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I Almost Bought It

I must admit, I was a fair bit convinced. The preacher had miracles and apostles. His miracles were not indisputable, but they were photographed: images of crop circles and weird-looking things in the sky, videos of flying lights and something invisible that flattened grass into geometric shapes, and testimonials from various walks of life, including most notably a former Canadian cabinet member. He had apostles, shadowy figures called “Masters,” who were in contact with our other-dimensional visitors. They deliver edicts and interpretations, which filter down the strata of the UFO community and have now gotten to McEwen and me. All in all, a pretty sturdy religion if I’ve ever seen one.

The first half of the night was the stronger. It was the evidence and the retorts to the skeptics. I entered The Grange expecting to scoff, but I found myself impressed by all the pictures and videos and seemingly average people who claimed alien experience. I clung to a Sagan quote, which the emcee himself referred to: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” The evidence was powerful, but Hollywood’s made me an entrenched skeptic of all visual evidence. Still, I felt motivated to find some counter-information online after the show because my worldview was an eensy bit rattled.

The second half was a lot easier to dismiss. That half explicated the doctrine, which is a millenarian vision of the coming of the Savior, a thing whose name I’ve forgotten (Maitrea?). The source of all this doctrine was never really explained, and while I liked it fine — share, be kind, be open-minded, nice things of the hippie variety — I wasn’t really getting the same authoritative oomph I got from reading the Torah when I was a kid. Perhaps a savior will come and he’ll be an alien. Really, I see no objective reason to prefer the Christian prophesy to the alien one, other than perhaps social stigma. Until then, though, my secularism will remain, crop circles be damned.

One Comment

  1. Jim Updegraff August 30, 2014

    The Savior has been coming for 2000 years. The gullible are still waiting.

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