Are UFOs Demons? A Theologian's Warning About UFO Disclosure

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Or as long as there have been humans, we have looked up and we have always put God there.

Our oldest book is full of it.

Wheels of fire, messengers, light from above.

But every time we.

Looked closer, the Heaven's got stranger and what we believed had to bend.

But this time we didn't bend.

We looked up at something we could not explain and reached for the oldest answer we had.

I don't think they're aliens.

I think we examine all of it with doctor Joel Parkin. Everyone, I'm Matt Ford, and welcome to the.

Good Trouble Show.

The government is releasing real UFO files faster than anyone expected, and the first instinct from Pulpits to the White House has been to call them demons. My guest says that's not just wrong, it's dangerous in that the other side, the one that strikes and says faith is fine, is kidding itself too. Theologian and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and seminary author of Exo Theology, and he wrote a brief addressed to a Congressional task force, warning we are not ready for what disclosure might mean. Please welcome doctor Joel Parkin Joel, good to see you, sir.

How are you good?

How are you? Thank you for having me?

Oh, you're You're very welcome.

So yeah, So the last time I saw you was at the UAP Disclosure I'm sorry, it's not UAP Disclosure Fund anymore. They call it, I think a disclosure foundation. But it was a thing on Capitol Hill. You had some members of Congress there, you had various speakers. Uh, it was it was a lot of fun, and it was our first time to meet in person. So so nice to see you, virtually, So I want to want to jump right into it. So you know, so you were a marine intelligence analyst before you were theologian. Uh so, how does a guy with your resume end up writing basically a paper for Congress on UFOs and religion.

Well, started a long time ago, when I was actually about maybe eight years old.

I was really into UFOs and Intelligent Extra thres shows as a kid, and I pretty much went through every book I could find when I was younger, when I was in elementary school, and I basically consumed everything I could find on the subject, to the point my mom had to basically pay for the books that I wouldn't return to the libraries that I took the books out of.

So when I got older, I decided I want to do a military career.

I was not related and I was I should say I was not raised religious. I was raised basically in a.

Non religious household.

My dad was a probably a non practicing Congregationalist, maybe even an atheist slash agnostic. My mom was a dicifect Catholic, so she didn't practice her her faith either. But when I was in the military, I had a what you would call it a spiritual experience, and it came all of a sudden, It was unexpected, and I had It was a very profound, powerful experience and lasted only a few minutes, but I had a very lasting impact on me, and it really changed the trajectory of my life. I was planning out being a careerman in the Marines, and I decided I wasn't going to do that.

I was going to pursue my religious ideas and explore what that meant.

So I go ahead.

So, since I had a background and thinking about extracor intelligence for most of my younger life, when I became a religious person, I said, how do these two square together. And I tried for a long time to find anybody who had written seriously and systematically on the subject, and I couldn't find really anything that was worth reading that could help me in this. So I decided I was going to make make it a project of mine to figure this out.

So that's what I did, and over over talk about six years, but I produced a book called Extra Theology, and it's The Examination of the Notion of Intellgtional Intelligent Extressols Vice of v Religion, And that was published in twenty twenty one.

Okay, so for years, I mean really kind of since Loue Alizondo came out the whole New York Times thing, this has been framed as a national security story, you know, radar sensors hearings, and even to be fair, I've framed it in exactly the same way. That's kind of been the angle of the show is talking about the UAP issue from a national security legislative lens. Now, your brief says that that is only half of it. Why isn't this, you know, just a you know, just kind of a Pentagon Department of Defense problem.

Well, this is not just a national security issue or a military question. This has civilizational aspects which not been I think acknowledged by the people that are looking at this at the congressional level. And you may notice they haven't included many theologians or religious scholars or leaders on the task force of bringing together now, and I think it's a it's a big miss as far as what they should be doing, because this is not just a national security issue. This is a like I said, civilizational issue, psychological, religious, theological, and that should be carefully examined.

It's just as much as the other aspects happen.

Why do you think that this is something that seems to have been left off the table, like why aren't we having national conversations over the implications of NHI for Christianity really all the world religions. Why does this seem to be an afterthought.

Because it's been after talk for much of the theological tradition and thinking about this. So when I mentioned to you that I when I was putting together in my book, which took a long time, took a long time, they were historically very scattered and fragmented. Looking at this as from a theological perspective, and pie can be apparent to me that theology has not looked at this seriously for many, many centuries, and so when I wrote my book, I just said I was going to try to figure this out the best I.

Could at a very scholarly level.

It's got over a thousand foot notes, and it looks at it in deep detail. It's a very dense book, but it's an effort to understand this so that a modern reader who lives in a twenty first century Einstein and Universe can understand how to conceptualize, not understand what this means. But as far as to answer your question, this is related because the theology has not taken this seriously. Church leaders, I don't think I've taken this seriously, and they don't have the information, to be honest with you, they don't have the data.

They have not done the work. They have not done the research.

And I'm talking about the Catholic institution, I'm talking about evangelical churches.

I'm talking about many other people who have not done the work.

There's been a few scholars who looked at this, but not systematically and certainly from an institutional perspective. They have not done the work. So it hasn't been brought up to a national interest, national interest because of that, So it's important.

That's why I felt it was really important that I bring this to the tension of the Congressional Committee.

Because this is a very very important and real aspect of what disclosure could mean, not just in the immediate effects, but in the in the aftermath, the long after myths.

