upon the Earth, went to a heaven (n.b.: Paul speaks of at least three).

2. Jesus will return from that heaven to the Earth in a second coming.

Our bases for these thoughts are as follows:

1. The letters of Paul, which describe Jesus as born of a woman, of the seed of David, etc. This suggests that Jesus lived upon the Earth.

2. Gospel narratives, which place Jesus upon the Earth.

Now the distinction may be subtle (but as one who has studied criticisms of Gelugpa Buddhism, I am aware of subtleties), but based upon these data, there are three ways to construct the claim Jesus will return to Earth for a second coming:

1. Find an explicit mention from Paul to Jesus's "return" or "second coming." You admit that this is not found.

2. Create a mention from Paul to Jesus's "return" or "second coming" by stitching together the sum of what Paul says about Jesus. We both admit that this is able to be done.

2. Create a mention from Paul to Jesus's "return" or "second coming" by stitching together the sum of what Paul says about Jesus's coming and the Gospel narrative. This is very easy.

I wanted you to provide the first type of proof, but you have only provided the second. And this may seem a trivial distinction, but such trivial issues underlie many debates within Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

Time Machine
7/24/2016 03:56:51 am

A blind man with a walking stick can see there is no reference to the Second Coming of Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4. And I have cited the passage demonstrating that.

Also, the death and resurrection of Jesus within the writings of Paul is not given in historical terms - it is presented as a metaphysical-religious formula.

There is no trial, no setting in Jerusalem, no references to Pontius Pilate. What later developed into a historical narrative did not exist in Paul's lifetime.


Time Machine
7/24/2016 04:05:56 am

>>>Synoptic Tradition<<<

David Bradbury keeps merging together Pauline texts with the later second century Gospels and refuses to accept that the two very different things just cannot be harmonised.

This very same thing applies to Biblical scholars. They force the position that what is in the Gospels harmonises with what exists in the writings of Paul.

This is why Biblical scholarship is unreliable.
Biblical scholars never mention that the existence of the Gospels was first given by Justin Martyr during the second century; or that the earliest extant Gospel fragment dates from the approximate time period.

Time Machine
7/24/2016 04:27:53 am

>>>The letters of Paul, which describe Jesus as born of a woman, of the seed of David, etc. This suggests that Jesus lived upon the Earth<<<

Are you really sure these descriptions are references to history, or to speculative perfect being ?

The claim that Jesus was "of the seed of David" is far-fetched to say the least, since the Jewish Kingship of the Line of David was wiped out when the Jews were conquered by Babylon in 586 BC (II Kings, 25:7).

The Jewish Line of David was not restored following the liberation of the Jews from Babylon because there were no descendants in existence.

David Bradbury
7/24/2016 04:59:01 am

Dear Buddhist,

You will undoubtedly have noticed that in all my comments yesterday evening, I made no reference to Matthew 24:27, which according to Time Machine is an example of "Christian texts of the second or third century giving a reference to the Second Coming". That verse is part of a synoptic-style narrative answering a direct question from the disciples about the timing of the end of the world (24:3).

Like the similar narratives in Mark and Luke, this narrative predicts a time of wars, famines, false Christs etc. with particular effects upon the disciples themselves- they will be "hated of all nations" and the people will hand them over to the authorities "to be afflicted" (and in 24:9, killed). One of Paul's needs in 1 Thessalonians 4:14-15, is to clarify Matthew 24:13-14, which states that the faithful who "endure to the end" will be saved, and that after the gospel has been preached in all nations, "then shall the end come" (i.e. how can those who have been killed before "the end" endure to "the end"? [Greek "telos" in both verses]). Paul is also dealing with Matthew 24:34 which states that "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" because by his time, of course, many of Jesus' contemporaries have "passed" so demonstrably the synoptic tradition is not claiming that the generation will be physically immune from death.

All the evidence is that the synoptic Gospels reflect a synoptic tradition which is known in detail to Paul, and which he is having to explain in the light of real events over the years since the Crucifixion. Matthew 24:27 predicts the coming of the Son of Man using a term "parousia" which, unlike the "erchomenon" of Mark's version (13:26) and Luke's (21:27) implies an arrival without consideration of any preceding journey. Paul was the first to use "parousia" in that way, several times in 1 Thessalonians (as in 3:13, "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ"). If Time Machine thinks Matthew 24:27 represents your "first type of proof" he is mistaken.

