Much of the current search for meaning in academic circles centers on the concept of deconstruction. First developed by German philosopher Martin Heidegger over a century ago and later further expanded by social theorists Derrida and Foucault, deconstruction means to take apart, to not only reverse commonly accepted beliefs but to change them as well. It forces the participant to dig out and question the basic underlying assumptions of any disciplinary construct. One can therefore deconstruct any particular sociological or philosophical theory. One can deconstruct Freudian psychoanalytical theory as well as Darwinian concepts of natural selection. One can deconstruct the written history of the Vietnam War or the Sixties Hippie movement, the Age of Aquarius. It just means to question the underlying assumptions of a particular discipline or concept or historical time period.
My major advisor in graduate school was a prominent albeit controversial Freudian Marxist historian who taught me to question everything about American society. He was branded as a so called revisionist historian who painted a different picture of American society than traditional historians. Over thirty years ago, he taught me to deconstruct American history and to point out the basic underlying intrinsic assumptions of American society including its racism, sexism and social inequality. He taught me that Karl Marx wrote that religion was the opiate of the people and Freud wrote that religion was an illusion. Believe it or not, I was this man's personal research assistant for three years. I carried this deconstructionist training into my teaching at the University of Arizona even though I actually was more of a Jungian liberal than a Freudian Marxist at the time.
This ongoing intellectual movement to question the basic underlying assumptions of nearly everything has taken place in the context of what is called a Post Modern world by this same intelligentsia. The former Czech president Vaclav Havel described this Post Modern world best as a world where 'everything is possible and nothing is certain'. It is a relativistic world where the Post Modern atheist is absolutely certain that absolutes don't exist!
So how do we deconstruct the UFO experience in this Post Modern world? It will not be easy but it will I believe reveal many of our underlying assumptions that prevent us from finding the real, absolute truth about UFOs.
I have been studying the UFO phenomena for fifty years. Even though I have never actually seen an UFO, they have always fascinated me and I likewise have always felt that they were real and would reveal to us something very important about ourselves and our destiny. These phenomena can be historically deconstructed into two broad explanatory groups. One says that the phenomena is not real and is only a figment of the viewer's imagination or hallucinations or worse his lurid capitalist desire to generate money by writing books or doing movies etc. The other group says that the sightings are real but are being covered up by the government to prevent panic yet provide new technology to the military industrial establishment.
In the past, when I had sought to obtain meaning for these phenomena, I had sought to deconstruct the underlying assumptions that I heard from the government which I always felt were not truthful. As I pointed out previously, I was a product, however, of the Post Modern world educational system so I likewise believed that anything was possible and that these UFOs were piloted by intelligent beings from across the galaxies that were more evolved than us humans and could provide us with valuable information on how to better ourselves.
This belief is still very prevalent among many people including several writers for UFO Digest who have attempted to question the underlying assumptions of the culture's rejection of the validity of UFOs and have filtered their results through the prism of their Post Modern relativistic paradigm where 'anything is possible and nothing is certain'. I recognize this because I used to do it as well. Amazingly, they can doubt that Jesus is the Son of God or that the Bible is the word of God, but can have no qualms about stating as fact that we humans have Anunnaki/Elohim or Immanuel extraterrestrial ancestry or that Jesus was just an alien or that Jehovah or Yahweh was really one as well.
What I am going to do next is to deconstruct these same phenomena through the lens of a religious world view. Please bear with me. I know I keep beating this same old mule, but it really does make sense. The underlying assumptions of the UFO phenomena that really need to be deconstructed are those that say that we are not alone in the universe, that we are not special or the most evolved species, that 'everything is possible and nothing is certain'. These assumptions could only arise in this Post Modern relativistic world that we inhabit. The Bible clearly states that "all things are possible (ONLY) to him that BELIEVES" (Mark 9:23) and there IS absolute certainty in that "Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).
The word of God clearly states that we were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), that God created us for His own glory (Isaiah 43:7), that man was wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), and that the Heavens belong to God but that the earth belongs to us (Psalm 115:16). Satan was described as the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2) who tries to deceive us.
But this is not accepted by the Post Modern person because "An unspiritual man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned" (1Corinthians 2:14).
When I, like the apostle Paul, become conscious of this, not by the teachings of men but by the divine revelation of God (Galatians 1:12), my belief in aliens needed to be revised. I still believed that the phenomena existed but if they were not sentient beings like us then what were they? I learned that they were fallen angels who left their celestial habitation and sought after strange flesh, human females, to impregnate. The Bible described this in the Books of Genesis 6:2-4 and Jude 6-7 and 2Peter 2:4. The extra- biblical pseudepigraphal works of Enoch did likewise.