And let's just say Trump walks out tomorrow, he goes, he has a I don't know, walks into the White House press press press room, has a press conference, says, you know, guess what, folks, UFOs are real.

Non human intelligence is real.

We we have crashed craft, we have crashed bodies. Uh, this stuff seems to be in a superior intelligence to us, you know, So forget about the policymakers and uh, you know, the people in the Pentagon, et cetera. If Trump walks out tomorrow and does that, what what changes? You know, what changes for a you know, for an ordinary believer sitting in a pew on Sunday? What this coming Sunday. Let's say it happens tomorrow. How does this affect people walking into church on Sunday?

Well, you're describing one of many scenarios that could be become reality. If that happened, if Trump made a disclosure that nature works, that we have had contact with some intelligent beings, that would have some very specific effects.

For institutional religion and believers. It would have.

There's some lesser scenarios as far as that's concerned in this more grave scenarios.

We could talk about that later perhaps.

But as far as the one you just raised, it depends on what is actually communicated. So churches and religious intitutions would have some disruption, I would think, because an advanced species could possibly have a more advanced moral, philosophical, religious development if they have no religion, it would actually be destabling for ours. If an advanced intelligence, who are perhaps one hundreds of thousand years more as advanced than ours, that what would that say about.

Ours are.

Parochial exclusivest claims of our religions if they possess the religions that might be these stabilized our inclusives, claims of our are are our doctrinal claims. If they possess a deep theology voltical reality, then Earth religions could be seen as immature local expressions and this could have profound effects. So Christian may require a treat from its long standing universe universes claims if that happened. But again, a lot of it depends, well, all of it depends really on not only was communicated, but.

How it's communted.

Uh, how it's communicated by the media, and since the media has such a powerful role to play, and how this is disseminated that has to be carefully managed. And I don't know, it's hard to depict predict how institutions will manage or filter the data and how governments would do the same. So these are difficult questions, and I think they should be asked because these are real outcomes that could happen. As as from disclosure. It's not just about we're saying that they're real. There's if you say they're real, which I think may happen at some point, maybe not during Trump's term, but I think it's eventually going napp And then there's a million questions I follow that Right.

Now, the comfortable answer is that Christianity survived Copernicus. Uh, it survived Darwin, you know, Darwinism.

Will it survive this?

And if not, why, Well, it may not because the the difficulties that were brought forth with Chronicanism and Darwinism.

They they just they did not.

They were not basically what I would call a asymmetrical epistemic contact. They were not acting. These these are basically human human revolutions.

They were not.

Where a outside authority or outside knowledge came into to question our knowledge. So that's that's why this is not the same thing as what we experienced with other revolutions. An epistemic authority, I would say, which meaning in a civilization which was far advanced to in ours, could have information which could be very destructive to our religious traditions and concepts and doctrines. And so you know, we have a thousand for example of Christianity, it has it's basically a it's a system of truth claims and a center of faith to to certain beliefs. And these are not be able to They're not necessarily falsifiable or unfalsifiable.

Many could be philosophically.

Unfalsifiable because they're they're truth there, they're faith statements. They can't be proved. It's a matter of their articles of faith. So this is where it can get very messy when we think about what happens if we had an alternative alternate authority, come in and tell us more about our history way than we know.

Now your your key line.

I think you said this in your book that Christianity is resilient against expansion but vulnerable to displacement. In plain English, what is the difference between expanding the faith and displacing it.

Well, most of the most of the church leaders have said that, uh, Christianity is resilient or the church is resilient with the idea of you t that. Maybe so if you're just talking.

About simple biology, but if you're if you're thinking about more catastrophic scenarios like the one I just described, where another civilization is able to displace our par parochial perspective perspectives, and uh, these these can be quite quite destabilizing. If they say, if there's some scenarios which have indicated that there's been ancient intervention in our history, of religious manipulation, post mortem knowledge, genetic engineering, contradiction of sacred history, or a superior theology.

These can be very, very damaging. And that's that's what that means.

So simple biology is one question, and that's that's typically where people are arguing from the confident position. But other types of disclosures could be very, very damaging.

Now, you wrote here that that a superior non human intelligence with authority over creation and redemption.

Could prove devastating.

Give me a little bit more of a detail of that particular scenario. What would actually have to be true for it to be devastating?

As you wrote, Well, there's a few different things. The credible disclosure, I would say credible is an important word here. Disclosure of genetic engineering or an interfate chance with humanity, or the intentional shaping of religions could be very damaging. This would not produce prove God, but it would destabilize a doptance of creation Adam originalson special election incarnation. It would kind of mean that humanity was immediate species in that sense, we would be a species that were the that have been created by another species. But that's not to say God didn't create them. But these are quite These are situations where we would have to articulate and re examine and reinterpret our history as Christians. So you know, there could be experience of a species level of religious betrayal the human organism and religious were partly curated by others.

Another would be another very distateb licence. Scenari would be perhaps like a afterlife disclosure, meaning that they could have vast knowledge of our post Warner existence, for example, reincarnation, soul transfer, consciousness, persistence, evidence of the structure of a non of the structure of non physical reality.

That would be a challenge to the schatological evidence.

Which would cause severe crisis if Christian teaching was undermined by preserving spirituality while disconfirming Christian finality. So these are these are serious things that could be going on, and some suspect that this is what's actually.

Some of this stuff might be what's being held back as.

Far as the disclosure is that this is this kind of information or something like this is what could possibly be out there, as far as what would cause some very very serious repercussions for society.

So basically I would say that, uh, the most very his position is conditional Christianity.

