Issued: 10/8/23

PLEASE NOTE:  Because Bible versions sometimes differ from each other in crucial ways, the version quoted here will be the one that best clarifies the point being made.  For a quick comparison between versions, please go to: http://www.biblehub.com.

   All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.

   The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”  The symbol “↔” is used to connect verses corroborating each other and so establishing doctrinal truths (Matthew 18:16↔2Corinthians 13:1).

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Most High God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christians will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

   Last time we mentioned singularity as a state in which all physical laws break down.  This is a very narrow definition hardly scratching the surface of the highly complex, underlying science.  We are merely applying the term to Scriptures in which the laws of physics as we know them seem to have been subverted, narratives that are indisputably unscientific.  Yet such is the nature of faith, by definition the antithesis of science (Hebrews 11:1); thus it is not our purpose to engage in fruitless discussions ‘proving’ science wrong.  We not only lack the means to do so but God Himself, deeming such debates as counterproductive to faith (1Timothy 6:20-21), saw fit not to give us any.

   Our discussion is to be understood in the context of the “hidden” wisdom imparted by the Holy Spirit, not in terms of human knowledge but spiritual discernment—meaning that unbelievers will not ‘get it’ (1Corinthians 2:10-14).  It was prophesied it would be this way (Daniel 12:10; Mark 10:11-12; 1Corinthians 1:20-21; 2Corinthians 4:3-4); nevertheless, even if heaping ridicule in the process, we are obligated to repeat Scripture as written (Ezekiel 3:18-21↔Mark 8:38; 1Corinthians 9:16; Acts 26:22) in order to preserve its integrity and objective:  Understanding Satan’s deceptions.  And that alone is what we are attempting to do here.

On Dinosaurs

   Having discussed Creation and Noah’s Flood, it is not only fitting but necessary that we say something about dinosaurs.  Why necessary?  Because as Jesus’ return nears, Satan is going his best to keep men’s focus elsewhere; and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, he is able to do this because as apostasy tsunamis across the globe, the Most High God allows it (2Thessalonians 2:11-12).  Some may think God disingenuous but He is under no obligation to anyone (Job 41:11):  Salvation is predicated on a contract where both parties, God and men, must keep their respective sides of the bargain.  Men default; God remands them into Satan’s custody.  It is that simple.

   Dinosaurs—or rather their fossils—are to Satan what Mickey Mouse was to Disney:  A ‘winner’ creation.  Children love dinosaurs; adults are obsessed with them; and paleontologists keep finding their remains all over the globe.  In 2022 the Smithsonian Magazine likened dinosaur discoveries to a ‘flood’; and 2023 is not far behind:  Remains/new species have been found from Maryland’s ‘Dinosaur Park’ to Patagonia; from Thailand to Spain; from Mongolia to the Isle of Wight; etc.  They have been dated back to one of three periods comprising the Mesozoic Era, which allegedly ran from around 250 to 65 million years ago.  Sometime during the latter, dinosaurs are thought to have become extinct as a consequence of climate changes resulting from an asteroid crashing into the Gulf of Mexico—itself allegedly created by tectonic forces between 160 and 140 million years ago.

   As discussed before, these time estimates are far outside the timeline of Jesus’ and Old Testament’s genealogies.  Where then can be fit in dinosaur remains millions of years old?  Nowhere; so that the issue for us is whether to accept God’s word, in which case dinosaurs could not have existed,or whether the Bible is what scholars believe:  The product of one nation creating its own ethics and sense of national identity, where God is a man-made concept rather than factual divinity.  If such is the case, dinosaurs are up for grabs.  The ball is now in your court.

