Theory: Religion as an Extraterrestrial Conditioning Project

Greetings fellow free-thinkers. I have been a long time lurker, and am now a first time poster. If this topic has been covered in detail, please forgive me, after yielding to the 'Search' function I could not find the information I wish to cover in this post.

Case in point, I'd like to bring to the table the theory of religion as a conditioning study by extraterrestrials. For this, I need you to step out of the box for just a few minutes.

For instance I know many of you may be believers in a higher power. As well, many of you may choose not to believe in a higher power, myself falling in the latter group. However, after hearing something of interest on the History channel regarding the Bible and ancient scriptures, I found myself contemplating the following scenario.

At some point in the Old Testament (Theologists feel free to help me on this point) it states something to the effect of "We looked to the sky and saw glowing lights. The Lord told us to follow them." To me, this sounds similar to many close encounters of the present era. There are several other examples, that our ancestors during the late B.C.E era could not identify, and easily could mistake them as a God, Savior or something of the like. These observations are strikingly similar to various reports of UFO sightings, abductions (which I honestly believe to be mainly publicity stunts, hoaxes), and the like.

The theory I propose, and keep in mind this is simply a theory, is this; is it possible, that extraterrestrials visited our planet at a very early era to study us and possibly gain an understanding to how easily we would believe in something that they attempted to set up using simple mind control, telepathic messages, and unexplainable phenomena (at the time period)?

Perhaps due to a lot of the atheists and agnostics that seem to be blindly running rampant in the world (me being one of them) is the reason for recent UFO sightings? Could it be that the human race is on the verge of a new understanding of the universe? I for one, believe that the universe's creation was a combination of carbon gases mixing, causing an explosion, a.k.a the Big Bang.

I am interested to hear what many of you have to say about this theory, and what Theologists for the most part think about it. Basically the point in question is were our prophets, apostoles and the like extraterrestrial beings?

Thank you for your attention, I look forward to a friendly discussion of the topic!

Have you looked at the rather unpoetically titled book "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", by Julian Jaynes?

Fascinating read. Throw in memetic programming to bridge the gaps left in his hypothesis, and you'll have a body of work that every religion, secret society, and world government will want to keep out of the hands of average people.

Edited for sloppiness and incoherent ravings

[edit on 14-6-2008 by applebiter]

While this thread does bring up some interesting speculation, that's all it is. With the heavy religious overtones, and lack of any evidence, it seems not suited to remaon in this forum.

Therefore, it has been decided to move it to a section where speculation thrives and yet site traffic remains very high.