Christianity is robust against the mere discovery of expressial life. It's moderately stressed by contact with rational x threshild persons. It's it's severely stressed by superior to hot non human theology, and potentially catastrophically destabilized by verified non human intelligent involvement in human origine, sacred history, or post mortem reality. So these are these are all things that should be considered by I think, you know, church leaders, pastors, and other other actually which I should say, you know, media personalities because and you JD. Vance has said that he thinks for demons. So these are things that people are not considering.

We can get into demonological shop later about that, but that these are some of the core the core issues here.

Yeah, we're going to get into the whole j D JD vans deem uh demonic thing. But yeah, what what you said about like the afterlife, Like, to be honest, that's like something that has never crossed my mind in terms of the NHI thing, as everybody, every human on earth knows like no one knows what happens to us for sure after we pass away. You know, we have what the various scriptures tell us. But I could certainly see NHI showing up and saying, oh, yeah, this is what happens. And I don't know how you would be sure they were being truthful about it, but I could see that that one thing in and of itself. Let's say that we don't go to heaven, we reincarnate. I could absolutely see that being being massively destabilizing.

Yeah, so that's correct.

So even within our last century, we've had we've been able to receive data regarding near death experiences which were not available to us in prior centuries we've had, you know, in our civilization, we've had not that much direct access to what happens that someone dies. We're able to reascessitate people in a way now has never been happy before, and this has increased our ore exposure to people who say they have had these experiences, so and a lot of them are very consistent.

There's a lot of commonalities.

There's some differences, but there are many commonalities in these experiences. So just just within our twenty first century, we've we've been able to in late twentieth century, we've been able to learn more about the afterlife than we have in previous centuries because of our scientific advancement. So you can extend that out to the idea bets if they are centuries or millennia ahead of us, say say ten thousand, one hundred thousand years, it would seem to me it'd be reasonable to think that they were they would have access to extensive knowledge regarding a post mortem life, and that may serve to confirm or disconfirm what our legistricians are saying.

And so these are things we should take into account.

So let's say that Nhie pops up and they say, you know what, guys, everybody, uh, everybody reincarnates after after you leave the physical body.

What does the Pope say to that the next day?

Well, he may he may just you know, we many people just deny with the hearing.

So if he doesn't think it fits into the Christian category, he can label as a demonic, as a demonic lie, as a deception, and that would be that you can make that go away very easily, I think. You know, religious leaders may have I think again a A you would would have a fragmented probably interpretation of these things. So the Catholic institution would have one perspective, you would have another another one from the UH the fundamental churches, evangelicals have another perspective. So you would have a variety of views on this based on one's own personal theology and reading of the Bible, and you know, situational thinking about this. So it really depends on who you're talking to uh, I think you will probably get just as that we can see in our in our earthly religious tradition, that we have a lot of diversity. And so it seems that it seems to make sense that uh, any kind disclosure or any kind of information will be filtered through people's own biases.

And that's just a reason why to look at it.

Now, your brief goes after two opposite camp camps excuse me camps uh and uh So let's let's let's start with the demonic one. So when a sitting vice president says that he thinks that these things are demonic, you know what is wrong with him saying that?

Well, what is it? What it says to me?

With all respected the vice president, I don't think he has taken time to learn about he's he's admitted that he has not studied this subject. This is a off the cuff perspective of his and uh, he hasn't done the research, almostly speaking, And that's okay.

He's a busy guy.

But I would think of this price president, and this is a serious issue. As I said before, it's a civilizational issue. Retreating into what I would call it a demonological reductionism is not helpful for the people. So it's basically, you know what I would say from a Christian perspective, it's a it's an example of hermon I would call it hermonautical assimilation, where an unknown quantity is absorbed into an inherited category. And so it's really not ja the advance. He's not really doing it in a defensive way. He's trying to do it an explanatory which way, which I understand.

So I hope he does the research and he gets more off the speed on what's going on as far as the physicality of these things. But in general, I would say, you know, people who are making it a demonological interpretation of this, it's really a gross attempt at a theological firewall, and it's an operation from ontological fear. I think, you know, reactionary demological totals interprets the entire phenomenon to a single inherited of the category, and it really repeats an old historical interpret of a habit. So you know, comments eclipses, academics, epidemics, mental illness, atmosphere of phenomena.

These are traditionally all interpreted as being caused by demons and demonic course science has has displaced all those understandings misunderstandings, so the same is true here, so certain of it.

Evangelical pastors.

There's been a number of common extorsist catagestrisysts and front of US mentalists who have said these they have said the slat out their demonic.

Again, these are people who don't have knowledge.

Now they may have knowledge in their work as exorcists, but they don't have knowledge of uthology. And uthology is a very very lengthy, eighty year, extremely dense study.

Okay, I've been looking at it since I was a kid.

It to gain competency and neuthology, I would say it'll take you at least a good decade or two to do a good job. It's a very dense, lengthy study. If you're going to get degree, this probably tikey five years to study. Don't understand it because there's so much going on there, there's so much evidence, and so this is why this is the disconnect. I think when people who say it's themmological, they don't have the data to support the idea, to understand that this is not a spiritual phenomena, it is a physical reality. There there are you know, even Dave aggression. Uh, the reasonles the blowers.

You know, when when people who are knowledge about uthology saw their testimonies, they're saying, yes, we've known this for decades, because what they said was nothing different from what they've.

Been hearing and reading about for many, many, many years.