   Let us approach dinosaurs from a different angle.  Enter Creationists, professed Christian believers combining the non-evidentiary faith that pleases God with the science that denies Him.  Creationists appear to be bothered by dinosaur remains and feel compelled to account for them; perhaps in the misguided belief that God needs an assist in making His Gospel more believable to contemporary audiences.  Thus a spate of notions ‘fleshing out’ Genesis accounts:  Creation was accomplished in six 24-hr days and dinosaurs were inside the Ark [courtesy of the Creation Museum]; Earth was millions or billions of years old [courtesy of fundamentalists accepting geologists’ assertions]; and Noah’s Flood created Earth’s layers [courtesy of Whitcomb’s and Morris’ 1961 creationist ‘classic, The Genesis Flood].¹

   You get the dichotomy Creationists gave gotten themselves into.  If accepting geological estimates, Creationists are contradicting and dismissing Biblical genealogies; which is an insult to the ‘Ghostwriter’ of Scripture (2Peter 1:20-21) that will never be forgiven (Matthew 12:31).  Furthermore by adding spurious scenarios to what is written, they are violating specific warnings not to do so (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32; Proverbs 30:6; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Matthew 5:19; Revelation 22:18).  This is why Jesus had to come to preach the Gospel and discharge men as God’s middle-men (Luke 16:16↔Matthew 23:8; John 15:26, 16:13↔1John 2:27):  They would only undermine Scripture with false dogmas and self-serving scenarios (Zephaniah 3:4; Malachi 2:7-8).  To this day, Jews and Christians have excelled at both; some unable to realize the errors of their ways (1Timothy 1:6-7); others raking in bucks by duping the unenlightened (Ezekiel 34:2-10↔Acts 20:29-30).

   Creationists are no different.  Answers is Genesis [AiG] was founded in 1994 to promote creational propaganda, producing lots of printed and digital material each year—let alone school curricula for the indoctrination of young minds given a one-dimensional view of Scripture.  Down the road from AiG’s main office and adjacent Creation Museum, there is a full-sized replica of Noah’s Ark, in which pairs of T-Rexes and other gigantic Mesozoic dinosaurs [250 to 65 million years ago] supposedly jostled with Cenozoic [65 million years ago to the present] fauna as their ship rode the waves for an entire year (Genesis 7:11,13).  Ignore the time discrepancies; but if present-day animal life developed from species leaving the Ark, just as the world was repopulated by Noah’s descendants (Genesis 10:5,32), why are there no dinosaurs walking amongst us?

   Scriptural ‘logic’ cannot trump monetary profits, anymore than God and mammon can be jointly served (Matthew 6:34):  The Creation Museum as a tourist attraction rakes in tens of millions of dollars annually.  None of this speaks highly of AiG’s objectives and disservice to the ‘Genesis’ ostensibly providing their answers—unless genesis refers to their mindset rather than the Biblical Book which contradicts it.  No matter:  The attraction is a winner; and many Christians claim their faith has been reinforced by the Ark’s man-made replica.²  Which raises the question that if God had been interested in encouraging faith through visuals, the real Ark would have endured where it rested as a memorial to the veracity of the Flood account.

   Well, yes and no.  Even if carbon-dating the wood used to build the Ark supported Biblical timeliness, there is no way of scientifically explaining how a vast number of animals fitted within the Ark’s finite dimensions.  We may conjecture that the laws of physics were subverted so that some sort of quantum phenomenon inside the Ark accommodated its animal cargo; but in no way can we argue that this actually happened.  It would have been nifty had Genesis stated quantum phenomena operated inside the Ark; which would have given cause for serious thought, since quantum mechanics came of age in the 1920’s.  But you get God’s drift, don’t you, reader?  The objective of the Flood narrative, besides establishing it as a factual happening,³ is to corroborate that everything is possible for Him (Jeremiah 32:27↔Luke 18:27).  Analyzing the Flood from this perspective yields discernment rooted in faith, as opposed to ‘answers’ tortured out from literal interpretations of Scripture.

   On the assumption that Earth’s layers were deposited following the Flood, why different dates for fossils found in higher or lower strata?  If dinosaurs had been alive pre-Flood, and drowned in it, should not all remains be of the same age?  If the answer is—as some have posited—that God created the earth stuffed with faux dinosaur remains, would that not contradict the claim that He does not deceive anyone (James 1:13)?  For that is what dinosaur remains are all about, are they not:  Tangible/visible proof contradicting the non-evidentiary faith God champions?  That being said He does allow satanic deceptions to ensnare unbelievers or as tests challenging the faith of professed worshippers.  Which is, by the way, the meaning implicit in “lead us not into temptation” (Matthew 6:13):  ‘Leading’ in the sense of allowing Satan to tempt men, as was done with Jesus (Luke 4:1-13), or as would be done with Peter (Luke 22:31).  What we are basically asking God in the Lord’s Prayer is not giving Satan the chance to tempt us.

