That’s why you said christianity is total paranoia. I understood. It’s always about powerful “celestial” agents pulling the strings. And Humans are victims of a bigger plan that they can’t escape.

“illogical contraption by medieval pseudo-intellectualism” ,I’m interest.What’s happened?

Modern concepts of God are pseudointellectual gunk (example, example, example, example), following a tradition of inventing such pseudointellectual gunk invented by Christians in the Middle Ages. Ancient theology was far more rational and sensible, and empirical (I discuss the example of Galenic theology in The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire). Still false. Just not illogical bullshit.

Mythology is not the same thing as Conspiracy theory. Mythologies require no conspiracies. They don’t even have to be claimed to be true. Myth is a way of symbolically representing society (people, customs, institutions, ideologies) or ideas for its reform or warnings of its decline. They don’t have to involve conspiracies. And they don’t have to be literally true to carry their intended meaning—and indeed when they are invented, the inventor well knows they are not true, exactly unlike the inventors of Conspiracy theories.

One could even speak of mythology rather than conspiracy theory. However, given that it is a belief that remains relevant today, the term “conspiracy theory” actually fits quite well. Unless there is a word that falls somewhere in between. That said, a conspiracy theory doesn’t necessarily involve a belief system,nor does it engage in proselytizing.

You spoke about “illogical contraption by medieval pseudo-intellectualism” ,I’m interest.What’s happened?

Ok, I understand,thank you for the clarification.

the Epicureans shared the same view as Spinoza regarding the essence of “God”: a God who withdrew after finishing His work and does not interfere in human affairs.

No. The Epicureans denied the existence of that kind of God. They were anti-creationists. Gods to them were simply indifferent space aliens in distant star systems, who were just the biologically developed animals of those planets as we are on ours.

perceive angels and demons as spiritual entities (not physically real, obviously); how can that be compared to “aliens”

What do you mean by “spiritual” and “entity” if they are “not physically real”? In antiquity they answered thus: angels and demons (and gods; the words all meant the same thing in effect) are made of extraterrestrial supermaterial rather than earthly flesh; they have location, volume, origin, history, and physically move through space and can physically tread floors and hold objects. We would today expect aliens to be biological, probably cellular, and thus flesh, but only because we have the hindsight of advanced science. But in antiquity only Epicureans held that view. Everyone else (Stoics, Aristotelians, Platonists) held that space aliens were made of spacestuff and thus more like Superman or Plastic Man or even Ghost Rider. But that’s still a physical being. It’s just different physics.

And that remains today the most commonplace view of what angels and demons are. “God” has been transformed into an illogical contraption by medieval pseudo-intellectualism. But back in antiquity God was a singular entity with a distinct location and body, just an awesome one. Like Doctor Manhattan.

Yes, I think the Epicureans shared the same view as Spinoza regarding the essence of “God”: a God who withdrew after finishing His work and does not interfere in human affairs.

However, I think I might be confused here, because I perceive angels and demons as spiritual entities (not physically real, obviously); how can that be compared to “aliens”—conscious, physical beings coming to encounter humanity?

It seems to me that in revealed religions, God is spirit, not physical. Perhaps I am missing the point of equating God, angels, and demons with extraterrestrials.

That said, I think I’ve grasped the main idea regarding the notion that Christianity is a widespread myth—and thus a conspiracy theory—and the same applies to Islam and Judaism.

I am not sure what you mean here.

Are you confusing modern views with ancient?

Or are you ignoring that prominent theologians today still insist demons are real and not figurative? Joe Schmid, recent sensational convert, says so. David Bentley Hart says so. Craig Keener says so. Gary Habermas says so. And so on.

None of which has anything to do with microcellular life on other planets. You seem to be confusing life with aliens, meaning sentient people from outer space. Modern understandings of that are more realistic than ancient, but the beliefs are the same. We just disagree with the ancients on how far away they’d have to be, whether they’d even be close enough to visit here at all, and how they came to exist. Except Epicureans. Ancient Epicureans agreed with us already on all three facts about aliens. This was central to their argument that aliens (gods) are too far away and disinterested in us to actually affect human affairs, and we only see them in visions by a passive process of broadcast television.

So, what would happen if we discovered life on another planet—given that water and oxygen are all it takes to create life? We would speak of “E.T.,” and this would clash with the imaginative conception of extraterrestrials as it exists in human history.But seriously, the concept of spirits, angels, and demons is very often figurative rather than referring to physical entities hovering over humans; it all seems to be a matter of the mind. As Patrick Jane from the series *The Mentalist* might say after performing a magic trick: “If you think it’s real, then it becomes real.” What do you think? I think the subject is interessting.

Correct. The modern distinction between those did not exist then. Only the alien model existed in antiquity: gods and angels (and even demons) lived in orbit or on the moon and sun and planets, or among the stars, and traveled through outer space to appear or arrive on Earth and return. They are all extraterrestrials.