David Bradbury
7/24/2016 05:09:24 am

"David Bradbury keeps merging together Pauline texts with the later second century Gospels and refuses to accept that the two very different things just cannot be harmonised."

David Bradbury is _comparing_ Pauline texts with three of the Gospels and showing that they are less different than Time Machine claims, because they are all based on common sources, which in Paul's time could be backed up by the word of living witnesses. Paul was not a witness, so he left the work of describing the events in question to those with more authority.

Time Machine
7/24/2016 05:27:08 am

>>backed up by the word of living witnesses<<

Oh dear, Christian fundamentalism.

Paul exhibits such ignorance of the events which were later allegedly recorded in the Gospels as to suggest that these events were not know to Paul or to whoever it was who wrote the letters ascribed to him. For instance, these Pauline letters have no single allusion to the parents of Jesus, let alone to the virgin birth; they never refer to the place of his birth, never call him 'of Nazareth'. They never use the title 'Son of Man', so often used in the Gospels designate Jesus and they mention none of the miracles he is supposed to have worked. They give no indication at all of the time or place of his public activities. They do not refer to his trial before a Roman official, nor do they say that his crucifixion took place at Jerusalem. They never mention John the Baptist, nor Judas, nor Peter's denial of Jesus. The latter is a particularly startling omission, since the author of Galatians opposes Peter very strongly and would surely have alluded to his treachery had he known of it.

And these points can continue on and on in relation to Paul.

David Bradbury
7/24/2016 06:21:08 am

As I stated:
"Paul was not a witness, so he left the work of describing the events in question to those with more authority."

The "son of Man" thing is interesting because its use in the Gospels (John as well as the synoptic trio) is frankly clumsy. Treating it as a genuine self-description by a historical Jesus, wishing to emphasise his status as a human being like his audience, it makes sense, but Paul, writing as a believer in the past death and resurrection of Jesus, simply takes his humanity as a logical precondition for that death to be possible.

A Buddhist
7/24/2016 08:18:43 am

Mr. Bradbury,

You seem to be switching topics. I never asked about the reason for Paul's discussion of the Coming of Jesus. Rather, I asked about a single reference in Paul to a Second Coming. You admit that such must be inferred.

Furthermore, you infer another thing: that Paul was commenting upon one of Jesus's apocalyptic discourses. This may be true, but why does Paul not say this? He repeatedly reminds his congregations that Jesus died and rose and will come to Earth, but it is puzzling that he never mentions that Jesus actively taught about a final judgement.

David Bradbury
7/24/2016 09:13:39 am

Dear Buddhist,

I asked Time Machine to provide a reference to a Second Coming. The reference provided required the "Second" to be inferred. The phrase "second coming" (or any potential Greek version thereof) is not used in the New Testament.

I have given a simple reason why Paul did not say things he did not say, namely that he was not personally qualified to expatiate on the details of Jesus' life. There is, however, also a more subtle reason: so close to the events yet so widely scattered in space, different Christian congregations were receiving different parts of the story. The written Gospels unquestionably date from after the time of Paul, but that does not mean that the accounts from which they were compiled were all unknown to Paul; equally, however, it is clear from the existence of John's Gospel and other non-synoptic materials that there was nobody in possession of a wholly definitive set of information about the life and teachings of Jesus, and Paul could not assume that a reference to "the parable of the wise and foolish virgins" would be meaningful to any given congregation.

Time Machine very consistently fails to take proper account of the time and space elements of the early development of Christianity.

Time Machine
7/24/2016 09:28:21 am

>>>"Paul was not a witness, so he left the work of describing the events in question to those with more authority."<<<

Simple minded rubbish
And there are no such things in existence as Archangels.

The year will be 20016, not 2016 and still there will be no Second Coming because Christianity is just another religion.

A poorly contrived religion comprised of paranormal phenomena and supernatural events that are the product of an imagination inspired by psychedelics.


Time Machine
7/24/2016 09:35:44 am

Jesus Christ was another rebooted version of the Son of Man theology within Judaism that originated in the Book of Daniel.

Paul does not give a historical setting to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus - Paul presents that as a religious formula precipitating the Apocalypse. The Coming.

It seems that there were those in Judaea that believed in the "seed of David" in the first century because an inscription on an ossuary was found to that effect. But the possibility that belief could be backed up with historical evidence is impossible.

