Dear Friends,
Paste/click the links if you can't access the videos/links.
Part I
http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2009/12/richard-dawkins-ancient-astronaut.html
Part II
http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2010/07/richard-dawkins-ancient-astronaut.html
And notice in part I the use of the ending in Mission To Mars...
Be Well.
David
Richard Dawkins, Ancient Astronaut Theorist?: Part 2
A few months back we looked at a fascinating statement made by Richard Dawkins that went something like this:
"It could be that at some earlier time somewhere in the universe a civilization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet."
It's a good thing Dawkins chose to utter this heresy in Ben Stein's Expelled documentary, since it's a lead pipe cinch that none of his followers would go anywhere near the film. But an anonymous tipster wrote to me and turned me onto this cheeky bit of naughtiness in Dawkins' bestseller, The God Delusion. In Chapter 5 the professor muses upon the 'cargo cult' phenomenon, which was so crucial in the life and work of Erich Von Daniken:
In The Life of Brian, one of the many things the Monty Python team got right was the extreme rapidity with which a new religious cult can get started. It can spring up almost overnight and then become incorporated into a culture, where it plays a disquietingly dominant role. The 'cargo cults' of Pacific Melanesia and New Guinea provide the most famous real life example.
After recounting how these cults arose out of tribal peoples' contact with advanced technology they had no exposure to, Dawkins starts to get quite cheeky indeed:
The entire history of some of these cults, from initiation to expiry, is wrapped up within living memory. Unlike the cult of Jesus, the origins of which are not reliably attested, we can see the whole course of events laid out before our eyes (and even here, as we shall see, some details are now lost). It is fascinating to guess that the cult of Christianity almost certainly began in very much the same way, and spread initially at the same high speed.
Now, it all undoubtedly slid past his readers, but Dawkins is saying here that Christianity "began the same way" as the cargo cults. Which, as he exhaustively explains in this chapter, arose from native peoples' exposure to superior alien technology (the aliens being Europeans in this context). As he says here:
It seems that in every case the islanders were bowled over by the wondrous possessions of the white immigrants to their islands, including administrators, soldiers and missionaries. They were perhaps the victims of (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law, which I quoted in Chapter 2: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'
Now isn't that a fascinating little juxtaposition? Quoting the author of the the world's most acclaimed Ancient-Astronaut narrative (2001: A Space Odyssey, for those new to all of this) shortly after claiming that the cult of the god-man Jesus "began the same way" as the cargo cults! As Eric Idle once said, "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Say no more, say no more."
And just in case you missed Richard's inference the first time, he repeats it:
Fourth, the cargo cults are similar, not just to each other but to older religions. Christianity and other ancient religions that have spread worldwide presumably began as local cults like that of John Frum.
The cargo cults which- and I'll state this until the cows come home- began when a primitive people encountered a technologically superior civilization.
After making quite a bit of the cargo cults, Dawkins then writes:
I don't want to make too much of the cargo cults of the South Pacific. But they do provide a fascinating contemporary model for the way religions spring up from almost nothing.
Which, as Richard goes to great pains to explain, were the result of contact with a technologically-superior alien civilization.
What a cheeky little devil, indeed!
Or maybe not. We've already discussed the directed panspermia theories of Francis Crick, and yet another prominent British scientist is wandering off of Randi's Reservation:
One suggestion, by the physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, is that life might have arrived here from the planet Mars, which was once rather more benign than Earth, being smaller and receiving fewer 'hits' from space debris.
In which case, we are all Martians and should be looking for fossils of our ancient ancestors on the Red Planet.
Davies, whose new book, The Eerie Silence, comprehensively tackles the question of ET, thinks that perhaps a radio search is not the way to go. Maybe, instead, we should look for direct evidence that aliens have visited our neck of the galactic woods in the past.
Which people like Richard Hoagland have been saying for nearly 40 years now. Now, I'm sure there will be those who'll tell me what Dawkins et al really mean, but for now I'll have to be content to go by what they actually said.
Richard Dawkins - Ancient Astronaut Theorist?
I don't know how I didn't hear about this earlier*, but Ben Stein coaxed a fascinating confession out of Darwinist rock star Richard Dawkins- that it's possible that life could have been seeded here from an intelligent civilization from elsewhere in the Universe. Astounding.
Money quote:
It could be that at some earlier time somewhere in the universe a civillization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now that is a possibility and an intriguing possibility and I suppose it’s possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry or molecular biology you might find a signature of some sort of designer.
