Answers in Genesis promotes UFO book, aliens are really demons

[TwinCrier]

Well, if the Garden were literal, it was guarded by two angels, and thus presumably kept in it's original condition, with the two trees, etc. And since the person who would require a literal Garden would usually be the person who also took the names of the rivers seriously, that would mean it was in Iraq or possibly northern "mesopotamia". If such a Garden were in our universe, our physical plane of existence, and it was literal and still there, it would be there for us to find, but it is not. Now, it could be that it had been in that area and then the act of closing off the Garden involved, or was symbolic or figurative language for, His moving the Garden from our physical universe to another plane of existence, the spiritual realm, another universe, however you want to describe it.

Don't you suppose after several thousand years without Adam and Eve to "dress it and keep it" that it would have become overgroen with weeds, the trees would have died and someone would have built a Super Wal-mart over it by now? Besides you can't take the names of the rivers literally because Genesis isn't literal, according to you.

 

[Windmill]

Here is the link to a book promoted on the AiG site, which they say is information every Christian should have:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/alienintrusion.asp

In the book:

Bates contends that aliens are actually fallen angels who are
not extraterrestrial in nature, but rather interdimensional.
He said he is troubled by the idea of "benevolent ETs," that
has been propagated in the UFO literature, and questioned how
aliens could be abducting people for any helpful purpose.

He noted that some people had been able to stop alien abductions
from taking place (as described at alienresistance.org) by
invoking the name of Christ. He suggested that this lends
credence to the idea that the aliens are demonic in nature,
and thus susceptible to invocations that run counter to them.
He concluded that some Christians have been abducted, but those
that adhere to a literal interpretation of the Bible are not.
Further, Bates believes that abductees are not being taken up
into actual spaceships, but rather being "supplanted" with these
images.

<http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2005/02/17.html>


*sigh*

And this is view that many non-Christians have of us.

(Sorry if I'm ignoring any previous discussion, I'd just like to answer this thanks)
There are many christian demoniations that believe this, you know, I'm an adventist, this has been taught to me when I was younger, and there is much evidence that this is indeed correct.... its kinda insulting you saying that "this is the view non christians have of us" when for some of us... we actually do think that

 

[SBG]

(Sorry if I'm ignoring any previous discussion, I'd just like to answer this thanks)
There are many christian demoniations that believe this, you know, I'm an adventist, this has been taught to me when I was younger, and there is much evidence that this is indeed correct.... its kinda insulting you saying that "this is the view non christians have of us" when for some of us... we actually do think that

I have yet to see Vance ever apologize to anyone here. It is not that he means to hurt anyone, he just lets his pride get the best of him.

I apologize for the insult you have taken. Sometimes we just don't think about what we say here. I am sure he didn't mean to insult you personally.

This can be a rather ugly place, as there is a real war here between people who want to reinterpret Scripture to fit with today's wisdom and other people who want to uphold the doctrine originally established with the Church by Jesus Christ, the Apostles and the Church Fathers.

 

[SBG]

Don't you suppose after several thousand years without Adam and Eve to "dress it and keep it" that it would have become overgroen with weeds, the trees would have died and someone would have built a Super Wal-mart over it by now? Besides you can't take the names of the rivers literally because Genesis isn't literal, according to you.

 

[Remus]

I ordered this book yesterday. If some of the reviews that I’ve read are accurate, then this book might be perfect for a friend that I have. I’ve been working with him and he’s well on his way to accepting Christ, but he still firmly believes in aliens from personal experience (nothing major). He gets upset if I even suggest that his experiences were not real. So, I’ll read it myself and see if it’s worth suggesting it to him.

 

[SBG]

Awesome. Some good came out of this thread after all.

 

[SBG]

Have you had the chance to start reading it yet or look more into what is being said on it?

 

[Remus]

I had to mail order it. Hopefully it'll get here early next week. Amazon has some reviews on it that are interesting, but hard to get a really good feel for the book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cu...omer-reviews.sort_by=-SubmissionDate&n=283155

 

[SBG]

Looks like it had a lot of good reviews there at amazon. If only some people here had actually tried to give it a chance before condeming it. Oh well.

 

[Remus]

Looks like it had a lot of good reviews there at amazon. If only some people here had actually tried to give it a chance before condeming it. Oh well.