David Bradbury
7/24/2016 10:38:50 am

"The year will be 20016, not 2016 and still there will be no Second Coming because Christianity is just another religion."

At last something on which we agree. I am, for all practical purposes, an atheist.

Time Machine
7/24/2016 02:54:07 pm

Forget the atheist rubbish

Perhaps you will also agree that Paul did not believe in a physical resurrection - and because Paul's Jesus was incorporeal that was why his writings were deemed important to the Gnostics,

1 Corinthians 15:50

I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory”

David Bradbury
7/24/2016 03:49:48 pm

"Paul did not believe in a physical resurrection - and because Paul's Jesus was incorporeal that was why his writings were deemed important to the Gnostics,"

Really dumb non-sequitur there.

Time Machine
7/25/2016 04:48:42 am

I just provided one example from Paul's writings. There are many more examples. The attempt to harmonise Paul with the Gospels is only made by the most extreme Christian fundamentalists (although it should be also noted that extreme fundamentalists hate the writings by Paul, there are two categories).

The link between Paul and Gnosticism has been written about by Elaine Pagels and James M. Robinson.

Christian fundamentalists would have us believe that Gnosticism originated during the 3rd century. In fact, early Church fathers like Justin Martyr and Ignatius of Antioch were combatting Gnosticism long before then, and it resurfaced later in the form of Bogomilism and Catharism and had to be suppressed by crusades - the very first crusade was against the Cathars, not Islam.

Such was the considered threat that not one important Bogomil or Cathar text has survived.

These Christian groups all rejected the physical substance of Christ.

David Bradbury
7/25/2016 08:14:22 am

The non-sequitur remains dumb. You have not understood Paul's function (or his brilliance).

Clete
7/23/2016 11:53:18 am

I can believe in the concept of Aliens continuing to monitor us, their creation, and sometimes making mistakes. That would explain Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Ozzy Osbourne and the Kardasians.

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Clete
7/23/2016 12:08:57 pm

Time Machine...The topic tonight is delivery times for Domino's Pizza in Orange county, California. Could you turn that into your normal, repetitive anti Bible, anti-religious rant.

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Kathleen
7/23/2016 01:35:26 pm

If you ate one last week and then ordered one today, wouldn't the arrival of that pizza be the Second Coming?

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justanotherskeptic
7/24/2016 05:00:55 pm

A second coming would require the first pizza to resurrect.

Sha
7/23/2016 12:56:58 pm

I caught a few minutes of this yesterday and pretty much screamed at my TV about how they didn't understand even the most basic anthropology, biology, and science in general. Then I gave up and settled on Ice Age: Continental Drift. Surprisingly, that movie felt more scientifically accurate, even though it featured a squirrel causing the break up of Pangaea by bouncing around the Earth's core.

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Shane Sullivan
7/23/2016 01:53:23 pm

Gotta love how William Henry thinks people who are seven feet tall don't fit into our evolutionary model.

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V
7/23/2016 03:12:45 pm

"The narrator asserts that aliens killed off other human species to make room for us."

Took quite a while on that little project, didn't they? I mean, modern H. Sap. and Neandertalensis overlapped for anywhere from two to twenty THOUSAND years. Aliens can't work faster than that?

Also, as to the RH- factor, this is something personally relevant to me (I'm a universal donor--O neg), so I took it upon myself to look into this, and there are apparently multiple ways to wind up with a negative RH factor, and the one that is most common in European and African populations--that is, the most common way for a European or African to be Rh- --almost definitely occurred millions of years ago....and it's very definitely part of typical HUMAN DNA, not a sign of a different species breeding together.

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crainey
7/23/2016 04:53:19 pm

I haven't been watching the show recently but I did catch this one (probably becasue the RNC convention was over and I needed my daily dose of dread.) They stated that H. Sapien and Neanderthalensis overlapped by 1000 years. Wow! That is pretty exact for pre-history. Also the whole alien hybrid thing took me back to the X-Files. I should have just dug out my old DVD of Planet of the Apes instead. (In fact the whole series could have replaced the RNC convention and I'd probably end up feeling better about the future than I do now.)

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Shane Sullivan
7/23/2016 05:32:58 pm

Yeah, that thing about overlap was a little misleading. I assume they meant modern humans and Neanderthals interacted, or at least lived in the same areas, for about 1,000 years; the species actually overlapped chronologically for about 160,000.

