- Aug 13, 2007
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How would you refute this argument? Would you share resources online or citations for further study?
Problems with an earlier attempt to refute this argument:
- All the history and miracles in the Christian Bible (including Hebrew Scriptures, both Old and New Testament) can be explained by aliens with advanced technology who deceived humans, rather than a supernatural God telling the truth.
- This theory has more explanatory power as it accounts for suffering, God's absence today, lack of miraculous answers to prayer today, reports of alien sightings, etc.
- The only problem this theory appears to introduce is how to explain cause-and-effect, i.e. the reliability of the universe enabling the scientific method. (See Ed Feser's Aquinas, The Last Superstition.) However, just as Christians say God or God's nature is a brute fact, we are free to likewise say the universe being reliable and intelligible in this way simply is a brute fact. Thus there is no loss of explanatory power. Other issues: Exorcisms are explained through power of suggestion and imagination; other miracle claims are simply due to natural phenomenon or contain falsehoods in their reporting (or could be the same aliens operating again).
- Thus "it was aliens" accounts for more of the facts (namely, suffering, unanswered prayer, God's absence) than the God-claims of Judaism or Christianity and is to be preferred rationally.
Problems with an earlier attempt to refute this argument:
It is not at all certain Mary wasn't abducted by aliens, inseminated via IVF, and brainwashed, for example. It's simply not true that it's an obvious fact that the Gospel is literal historical truth: It's merely what Luke wrote or was told to write.Consider the facts that Jesus of Nazareth is a historical figure, a man, born of Mary and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. This is firmly embedded in human history and rules out the possibility of Jesus being an alien.
Yes, and Jesus may have been an alien lying to us. This explains His silence and absence and false promises e.g. 'seek and you shall find', 'knock and the door shall be opened', 'believe that you receive it and it shall be yours.'Furthermore, it‘s also a fact that Jesus reveals Himself to be God.
The previous comment shares my experience already that Jesus does not keep His promises, and even apart from this despair, it is not difficult to make a Biblical argument. The Gospel says for example 'to them Jesus only spoke in parables, speaking plainly only to His Disciples', i.e. he was not concerned that the general public understand him correctly from the outset, indicating a cunning manipulation strategy rather than telling everyone plainly the truth of the matter. He also spoke ambiguously so as to deliberately deceive and mislead, as for example when he discusses 'tearing down this temple and I shall raise it up again' referring to His Body while causing his hearers to naturally understand he was referring to the Jerusalem Temple. So it is plausible his moral code was consistent with deceiving all of mankind, especially if He determined it was 'for our own good' to survive as a species, sentient life being so rare in this universe.if you study Jesus’ words and actions, His character, you’ll also have a hard time making this case [that Jesus lied to us].