The Awful Truth

I recently read an interesting book, The Awful Truth, by Patrick Conway. Interesting but frustrating; in the free downloadable version of the book, I couldn't find the footnotes (or endnotes), which are necessary to provide evidence for the argument.

Which is this: the ideological divide today exists because both sides (atheists/Darwinists on one side, religionists on the other) have failed to come to terms with the demise of ancient civilizations and the loss of knowledge. Conway's argument is that events in ancient histories (from Homer to the Bible) are more or less literally true, that is, that human beings literally interacted with advanced extra-terrestrial beings (gods). Ancient civilizations from Rome to Mexico were under control of Satan (an alien "god"), their rulers were demi-gods and the descendants of demi-gods, and human beings were slaves of these gods and kept in ignorance of their amazing secrets. It seems that only the people of Israel were ruled by God Almighty with fully human law-givers and rulers, but the Hebrew prophets were not merely "inspired," they were being told what was going on and what was going to happen.

As prophesied by the prophets, by John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Apostles, the Apocalypse really did happen with the destruction of Jerusalem's temple in AD 70 (the Ark of the Covenant has been lost since that time) with testimony of supernatural armies in the sky reported by respected sources like Josephus. Conway goes further than Christians who believe in fulfilled prophesy (called preterists, pantelists, transmillenialists), alleging that everyone who was "saved" to be with Christ, living and dead, were literally raised up that time and that modern Christianity is a concoction of those "left behind" who apparently had joined the then-Church for worldly reasons and gained access to the gospel accounts and epistles.

But on the whole, this is still "good news." Because, at the same time, Satan himself was destroyed, along with his hold on ancient civilization. Indeed, the new Roman Emperor who reluctantly oversaw the destruction of the Temple, Vespasian, was of humble origin and made no claim of his own divinity. Elsewhere, the descendants of demi-gods started to die off, leaving ignorant humans, who had no practical knowledge of architecture and astronomy - and therefore no use for the civilizations that once controlled them - no choice but to leave their once-majestic cities in ruins. Meanwhile, the God Almighty who destroyed Satan also abandoned the Earth in AD 70, not because he hates us but because he liberated us and has faith in us to govern ourselves. It's just taking us a couple of thousand years to figure it out.

But instead of being enslaved by the demi-gods of Satan, we are instead enslaved by false beliefs. First, there are the false claims of Judeo-Christianity, saying that the prophesies have been delayed and absurd moral claims pertaining to sexuality. Second, there is the backlash against monotheistic religion that is atheistic evolution; Conway claims there is no evidence in nature of evolution and that human beings, clearly out of harmony with the planet Earth, must be an alien race. He also blames Darwin's theories for the Holocaust.

Lacking access to the footnotes where I could investigate some dubious claims (you get what you pay for, I guess), I'd say that Conway's argument holds together pretty well. His polemical commentary on then-contemporary politics (ca 1998) are a tad too socially conservative and misguided from my own point of view. But he provides a good meta-narrative to explain both the existence of the Left and Right, and also what he considers as false the premises of both sides. Too many people have too much invested emotionally and financially with one side or another, or with trying to accommodate both sides even though both are false.

But perhaps this is a phase we too will be liberated from. The progress of technology, which has no axe to grind like atheism does, goes to show our potential to equal the achievements what "the gods" achieved in ancient times.

Conway's most effective in the passages where he challenges the concept of a personal God and answered prayer. No living monotheistic cleric of the Abraham tradition would make the claims and follow through as Elijah did, and even if he tried, he would fail and then make excuses. That's because, unlike with Elijah, the personal access to God is just not there. Conway is also great at mocking the idea that ancient wonders like Stonhenge or the Pyramid at Giza were constructed through levers and pulleys, were merely monuments, and that any alignments they had with the sun, moon, stars, and Earth's own geography were purely coincidental. The more one learns about the Pyramid, the more this conventional "history" insults one's intelligence.

I think that in our electro-magnetic universe we can't possibly have all the answers. If the guy at Coral Castle in Florida had it figured out, why can't other people? Why was it necessarily alien "gods" who created ancient civilizations? From another point of view we can ask, with visions and/or actual UFO and alien sitings being so prevalent over the past sixty years, who's to say that the "gods" haven't come back to, I don't know, correct things? Or make things worse?

Then again, is space travel by even advanced races beyond the speed of light possible? Do the aliens visit us only through telepathic visions? Some portal from an unknown dimension? Or are they only in our own heads? Or is Darwin right? Or the orthodox Christians, Jews, or Muslims? Or adherents to Eastern beliefs? Did the Apocalypse indeed happen in AD 70 specifically so that we could experience God as an energy, a life-force found within us rather than through factual claims taught to us?

And are you so convinced of your belief about any of this that you would feel justified in harming another person to defend or advance it?

In any case, books like Conway's, although they may overreach in their explanations, do provide a necessary fresh perspective on the way we live. Even if it doesn't change our beliefs, a book that causes us to look upon things in a new way can be quite beneficial.