Snapshot: More About UFOs (#146)

Snapshot: More About UFOs

[00:00:00] Introduction

If you ache for truth, goodness, and beauty, If you're hungry for a Christianity with substance and strength, if you long for a faith that's big and bold and biblical and all about Jesus Christ, if you're inspired by the idea of one church that has spanned twenty centuries, twenty four time zones, and two hemispheres, enfolding every race, nation, and language, then you're considering Catholicism.

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Greg: Well, welcome back to the podcast. This is Greg and I'm once again flying solo out here at the secret compound on a cool fall day, a couple days before Halloween. I thought I'd come out today and record a new type of episode called snapshots. The idea is just in 10 minutes to [00:01:00] just cover a single topic. So going forward, you'll see these in the episode list labeled snapshot. 

Today, I'd like to talk more about UFOs. You probably listened to our episode a few weeks back called UFOs, are they aliens, angels, or something else? Cory and I explored the UFO phenomenon, especially because it's been coming up so much in the news lately, as there have been some congressional hearings about the possibility of UFOs, and the government's knowledge, and then that set off all kinds of speculation in the Christian community, and so we wanted to address that.

But right after Cory and I recorded that like just a few days later, a book came out, a really interesting book on this topic. The author is a guy named Daniel O'Connor, and the title of the book is, "Only Man Bears His Image,". "Only Man Bears His Image," by Daniel O'Connor. the [00:02:00] subtitle is: "The Biblical, Catholic, and Scientific Case Against Aliens, UFO Deceptions, Sentient AI, and Other Sci Fi Disguised Demons and Psyops Heralding the Antichrist." Okay?

Daniel O'Connor, "Only Man Bears His Image," with that rather long and somewhat alarming subtitle. Now I showed the title of the book to a friend of mine, and told him I was going to order it. And he looked at it and raised his eyebrows and went, I don't know, it sounds like it might be a kooky book.

But I ordered it. And I read it. And, oh wow, that's what I wanted. to tell you about, because this snapshot is really about recommending O'Connor's book.

Now this is not a lightweight book. It is 750 pages. And I'll say a little more about that in a minute, but before I do, let me just follow up the previous episode with a couple of quick thoughts that maybe set up why [00:03:00] I'm recommending. O'Connor's book for anyone who's interested.

It seems to me that the Christian argument for intelligent aliens, and by that I mean, and O'Connor means in his book, intelligent alien life from another planet that has intellect and will. Much like mankind. So we're not talking about bacteria. We're talking about intelligent, rational alien beings.

And it seems to me that the arguments from Christians, I don't want to deal with the non- Christian arguments because really that's not who I'm talking to here. But it seems to me that the Christian arguments boil down to one of three.

And the first goes something 

like this. 

God would make aliens if he could, and because he can, well, he probably did. Now, that's something of a strange argument. Actually, for those of you who might know, its formation is very [00:04:00] similar to the argument that the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus gave for the Immaculate Conception, but it's a strange argument when it comes to aliens, that, well, God would if he could, and he could, so he probably did. But let's set that aside for a second.

The second one that I hear from Christians is, there's just all of this room in the universe. God made this huge universe. It's a hundred jazillion light years across with a hundred jazillion, billion, stars and planets and whatever. And all that empty space seems wasted unless God filled it with other intelligent beings. Well, that's sort of an interesting argument too.

And the third argument that I hear is, well, there's so many reasons to believe in intelligent aliens, especially ones that might be visiting Earth, because of reports of flying saucers or whatever, or because our minds have been [00:05:00] shaped by science fiction, and it just seems obvious to us that, well, there just must be. And so that gets kind of. crammed into a Christian worldview, because, well, there just must be some way that this is consistent with a Christian worldview and theology and a biblical worldview.

Now, again, those are all interesting and really somewhat weird arguments to make, and I'm not going to take them on in this snapshot because the point of this snapshot is to recommend Daniel O'Connor's book because he takes those on in 750 pages.

Now, I can't see you, but I'm imagining you rolling your eyes and saying, I'm never going to read a 750 page book. And O'Connor addresses that, right up front in the preface and on the back cover. He says, look, I know no one's going to read 750 pages, I mean, I hope they do, but most people aren't. So he's organized it like a reference book into topical [00:06:00] sections. With arguments dealing with particular aspects of the UFO phenomenon.

So basically you can flip through the table of contents and find the parts that interest you. And the table of contents are very detailed. So if you're talking to somebody about some aspect of ufology and you want to have an answer to that you can go through the table of conducts and find that part and O'Connor unpacks the arguments for or against whatever the point is.

