Aliens, evidence, and truth!

As I have stated before, one of the (many!) things that I enjoy about no longer living a life that is regulated by period bells, is listening to the radio for much longer in the morning. (Okay, this morning I would have been on holiday anyway!!).

Two particularly interesting comments were made today. In the ‘Today’ programme, there was an emphasis on science, and science fiction due, in the main, to the influence of the guest editor –Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal. One of those interviewed was Paul Davies, a member of the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Project, and he commented that he did not believe that “ … there’s been alien visitation here on earth in historical times”. Now I am aware that he was referring to something like the “little green men” of popular science fiction stories but, coming just a few days after the celebration, by many, of the incarnation, I found it to be a strangely naïve comment! The birth of the first child of Mary, the wife of Joseph, carpenter of Nazareth, was not the birth of an ordinary human child. Certainly, He was human, 100% human – but He was also divine: God in human flesh. If we widen the concept of alien (as we do when we sometimes refer to people from another part of the planet), then that, surely, was an alien visitation as the Creator, from that dimension that we refer to as heaven, entered that which He had created.

The second comment was in Andrew Marr’s ‘Start the Week’ programme, immediately following ‘Today’. It came from Richard Dawkins, the ‘high priest’ of atheistic Darwinian evolution (or Darwinian evolutionary atheism!). Speaking of the need for evidence, he stated that “There’s a truth that is out there, you can actually discover”. How I wished that I could introduce him to the One, that very same One Who entered our time-space continuum as an ‘alien’, Who stated “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (Jn.14:6).

Over the holiday period, I watched part of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ on BBC 2 television. A line from that Tragedy springs to mind – one that many of these so-called ‘experts’ could do well to ponder: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Act 1, Sc.5). So, too, do the inspired words of the Psalmist: “…the One who rules in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them.” (2:4). As I stated yesterday, there is a great difference between knowledge and wisdom. It’s not a lack of evidence that is the problem; it’s a wise interpretation of the evidence that is all around us. (cf. Rom.1:18ff).