So it's completely and completely coherent with what they knew already about this phenomena. So it wasn't new information for people who who are knowledgeable about this.

This has been going out for what a long time.

These are just the latest people who are coming forth and talking about it publicly, which is great, But I mean I should say I really think these priests are misleading people. To be honest with you, they haven't done you the euphological work, and I can't emphasize that enough. This is critical to understand this phenomena. I would apply that that statement also to Congress. You know, some of them have said, well, we think it might be angels, and that's that's their perspective, but they don't have.

The knowledge base yet to understan this as it should be.

So.

Uh, I'm somebody who understands theology. I'm a theologian. I've looked this for a long time. I also fortunately have my foot also in the euthhological camp. I'm not just in academia, so I be able to see.

Both these perspectives.

And looking at statements by by by religious people saved. You know, thirty years ago they were saying, well, there's nothing to see here, these are there's no such thing. When people were saying there were there were et contact and there was a calls for disclosure, people were saying, there's nothing to hear, that these are not real.

But now that we have so this is so that is just basically outright denial.

But now that we have undeniable military and government evidence, now now that the not s switch to demonology to demons, so this to me is like, really, it's it's beyond frustrating because it's basically, uh, it's a it's kind of a cop out. It's it's a predictable but I would say understandable ontological theory response. And and this I would call, you know, reactionary demonological totalism.

Uh.

People Uh, people who are are fearful of their paradigm being dramatically altered are going to retreat to what they know best, and that's or that's the religious paradigm. So I understand it, but it's not helpful, especially when people who are in leadership positions say this kind of thing. So, you know, Donning, there's a lot of Unning Kruger going on here, people who are saying this because because if you if you talk to the people who are working within this, the closer they are to the actual material and the actual evidence, none of them are saying it's demons.

It's only those who are not not not having any access. So when I hear something say demons, I know immediately they don't have access.

They may know about it, but they don't have access. So that's what I That's where I go with that.

But there's a lot here as far as the the demonological perspective I want to talk about, because it's a serious it's a serious category area. I would say it's it's it's it's basically, you know, you start with a conclusion, then you find the advidence to fit the conclusion, so you know, the agency is supplied before causality is understood.

So the view exists within any limited paradigm.

Uh, I should say the Church, actually the Catholatures does not make this claim.

They say they're open to the biology.

It is individual churchmen and people who are religious who are saying this.

I should make that clear.

But this is what to call it, you know, a gross reflexive, naive attempt at a paradigm validation. They're using existing archetypes to interpret known phenomena. And uh, last my check, demons don't fly to physical craft or have physical bodies. The powers of demons that are well established for many centuries. Extorsists know this, people who work in this field for many times, for many years know about this. Uh, they don't fly in craft, they don't have bodies, and they don't have technology. They don't have technology or engineering. So again this is this stem is from not knowing that the data. So these are again you know, fear combined with ambiguity, combined with a theological view, and then you end up with a demonological attribution.

You know.

Well, when dinosaur off fileses words were found in the in the nineteenth century, many young earthers thought that this was a create a deception by Satan to confuse Christians and faith because the Young Earth is thought about, you know, they've believed in a six thousand year Earth, and of course this talent that geology challenged that, right. So my own view is like, it's sometimes it's easier to have faith to acknowledge your paradigm is incorrect. And this is all about intellectual honesty, and I think intellectual honesty in requires that as a character and also data.

I mean, you're lacking data, you'll go to the easiest solutions.

And so it's it's it's discouraging that people are saying this, and there are a lot of them are saying it, but you know, to be honest with these are these are predictable or cultural nochinations of digesting the idea in the reality of you t So it's kind of a case in point relief when I'm looking at it, because it shows that certain segments society are not ready for disclosure, because we're running to a an archaic perception.

I'm not saying demons don't exist. They certainly exist. I did.

When I was a young undergraduate, I worked with with the Warrens. They were a they were actually from Connecticut where live, and they they or they're very well Unich.

They've heard of them.

They're very well known ghosts, demonic investigators to both pass away now, but I've had my own experiences with this kind of stuff personally, so I'm not doubting that it exists.

I know it exists. But you know, we can have it.

We can have a universe where demons and eat and physical biological ets exist and that's not heretical in any way. So you know what it really does, is it It adds fear. It filters through inherited religious categories that it feels to account for the physicality including great returns, center data, military counters, recovery, crafts, materials, physical bodies.

You know.

So, but I understand why there's difficulties with it because there's a thing called the clustering effect, which you may have heard heard before, and that's you know where the psychological, spiritual, paranormal and disturbing effects of these uh they seem like in might established they deem not demonic causation, but that's not what it is, uh there, there's just it's a phenomenon that that kind of trendscends different categories, and that's why it's easy to attribute it to the demons, but it's it's actually a very heterogeneous, heterogeneous phenomenon and involves physical, psychological, technical, cultural, and possibly you know, spiritual dimensions. So you know, the reductionists in thinking here really discourages empirical inquiry, and I think it could be employed, exploited as a culture accepted substitute for more difficult forms of disclosure, which we talked about earlier. So, you know, a responsible theology should neither denied possible spiritual dimensions nor use them to raise contrary evidence because it unmature and informed hypothesis. It's it's not it's not a it's not a sure and formed hypothesis, and it constitutes refused to acknowledge the the theodological religious implications.

So the phenomena is, you know, basically, it's it's it's unresolved as complex, it's sympirically significant enough to read that reduction of demonology is premature. It's methodology, methodog methodology week, it's historically cobmatic, and it's disconnected from detailable evidence.

