Saw a docu on National Geographic yesterday on these guys:


Their own promotional video:

Apparently there's lots of free sex at their meetings or what have you. I can believe in that.

Which explains why the Discovery institute wants nothing to do with them, despite the Raelians being advocates of "intelligent design". Which in turn tells you a lot about the Di's prejudices.

Animavore wrote:Apparently there's lots of free sex at their meetings or what have you. I can believe in that.

Well any excuse is better than none.

My favorite aspect of Raelism is that Claude "Raël" Vorilhon is a UFO contactee. He claims that an ET called an Eloha, plural Elohim, once visited him in a volcanic crater in France. This ET explained that some Elohim had created the Earth's biota, including humanity, by genetic engineering (Raël - Wikipedia).

Makes more sense than talking snakes and mud men. And I like the lots of sex bit.

laklak wrote:Makes more sense than talking snakes and mud men. And I like the lots of sex bit.

As your attorney I advise you to eat more apples of sin from the tree of forbidden fruit.


Mmmm apples of sin....aghghghhghghghg.

laklak wrote:Makes more sense than talking snakes and mud men. And I like the lots of sex bit.

I always make that point when the demand is made that religions be shown respect, even by some atheists. Everybody seems to think it's okay to laugh at these people but, bat shit crazy as it is, it's more likely to be true than the Abrahamic religions (for example).

The social "unacceptability" of mocking a particular religion is simply a measure of how much political power it has. Of course, the ones with the most power are the most dangerous and therefore in the most need of being mocked

Can this thread be moved to the Comedy section?

Genetically engineering the evolution of our entire biota would require a *lot* of work, even though it would be spread over something like 3.5 billion years. But genetically engineering humanity into existence from earlier species would be a *much* smaller task.

Intelligent Design: Message from the Designers - Kindle edition by Rael. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Years ago, people knew without a doubt that the Earth was flat. Even the top scientists of the day were certain that the sun revolved around the earth. Today, most people are sure that life on Earth is either the result of random evolution or a supernatural God. Or is it? In 'Intelligent Design', Rael presents us with a third option: that life on Earth was created by advanced human scientists from another world. In 1973, Rael was visited by one of these designers, who dictated a series of messages to him to share with all of humanity. This astonishing 'message from the designers' reveals knowledge on science, religion, love, relationships, government, meditation, infinity, sensuality, eternal life, and so much more, giving us the secrets to the past, present, and future of mankind...

Commenter Osio Lezer gave it only one star, and he writes about it:

He takes events from the bible and tries to explain them as visitations from aliens. As an example, he refers to Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning Elohim created Heaven and Earth." The author quotes a literal translation of Elohim from the Hebrew, "Those that came from the sky" and uses it as a plural word to describe a race of aliens. Thus, Elohim "the people" replaces the term "God" as far as this book is concerned. The author expands on this by saying, "they created the earth or, in reality, discovered the earth and realized it contained all that was necessary for life."

Convenient coincidence of a name. Or did they call themselves that for Rael's convenience?

As to seeding the Earth with organisms, that's not impossible, but it would have to be over 3.5 billion years ago.

In the first book, the author puts forth some interesting alternate explanations for familiar Bible events, and remains fairly detached and scientific about his theories. I was intrigued by some of the things he wrote about, things that filled in many of the blanks I had about the Bible, myself. He presented the events recorded in the Bible as a history book by an ancient people that used the best local references they could to describe space men in space ships. Taken alone, one could read this book without the self-serving religious belief system suggested by the second and third books.

Erich von Däniken territory.

However, the second book (which Rael wrote some years later) goes deeply into extra-terrestrial visitations and communications, and outlines an entire cult/religion built around the Elohim, one that includes free love and wife swapping. When we get to the third book (again, written years later), Rael reveals that the Elohim artificially inseminated his mother, and he is the true brother of Jesus Christ and is here to fulfill Revelations "Second coming of Jesus Christ." Here we hit the paydirt of insanity and misplaced morals that characterize the latter editions of his work.

So Rael is just like Jesus Christ.

"Random evolution." Sigh.

Intelligent Design - Message from the Designers -- the Raelians' home page.

Rael himself is pictured there. He is wearing a white jumpsuit with white shoes and a golden-medallion pendant.

Since I can't be bothered to use some autotranslator like Google Translate, I clicked on "English". I found Intelligent Design for Atheists - The Raelian Movement

What if, out of the thousands of UFO sightings that occur each year, one person actually met the occupant – the “driver” of one of these UFOs? And what if this person were given information by this space-being that explained the secret history of life on Earth and its pending future? And, what if all this information had been published decades ago and acknowledged by thousands of people, including scientists and historians?

Wouldn't you want to read such a book?

This Web site gives you the opportunity to read for yourself the extraordinary “Message” that comes from beyond the stars.

