Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Heaven's Gate (1997) and more

Hale-Bopp comet with two tails. 7 April 1997

The Heaven's Gate UFO religion is a striking example of human spirit seeking freedom from the material and physical constraints God of Israel has placed upon His creations.

Physical constraints
In the Holy Bible God tells us that He has made us Adam, the man, out of dust.

"This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven. Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground."
Genesis 2:4-7

Even if we do not accept biblical Geocentricism as our world view, we all do live in a rather lonely planet Earth in this our Local Group of Galaxies where good Lord has planted us. The enormous astronomic distances in space and the cosmic speed limit of light make space travel even to nearest stars rather impractical in terms of human time scales.So it is pretty much us and us alone in this neighbourhood of the Cosmos.

Humans are constraints by living in a created world that is not based on randomly colliding atoms as the brilliant Greek philosophers Democritus and his disciple Epicurus were thinking. The mathematical order God created in atomic world is just amazing.

However, even if we do not accept Materialism as our world view, we all do live in a dynamic Universe that is made of energy and particles in a Spacetime continuum. Laws of Physics, the border cases described by Sir Isaac Newton and others as well as the broader general relativity described by Albert Einstein and others, pretty much constrain us to the material existence. The physical order in Creation places rather severe constraints on us as not-so-random beings as we are ruled by gravity and other fundamental laws of Physics.

Nor are we the product of random mutations as brilliant American philosopher D.C. Dennett suggests - the order in God created DNA is just amazing. Evolution is not an excuse to free us from moral constraints to behave like wild beasts.

Even if we do not accept Biological determinism as our world view, we all carry the heritage of life in our genes. According to current scientific understanding all life begins from One and only life generates life. This means that we all carry in our genetic heritage signs of the entire history of life on this planet and live under the constraints set by our Biology.

The most dramatic biological constraint is our death. Some of us live happily seventy or eighty years, many much less, a few live over hundred years making it in the news at Joseph's 120. Then time is over and our dead bodies disintegrate back to the dust of ground it came from.


Spirit seeking freedom
In the Holy Bible God tells us that He has made us Adam, the man, is not only dust from the ground.


"Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."
Genesis 2:7

We are NOT just matter and energy and what we are, living beings, seeks to break from the constraints of Space and Time and matter and energy and genetics and everything. We want to Free Willy!

The Heaven's Gate UFO religion is a striking example of human spirit seeking freedom from the material and physical constraints God of Israel has placed upon His creations.


False call to freedom

George Bush visiting Heaven's Gate, Guyana 
Is this photo true or fake? (ref)

Two things collided with tragic results on March 1997
1. misinformation about a mysterious spaceship supposedly tailing the approaching Hale-Bopp comet
2. an esoteric ascetic religious cult seeking to escape the constraints God has placed upon his Creation.

1.
"In November 1996 amateur astronomer Chuck Shramek of Houston, Texas took a CCD image of the comet, which showed a fuzzy, slightly elongated object nearby. When his computer sky-viewing program did not identify the star, Shramek called the Art Bell radio program Coast to Coast AM to announce that he had discovered a "Saturn-like object" following Hale–Bopp. UFO enthusiasts, such as remote viewing proponent Courtney Brown, soon concluded that there was an alien spacecraft following the comet.
Several astronomers, including Alan Hale, claimed the object was simply an 8.5-magnitude star, SAO141894, which did not appear on Shramek's computer program because the user preferences were set incorrectly. Later, Art Bell even claimed to have obtained an image of the object from an anonymous astrophysicist who was about to confirm its discovery. However, astronomers Olivier Hainaut and David J. Tholen of the University of Hawaii stated that the alleged photo was an altered copy of one of their own comet images."  (quoted from wikipedia)

2.
"Heaven's Gate was an American UFO religion based in San Diego, California, founded and led by Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1928–1985). On March 26, 1997, police discovered the bodies of 39 members of the group who had committed suicide in order to reach an alien space craft which they believed was following the Comet Hale-Bopp, which was at its brightest" (quoted from wikipedia)


True freedom
In the Holy Bible God gives us humans the freedom - and even duty - to carefully evaluate all sorts of prophets coming to us with false promises of freedom.
"Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many."

In the Holy Bible God tells us humans that our false freedom, liberties taken from the Laws of God causes coldness in human hearts
"Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold."

In the Holy Bible God tells us humans that He Himself will give us real freedom
"But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved." 


The End of Constraints
Yes, the end will come to this constraint existence of ours - but only God knows when (probably quite soon considering...)

"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."

The words of Jesus are from Matthew 24:11-14

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