   This writer was once present at a church gathering where the preacher was asked to account for dinosaurs.  Not skipping a beat, the preacher argued that the Flood had killed the dinosaurs, the reason why their remains are found buried.  No one asked the obvious follow-up question:  Had dinosaurs existed as air-breathing creatures (Genesis 6:17,19, 7:2,8-9,16,21-23), why were they not inside the Ark?  Ignoring the fact that dinosaurs are not included in the lists of clean and unclean animals familiar to Homo sapiens Israelites, one pair of unclean carnivores and seven pairs of clean herbivores should have been aboard.  The preacher, of course, was talking out of his head, the perfect embodiment of self-appointed teachers affirming things they understand nothing about (1Timothy 1:7)—as Paul prophesied men would do in apostate times (2Timothy 4:3-4).

Other Scriptural ‘Singularities’

   The law of gravity seems to have been neutralized during Joshua’s battle with the Amorites, when “the sun remained still and the moon stood in place until the Israelites settled their score with their enemies… The sun stood in place in the middle of the sky and [did not set] for nearly an entire day” (Joshua 10:13).  We know the Earth orbits the Sun and that the Sun does not move in relation to Earth; so the implication here is that the Earth and the Moon were made to stand still for an unspecified amount of time.

   It has been argued that if the Earth had stopped, everything on it would have been sucked out into space; but Scripture does not state the Earth stopped rotating, which creates gravity:  Earth and Moon were somehow ‘frozen’ in place.  Again this was Son’s [Yahweh of hosts] doing at Joshua’s request (Joshua 10:12); the point being that a prayer of unshakable faith is to divine action what effect is to cause (Mark 11:23-24).  The same notion is present in James 5:16-18:  “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.  Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops” (1Kings 17:1, 18:1).  Elijah did not command the weather:  Yahweh of hosts did; as he showed when in human form as Jesus, “he rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm” (Matthew 8:26).⁴

   The law of conservation of mass states that matter cannot be created or destroyed; but seems not to have been operational when the oil and flour inside the widow of Zarephath’s containers replenished themselves (1Kings 17:12-16), or when the fish and bread kept multiplying inside the Apostles’ baskets (Mark 6:3-44).  These are not examples of matter changing states, like burning wood into ashes, heat, and smoke:  Flour and oil, as did the fish and bread, kept regenerating themselves in their unchanged states out of nothing.

   Gravity was again subverted when Jesus walked over stormy seas; and Peter was able to do the same until he looked about and his faith gave way to the impossibility of his actions (Matthew 14:22-31).  Mark 11:23-24 is generally interpreted as an allegory of the power of faith; but is it more than this?  Jesus was not one for idle talk; and if he said hills would move on command, they would if someone’s faith was great enough (Matthew 17:20).  Yet we must consider what purpose moving mountains—a visible display—would serve in terms of non-evidentiary faith.  If faith operates independent of of human senses, most displays of faith will be underplayed rather than trumpeted (Matthew 6:1-4, 8:3-4, 9:30).  This is why satanic deceptions are characterized by exaggerated visuals—Satan’s perverted twist of John 4:48.

Scripture’s Case against UFOs and Extraterrestrial life

   We now come to a topic pertinent to our times.  On September 14, 2023, a NASA study team published a long-awaited report on the nature of UFOs—therein renamed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs).  While admitting the probability of alien life, no links were established between UFOs and alien intelligence.  Sightings were attributed to weather balloons, airborne clutter, meteors, fireballs, the planet Venus, surveillance operations by foreign powers—in short, normal stuff.  Lacking security clearance, the team could not comment on classified military reports—from which stem most UFO conspiracy theories.

