First, this presumes all accounts are true, so if you can’t get by that, stop here.
The people on record of having seen angels describe them as having “wings” and “eyes”, however as these people were very likely agricultural in nature (farmers, herders, etc.) they may have simply described what they saw with the closest analogies they had. What they actually saw could have been something much different, but so far beyond their experience that they couldn’t describe them any other way.
Hypothesis: angels are actually higher dimensional beings that exist in more than 3 dimensions, and intersect part of their being to our 3 dimensions in order to interact with us. “Wings” and “eyes”, along with “wheels within wheels” could be undulations, harmonics, ripples, echoes, sympathetic frequencies of their actual presence that we interpret as best we can. It’s like when the sphere visits Flatland, we are seeing multidimensional cross sections of them, which give them such an otherworldly appearance.
Or, since the ancient people of Israel were desert dwelling people, saw a fucking peacock from the jungles of Asia that was brought in by merchants and so they got high in their temple from breathing incense herbs all day and wrote about it.
The accounts are consistent over a timeframe of about three thousand years, counting from Abraham to Mohammed (s.a.s). Note that Mohammed was an arab who could neither read nor write, leave alone hebrew.
If it was just some birds brought in by merchants that would be an extraordinarily long time to not realise that.
As always, people who could read, read religious texts for people who cannot. There’s no coincidence, just telling and retelling of stories once made up way before.
So an Arab who lived in a city where Pagan believes dominated and neither read nor write was read the Torah in hebrew that he didn’t understand? And that is how he made statementes consistent with the descriptions in hebrew, which again he didn’t understand?
By that time Christianity existed, and most of the Middle East was the Roman empire. It’s not far fetched. The old testament of Christianity is basically the Torah texts freely translated and somewhat changed, and Christianity was by that time, thanks to constantine, the most widely spread religion in the Roman empire. It’s not a miracle or a coincidence. People traveled then, too. It’s about as far fetched as an American-born Buddhist these days. Not common, but it happens.
In fact, the silk road has existed for centuries, if not millenia by then. If they can trade with places as far as China, it’s not far fetched for a religion proven to be inspired by both Judaism and Christianity to have traveled a little over the Roman empire’s borders.
Edit: also Judaism was common in and out of the Roman empire too
Then why are Christian depictions of Angels strongly different from the biblical and quranic descriptions? I.e. looking at the paintings and statues in Rome.
Also then the prophet Mohammed would have needed some sort of elusive Jewish or Christian mentor, that somehow was close to him all the time over two decades, reading the Torah or Bible to him. But no such figure is mentioned, despite the life of Mohammed to be about the best reported on life of a historical figure. There is countless of eyewitness reports about his life and work, yet there is no mention of such a person. The Quran strictly rejects the concept of trinity or Jesus being the literal son of god, but confirms the virgin pregnancy of Mary. So it seems extremely implausible for their to be a Christian who would have told all these things to Mohammed.
The reason why i am so pedantic about it, is because the statements made by Mohammed are not just some general “there is angels with wings and stuff” or “there was this Moses guy” statements, but sharing details with the Torah descriptions in Hebrew, but also distinctly differing on some aspects with the Torah in a consistent way. For instance the differences in the story of Moses or Abraham
we are seeing multidimensional cross sections of them, which give them such an otherworldly appearance
Accurate or not I’ve always liked Vonnegut’s description of the viewpoint from the 4th dimension to the 3rd:
“The creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti. And Tralfamadorians don’t see human beings as two-legged creatures, either. They see them as great millepedes—“with babies’ legs at one end and old people’s legs at the other,” says Billy Pilgrim.
That description presumes our temporal dimension is their fourth spatial dimension though. It also makes meaningful interaction basically impossible.
If it works more like Flatland and we have a shared temporal dimension then they’re simply able to perceive us, inside and out, from what we would consider every direction simultaneously. In much the same way that we can see the inside and full circumference of a two dimensional circle.
They sound like they would make for invaluable medical staff, at least where diagnosis was concerned. Who needs a CT scan, they can just see a tumor, a messed up spine vertebrae, or anything else, plain as day.
OMG I LOVED Flatland! There is also Sphereland, but especially considering when it was written, Flatland was by far more innovative and creative. Sphereland was an homage btw, not written by the same author, and instead much later, slightly updating things to include Einsteinian physics.
Okay in that case, you might be interested to know: C.S. Lews - the author of Chronicles of Narnia, and well-known apologist for both christianity and atheism (hehe, he switched, then switched again:-P he left his childhood religion behind, became atheist, then became a different type of Christian) -has this trilogy starting with “Out of the Silent Planet”. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants “imaginative scifi”, in the spirt of Flatland. It is less known than his fantasy works, I suspect b/c the details did not hold up well in historical hindsight, e.g. all of those creatures on Mars and Venus that we never did end up finding… but it was nevertheless quite bold in its risk-taking in that regard, having been written prior to that - even though he knew reality was not going to end up anything like that, yet he made this fantasy work anyway:-D. Also I love the neat way he has of making you be skeptical enough to question EVERYTHING that you believe:-).