So that's that's that's my take on the demon stuff. It's it's, it's it's not, it's not a proper way to.

Address this, and it's it's going to create more problems because when you when there's you know, when there's ambiguity involved, these kinds of interpretations are not helpful because they lack because they lack data, and they lack they lack experience.

In these matters. So i'm i'm I'm encouraging. In my letter to the Congress.

One of the last points I make there is that they get up, they get speed on this stuff.

And I know it's hard to do that now, but this is what's required.

And I think I would respectfully have today refrain from making the public interpretive statements of this nature because it doesn't help society kind of properly frame this u for the long term.

So you spoke about the the this briefing that we and we're going to get to a little bit, get to it here in a bit.

Uh.

Did you have any luck reaching lawmakers with this document?

I talked to our presenter, Eric Arlson implicitly about this, and I gave him a copy of my brief.

Yess great, okay, fantastic, that's what That's what I like to hear. I want to go back to to the Catholic Church and the Vatican. Lou Alizondo, who of course is a UAP whistleblower. He came onto the scene in twenty seventeen in the New York Times article I worked on this Pentagon program called a TIP. He has stated quite a few times that the Vatican is very well aware of the reality of UAP and that this goes back for maybe as long as the Church has been around.

What have you heard anything from people that you've spoken with in the Vatican or elsewhere, like the astronomers in the Vatican.

I mean, certainly, you know, if the Pentagon.

Has all of this stuff, which we know that they do, I would be wildly surprised if the Vatican is not sitting on some just you know, huge treasure trove of evidence of non human intelligence.

Yeah, that's a question. I get a few I get often.

I have not seen anything of that nature that the Vatan has insider information about this. There's a body of claims that of the nature that I've heard many many times. But and I've I've had conversations with some of the Vatican astronomers, especially when I when I finished my book. They were very interested in it, but they didn't have any inside. They didn't indicate they had any inside or knowledge about this. There is actually some confusion about the Vatican archives as.

Far as this goes. That's actually the large Archabri I know about.

But there's also a thing called the Space Archives, which I think it's conflated with the Vatican Archives, and that's basically a library that's kept at at the Cassock Gandolpho, which is the Vatican Observatory, and they they have you know, you know, very very old records at Galleo's writings, that kind of thing, Uh, you know, early astronomy, that kind of stuff where that's all put together. And people tend to think that's that has to do with ets, but I've been I've been assured by those who are there that's not the case. I want to know that stuff because I'm into this, but they haven't told me anything. Uh, the vision with the magenta case in nineteen thirties, I've heard a lot about that, but we don't have anything to pin down on that as far as I can tell.

But I tend to think they don't have really that much.

I could be.

Wrong, obviously, but I haven't seen any indication they had their sitting on some some treasure of information about this from what I can tell just based on Vatican statements, either by Paul Francis or the present or former head astronomer there.

They haven't looked at this.

If they did, I think they would not be saying what they're saying publicly, for example, saying that they will baptize et if they wanted it. Well, if you say that, then you're assuming a great many things as far as the theological anthropology to creatures.

You know, how they're how they're.

Composed, spirit and body, that kind of thing, with what our sacraments apply to them, Would they even care? Would they believe it is? Is there any reality to that whatsoever? So these are I think fairly irresponsible statements that make about this. And what makes me think is that they don't have the They don't have data.

If they did, they.

Wouldn't be making they wouldn't be saying this kind of stuff. So I tend to think not, But again I could be wrong. I don't have access to that kind of thing. And I've been talking to other people that who maybe to know, and they have not been like I said, they have not been able to pen down anything of that nature.

But you know, we could be surprised. Someday we could. We could find out they have some information.

But as far as analysis, and theological consideration of this this issue. I haven't seen anything coming out of the back of the observatory.

Uh.

From what I can tell, most of the astronomers are are you know, doing good scientific research. They're priests, but they're also you know, very credible scientists, and they're doing work on meters and that kind of thing, and they're they're they're bona fide astronomers. But I haven't seen any real, real substantive scholarly work, uh in this area. So as far as you know, for some XO theology, I haven't seen that. So I was kind of surprised when I first wart of my book. I thought I'd be going to then getting some answer, some questions answered, and I actually got questions of my directions about this, So it's kind of surprised they haven't gotten ahead of me.

They weren't ahead of me at the time, so I know that's not what people want to hear. But that's that's all I know.

Okay, Okay, and doctor Park and I wouldn't want to talk here in a bit about alien abductions, but before we do, I just want to take a quick break.

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So let's say that alien abductions are real.

Let's say that these beings are able to come into our bedrooms, kidnap us, kidnap our children, uh, and all against our will. How if let's say, let's just assume that that is true and that has been taking place, how could that even wildly work in terms of being compatible with Christianity?

Well, I would say I would say it isn't compatible in that sense. That kind of behavior.

I mean, abduction is a crime in every society, every civilization since the beginning since ever. And uh, so we all understand as human beings, but we may have it appears to me that we're there. There are entities and beings that are have been engaging humanity for quite some time that have some kind of biological fuguama involved going on. And uh, they may not care about our moral teachings, they might not care about our our social world, and they had they're going to do what they want to do.

So we had to understand that some of these beings may have different moral beliefs and they have different agendas that we don't know about, and maybe even hard to consider what their agendas are because they're so so different from us.

So obviously it's concerning. I don't think it's right.