   In June and July 2023 a former intelligence officer and two Navy men testified that the U.S. government is in possession of crashed alien crafts and their dead pilots, one of them claiming to have seen irrefutable sensory and video data.  In September 2023 a Mexican journalist, known to have made similar claims in Peru in 2017, presented alleged alien corpses to a Mexican Congressional hearing on UFOs.  The Peru aliens turned out to be dolls covered with paper and synthetic glue simulating skin; as of this writing, it remains unclear what the Mexican ‘aliens’ might be, but a physiological analysis posted on social media suggests they were assembled from parts of several native mammals.  Other aliens unveiled in the past by this journalist were made from the remains of mummified children.

   Due to the vastness of the universe, or so the argument goes, odds are there must be extra-terrestrial life somewhere; after all, humans are made out of the most common elements in it.  An icon of scientific reason argues that human beings share DNA with most life on earth; yet no one looks like a banana, a worm, or a lobster; so that the very fact reported extraterrestrials look ‘humanoid’ is the oddity suggesting their existence.

  While the following questions cannot be answered one way or the other, they should be asked.  Why all these alien ‘cloak and dagger’ sightings?  What practical purpose do they serve?  If aliens are real, why do not they land in major cities and state the purpose of their visit rather than whizzing by out in the boondocks?  If in-coming from outer space, why are they not being captured in Hubbell/James Webb Telescope images; or by earth-based telescopes capable of detecting smaller, passing-by asteroids?  Cannot comets be detected millions of kilometers away?  And why is it that no space probe travelling for decades through our solar system has ever run into any spaceship?

   But we are getting nowhere with this; let us—as we should—look at Scripture.  As discussed in our essay, Genesis: The Myth That Never Was, Genesis 1’s creation scenario serves two purposes:  1) to establish an estimate for the span of human history; and 2) to forecast the emergence of nations and occurrence of major events reaching up to end-times—all intimated symbolically (Mark 4:11-12).  Thus in terms of plants, we find: 

Isaiah 5:7↔Jews and Christians; Isaiah 61:3↔the redeemed collectively; Ezekiel 31:3-6↔Assyrians; Ezekiel 31:8-18↔Satan and his angels specifically; Mark 8:24↔men in general; and others,

while in terms of animals, we have:

Leviticus 26:22↔Israelites’ enemies; Daniel 8:20-22↔ethnic empires like Greece, Medo-Persia and Rome; Daniel 8: 23-24; Revelation 13:1,11, 17:3,16-17↔nations beholden to Rome; Isaiah 27:1; Ezekiel 29:3; Revelation 20:2↔Satan specifically; Isaiah 59:5; Jeremiah 12:8-9; Ezekiel 2:6; Psalms 22:16; Matthew 7:6; Revelation 22:15↔enemies of God classified by behaviors shared with real animals; John 10:27; 1Corinthians 9:9-12↔people of faith; and others.

   Going back to Genesis 1, we have the following events:   Heavens made on Second Day; nations, including Israel, emerging on Third Day; cosmos created on Fourth Day; first Adam [as opposed to last Adam Jesus] and righteous as well as unrighteous differentiated on Sixth Day.  Question:  Were not men alive on Third Day; and if so, why is man’s creation placed on Sixth Day?  Because that ‘Man’ truly made in God’s image is the resurrected/immortal Jesus; and his people, the Church, are analogous with the rib from which Woman was fashioned.  So as Paul put it, “we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones” (Ephesians 5:30); but only truly and definitively sharing his and His Father’s images after immortality is conferred during the first resurrection (1Corinthians 15:50-53).  Thus the human race existed before Sixth Day, but not in the immortal form bestowed following first resurrection on Sixth Day.

   Where do aliens fit in all this? Assuming they were part of Fourth Day cosmos’ creations, why are they never mentioned in the Bible?  Let us here remark on Scripture’s peculiarity that beside Judeo-Christian peoples and their enemies, entire human civilizations are omitted from the record.  Naturally they are inferred in the context of their Christianization by European powers (Revelation 17:15), not the case with extraterrestrials.  No apostles were ever launched into space to minister to aliens.