Mind you, I don't know or care what Stein's agenda is here but for Dawkins to even admit to the possibility - something that is even more verboten in scientific circles than Creationism - is astonishing. Well, it shouldn't be, since AAT was widely discussed up until the rise of the Religious Right in the mid-70s, when it vanished entirely from the mainstream media. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that's not coincidental.
This also puts yet another statement on alien DNA from Francis Crick in a whole new light.
“Is it possible,” I asked Crick, when I reached him at the Salk Institute in San Diego, California, “that our DNA came from another planet?”
“I published that theory twenty-five years ago,” said Crick. “I called it Directed Panspermia.”
“Do you think it arrived in a meteor or comet?” I asked.
“No,” said Crick. “Anything living would have died in such an accidental journey through space.
“Are you saying that DNA was sent here in a vehicle?” I asked.
“It’s the only possibility,” said Crick.
The only possibility, in the words of the man who discovered DNA.
What must be remembered here is that the mass media- in close concert with their coadjutors in the scientific and religious establishments- have gone out of their way to ridicule and vilify AAT, for the past 30 years at least. Crick was obviously slapped down hard and later back-tracked from these kinds of statements.
But I've been saying for some time now (and said on William Henry's program yesterday) that the symbols seem to indicate that this theory may be tightly held behind some very interesting closed doors, and perhaps Dawkins' slip here is more revealing than Stein could imagine.
Then there's this sequence, from one of the few big sci-fi films that NASA has directly cooperated in the making of. And let's not forget that the US Air Force was closely involved in the making of the Stargate SG-1 TV series, despite the fact that the Religious Right has a very tight stranglehold on that branch of the military. There was also cooperation with various military services in the making of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Although it must be said that none of those productions would inspire anyone to take the topic seriously- quite the opposite, in fact. Maybe that's the intent, who knows.
However, it's beyond debate that there is a tremendous infrastructure being put into orbit, scanning the skies. For what? Nebulae, black holes, distant stardust? Sure, that's all very interesting but doesn't justify the enormous sums being spent. They're looking for someone, there's no question about it. Which is why these stories of earth-like planets get such big headlines.
How fascinating how far ahead of the curve the Vatican is here, perhaps because they have access to all those obscure ancient texts that were hidden away during the reigns of terror of emperors like Theodosius and Justinian.
2009 was a fascinating year in so many ways. Maybe 2010 will be even more so...
Paste/click the links if you can't access the videos/links.
Part I
http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2009/12/richard-dawkins-ancient-astronaut.html
Part II
http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2010/07/richard-dawkins-ancient-astronaut.html
And notice in part I the use of the ending in Mission To Mars...
Be Well.
David
Richard Dawkins, Ancient Astronaut Theorist?: Part 2
A few months back we looked at a fascinating statement made by Richard Dawkins that went something like this:
"It could be that at some earlier time somewhere in the universe a civilization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet."
It's a good thing Dawkins chose to utter this heresy in Ben Stein's Expelled documentary, since it's a lead pipe cinch that none of his followers would go anywhere near the film. But an anonymous tipster wrote to me and turned me onto this cheeky bit of naughtiness in Dawkins' bestseller, The God Delusion. In Chapter 5 the professor muses upon the 'cargo cult' phenomenon, which was so crucial in the life and work of Erich Von Daniken:
In The Life of Brian, one of the many things the Monty Python team got right was the extreme rapidity with which a new religious cult can get started. It can spring up almost overnight and then become incorporated into a culture, where it plays a disquietingly dominant role. The 'cargo cults' of Pacific Melanesia and New Guinea provide the most famous real life example.
After recounting how these cults arose out of tribal peoples' contact with advanced technology they had no exposure to, Dawkins starts to get quite cheeky indeed:
The entire history of some of these cults, from initiation to expiry, is wrapped up within living memory. Unlike the cult of Jesus, the origins of which are not reliably attested, we can see the whole course of events laid out before our eyes (and even here, as we shall see, some details are now lost). It is fascinating to guess that the cult of Christianity almost certainly began in very much the same way, and spread initially at the same high speed.
Now, it all undoubtedly slid past his readers, but Dawkins is saying here that Christianity "began the same way" as the cargo cults. Which, as he exhaustively explains in this chapter, arose from native peoples' exposure to superior alien technology (the aliens being Europeans in this context). As he says here:
It seems that in every case the islanders were bowled over by the wondrous possessions of the white immigrants to their islands, including administrators, soldiers and missionaries. They were perhaps the victims of (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law, which I quoted in Chapter 2: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'
Now isn't that a fascinating little juxtaposition? Quoting the author of the the world's most acclaimed Ancient-Astronaut narrative (2001: A Space Odyssey, for those new to all of this) shortly after claiming that the cult of the god-man Jesus "began the same way" as the cargo cults! As Eric Idle once said, "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Say no more, say no more."