Obviously, I bet this is something that's been fairly well documented in the literature, and it's concerning. So and there's also there is an intergenerational aspect of this, obviously, and many people have realized this. Bud Hopkins and uh, he has, he's acknowledged this, he's gone now. But this is a this is apparently a very real phenomenon, and so their concerns here how that plays out. But we can we can, we can make we can obviously, just even from not from a Christian but even a human perspective. We can call it out as being absolutely wrong and terrible, but that doesn't mean it's not real, right, Yeah.

I completely completely agree. And you you brought up something that that I've spoken about on this show previous previously, is that we have a we have no idea how these things think, and we have no indication. Well, actually maybe we do have an indication, which isn't good if you consider the abduction phenomenon. But we we have no idea what their ethics are, and they may not value life or or or any of that the same way that that we do for the most part as a global as a global species. And you know, it's like, I don't know how you recon how you reconcile that, nor to how how do you really understand what their true motivations are and whether you can trust them?

Right?

So, yeah, these are all important questions. So can we trust what they say? So when we're discussing early about the any kind of DT messaging we would have which could have some kind of consequence for us, we have thought we also have to consider the source of data. Right, So these are all things we have to do and try to verifying what we're hearing. But you know, we have we have very we have very bad humans on this planet too. We've had world wars, We've had human beings who do some trouble things too. And from a Christian perspective, we're a religious perspective or a human perspective, we can obviously identify who these people are and how.

To and how they're they're bad humans.

I think I think the thing could be could be said for ets. I would imagine there's ets were probably not so good motives as we're just talking about right now, and there's ones who have more altruistic motives and and and everything between people who are maybe in buildment about us.

So there has been research that.

Indicates there's many there have been many different races engaging us for a long time, and they have some they have different motivations, they may have competing agendas and that kind of thing.

So it's not it's not a simple picture.

And so uh, this kind of you know, this is why we had to have a more sophisticated thought process from considering you know, disclosure and what that means for the broader the implicate nations, long term consequences, and you know, we wanted you know, people say they want disclosure and they want to see the data, they want to see the craft, they want to see the bodies, and that would just be the beginning of the questioning. And then you know, we've got we got to We'll have a million of questions about what's what's next. So what are they doing here, why are they here, what are they doing?

How long have they been here? Who are they? Where did they come from? What are they doing? To us, on and on and on and uh, what does that mean.

For the consequences for our twenty first century civilization? So I think it's really important that we get out of the simplistic thinking about this either you know, civilizationally, psychologically, sociologically, theologically, religiously. We did really move the ball forward as far as thinking about this stuff.

Now here, here's one one.

Both camps do one thing that both both camps do. You have the ancient alien crowd that says Ezekiel saw a spaceship. Yeah, the demon the demon crowd that says Revelation predicted this. You say they are both misreading the book.

Well, you know, it's it's it's it's it's a bad practice to read back into this art you could do is called is of Jesus reading back into the scripture or something that's reading something that doesn't exist. So taking a modern phenomena like ets and craft and trying to read that into the text is it's called isa Jesus.

It's not how you read texts.

And similarly, it's wrong to look at it look at a religious religious text which has a symbolic and theological meaning im pertinent to that particular particular history and situation and try to say that that's that's aliens in ancient times. So it's it's a double it's a double error and it comes out of really a in a misunderstanding or ignorance of historical criticism. So you know, historical criticism when looking at the scripture is very valuable when thinking about this stuff. And I mentioned this report to the converse and a short paragraph how it's important that when we when we reference scriptures and we talk about the potential et involvement, we know what's what and we're not complaining the two.

You draw a hard line between three words.

Everyone blurs discovery, disclosure, and contact.

Why does that distinction matter so much in this case?

Well, because they have very different outcomes in general, I should say, you know, disclosure involves governments and acknowledging existing knowledge that's been held for a long time. Discovery involves science independently confirming et intelligence. Contact involves actual interaction with another civilization in some way. Each produces different political, scientific, geological, and psychological consequences. So yeah, so coloble discourse often conflates these three distinct possibilities. So, you know, preparing for one does not necessarily pays for the others. So, you know, discovery, like you know, the James Wall Telescope could discover UH microbes in space.

It could find techno sigittures or biosencers.

On another atmosphere, an alien nexo planet atmosphere that would have a certain kind of effect on us, not too severe because it's so far away and there's no there's nothing the dramatic that's going to happen to us, just with the information. Having some bit having a craft crash somewhere in a popular air would have a very different effect. Having an actual communication from one of our radio telescopes, whatever.

Different kind of effect.

So discovery is, you know, is an event where humanities that detect something microbes, techno signatures, artifacts, probes, signals, or ruins, and that may be intellectually disruptive but socially containable. Disclosure is media through institutions, garnments, militaries, scientific bodies, religious authorities, and intelligences themselves or the intelligence themselves. It can include evidence of secrecy, UH contact crash retrievals, concealed knowledge of human origins, and that could create a legitimacy crisis. So those are those are different outcomes. So contact is you know, would be more challenging for government's religious institutions of control depending on the mode. So again this is the very kind of fluid understanding how this stuff could turn out.

But I think we need to make sure that we understand what the distinctions are. Some can be highly controlled by institutions, some not so much.

And it is a contact like to me, like that seems the scariest one out of it because you know, obviously, uh, discovery can be classified, radar data, et cetera, disclosure can be spun politically. But contact there's really kind of no one government or church that can manage that particular thing. So is that the scenario that would actually scare you the most.

Potentially?