Aye, I know what you mean. I'll try to post something about it after I read it.

 

[Vance]

Well, yes, SBG, I have indeed apologized on this forum when I found out that people had taken offense to something I said. In this case, it never occurred to me when posting the OP that ANYONE on these forums could actually hold such beliefs, so the idea of it offending anyone did not occur to me. If any actually hold such beliefs, and were thus offended, then of course, I apologize for inadvertently causing offense. But my grief for the state of Christianity is heightened.

Regardless of what the book says, it is the promotion of the book that is the problem, as I have expressed. It does, indeed, on its face, associate Christianity with UFO'ology without the inkling that it is arguing that such phenomenon does not actually occur. This is simply a tease, getting people interesting in UFO's to buy the book, which I find a disengenuous way of promoting a book. Further, to the extent the book actually associates demon activity with alien abduction phenomenon, I find this a dangerous throw-back to the day in which Christians associated demon activity with everything from epilepsy to yawning in church.

This is akin to the "god of the gaps" error, in which we associate supernatural agencies to everything which we don't understand, or for which there does not seem to be a natural explanation. If a given "God-filled gap" is then explained naturally, this is actually a blow to the existence of the supernatural in ANY instance in the eyes of the unbeliever.

High level of potential damage, from the promotion AND the content (if that is his premise), with very little I can see that would redeem it. If Remus can come back and give a review in the author's defense that would be fine, showing that the content is so helpful, does NOT contain such associations, etc, then fine. But this will still not excuse the method of promotion of the book.

 

[Remus]

In this case, it never occurred to me when posting the OP that ANYONE on these forums could actually hold such beliefs, so the idea of it offending anyone did not occur to me. If any actually hold such beliefs, and were thus offended, then of course, I apologize for inadvertently causing offense.

It's okay to say offensive things if no one hears them?

But my grief for the state of Christianity is heightened.

Regardless of what the book says, it is the promotion of the book that is the problem, as I have expressed.

I thought we covered that. You know, the part where the promotion on AiG doesn't say anything about demons. Was there some other part that you had a problem with?

It does, indeed, on its face, associate Christianity with UFO'ology without the inkling that it is arguing that such phenomenon does not actually occur.

Please show me where it's associating Christianity with UFO'ology.

This is simply a tease, getting people interesting in UFO's to buy the book, which I find a disengenuous way of promoting a book.

So they are trying to attract a target audience. Wow, now that's evil!

Further, to the extent the book actually associates demon activity with alien abduction phenomenon, I find this a dangerous throw-back to the day in which Christians associated demon activity with everything from epilepsy to yawning in church.

Get over it.

This is akin to the "god of the gaps" error, in which we associate supernatural agencies to everything which we don't understand, or for which there does not seem to be a natural explanation. If a given "God-filled gap" is then explained naturally, this is actually a blow to the existence of the supernatural in ANY instance in the eyes of the unbeliever.

High level of potential damage, from the promotion AND the content (if that is his premise), with very little I can see that would redeem it.

You still believe you can comment on the content when you have not read it?

If Remus can come back and give a review in the author's defense that would be fine, showing that the content is so helpful, does NOT contain such associations, etc, then fine. But this will still not excuse the method of promotion of the book.

In other words, you won't give it a chance.

 

[Vance]

Again, what the promotion does is associate Christianity with UFO phenomenon in some undisclosed way. What they could, and should, have done is simply disclose what position the book was taking rather than leave it unspoken. By not doing that, they left the association hanging out there, and since MANY more people will read the promotion, see the book cover, etc, than will ever read it, the damaging association is what will be remembered. Can you suggest a motivation for NOT clarifying the position in the promotion?

I should just "get over" what I see as something damaging to the Christian message? Go tell that to AiG, then, since their entire ministry is based on speaking out against something they see as damaging. In particular, let's look again at what they say about Ron Wyatt:

“One of us personally rang the laboratory which he was citing to sustain some of his major ‘Ark’ claims, and also we obtained this lab data ourselves. It is nothing short of outrageous to consider the way in which this lab data was deliberately misrepresented to fleece the gullible.”

“It would have done nothing to counter the blow upon blow dealt by this article (justly) to Wyatt’s own credibility as the claims were shown to be mostly ‘bogus’ (in the words of his former co-fieldworker, respected creationist geophysicist Dr John Baumgardner).”

