The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines xenophobia as fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign. Since xenophobia is such a big word, let’s break it down to a word we’re all familiar with: prejudice.
It often starts in grade school. Parents tell a child that a classmate lives on the wrong side of the railroad tracks or the wrong side of town. Sometimes parents tell their kids that they shouldn’t hang out with that creed or nationality, or the ever-present taboo of racial skin color.
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II took on the subject of prejudice in the 1940s in their musical South Pacific, with the classic song, “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught.”
In the 1930s, Germany’s Nazi party stirred up the political base with anti-Jewish rhetoric: They were the source of your problems. History has taught us how horribly all that turned out when it was taken to its ultimate end.
American politics has also seen a similar stirring-up of a unique political base with anti-immigrant rhetoric. This is paradoxical because we are a nation of immigrants, except for our Native American neighbors.
What does this have to do with UFOs, the extraterrestrial presence and disclosure? Plenty!
Over the past year, and with increasing intensity, I’ve observed a great deal of anti-extraterrestrial rhetoric in social media, most of it polarized within a theological context. This rhetoric takes the position that extraterrestrials are “fallen angels and demonic entities.” Many of these doomsayer advocates naturally suggest that the ever-popular Satan is in charge of the whole Ufology movement.
At the 2018 MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) Symposium in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, I was confronted by an “ETs are demonic entities” advocate. Surprisingly, I had just exited a presentation about Ufology and religion.
A well-dressed gentleman had in his hand a large envelope—with my name on the printed label in 50-point font. The man introduced himself as a good Catholic of some sect I had never heard of. The man genuinely wanted me to know that Revelations predicts that the coming force of space aliens were fallen angels, demonic entities and part of a force of 666 demons. He professed to me that Ufology and aliens were a huge demonic deception to make us doubt God.
I politely accepted his envelope and informed him that I was an Orthodox Tibetan Buddhist. I further told him that I did not share his view that sentient beings from celestial realms were any more good or evil than the rest of us. Then I excused myself and proceeded to another meeting.
So we’ve got people running around in misplaced morbid fear, demeaning off-world species before we’ve even met them, based solely on a highly misinterpreted chapter of the Bible.
Combat soldiers used to be indoctrinated with negative terminology about the enemy in order to dehumanize them, which supposedly made the enemy easier to kill if they were something less than human.
It’s disheartening that some people of a supposed loving faith are out spreading their twisted theological rhetoric in an effort to demean off-world visitors with an ultimate objective of making them easier to kill.
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