I mean, contact could be just like I said, a radiotelscope transmission and it's just a message, there's no immediate threat, twists whatsoever. And then you can have something in the order of the Virgina incident, where if it wasn't contained by the Brazilian government, it.

Would have had a very massive effect on people.

If you're familiar with the contact story, uh, there was a there was a crash and this is back I think nineteen ninety six and there were being seen walking around the city, which is sounds crazy, but there's been a lot of in depth analysis done by this and study, and if it was not contained by the Brazilian military, we might have heard about it.

They called you know, they called Bruzos roswell. But that would have had.

A that would have had a massive, massive, and unpacked if it was able to be transmitted or into media media attention in a way that media, the media would have media attention would have could have transformed that into a civilizational event. But that didn't happen because there were there were controls place for it. But those are just kind of two extremes. When you talked about.

Contact and you're you're asking Congress really to field a term most people have never heard of. I certainly haven't heard of it, which is exo theology. Give it to me in kind of one minute. What is exo theology and why can't regular theology do this job?

Well, uh, classic theology was not designed for this kind of stuff. It was it was it basically originated in a you know, in a geocentric philosophical, philosophical environment. It was it was exclusively terrestrial environment, historical environment. It's it's dominant categories were shaped by ancient and medieval cosmologies where Earth and humanity occupied a the entire known area of intelligent life, and so you know, a concentrated primarily on God, humanity, revelations, and morality, scripture, religious institutions within one planetary history. So it wasn't it was not designed to address multiple intelligent species or civilizations separated by vast evolutionary histories or religious development across cosmic time. So so classical theology lacks developmental categories for non human personhood, etm or agencies, artificial opposed biological intelligence, hybridized beings, or radically different forms of consciousness.

It lacks sufficient framework for evaluating claims that non human intelligence may have interacted in humanity, influenced religious history, or possess knowledge about you know, consciousness or death. So exto theology is you know it Basically classical theology is strongly anthropomorphic and geocentric, even when it formally accepts modern astronomy.

Want to make statements about that.

So exo theology is a it's a systematic examination of the religious, theological, philosophical, and civilizational implications of non human intelligence, and it's in dialogue with you know, the state sciences, anthropology, sociology, consciousness studies, uthology, disclosure research, and it basically asks how theological concepts function when humanity is understood as one intelligence species among many potentially, and it distincuishes the discovery VT life from government disclosure and direct contact because each creates a different theological problem. So it examines revelation, religion, moral development, post warm existence and that those things may possess cosmic rather than exclusively terrestrial dimensions. So it's really a broadening of the theo theological base. And its purpose is not to produce you know, doctrium prematurely, but it's it's it's works to create a conceptual architecture needed for responsible interpretation.

So it's really it represents theologies transition from a planetary discipline to a cosmic one, and that's basically what it is. So it's it's it's not an it's not a niche career curiosity city. It's a theology of civilization after what if you could call a cosmic out of adolescence.

Okay, now I want to talk about this executive summary and you've actually you've touched on pretty much most of the most of the of the points, but I want to go over them here. So this executive summary. Number one, disclosure is not solely a national security issue, and you're right here. While these concerns remain essential, they represent only a part of the broader disclosure future. The possibility that humanity may confront evidence of non human intelligence introduces profound implications and domains occupied religion, occupied by religion, philosophy, psychology, and culture. Consequently, disclosure represents represents as a potentially transformative civilizational event and impacting individual social, psychological, religious, in human self concept within within a cosmic context. And yeah, I mean it's I think you've laid that that case out pretty pretty well here. The second thing you talk about is religious implications have been significantly under under examined, and you talk about Copernicanism, Darwinism.

It's et cetera. And but but again, and we touched on this earlier.

One of the things that really caught my eye in this Christianity is a is resilient against expansion but vulnerable to displacement. And I think that that, I think is very very profound. Number Three current religious responses exhibit opposite but related weaknesses. And you talk about this demonological reductionism, and and then the fourth one here and I'm going to totally butcher this word biblical.

Herman hermeneutical.

Say that, say that one more time, hermeneutical and what does that word mean?

That's a theory of interpretation. Are interpret texts?

Okay, okay, texts?

So this goes back to the what you were talking about with with talking about Ezekiel seeing the wheel and et cetera.

Is that sort of what you mean by that, yes, okay, okay.

And then five disclosure, disclosure, discovery, and contact must be must be distinguished.

Uh.

And we talked about that.

And then of course insufficiency of traditional theology. And I want to end on your your recommendations, which is the seventh part of this executive summary that that you've given to members of Congress.

Walk us through.

What your recommend recommendations are as to how Christianity, the Catholic Church, et cetera, other religions can whether what we we all know is certainly true.

Well, they get start off by getting making themselves familiar with the euphological literature. That is absolutely key to this, and that is the one element or dimension this lacking in the analysis and statements made by those who have platforms, whether it be political or religious or media people.

This is critical.

And the only problem with this is that it's a long, grueling study and it takes a lot of work. I have maybe a thousand, maybe many hundred, No, maybe not a thousand. I have several hundred UFHO books here, and so I mean I try to stay.

Up on the subjects.

It's a lot of work and it takes time to understand all the data, the historical data, the interpretive data, and then the the solution data. And so this is something I think that people who are in responsible positions should make themselves aware of. And I would say, you know, if they're Congress members, I would say, get some really good advisors who are knowledge one that subject. George Knapp obviously is somebody that I think is extremely competent and knowledgeable, and I'm happy seeing him there in the Congress and talking to Congress members.