   Consider too that by the time of Jesus’ return, the cosmos will have vanished (Matthew 24:29-30); an event which is the staple of prophecies Isaiah 34:4; Matthew 24:35; 2Peter 3:10; Revelation 6:14; and others.  Scripture tells us of events on Earth; but if they do exist, what happens to extraterrestrials?  God wipes them out for no reason at all?  Were they sinners and if so never given a chance to atone?  If exempt from sin, will they leave their doomed planets and migrate to Earth?  Will they be part of God’s new creation?—in which case they need to be made immortal, since perishable flesh cannot inherit His Kingdom (1Corinthians 15:50); yet there is no Scriptural evidence attesting to any of this.  In short:  Alien beings cannot exist and have never existed.

  Still as is the case with dinosaur bones, UFO sightings cannot be glibly dismissed.  Both are seen; but contradicting Scripture as they both do, we must conclude they must be false—or at the very least, not God’s work:  He cannot be untrue to Himself (Numbers 23:19; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 6:18; 2Timothy 2:13).  This is why we know the Shroud of Turin, a tangible object revered by many as the image of the crucified Jesus, to be false; because the God Who forbade the making and worshipping of graven images, angelic of human, would never devise anything encouraging people to break His Commandment (Exodus 20:4-5).  And that He abhors idolatry in any shape of form is another staple of Scripture (Judges 10:14; Isaiah 45:20; Jeremiah 32:34-35; Jonah 2:8; Revelation 9:20; etc.) which He means to eradicate (Revelation 21:8).

   Therefore the Shroud of Turin must be Satan’s work, to which he has added the ‘scientific’ touch of creating a photographic reverse of the image purported to be Jesus.  But you see the perversity in such a deed?  Who brought back Jesus from the dead?  The Most High God; so such a display of divine power might have left its traces on the burial cloth, the way alien spacecrafts leave marks where they supposedly land.  Satan is in the business of manufacturing evidence for those who need to see in order to believe, damning souls in the process and striking back at God the only way he can:  By discrediting Him.

   Now the human yearning for heavenly rescues is the stuff of legend; alive and kicking to this day whether as the “Rapture” evangelicals are counting on, or people expecting spacemen to pick them up and take them to a better world.  Truth be told, Scripture can be twisted to suggest any sort of shenanigans. Stars, for example, are Scriptural symbols for angels, as was the ‘star’ of Bethlehem that appeared to the Magi in the east, lead them to Jesus’ manger, and then hovered above it (Matthew 2:1-2,9-10); or the angels that ‘dragon’ Satan dragged down with him to Earth following their expulsion from Heaven (Revelation 12:3-4,9↔2Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6).  Do not miss the connection between stars and Satan [Baal/Bel↔Jeremiah 51:44; Revelation 16:13] in 2Kings 17:16; plus the inclusion of Asherah in 2Kings 21:3 foreshadowing Marian idolatry.

   If as Jude says the Gospel was being preached as far back as Enoch’s time (Jude 1:14-15), the symbolic connection between stars and angels may have been lost, giving us astrology:  The belief that stars influence human life—which angels can and do.  Needless to say, God attempted to nip such proclivities in the bud (Deuteronomy 4:19, 17:3; 2 Kings 17:16) to no avail:  Horoscopes are consulted daily and astrological charts drawn up—and now computer-generated—to learn how planets and stars influence human fate.

   Which is not to say that in our apostate times angels have become irrelevant:  Polls have shown that 69% [≈7 in 10] U.S. adults believe in angels.  Coupled with other estimates that 79% believe in God or a higher power; 34% believe in reincarnation and astrology; and 56% in the existence of Satan, we get an inkling of the spiritual malaise of our times.  Polls express what people profess to believe, but whether in fact they do believe in the Scriptural sense, is another matter.  Where do we find proof of this?  In Matthew 7:22-23:  “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you doers of wickedness.”  People may believe themselves to be something they are not (Galatians 6:3; Titus 1:6); but like Paul said, true faith is not everybody’s cup of tea (2Thessalonians 3:2).