And just in case you missed Richard's inference the first time, he repeats it:
Fourth, the cargo cults are similar, not just to each other but to older religions. Christianity and other ancient religions that have spread worldwide presumably began as local cults like that of John Frum.
The cargo cults which- and I'll state this until the cows come home- began when a primitive people encountered a technologically superior civilization.
After making quite a bit of the cargo cults, Dawkins then writes:
I don't want to make too much of the cargo cults of the South Pacific. But they do provide a fascinating contemporary model for the way religions spring up from almost nothing.
Which, as Richard goes to great pains to explain, were the result of contact with a technologically-superior alien civilization.
What a cheeky little devil, indeed!
Or maybe not. We've already discussed the directed panspermia theories of Francis Crick, and yet another prominent British scientist is wandering off of Randi's Reservation:
One suggestion, by the physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, is that life might have arrived here from the planet Mars, which was once rather more benign than Earth, being smaller and receiving fewer 'hits' from space debris.
In which case, we are all Martians and should be looking for fossils of our ancient ancestors on the Red Planet.
Davies, whose new book, The Eerie Silence, comprehensively tackles the question of ET, thinks that perhaps a radio search is not the way to go. Maybe, instead, we should look for direct evidence that aliens have visited our neck of the galactic woods in the past.
Which people like Richard Hoagland have been saying for nearly 40 years now. Now, I'm sure there will be those who'll tell me what Dawkins et al really mean, but for now I'll have to be content to go by what they actually said.
Richard Dawkins - Ancient Astronaut Theorist?
I don't know how I didn't hear about this earlier*, but Ben Stein coaxed a fascinating confession out of Darwinist rock star Richard Dawkins- that it's possible that life could have been seeded here from an intelligent civilization from elsewhere in the Universe. Astounding.
Money quote:
It could be that at some earlier time somewhere in the universe a civillization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now that is a possibility and an intriguing possibility and I suppose it’s possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry or molecular biology you might find a signature of some sort of designer.
Mind you, I don't know or care what Stein's agenda is here but for Dawkins to even admit to the possibility - something that is even more verboten in scientific circles than Creationism - is astonishing. Well, it shouldn't be, since AAT was widely discussed up until the rise of the Religious Right in the mid-70s, when it vanished entirely from the mainstream media. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that's not coincidental.
This also puts yet another statement on alien DNA from Francis Crick in a whole new light.
“Is it possible,” I asked Crick, when I reached him at the Salk Institute in San Diego, California, “that our DNA came from another planet?”
“I published that theory twenty-five years ago,” said Crick. “I called it Directed Panspermia.”
“Do you think it arrived in a meteor or comet?” I asked.
“No,” said Crick. “Anything living would have died in such an accidental journey through space.
“Are you saying that DNA was sent here in a vehicle?” I asked.
“It’s the only possibility,” said Crick.
The only possibility, in the words of the man who discovered DNA.
What must be remembered here is that the mass media- in close concert with their coadjutors in the scientific and religious establishments- have gone out of their way to ridicule and vilify AAT, for the past 30 years at least. Crick was obviously slapped down hard and later back-tracked from these kinds of statements.
But I've been saying for some time now (and said on William Henry's program yesterday) that the symbols seem to indicate that this theory may be tightly held behind some very interesting closed doors, and perhaps Dawkins' slip here is more revealing than Stein could imagine.
Then there's this sequence, from one of the few big sci-fi films that NASA has directly cooperated in the making of. And let's not forget that the US Air Force was closely involved in the making of the Stargate SG-1 TV series, despite the fact that the Religious Right has a very tight stranglehold on that branch of the military. There was also cooperation with various military services in the making of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Although it must be said that none of those productions would inspire anyone to take the topic seriously- quite the opposite, in fact. Maybe that's the intent, who knows.
However, it's beyond debate that there is a tremendous infrastructure being put into orbit, scanning the skies. For what? Nebulae, black holes, distant stardust? Sure, that's all very interesting but doesn't justify the enormous sums being spent. They're looking for someone, there's no question about it. Which is why these stories of earth-like planets get such big headlines.
How fascinating how far ahead of the curve the Vatican is here, perhaps because they have access to all those obscure ancient texts that were hidden away during the reigns of terror of emperors like Theodosius and Justinian.
2009 was a fascinating year in so many ways. Maybe 2010 will be even more so...
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