I grew up in a Protestant Christian Church (United Methodist), in a very rural area known for having some seriously narrow views toward diversity, difference, and other things that don't fit the area's socially acceptable models of "how things should be," and as a young person, I found great pleasure in not only attending church, but also being very active within it.
I found incredible acceptance and openness in my church family that was very counter to most of the area, and I honestly had the idea that Christians (across the board, and in general) were like this...open-minded, loving, nurturing, educated people.
I performed my first songs in front of people on a piano and then a guitar at this little country church in Teresita, Misssouri, where most of my family members are buried and much of my family histories on both sides are wrapped up in that little country church.
My senior year of high school, before I was headed to college, the pastor I'd grown up with in my home church was being reassigned to another church as UMC pastors are (John Wesley was a circuit-riding preacher, and part of the whole UMC gig is that Annual Conference tells you where you go and when you go there.), but even though I'd gone through Confirmation and was very aware of the doctrine of the church, it bothered me greatly to lose my pastor. I felt, for some reason, God was taking her away from me, when I was essentially counting on her being there when I was coming home from college on the weekends.
Then college happened. I went to a school literally formerly called Southern Baptist College, and was introduced to conservatism and judgement unlike anything I'd ever experienced when my best friend at the time told me she could not and would not be friends with a person who was pro-choice in regard to abortion (which I am, and always have been), and it changed my views of not only my college, but also the church at large, friendships, trust, and ultimately...God.
The more I tried to rationalize what could make God make sense...the less I seemed to be able to rationalize it in the same way I had before. I kept seeing people who weren't like Jesus and living lies all around me, and realizing we are all "sinners falling short of the glory of God," I really expected Christians in general to be like the Christians I'd grown up with. Nope.
I'd always been the "good girl," not trying things like alcohol or drugs or even cigarettes in high school...and as I got older, and further from the sense of God I'd been originally introduced to, I found myself questioning even further...and finding bitterness within my answers...and finding anger when I couldn't find answers.
Sometimes certain topics or theories seems very clear to me, and I'm not sure why...but when I started watching Ancient Aliens and listening to lots of theories (some more out there than others, of course), some of these connections seemed very clear.
In my own philosophical and religious mental-set, I do believe many paths lead to the same place...and seeing so many similarities between cultures spread out so far apart from each other with common bonds linking them: images of "bird men" or "angels" or people-like beings decending from the sky to deliver news of either necessary math (like to build the pyramids, for example), or to set a bush on fire and send Moses down glowing as he delivered at Mount Sinai, The Ten Commandments.
Extraterrestrial interaction with our humanity throughout humanity is not as illogical as one might think.
What are "The Heavens"? The Universe? Space? A different universe?
Alien Jesus Original Unmodified Cover Image Credit
By definition, Heaven would be space, and Jesus a half-human-half-alien hybrid. Would also explain everything he did, and if one were inclined or have the faith in some extended logic to believe it, explain it all, too.
Would love to have a discussion on this topic...your views...anything like that in the comments here. I'll be waxing on this further as I continue to feel this out, but I'll tell you this: I don't question the existence of God like I used to...and I think it might be closer to some of this Ancient Aliens stuff than we even realize.
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