“The issue is not doctrines, it is the factual nature (versus the fraudulent nature) of the evidence.”

“If one discovers, as we did (and NB at the time of starting the investigation, we did not know of most of his other claims, and investigated his Ark claim with hopeful enthusiasm) that there is a trail of repeated falsehood after falsehood, public lie upon public lie, the hypothesis of a godly, spiritual, latter-day prophet is easily discredited. We have shared this information with Kent Hovind years ago, incidentally. To no avail.”

And you think I am being offensive to fellow Christians?

 

[Remus]

Can you suggest a motivation for NOT clarifying the position in the promotion?

I can think of a couple. One would be they probably didn't expect that it was needed. Another would be that they would want to leave something for the reader.

I should just "get over" what I see as something damaging to the Christian message?

In this case, yes. Since it is abundently clear that you are speaking from ignorance. If you want to read it and come back and comment on it, then fine. But until you do, you have no business trying to spin it so that it says something that it isn't.

Go tell that to AiG, then, since their entire ministry is based on speaking out against something they see as damaging.

AT LEAST THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE SPEAKING AGAINST!!!! Good grief. Where's that 'beating your head against the wall' smilie?

And you think I am being offensive to fellow Christians?

Actually, I claimed you were prejudice. I never claimed that you were being offensive. I just commented on your apology. I thought the logic was lacking.

 

[Didaskomenos]

Don't you suppose after several thousand years without Adam and Eve to "dress it and keep it" that it would have become overgroen with weeds, the trees would have died and someone would have built a Super Wal-mart over it by now? Besides you can't take the names of the rivers literally because Genesis isn't literal, according to you.

This reminds me of a suspicious claim of fundamentalist and other global flood interpretations. We are supposed to believe that the same flood that created the Grand Canyon and countless other hard-to-explain-with-a-6,000-10,000-year-old-universe geological features left the shape and location of the antediluvian Tigris and Euphrates rivers sufficiently unmodified as to identify two postdiluvian rivers as the same rivers? Well, I guess it's no fishier than a lot of other claims based on monolithic views of the Bible.

 

[SBG]

Have you read the book yet Vance, look into it, or are you still going to judge it without knowing anything about it?

 

[Biliskner]

Theological problem:

If Flood = local
Jesus Christ Second Coming = local
?

Flood judgement = local
Reign of Fire on Jesus Christ Second Coming = local
?

How do you hold your consistency on the local/global stuff? cut and paste? please explain.

That first post looked to me like a mockery of the AiG book. I have a heck of a lot of respect for AiG, providing a ministry in the face of millions of atheists mocking them; what is even more sad is that their own brothers and sisters in Christ join these card carrying paygans of the world and mock them too. From what I hear, there has been cults in the US that are of an "alien slant" - that suicide of many who believed that what their alien creators wanted them to do? but i could be misinformed since I live in AUS.

Aliens are a big topic, just like vamps were of the ancient world. AiG is providing a Gospel centered view on how aliens are to be explained in our Christian worldview. Cut them some slack, and pray for the darkness that consumes this world with millions of souls stumbing in darkness on a one way ticket to Hades.

 

[Biliskner]

Creationists take it like men.

We all Christians should know this very well.
You lay ALL (not some, ALL) of your cards on the table, and ppl come up and chop you down. Christians who do that suffer like there is no tomorrow.

The reason why AiG is chopped up is because we can SEE ALL their cards. We know what they stand for. It's plastered all over their site for the girls and boys to see.

As for the "others", it's anyone's guess what their err... 'doctrinal' stances are; therefore a succinct debate with them is completely useless.

If we laid all our cards of what Christ has done for us and who He is what He is has come to do and what will happen when He comes back again, I guarentee you 100% that you will be chopped up and thrown away, by some that is - it is only those few that listen that makes it worthwhile. And creationists take the same stance. But the way it is, is good. Persecution refines us; AiG is always on the ball, what is more impressive is you read about the Lord Jesus Christ in their text, whatever that may be.

In Christ

 

[seebs]

I tried sending a helpful correction to AiG, and their response pretty much dispelled any notion that they were seeking truth.

 

[Biliskner]

I tried sending a helpful correction to AiG, and their response pretty much dispelled any notion that they were seeking truth.

expound, please.