Actually, Rael is far from alone. George Adamski, Truman Bethurum, Daniel Fry, George van Tassel, Elizabeth Klarer, Billy Meier, ...

The Message - The Raelian Movement

This is what the “Message” proposes: Thousands of years ago, scientists from another planet came to Earth and created all forms of life, including human beings, whom they created in their own image.

Except for an itty bitty thing called the fossil record.

English e-books / Downloads - The Raelian Movement
Intelligent Design - Message from the Designers
Yes to human cloning
The Maitreya: Extracts from his Teachings
Sensual Meditation
Geniocracy: Government of the people, for the people, by the Geniuses

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) :: - The Raelian Movement
"Who created the Elohim?"

For the Elohim, it is the same - they were created by people coming from the sky as were their creators. It's an infinite cycle of life. One day scientists from earth will also go to another planet and populate it.

Then why the Elohim need an Embassy built by Rael. Why the don't reveal themselves to everybody: they might provoke hostile reactions. Etc.

The Raelian Movement -- videos, like of Rael's first encounter (The Encounter of Dec. 13th, 1973 - YouTube). He claims that he had an impulse to go to an old volcano, and he saw a silvery flying saucer about 7m in diameter. It landed, and out of it came some short gentleman. Rael described having strong feelings of love.

Rael has a section of "Intelligent Design" called "Extra-Terrestrials Took Me To Their Planet", originally a separate book.

He met that Eloha in the crater of the extinct volcano Puy-de-Lassolas in Auvergne. The Eloha met him for an hour each time, revealing what would go into Rael's book "The Book Which Tells The Truth", a book which became the first part of "Intelligent Design".

Two years later, that Eloha returned in his flying saucer, and Rael went aboard. He and the Eloha sat down in some chairs in it, and he felt a sensation of cold, complete with ice crystals poking his body. He awakened in some big space base and the Elohim got him to change his clothes. The Elohim there had some more messages for him. Then another trip, and he arrived at a planet. More Elohim. Yahweh, Moses, Elijah, Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed, ... The Elohim have very fancy homes and buildings. They also have lots of humanoid robots, and they even made one for him to be his companion. They also had lots of messages for him. But eventually, he had to return home.

After acknowledging "the disturbing and still unexplained phenomenon" of alien abductions, the book mentioned other UFO contactees, people who claim to have had close encounters of the friendly kind with extraterrestrial visitors

But none of them has remotely approached Rael in the sheer scale of the information reportedly offered - and Rael is adamant that he alone has been entrusted with conveying these truths.

That might have been true around the time of Rael's claimed contacts, but that foreword was written in 2005. By then, Billy Meier had issued some sizable tomes of his alleged ET friends' revelations to him. Their total size is much greater than that of Intelligent Design, as far as I can tell.

Billy Meier on Rael:

The Future Of Mankind - A Billy Meier Wiki - Contact Report 109

Several UFO frauds are identified: Claude Vorilhon, Karl Michalek, Elizabeth Klarer, and George Adamski.

...
Billy:
Okay, then I would just like to ask, what's the deal with the so-called Monguzzi images? And what is to be thought of the Frenchman Claude Vorilhon, who calls himself a leader and Raël?

Ptaah:
16. Excuse the expression, my friend, but this Vorilhon is certainly the craziest wheeler/dealer in matters of alleged contacts with extraterrestrial intelligences.
17. In his order of magnitude, he even surpasses Karl Michalek, Elizabeth Klarer, and George Adamski.

The Future Of Mankind - A Billy Meier Wiki - FIGU Bulletin 011

UFO SECT WANTS TO CLONE PEOPLE

With an entirely clear conscience one may call the "Raelian Movement" an imbecilic UFO sect. And now they are once again spouting off in a questionable manner. This sect, founded by French automobile journalist Claude Vorilhon, awaits the blessing of "Elohims" and praises the cloning of human beings. For a cool US $200,000 the UFO sect claims that it will clone humans.
...

TheyFly.com | The Billy Meier UFO Contacts: The only extraterrestrial contact case -- so Billy Meier is the One True UFO Contactee.

Evolving wrote:"Random evolution." Sigh.

Would you like a chair and a biscuit? I'll put the kettle on.

Evolving wrote:"Random evolution." Sigh.

Ignoring that natural selection is a nonrandom effect. That is a common misunderstanding, especially among creationists.

I found some other weirdness in that book, like how the Elohim destroying their bases some 25,000 years ago cause Pangaea to split up and caused Noah's Flood. Fossils? Organisms that lived on our planet before the recent Elohim presence.

Pangaea split up and caused Teh Flud? They have a slight problem with tectonic time scales, don't they?

It's basically Scientology, with nicer aliens.

laklak wrote:Makes more sense than talking snakes and mud men. And I like the lots of sex bit.

Pikkiwoki is actually a credible god of health, only certain muds have curative powers though. Very occasionally, religions pick up on stuff that works.