   Obviously people who believe in reincarnation are dismissing Scriptural doctrine regarding death and resurrection (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, 12:7; Luke 8:52; 1Thessalonians 4:13,15; Hebrews 9:27); and people who believe in astrology are disobeying commands to shun the practice (Deuteronomy 4:19, 18:10-14).  People who do not believe in Satan are calling Jesus a liar (Luke 10:18; John 8:44) as well as the Holy Spirit Who tells us about him throughout Scripture (Genesis 3:1↔Revelation 20:2; 1Chronicles 21:1; Isaiah 14:12-20; Ezekiel 28:12-19; 1Peter 5:8; Revelation 2:3, 20:7-10).  And if 79% claim to believe in God, do they actually?  Not that this is the only criterion, but consider seventh-day Sabbath as the sign between God and His people (Exodus 31:13,17; Ezekiel 20:12; Matthew 12:8) and ask yourselves whether first-day, Sunday worshippers constituting the majority of Christians can be accessing Him?

   But all of this remains unresolved to this day and will continue to be so until doomsday.  However, why not add another layer of deception in the form of extraterrestrials?  They seem to be unconcerned with matters of sin and disobedience; and so far as some abductees claim, focused on human experimentation/ prospecting for human DNA.  In terms of sightings, showing off how their spaceships break physical laws?  Touring remote places?  Generating a Babel of conflicting opinions in media outlets?

   Unknown and incapable of being answered; but in terms of Scripture, we have answers of sorts.  For millennia men have wondered if they are alone in the universe, to which Scripture answers, yes.  Despite NASA’s estimates of trillions of instances of possible extraterrestrial life, Scripture does not answer why a God living in eternity chose to delimit a span of time to create a holy nation.  Surely if nothing is impossible for Him, He could have spared Himself the aggravation and recalcitrance of the human race by going from A to Z without intervening stages.  Yet precisely because He must have wanted to give Creation His personal touch and involvement, time and Jesus came into being:  A chunk of non-eternity in which to forge His creatures and a Forger to mold them into the desired shape.  And this speaks of love, of intimacy, of parental pride; for which reasons He is not ashamed to call Himself a ‘jealous’ God (Exodus 20:5), or come Jesus, ‘Father’ rather than the impersonal Yahweh the Most High.

   So the very act of creation in an otherwise lifeless universe is God’s tacit admission of how dear we are to Him.  And it is that admission which Satan seeks to deny with notions of extraterrestrial life arising from natural processes independent of God.  Why would not alien life exist in exo-planets similar to Earth?  Why could not their shapes be humanoid instead of replicas of God’s image?  What role would Jesus play amongst them, or for that matter, what need would they have for his redemption?  What makes the Bible binding for humanity is the fact that it was written for and has been preached to all of mankind (Matthew 24:14; Acts 1:8)—which does not include space aliens.  The promise of the Kingdom to come was made to Abraham and his descendants in faith, which by default includes his genetic progeny; and as far as we can tell, Abraham was neither an alien nor the result of alien tinkering with the genome of apes.

   And a creation not only dear to God but singularly special to Him.  How do we know this?  From having made Jesus in His image (Colossians 1:15); the way offspring resemble their human parents.  Now, whatever an Invisible God’s (John 4:24↔1Timothy 1:17) ultimate form is cannot be ascertained; as far as we can tell from Scripture, He has chosen human features to depict Himself; features that He stamped upon proxy-Creator Son and Son in turn imparted upon man and woman (Genesis 1:26-27).  While it is true that the Jesus seen by his contemporaries was not his true form (Isaiah 53:2↔1John 3:2), he was nevertheless human-like and not humanoid with buggy eyes and long arms and legs, the way extraterrestrials are often depicted and reported.

   Put yourselves in God’s mind.  He has given an answer to the existence of life in the universe, as well as man’s purpose in it.  Man will have none of it, finding spurious imaginings more compelling than spiritual truths.  Fine:  If men choose not to believe God, then let Satan keep them entertained; but there is no room for middle-grounders (Revelation 3:16).  This is what lies at the heart of 2Thessalonians 2:11-2:  If men dismiss God, He dismisses them and leaves them unprotected; at which point Satan moves in to dope them into extinction.  To repeat:  Men must lie in the bed they made for themselves, be it made of blessings or damnation.

