Hearing Voices

I've just been busy. Sorry. I get all sorts of interesting ideas, but they're fleeting, and if I don't bother to remember them, they're gone. But let me share two quick ones. I could develop them, of course, but as I say, I'm busy, and want to get to work.

First, though, consider how Islam rose during the deepest of the Dark Age in the West. Forget about Rome -- it was an insignificant backwater, relatively speaking, that mattered only because pilgrims counted it as a holy place. Its claim to fame was that it possessed the True Cross ... worth the trip. As for Constantinople, it offered nothing but a continuation of forms. What the Emperor Heraclius won from the Persians, he promptly lost to the newly invented Mohammadans. A vitiated empire verses a vital one. No contest.

Point is, under a different leader, or with some different general, or in an earlier century, the world would remember Mohammad only as an obscurity. It was not the greatness of his message. The deserts are full of prophets. It was the timing. Unless, of course, you choose to see the hand of providence at work.

The other thing I thought about, on my drive home tonight, is SETI. The aggregate search under various aegises for extraterrestrial intelligence. Mostly looking for radio signals. Well, it's a neat-o idea, if the premises are correct. How old is the universe now? Sixteen billion years? It keeps on changing, and I've stopped paying attention. Oh, I see that now it's about 13.5 billion years old. Okay. So it takes about 4 billion years, on average, for life to Evolve randomly from slimepools into mastery of radiowaves. How long will that mastery be useful, before such and such a civilization Evolves out of a need for such a primitive radio technology -- say, into a mastery of satellites and internets? Radio, for crum's sake. It might as well be steam engines. Referring to our vast data base, we see that outgrowing Marconi takes something over a hundred years.

Well, the math is turning out to be too hard and confusing for me. Let's just say that there is an infinitesimally small window of likelihood, wherein we ourselves might find the sort of evidence that SETI is capable of looking for. And yet, it occurred to me, tonight, that we would indeed find such evidence.

I don't know if there are ET civilizations. I have a pretty specific theology, that understands that the universe is, effectively, infinite -- created that way by God, for a purpose. Humanity, too, is infinite, and eternal. We call it the Resurrection. What will we do, for eternity, in immortal and perfect bodies? Remain on this planet forever? Well, some of course will remain in Hell forever. But it seems to be part of our nature, to explore, if we have the freedom. What better universe for infinite lives, than infinite space, filled, perhaps, with planets? I'm not sure -- it just makes sense.

And perhaps in this universe, God created other intelligent life forms. Their fate will be different than ours. It is for us, after all, that the one and only Son came, and became forever a Man, and died, and rose. Orthodox Christian theology. If there are other intelligent species in the universe, they did not fall, or there is some other mechanism for salvation, or they are lost. How would I know? I do know there are fallen creatures, though. Fallen angels, who had their chance, and rebelled.

There are enemies, spiritual enemies of mankind. They have extradimensional power, which amounts to extraterrestrial. If there are actual UFOs, I believe they are artifacts of such entities. And I suppose, deceivers that they are, they will, eventually, utilize SETI as part of an organized deception, so great that even the Elect would be deceived, is it were possible. Wouldn't you? If you were the enemy of mankind, well, SETI amounts to just another, newer, prophetic voice. Witches and mediums and channelers and gurus and prophets all have the same message -- God is not God. Some other god is god. Why not add SETI to the choir? Propaganda doesn't discriminate.

So those are two quick little ideas I had. I share them because I don't want you to feel neglected. Now I've got to let you go. Things to do.


J