Uh.

He is somebody who's incredibly knowledgeable and and smart.

So that's good to see.

But religious leaders, again, the same applies become knowledge of about the about the data. Don't just reflexively respond from your own classical theology, because that's not going to work anymore. This is a very complex phenomena. It's not demoned. We can put that to bed. Uh, it is a real phenomena.

Uh.

The youthological data shows this. And we fortunately have whistleblowers not coming forward who are indicating how this is all very very real and they're not They're just the latest of a bunch of guys doing this. This has happened that We've had many, many scores in the past, but they haven't always got you know, congressional attention. So this is really unprecedented. And you know, Trump is a you know, Trump is a wildcard. We don't know what he's going to do. He he's unpredictable, and that could be good or bad. It could be that he is going to release more stuff that we may not expect.

We don't know yet.

But if we're going to get any formal disclosure, I think he's probably the guy to do it. So we're living in very interesting times as far as people who are in the know about youuthology and disclosure effort. But one of the last thing I would want to say about the Congress members. I you know, I think they're doing great work. I really admire the work they're doing, and I would ask them just be very very careful about making any premature attributive statements of religious nature, because that really drives the conversation the wrong way, especially when you're talking about angels with demons, that kind of thing.

That's not what this is.

I've done a lot of research in theology, and I've done a lot of work in this from for many many years. That's not the nature of this reality. It's not what the nature of this is. It's hard to I think it's very hard for people who are religiously minded to to think about this seriously because it makes them fearful that maybe be their their theological religious beliefs and assumptions could be actually and maybe not correct, but perhaps incomplete. And this is I understand, very very intimidating for people. But uh, my book Is Theology kind of leads this out. How these are not uh, these are not incompatible ideas.

So I've worked very hard on it, and that's my message to the leadership.

That's a message to people who are who are in the know and who are not to know, but people who are uh out there and trying to be being mouthpieces for what uh their institutions are saying.

What would your what would your message be to Pope Francis if he were watching right now.

Well, I would encourage him to do the same thing. I would ask him to get a really good advisors who are very knowledge about euthology and he needs to add that to is his uh discernment done this? The Vatican stroummers are really a bunch of smart, bunch of smart guys. I would encourage them as well. But you know, there's been a very very long, decades long, probably eighty year long kind of embargo with academia and euthology. They don't talk to each other. Euthologists and euthology in general doesn't get the respect or the attention from academia. It's just getting that now, which is really again very unprecedented.

With the Disclosure Foundation, with the Soul Foundation, you've got really serious, great scholars who are looking at this in scientific and social way and social aspects, and.

That's really that's never happened before.

Really, So, you know, uthology and and academic need to work together, and we're starting to see the beginnings of that effort.

Which is really good.

It's completely unprecedented and that needs to continue, and I think that's going to really kind of move us forward.

Absolutely, so, doctor Parkin, how can folks follow your work and find your books?

You can. My site's actually down right now, but you can.

You can go on to starlab Press on Instagram. You can find me there if you're interested in the book. This is the actually the book here, Exit Theology. It's printed two twenty one and three and fifty pages, and you can you can mess with you there. You can send me an email at Exoit Theology at yahoo dot com, the full word at yahoo dot com, and if you are interested in buying the book, I will get your information.

I'll get it out to you.

I should have my setup as my site back up in about a week or so. The books that I think it's not thirty thirty two dollars, so that's a soft cover, so you could do that. If you want to message me any questions, you can send me an email to the same place and I will respond.

Awesome.

Well, doctor Parkin, thank you so much for joining us and looking forward to having me.

Back on the show.

Thank you thanks for having me.

Okay, great, great job, thank you for doing this a third third time? So yeah, cool, So this will this show should be up this weekend and I'll be sure to send you the link.

And then also, please, if if you.

Didn't send it in the in the CALLI form, send me any any links to your website, et cetera.

I'll make sure to put those in the YouTube description.

Okay, great, So the I do, I do tend to talk fast sometimes, so can you can you manage that whether you want to do something with that?

I can't really slow that down?

Okay.

So yeah, so hey, you know what if people have to watch it a second or third time, Okay, I'm all for that.

So my students sometimes they record me and they play it back in the DRMA and it's like half speed, you know.

So okay, no, it's all good, all.

Right, brother, Well, thank you again and have a good evening.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. So this we're not this, it's not live. We're not get any of viewer questions right.

No, correct, yes, yes, I'll let it.

After after these two disastrous sound issues, I decided not to do anything live until.

I knew this thing. We're fixed. So all right, cool, all right, brother, thank you so much.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks. That was doctor Joel Parkin.

So whatever you believe about is in the sky, whatever this is, I mean, I have no idea what it is. This guy came on to say the hard thing. That was doctor Joel Parkin. And you know, whatever you believe about what is in the sky, he came on to say the hard thing to his own side, and that is rare.

And if this.

Is the kind of conversation you want to have or hear more of, please subscribe and come let's see.

Folks. That was doctor Joel.

Park And I hope everyone enjoyed that conversation. I certainly certainly do. I know everybody is kind of trying to figure out what all of this means for religion, amongst other things. So yeah, So if you enjoyed this show, thanks for tuning in again, Please leave a comment, please leave a thumbs up, and please make sure you turn on the little notification bill because, like I said, YouTube is not recommending our show at all, which is pretty pretty suspicious. But thanks for joining us. And if you enjoyed this show, you're going to love this one. See you next time.