In that series he puts forth basically exactly what you are describing. These are beings within our universe, but are entities of energy whose only way to interact with our world is… well, imagine how you would interact with a bacterium: you’d have to make a puppet and say “this is me”, but lol it really isn’t. And yet, from a certain POV, it kinda is? Like the best way to talk to “you” is to walk over to the puppet and engage with it, which your set-up would likely be predicated upon, as in even if their entire universe is observable under a microscope slide, still that is where your camera is pointed and zoomed at.
I also thought it was neat how planets are these dirty little mud-balls, in the eyes of those who literally fly through space - to us they are our entire worlds, but to them they are navigation hazards!!:-P We are the bugs that splatter on their windshields? Or perhaps the mud-balls are dangerous even, like reefs to a boat. Another interesting point was that space is not as “dark” as those pictures from the moon would suggest, b/c of the light streaming outwards from the sun (this one I can never do justice to the explanation, and anyway it may have been just more fantastical world-building material). The first and second are wonderful depictions of what it might be like to travel to Mars and Venus, while the third is more abstract, being on Earth but they do wake up King Arthur, in order to fight against aliens acting as demonic spirts that possess the spirit of a beheaded psychic kept alive with like lasers or something, so… there is that:-).
So many scifi series - like Star Trek - do such a wonderful job of showing us these imaginative concepts. But still there is something to reading them rather in books (or listening via audiobooks I guess), and since these were never made into movies, that is pretty much the only way to experience them. Enjoy!:-)
I’m on break from work so I can’t say much, but Flatland as societal commentary is really weird and dated, as geometry it still holds up though. I haven’t read Sphereland but I really liked a different sequel, Flatterland. Check out other stuff by that mathematician too, I really like his writing.
If it helps, just remember that its commentary on how “women are not real people” was SO egregious, even if more in line with some of the thinking of the day, that it SURELY must have been satire.
Or at least that is the only way that I can stomach reading it - so while I also happen to believe it, I also just “flat” (hehe) choose to believe it as well:-). Someone who sees so clearly into the heart of logic… well, I want to believe the best there rather than the abysmal worst that it appears as.
Thanks for the suggestions - I never looked around for another sequel, that is awesome!:-)
I really do enjoy people who “think outside of the box”, as that is the main way to move forward - not to discount the enormous investments of efforts by tinkerers too, but we need a bit of both. Jules Verne, HG Wells, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, this Flatland book, CS Lewis - these giants could see far b/c they saw clearly into the hearts of people.
Ok wanna hear my theory on angels?
First, this presumes all accounts are true, so if you can’t get by that, stop here.
The people on record of having seen angels describe them as having “wings” and “eyes”, however as these people were very likely agricultural in nature (farmers, herders, etc.) they may have simply described what they saw with the closest analogies they had. What they actually saw could have been something much different, but so far beyond their experience that they couldn’t describe them any other way.
Hypothesis: angels are actually higher dimensional beings that exist in more than 3 dimensions, and intersect part of their being to our 3 dimensions in order to interact with us. “Wings” and “eyes”, along with “wheels within wheels” could be undulations, harmonics, ripples, echoes, sympathetic frequencies of their actual presence that we interpret as best we can. It’s like when the sphere visits Flatland, we are seeing multidimensional cross sections of them, which give them such an otherworldly appearance.
Or, since the ancient people of Israel were desert dwelling people, saw a fucking peacock from the jungles of Asia that was brought in by merchants and so they got high in their temple from breathing incense herbs all day and wrote about it.
Occams Razor.
“Mustafa keeps this powerful messenger of heaven in a small wooden cage. Huh.” Shrugs.
The accounts are consistent over a timeframe of about three thousand years, counting from Abraham to Mohammed (s.a.s). Note that Mohammed was an arab who could neither read nor write, leave alone hebrew.
If it was just some birds brought in by merchants that would be an extraordinarily long time to not realise that.
As always, people who could read, read religious texts for people who cannot. There’s no coincidence, just telling and retelling of stories once made up way before.
And those stories didn’t change over 3.000 years?
They wrote it down, Monks (or the religion’s equivalent) copied them. Religious leaders read them aloud. It’s not hard to understand.
So an Arab who lived in a city where Pagan believes dominated and neither read nor write was read the Torah in hebrew that he didn’t understand? And that is how he made statementes consistent with the descriptions in hebrew, which again he didn’t understand?
By that time Christianity existed, and most of the Middle East was the Roman empire. It’s not far fetched. The old testament of Christianity is basically the Torah texts freely translated and somewhat changed, and Christianity was by that time, thanks to constantine, the most widely spread religion in the Roman empire. It’s not a miracle or a coincidence. People traveled then, too. It’s about as far fetched as an American-born Buddhist these days. Not common, but it happens.
In fact, the silk road has existed for centuries, if not millenia by then. If they can trade with places as far as China, it’s not far fetched for a religion proven to be inspired by both Judaism and Christianity to have traveled a little over the Roman empire’s borders.
Edit: also Judaism was common in and out of the Roman empire too
Then why are Christian depictions of Angels strongly different from the biblical and quranic descriptions? I.e. looking at the paintings and statues in Rome.