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Titus pullo
7/23/2016 05:47:13 pm

Come on Jason the tie in to trump was lacking in logic. Trump isn't the neocon here making the world safe for democracy Goldman Sachs and cronyism. That's Clinton. And he makes good points on trade. Unless you are ready to end tariffs and more importantly end currency pegs it's really mercantilism not free trade. His tendency to be mistaken on the failed war on drugs does concern me but the dystopian narrative was created by the dnc and quickly adopted by the statist press. You are smarter than to take that propaganda. If Bernie had railed against big business crony banks and an out of control fed pull u say he was threatening neoliberalism? Trump is a very flawed messenger but elites on both sides have created a kleptocracy where if u are well connected u do very well. Peter Thiel speech was very good. The so called enlightened classes cling to failed economic theories and justifications that they know best. Turns out they don't. Sound money, free markets, limited govt and peace (no more stupid wars instigated by neocons) are the policies we need. Trump might come off as short but my kids have less chance to be sent to the middle east to fight and die for lets be honest liberals who have other nations on the brain. How many thousands has trump killed in Libya or in Yemen? Liberalism becomes totalitarianism because it must be instituted by force.

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Jason Colavito link
7/23/2016 06:36:30 pm

Trump's policies (or lack thereof) are not the issue, but rather the deep risk he poses to the very concept of liberal democracy through his own hostility toward its norms and values. He's a wannabe strongman limited only by his own laziness.

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Jennygirl00
7/26/2016 05:46:52 am

I totally agree with ur comments on Trump. I don't think he actually graps what the presidents job is. A president doesn't come in and say I want this, that and this to happen. He's clueless. The president if he does want something passed he has to convince the house and senate that what he wants even deserves a bill to be written up sent thru congress and by it gets back to the president the bill usually looks totally different than what was presented initially. Trumps not used to working in an environment where what he wants he most likely won't get. Oh I'm sure he's thinking I'll get what i want thru executive order .. Yea good luck with that trump. He's just a joke. Imagine him meeting with world leaders. He could set our country back in a time wen we need to move forward. What does he know about making policy. He knows how to get lobbyists to do his bidding. I just think if he did get elected it would be so bad for America and depending on what damage he does we could be stuck paying for it for years to come.

V
7/24/2016 01:44:09 pm

*snort* No, your kids would have a much greater chance of being part of concentration camps and war crimes, or victims of World War III, with Trump in charge, because the man's idea of diplomacy is to go out of his way to piss people off.

And I judge this not by what the media has to say but by his very own words coming out of his very own mouth. As for "How many thousands has he killed in Libya or in Yemen," uh, that's kind of an unfair question, seeing as how he has ZERO political experience and therefore ZERO chance to control military movements. But other actions of his leave me feeling that should he get into office, you'll see a nice high body count--possibly domestically as well as in the foreign arena.

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Time Machine
7/25/2016 04:21:09 am

Some pea-brained woman with an IQ of 49 interested in UFOs will not pose an electoral threat to Donald Trump, the future president.

And V is a bullshitter for that reason.

Thegrim
7/23/2016 07:44:06 pm

What the f does Trump have to do with this episode you Clinton supporting idiot?

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Jason Colavito link
7/23/2016 07:53:45 pm

Well, if we must be literal about it, nothing, which is why I discussed the thematic connection between the decline of the old political and social order and the rise of fear-mongering ideologies. But, in a more literal sense: Erich von Daniken has advocated for politically conservative politicians (even trying--and failing--to advise Gerald Ford on using UFOs to win reelection) and the ancient astronaut theory as developed through him took on a number of conservative casts, distinct from the socialist/liberal version that predominated in the 1950s and early 1960s.

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A Buddhist
7/23/2016 10:07:48 pm

What is a conservative? and a liberal? these are merely labels that try and fail to reduce complex policy positions into one-word category members.

Socialist has meaning, as does free market capitalist. But liberal? conservative? One who has been raised to think that liberal is good and conservative bad will condemn bad policies as liberal and vice versa.

Truly, we create god-demons in our image: many want their god-demons to have a scientific veneer, so they make them aliens.

Time Machine
7/24/2016 04:10:23 am

Donald Trump will be the next American President. Trump has already been nominated as the official Republican candidate.

Some pea-brained woman with an IQ of 49 will not pose an electoral threat to Trump.

