Neo Deist
Th.D. & D.Div. h.c.
Info for the deists in this DIR...
Here is another tidbit from my book that I am publishing with Amazon, since it relates to this holiday season:
Another reason that I personally do not believe that Jesus is God comes from the study of astronomy and cosmology. On Earth, our years are approximately three hundred sixty-five days and six hours long. That is why every four years we have a "leap year;" to account for those accumulated twenty-four hours. Other planets have a different time frame for a year, which is merely the length of time it takes for a planet to orbit its star. For example, Mars takes six hundred eighty-seven days to orbit the Sun. Obviously Mars would not have the same calendar as Earth. Bear that in mind as we think on a cosmic scale.
The birth of Jesus is celebrated throughout Christendom on December 25th, of the Earth calendar. Why December 25th? Well it is not because that was Jesus' actual birthday! That day was selected during the reign of the Roman Empire. Not only did the Romans hold a Saturnalia festival in late December, but northern and western pagans throughout Europe also celebrated various festivals around the same time. To top it off, Emperor Aurelian established the feast of the birth of Sol Invictus on December 25th. Rome controlled much of the world during the time of Jesus and for several centuries after. The dates and festivals were already in place, so the simplest thing to do was to adopt what was already there.
Knowing that, now think about life on another planet. I am of the opinion that we are not alone in this universe. As discussed in a previous chapter, Earth is but one of millions of planets in our galaxy, and our galaxy is one of hundreds of billions in the known universe. The odds that Earth is unique with sentient beings is astronomically small. Those other planets, whether in our galaxy or one that is billions of light years away, do not follow our Earth based calendar. They do not share our history, culture or theology. They would most likely have a uniqueness to their own world, which would include language and religion.
You know that I believe in God as the creator. I went over that in chapter one. We, as intelligent beings capable of independent thought, have to step outside of our worldly box and look at the bigger, cosmic picture. We know that there are other planets and galaxies. Science and technology allows us to see them. The ancients that wrote the Bible did not have such luxuries. Do you remember when I talked about geocentricity? Early man had Earth centered religions because of the lack of science and technology. They did not have telescopes and space probes. We now know better. Why then would we cling to some archaic writings that don't allow for a universe filled with potential religions?
Think about it. If other planets have intelligent beings, and those beings developed religions just like we did, do you think that they would use the same stories, names and dates? No, of course not! Their holy books would most likely differ greatly from ours. Yet they believe in God just like we do. Who then is right and who is wrong? Outside of deism, I say everyone is wrong because it is the human touch (or alien) that dictates what is written in any given holy book, out of justifiable ignorance.
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Here is another tidbit from my book that I am publishing with Amazon, since it relates to this holiday season:
Another reason that I personally do not believe that Jesus is God comes from the study of astronomy and cosmology. On Earth, our years are approximately three hundred sixty-five days and six hours long. That is why every four years we have a "leap year;" to account for those accumulated twenty-four hours. Other planets have a different time frame for a year, which is merely the length of time it takes for a planet to orbit its star. For example, Mars takes six hundred eighty-seven days to orbit the Sun. Obviously Mars would not have the same calendar as Earth. Bear that in mind as we think on a cosmic scale.
The birth of Jesus is celebrated throughout Christendom on December 25th, of the Earth calendar. Why December 25th? Well it is not because that was Jesus' actual birthday! That day was selected during the reign of the Roman Empire. Not only did the Romans hold a Saturnalia festival in late December, but northern and western pagans throughout Europe also celebrated various festivals around the same time. To top it off, Emperor Aurelian established the feast of the birth of Sol Invictus on December 25th. Rome controlled much of the world during the time of Jesus and for several centuries after. The dates and festivals were already in place, so the simplest thing to do was to adopt what was already there.
Knowing that, now think about life on another planet. I am of the opinion that we are not alone in this universe. As discussed in a previous chapter, Earth is but one of millions of planets in our galaxy, and our galaxy is one of hundreds of billions in the known universe. The odds that Earth is unique with sentient beings is astronomically small. Those other planets, whether in our galaxy or one that is billions of light years away, do not follow our Earth based calendar. They do not share our history, culture or theology. They would most likely have a uniqueness to their own world, which would include language and religion.
You know that I believe in God as the creator. I went over that in chapter one. We, as intelligent beings capable of independent thought, have to step outside of our worldly box and look at the bigger, cosmic picture. We know that there are other planets and galaxies. Science and technology allows us to see them. The ancients that wrote the Bible did not have such luxuries. Do you remember when I talked about geocentricity? Early man had Earth centered religions because of the lack of science and technology. They did not have telescopes and space probes. We now know better. Why then would we cling to some archaic writings that don't allow for a universe filled with potential religions?
Think about it. If other planets have intelligent beings, and those beings developed religions just like we did, do you think that they would use the same stories, names and dates? No, of course not! Their holy books would most likely differ greatly from ours. Yet they believe in God just like we do. Who then is right and who is wrong? Outside of deism, I say everyone is wrong because it is the human touch (or alien) that dictates what is written in any given holy book, out of justifiable ignorance.
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