In order to deconstruct the underlying assumptions of these UFO phenomena, we need to understand that many false explanations arise from our relativistic Post Modern world view. When we deconstruct UFOs from a Biblical worldview, we get a totally different result. Instead of saying that we are descendants of earlier alien visitations or that these beings are coming here to help us from destroying ourselves by nuclear war or global warming or whatever, we would realize that we are beings created in the image of a Holy God and are special and have a Heavenly Father that cares for us and will protect us if we let Him. This Biblical deconstruction of UFOs also reveals how insidious this deception really is. Many UFO researchers and writers say that Jesus was either an extraterrestrial or a result of a mating between one and Mary. They write that the Holy God of the Bible doesn't exist and neither does Satan.
There is no absolute good or evil in this universe. They are therefore open to a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false (2Thessalonians 2:11).
The Bible warns us about these false gods.
"For even if there are so called gods whether in heaven or on earth yet for us there is but one God, the Father from whom are all things and we exist for Him and One Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we exist through Him (1Corinthians 8:5-6).
C S Lewis wrote in his Screwtape Letters that Satan's greatest achievement was in convincing mankind that he does not exist. If your underlying assumptions include the beliefs that Satan and his demonic henchmen do not exist and that there is no righteous Holy God that created us in His image, then you will never understand the UFO phenomena. Deconstructing UFOs with a Biblical worldview rather than a Post Modern worldview reveals that these so-called aliens are not extraterrestrials but rather fallen angels, demonic beings bent upon our destruction. Understanding this would constitute a significant paradigm shift in thinking about UFOs and "the eyes of the blind will be opened" (Isaiah 35:5).
C S Lewis also wrote in his essay, Christianity and Culture that 'there is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counter claimed by Satan.' Military Aviation historian, Trevor James Constable, wrote that the battle with UFOs is not for the planet of man but for the soul of man. Satan wants to convince you that God is not real and did not create you in His image to be a special creation to Him. He wants to convince you that 'everything is possible and nothing is certain' and thus you all should just eat, drink, and be merry (Ecclesiastes 8:15), have fun, tolerate each others sins, don't be judgmental or believe that there is a Holy righteous God that cannot tolerate sin but He so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son to die for your sins and give you eternal life if you just believe.
Believe instead that some cockamamie alien savior will come and save you from yourselves and in death you all go to heaven and will be happy forever. These beliefs will most probably land you in hell not heaven. This is a war not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12). These so called extraterrestrials are instead fallen demonic angels.
The Bible warns that the time will come when people will want their ears tickled by false teachers who will turn people from the truth to myths, introduce heresies, be mockers of the truth, sow division, be like wandering stars, be worldly minded and also be devoid of the spirit (2Timothy 4:3-4, 2Peter 2:1, Jude 13, 18, 19). That day is here.
When one deconstructs UFOs with this Biblical rather than Post Modern viewpoint, current events and world politics also take on new meaning. I believe that when the real Christians are Raptured, or caught away, to be with Jesus in the air before the beginning of the great Tribulation (1Corinthians 15:52, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) which ends with the Battle of Armageddon when Jesus Christ returns triumphantly to rule and reign for 1000 years, it will be explained by those in the Post Modern worldview as an abduction by UFOs. To them it surely could not be what the Bible says because the Bible is only a fairy tale written by scores of men over the ages and changed repeatedly.
These people are absolutely certain that absolutes in the Bible do not exist. Sounds contradictory does it not but it is the benchmark of a Post Modern worldview where supposedly 'everything is possible and nothing is certain'. See my article The Upcoming Great Deception, UFO Digest December 15, 2006. So what have we discovered through our deconstructing of the UFO phenomena and questioning the underlying assumptions of its existence? If we attempt to deconstruct it through a Post Modern worldview which is the zeitgeist of our time, we will falsely find that supposedly 'everything is possible and nothing is certain'. These UFOs may be piloted by more advanced beings from outer space who want to come here and help us through our difficult times. But if we deconstruct UFOs though a Biblical worldview, we will see that these so called extraterrestrials are instead fallen angels, demonic beings, who have visited us over the ages in order to deceive us and lead us into sin. They are here in force now to deceive those left behind in the upcoming Rapture to believe instead that these people were abducted by them into UFOs.
Deconstruction will give us the truth if and only if we look though the correct worldview. The Post Modern worldview so prevalent in our society will only lead us to deception and ruin while the Biblical worldview will lead us to the Truth.
"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).