Now I have a ton of respect for what he's done here. I can tell you that he's done a lot of work here, and it's very good work. But it's going to upset a lot of people, and it's going to upset a lot of Catholics in particular. Not because his arguments aren't Catholic, but because they are so very, very Catholic.

You see right [00:07:00] now, UFOlogy has become popular among certain Catholics and a certain. type of Catholic, especially the academic crowd. So you have Catholic professors at colleges and universities. You even have some priests and even a couple of bishops who've spoken about this and a couple of theologians associated with the Vatican or Pontifical Institutes who are pontificating all about alien life and pontificating that UFOs probably herald the coming of what extraterrestrial rational beings.

And what O'Connor does in these 750 pages, again, indexed so that you don't have to read them all, is he takes down all of these arguments meticulously.

So the first major section of the book is the biblical arguments against Aliens and UFOs. And he goes through point by point by point by point, making what I think are very [00:08:00] solid biblical arguments. in the second section, he goes through Catholic theology. He unpacks the catechism, magisterial tradition, dogma, to show that UFOs and aliens are not consistent with Catholic theology. 

He then moves on to the science of it all, and shows that visiting extraterrestrials are not consistent with our understanding of science. And he takes on the argument, well, their technology is more advanced, and so whenever you see advanced technology, you don't understand it. But you've got to read it, because he's got a science background. And he really goes through and shows why a lot of claims that are made about ufology, are not consistent with our fundamental principles of the universe. Not just that there's somebody that, invented better propulsion, but that these are inconsistent with how the universe works .

In the next section of the book, O'Connor turns to the claims for UFOs, and he shows that that evidence is not what you think it is.

In the next section, he turns to the proponents of ufology themselves, and he starts looking at the things that they've said, and [00:09:00] you begin to realize very quickly that what these people are advocating is essentially another religion, and that there is a religious dimension to all of this that's not even thinly disguised that even though there are people who may be Catholic professors or priests or whatever, they are falling for another religion and, reminded of what St. Paul said when he said, if even I or an angel from heaven should come to you and present another gospel. Then let him be accursed. 

So just because some Catholic professor or a priest or some guy associated with the Vatican in some way claims that he's got a sort of new theology based on aliens, we don't have to accept that. And O'Connor does a very meticulous job of examining those statements and showing that they essentially amount to a different religion.

In the next section of the book, he looks at how we got here, and how the mythology of ufology and aliens has developed within the [00:10:00] popular culture. And finally he turns to the demonology and eschatology of all of this, that what we have is a deception in many cases that's going on, where people are being led into a new religion and into false Gospels and into worldviews that run contrary to Christ. And O'Connor does, I think, a very compelling job showing how the cult of ufology and aliens and whatnot really amounts to a sort of spirit of anti-Christ that is undermining the Christian worldview and proposing essentially a new religion and undermining our witness into this world.

Connor on his website acknowledges that his book is not gonna be liked because he said I'm basically a nobody. And, who am I, an adjunct professor at some small college without credentials like all of these super important, people that I'm writing against, and I'm just gonna be written off [00:11:00] as a kook.

Well, I kind of sympathize with O'Connor because, who am I as the host of this podcast? I'm kind of a nobody as well. I don't have big credentials or a huge audience or a huge publisher. So I guess I'm sympathetic to anybody who is doing their best to make solid arguments and do solid work without the, the wind at their sails of big publishing houses and big universities.

Look, you don't have to agree with everything that O'Connor writes, but what I am saying is that he has written a very thorough, meticulous book on that full of arguments, full of documentary evidence from scripture, from Catholic tradition, documenting from theology, documenting from science, and you've got 750 page of arguments, and if you want to dismiss him, you have to take on the arguments. You can't just dismiss him because he's a nobody from a small college. 

So, he's worth a read. If you're interested in anything about this, UFOlogy, aliens, its role in the culture, what it all means, I strongly recommend, go to Amazon. I [00:12:00] think the paperback is like 17 bucks. I highly recommend it if you're interested in the topic Daniel O'Connor, "Only Man Bears His Image," available on Amazon.

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Conclusion

Thank you for listening. My name is Greg Smith, and if you've enjoyed this podcast, would you please hit the like and subscribe buttons wherever you get your podcasts, and please share it with others. And if you're curious about the Catholic worldview and faith, the church and its saints, or Catholic history, culture, and art, then visit consideringcatholicism. com and email me to let me know what you think.