Conclusions

   Dinosaur remains and alien sightings may well be Satan’s perverted twist of Matthew 7:7:  “Seek and you will find.”  Although paleontology as a science became established in the 18^th Century and developed rapidly in the 19^th Century, paleontological observations date back to the 5^th Century BC.  Once men’s curiosity was piqued by pieces of bone remains, the search was on to reconstruct the animal from which they might have come.  Once UFOs were sighted by the few, their testimonies fired up human imaginings; so that others kept ‘looking up to the skies’ in search of incoming spaceships or trying to contact them.  In either case, the pattern was the same:  Pursuing knowledge outside the confines of what God wanted us to know (Genesis 3:2-6).

   Myths oftentimes contain kernels of truth; mistaken beliefs oftentimes contain modicums of reality; cults do not evolve out of vacuums but out some sort of visual input—as for example, Marian apparitions contradicting injunctions against idolatry or usurping Jesus’ role as the sole mediator between God and men (1Timothy 2:5).  All satanic deceptions, though initially limited in scope and more often than not rooted in tangible/visual displays, incrementally expand over time once men ‘bite’ on them and believe them to be true.  Thus dinosaur remains in museums are deemed ‘proof’ they must have existed; and UFOs caught on tape or alien beings’ sightings ‘prove’ they are real.  But then non-believers, unlike us, walk by sight rather than faith.

   We cannot—nor should we attempt to—argue against such evidence when God gives us none to prove His case.  In point of fact that approach undermines His objective:  To separate the wheat from the chaff.  Scripture is a trap by which to condemn His naysayers (Isaiah 28:13; Mark 4:11-12); so there is nothing unusual either in the plethora of dinosaur remains being unearthed or in increasing UFO sightings the world over.  From this moment until Jesus’ return, deceptions in general will keep escalating to the point of seeming incontrovertible (Matthew 24:24).  Men have been warned what they should do (Deuteronomy 30:11-20); but if they find satanic deceptions more compelling, so be it. God feels no obligation to set them right.

   It is always our policy to encourage readers not to accept our or anybody else’s opinions at face value.  No true Christian should be anybody’s teacher; and what we keep trying to do in all our essays is to follow Paul’s advice:  To tear “down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God…correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, [so that] they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” (2Corinthians 10:5; 2Timothy 2:25-26).  You need wisdom?  Ask God for it (James 1:5-7).

   We close as always:  In the knowledge that what has been discussed here may be of benefit to the few but dismissed by the many—the standard Scriptural statistic (Exodus 12:37↔Numbers 14:29-30; 1Kings 19:14,18; Matthew 7:13-14, 22:14).  There is no way belief can trump tangible evidence; and no way to debate science on grounds of faith.  The wisdom that has been given us is unscientific by nature; and worst of all, ‘hidden’ from the understanding of God’s naysayers.  We might as well be discussing calculus with children who only know simple arithmetic; or attempting to feed solid food to babies not yet weaned from milk (1Corinthians 3:2; Hebrews 5:12-14).

   It all boils down to the faith Jesus exalted:  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29); for only evil and faithless generations crave for signs (Matthew 12:39).

¹ Whitcomb’s and Morris’ fans must be having a field day with the recent discovery of a rock layer called ringwoodite, which stores water in a sponge-like state that is neither solid, nor liquid nor gas but a new state of matter.  It has been estimated that if this layer contained only 1% of water, there would be more water underground than in all surface oceans.  Applied to the Flood, readers can surmise can creationist scenario might come next.

² Sounds a lot like the folly of idolatry, does it not?  Attempting to connect with God through human-made objects (Isaiah 44:9-20)?

³ Those doubting the veracity of Noah’s experience are calling God (Ezekiel 14:14), Jesus (Luke 17:26-27), and the Holy Spirit speaking through Paul (Hebrews 11:7) and Peter (2Peter 2:5) liars.

⁴ One of multiple examples of how Scripture identifies Jesus as the pre-existent Yahweh of hosts.  Other obvious ones:  John 8:56-57↔Genesis 18:25↔John 5:22; Acts 17:31; John 17:5).