Chariots of the Gods… of the Gaps
Did ancient astronauts provide man with levitation technology used to create the Egyptian pyramids, or Stonehenge? I have heard these breathless hypotheses since I was a kid, particularly in popular television and motion picture documentaries such as Chariots of the Gods, and at that age they certainly caught my imagination. And it is true that about these phenomena we have often had more questions than answers. Unfortunately, there are still many who argue that having more questions than answers is somehow evidence in favor of extraterrestrial intervention.
Wally Wallington is the kind of guy that gives these people indigestion:
The same argument has long been the refuge of theologians who claim that whatever science does yet not understand, it cannot understand, and therein lies God. Fortunately, many theologians are finally catching on to the fact that this God of the Gaps argument is a rather cramped space into which to stuff their all-powerful deity; and that space gets tighter all the time. They now tip-toe down the road of accepting that science and theology are compatible, comforting themselves with phrases like “non-overlapping magisteria“, either not realizing, or not admitting to their congregants, that at the end of that road lies the dreaded scientific naturalism and higher criticism that turns their God back into the myth of which it is made. Other theologians, sensing the danger, turn their back on this road— and descend into the madness of fundamentalism.
So the cleanup of the various gods, monsters, and aliens hiding in the various gaps is proceeding nicely. Does this mean there is no place for ultimate mystery? For wonder? For awe? No. For science itself provides more mystery and wonder in a thimble of pond water than primitive superstitions can muster from the entire Red Sea.