GEE
7/23/2016 08:16:06 pm

I just watched the episode, and then read through your work Jason, brilliant as usual.. and it seems that I am an Alien, because, I do indeed have RH- Blood. I was so interested in this segment and how it related to the subject of the show. Thegrim, if you actually read the article, you wouldn't of asked such a stupid question with such hostility. Or are you just hear to annoy us ?

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John
7/23/2016 09:58:22 pm

GEE, I saw your post on Andy's blog and didn't know if you got the link to the Amazon fiasco. Here it is:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1LR8R024WZH7D/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0878393129&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=#wasThisHelpful

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GEE
7/24/2016 08:57:28 pm

I did John thank you! I replied on the other blog!!

A C
7/24/2016 10:05:54 am

The 'Enki and Ninmah' story has nothing to do with human origins. Its about the ordering of society and social care for invalids. The point of the story is that the god of wisdom and civilisation can find uses for the natural world's mistakes.

This episode's association of invalids with 'extra-terrestrials' is worryingly close to the use of fairy changeling myths to justify infanticide. Even if the writers may be too stupid to be aware of what they're doing.

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V
7/24/2016 01:37:58 pm

AC, most creation myths do in face contain some form of myth that talks about the origins of societal structure, as well. In the Greek, it includes the Pandora myth, which no one claims is what created mankind, only the ills that mankind faces. In Norse mythology, it's the story of Heimdall and the three different couples he gave children to, creating the three basic classes of Norse society. In Japanese mythology, it's the story of Amaterasu's grandson and Three Sacred Treasures. None of these stories start out with "And in the beginning, all was chaos/darkness/emptiness/whatever," but they're all part of the creation myth cycles of their cultures.

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justanotherskeptic
7/24/2016 05:12:51 pm

My mom was Rh negative. Does that make me a partial alien? Doubtful as I have no desire to fool with evolution.

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Only Me
7/24/2016 06:04:26 pm

I guess you're one of those new hybrid alien species meant to replace humanity.

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GEE
7/24/2016 09:01:03 pm

@just another skeptic, you can't have partial RH - blood, it's either all or nothing. During the show they stayed that pregnant mothers need medical intervention, you cannot mix the RH - with the new baby's blood, the baby is at risk of dying. This is a true fact as I have two of my own children.

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John (the other one)
7/25/2016 10:26:08 am

So weird when Time Machine takes on the alter ego of The Buddhist. Perhaps one Internet Troll being is not big enough for the over-opionated and under-educated ego of the Time Machine.

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Jennygirl00
7/26/2016 07:05:37 am

Ancient aliens == The Prototypes
This episode just make it more clear how much the ancient alien theory gets more and more out there. Ok so mainstream science is finding evidence to support there were a lot more pre homo species than previously thought, but this is good news it helps us figure our past better with each discovery. In recent scientific research, they've found that the people who lived in the high altitude areas near Everest, the people who lived in the Mustang Region (also a high altitude civilization) and certain people in high altitudes near Tibet all have this common high altitude gene. These people are the only people on earth who have this gene which allows them to live in the extremely high altitudes with no medical problems. The only other place they've found this gene is in the pre human group known as the Denisovans . The only way the Denisovans could have passed this gene to the Homo sapien groups would have been by intermingling. At first it was probably done against the Homo sapiens wishes but after generations of intermingling just like elsewhere around the world the Denisovans were taken over by the Homo sapiens and the one characteristic that the Homo sapiens kept from the Denisovans was this high altitude gene. This had been scientifically proven. So if it happened here then it makes sense that it must have happened elsewhere around the world. I'm sure that's why people with that blood type that's not compatible with most blood types on earth must have acquired it from one of these other pre homo sapien groups that ended up in the same situation the Denisovans got into with the Homo sapiens they encountered in those high altitude areas I talked about above.

This is real science and it seems the more mainstream science finds the more ancient aliens dismisses them for more and more outlandish things then they've ever put out.

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Palpie
7/30/2016 01:04:14 am

"William Henry tells us that the aliens are changing us into “celestial beings” who will fly off into the stars. Linda Moulton Howe has a darker vision, and she says that we are “being replaced” by a new hybrid alien species."

So henry has read childhoods end (or watched the syfy miniseries) and lmh has watched the xfiles. Even their wacky conspiracy theories are unoriginal and recycled from more creative minds.

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