Saturday, April 3, 2010

UFOs, Aliens, and Christianity

by Babu G. Ranganathan

Former Apollo 14 astronaut, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, has recently made it public knowledge that aliens exist and that NASA officials have had contact with them. Dr. Mitchell says that there has been a sixty-year cover-up by our government of the existence and reality of aliens.

No doubt, all this will be used to support evolution and discredit the Bible. The fact remains, however, that science has shown that only micro-evolution (variations within a biological kind such as varieties of dogs, cats, horses, cows, etc.) is possible but not macro-evolution (variation across biological kinds or from simpler kinds to more complex ones). The reader is encouraged to read the author's Internet articles, "Natural Limits of Evolution" and "How Forensic Science Refutes Atheism." Mathematical probability alone has shown that it is not rational, logical, nor scientific to believe that life originated by chance.

Alien beings cannot wait millions of years to evolve complex and necessary organs for survival anymore than species on earth. Imagine species waiting millions of years for the biochemistry, tissues, organs, biological structures and systems necessary for survival to evolve.

Then, how do we explain aliens if they are for real? The Bible teaches that Satan and his demons (the fallen angels) can take on take all sorts of shapes and perform all sorts of miracles in order to deceive mankind. In fact, some who have been claimed to be abducted by aliens say that these aliens have told them things that undermine the truth of the Christian Scriptures and the Person and work of Jesus Christ.

This is not say that God cannot create life on other planets, but the point being made here is that the supposed alien contacts popularly mentioned are not actual alien beings at all but, instead, may be the work of dark supernatural forces.

Another possibility for the UFO's is that they are products of humans from long ago. There is substantial archaeological evidence of ancient humans having advanced technology and civilizations.

The Christian Gospel is unique, unlike any other religious teaching. That in itself is powerful evidence of its true and divine origin. The Christian Scriptures teach that man can never earn his salvation and that salvation is only by the grace (undeserved act) of God through faith in Jesus Christ, God's eternal and only begotten Son Who paid for our sins on the Cross through His suffering and death and Who rose bodily from the grave after three days.

Just as a co-signer to a loan takes the legal responsibility of paying for the loan should the borrower of the loan be unable to pay , Jesus Christ, because He was both divine and human and sinless, was able to take the responsibility to pay mankind's moral and spiritual debt to God. Through His suffering, shed blood on the Cross, and death He paid for our sins by taking the punishment for our sins upon Himself that we may be freely forgiven through faith in Him.

All other religions, no matter how different they may be from each other, teach basically the same thing, that man can save himself through his own good deeds. The Christian Gospel, however, teaches that man is completely fallen and can never be good enough to earn salvation, indeed cannot even be spiritually good at all in God's eyes apart from Christ. For God only sees what is done for His glory as being good. God is not being egotistical. By the very nature of things, truth demands that God be the reason and motive for our deeds and the object of our life and worship. God Himself would be sinning if He demanded anything less that Himself as the reason and motive behind our life and deeds!

Although good deeds cannot save us, once a person is saved in Christ he can and will begin to perform good deeds out of true love for God and his fellow man because of the Holy Spirit of God in his life Who has changed him. Good deeds do not produce salvation but salvation will produce good deeds.

The Christian is not perfect in this life or fully saved yet in this life. A Christian, in this life, will not always do good deeds because he still possess a sin nature, but, at least, the Christian will have a new heart and will always perform some, if not many, good deeds that are truly and spiritually good from God's point of view, the only view that counts!

The Christian Gospel is an offense to the natural thinking of man. Unfortunately, sometimes we Christians unnecessarily add to this offense by the way we share the Gospel and/or by some erroneous doctrine that we attach to it.

The uniqueness of the Christian Gospel shows that it could not have originated from fallen man or aliens. To Christ be all the victory!

"For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves: It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

For those not familiar with the Bible, the above quotations are from chapters and verses of two books (the book of Ephesians and the book of John) in the New Testament part of the King James Version Christian Bible or Scripture.