Also then the prophet Mohammed would have needed some sort of elusive Jewish or Christian mentor, that somehow was close to him all the time over two decades, reading the Torah or Bible to him. But no such figure is mentioned, despite the life of Mohammed to be about the best reported on life of a historical figure. There is countless of eyewitness reports about his life and work, yet there is no mention of such a person. The Quran strictly rejects the concept of trinity or Jesus being the literal son of god, but confirms the virgin pregnancy of Mary. So it seems extremely implausible for their to be a Christian who would have told all these things to Mohammed.
The reason why i am so pedantic about it, is because the statements made by Mohammed are not just some general “there is angels with wings and stuff” or “there was this Moses guy” statements, but sharing details with the Torah descriptions in Hebrew, but also distinctly differing on some aspects with the Torah in a consistent way. For instance the differences in the story of Moses or Abraham
Accurate or not I’ve always liked Vonnegut’s description of the viewpoint from the 4th dimension to the 3rd:
“The creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti. And Tralfamadorians don’t see human beings as two-legged creatures, either. They see them as great millepedes—“with babies’ legs at one end and old people’s legs at the other,” says Billy Pilgrim.
That description presumes our temporal dimension is their fourth spatial dimension though. It also makes meaningful interaction basically impossible.
If it works more like Flatland and we have a shared temporal dimension then they’re simply able to perceive us, inside and out, from what we would consider every direction simultaneously. In much the same way that we can see the inside and full circumference of a two dimensional circle.
They sound like they would make for invaluable medical staff, at least where diagnosis was concerned. Who needs a CT scan, they can just see a tumor, a messed up spine vertebrae, or anything else, plain as day.
Woah
OMG I LOVED Flatland! There is also Sphereland, but especially considering when it was written, Flatland was by far more innovative and creative. Sphereland was an homage btw, not written by the same author, and instead much later, slightly updating things to include Einsteinian physics.
Okay in that case, you might be interested to know: C.S. Lews - the author of Chronicles of Narnia, and well-known apologist for both christianity and atheism (hehe, he switched, then switched again:-P he left his childhood religion behind, became atheist, then became a different type of Christian) -has this trilogy starting with “Out of the Silent Planet”. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants “imaginative scifi”, in the spirt of Flatland. It is less known than his fantasy works, I suspect b/c the details did not hold up well in historical hindsight, e.g. all of those creatures on Mars and Venus that we never did end up finding… but it was nevertheless quite bold in its risk-taking in that regard, having been written prior to that - even though he knew reality was not going to end up anything like that, yet he made this fantasy work anyway:-D. Also I love the neat way he has of making you be skeptical enough to question EVERYTHING that you believe:-).
In that series he puts forth basically exactly what you are describing. These are beings within our universe, but are entities of energy whose only way to interact with our world is… well, imagine how you would interact with a bacterium: you’d have to make a puppet and say “this is me”, but lol it really isn’t. And yet, from a certain POV, it kinda is? Like the best way to talk to “you” is to walk over to the puppet and engage with it, which your set-up would likely be predicated upon, as in even if their entire universe is observable under a microscope slide, still that is where your camera is pointed and zoomed at.
I also thought it was neat how planets are these dirty little mud-balls, in the eyes of those who literally fly through space - to us they are our entire worlds, but to them they are navigation hazards!!:-P We are the bugs that splatter on their windshields? Or perhaps the mud-balls are dangerous even, like reefs to a boat. Another interesting point was that space is not as “dark” as those pictures from the moon would suggest, b/c of the light streaming outwards from the sun (this one I can never do justice to the explanation, and anyway it may have been just more fantastical world-building material). The first and second are wonderful depictions of what it might be like to travel to Mars and Venus, while the third is more abstract, being on Earth but they do wake up King Arthur, in order to fight against aliens acting as demonic spirts that possess the spirit of a beheaded psychic kept alive with like lasers or something, so… there is that:-).
So many scifi series - like Star Trek - do such a wonderful job of showing us these imaginative concepts. But still there is something to reading them rather in books (or listening via audiobooks I guess), and since these were never made into movies, that is pretty much the only way to experience them. Enjoy!:-)
Re: Flatland and sequels
I’m on break from work so I can’t say much, but Flatland as societal commentary is really weird and dated, as geometry it still holds up though. I haven’t read Sphereland but I really liked a different sequel, Flatterland. Check out other stuff by that mathematician too, I really like his writing.
If it helps, just remember that its commentary on how “women are not real people” was SO egregious, even if more in line with some of the thinking of the day, that it SURELY must have been satire.
Or at least that is the only way that I can stomach reading it - so while I also happen to believe it, I also just “flat” (hehe) choose to believe it as well:-). Someone who sees so clearly into the heart of logic… well, I want to believe the best there rather than the abysmal worst that it appears as.
Thanks for the suggestions - I never looked around for another sequel, that is awesome!:-)
I really do enjoy people who “think outside of the box”, as that is the main way to move forward - not to discount the enormous investments of efforts by tinkerers too, but we need a bit of both. Jules Verne, HG Wells, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, this Flatland book, CS Lewis - these giants could see far b/c they saw clearly into the hearts of people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKfZ8RJ487M