The First Encounter
Assignment #2


















Fleance Houh
Student #0171717
April 4, 2005
Dr. David Humbert
RLST 2326EL
“Are we alone in the universe?” Scientists have been trying to answer this question for many years. As of now there has not been any rock solid evidence to prove that there is life outside this world, but there is an overwhelming amount of people that believe that there is life. People only believe that there is life outside earth, they don’t know there is. It is hard to know that extra terrestrials exist unless a person has an encounter with one. A person named Claude Vorilhon (Rael) had an encounter with an alien and was told that we were all experiments to the aliens. The alien insisted for him to spread the word of the encounter and build an embassy for the coming of Elohim (the extra terrestrials). This encounter was the start of a UFO cult called Raelians. This cult has spread all over the world, predominately in Europe, Japan, and Quebec. In this UFO cult, Raelians, one can wonder what’s its beliefs are, what is it about the theology of this UFO cult that could draw so many followers and how some can not accept this religion. This religion started by one man went a long way and caused many controversies along the way.
The theology of the Raelians was given from Vorilhon’s extra terrestrial mentor that he met with for six consecutive days for about an hour. There are eight main beliefs of the Raelians cult. The first one being that Elohim was the creator of humanity. The alien race was way more advanced than us and they mastered genetics and cell biology well enough to create DNA. They used earth to further studies because of its isolated environment. First plants were created then animals, then humans. “These human creations of the Elohim were first housed comfortably, being fed and sheltered with no obligations, in the laboratory of the Elohim. However, humans soon proved to possess an aggressive nature, and thus, the Elohim forced the humans out of the laboratory, which was poetically referred to in the Bible as the "Garden of Eden.” The second belief is the scientific translation of the bible. “Genesis 6:1-2 "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the Earth and daughters were born unto them, that the Sons of Elohim saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them as wives..." Rael states this quote from the bible that it indicates an interbreeding of the Elohim and their human experiments. Many passages in the bible are interpreted more scientifically by Raelians, such as that we were created with cell genetics rather than a God creating us from his powers. This third belief is that we are living in the age of apocalypse “humanity is now living in a time when it is scientifically advanced enough to understand its origins”. Since the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945, Rael said it was at point where we entered the age of apocalypse. The fourth belief is an embassy must be built for the arrival of the Elohim. "An unannounced and undesired landing would have enormous political, economic, and social repercussions with disastrous consequences worldwide." If this embassy isn’t built for their arrival, then the welfare of humans may be in danger. The Elohim will only come to earth when an embassy is built. The fifth belief is that there are infinite levels of life. Our earth is a small particle in the universe as we are a small part of our earth, the living organisms in our bodies are small particles of our body, this cycle continues indefinitely. “Rael's message explains that our Earth is only one atom that forms a miniscule part of a gigantic being. That gigantic being, in turn, is but one individual who lives on a planet that is only one atom of an even larger being, and this structure exists indefinitely.” The sixth belief is that the Raelians believe in an immaterial God and DNA as the source of Eternal Life.. “Rael explains that God is not a being "with a white beard sitting on a cloud who created humans in his image."(Rael 1986:41) This shows that the Raelians don’t believe in a god that has a material body or form. In the bible, the son of God, Jesus was sent to earth, so we are forced to believe that God has a human form. Many religions believe there is life after death where our soul leaves our body to live an afterlife. The Raelians believed that the soul is only in a person as long as the individual is alive, when the person dies, the soul dies as well. “…it is not the soul, but the recreation of an individual from their DNA that enables eternal life.” They believe that recycling the genetic code after the person dies will enable an eternal life. With the Raelians strong belief in DNA cloning, the formed and funded a company called Clonaid to try to clone DNA and receive eternal life. The seventh belief is that they believe that a political system should only be governed by the most intelligent people. They believe this because only the geniuses will allow humanity to progress. “"What kind of people allow humanity to progress? The geniuses. Therefore your world must appreciate its geniuses and allow them to govern the Earth...”(Rael 1986:85). This type government is called geniocracy by the Raelians. In geniocracy, “only individuals with an intellect 10 percent above average should be allowed to vote, while an intellectual capacity of at least 50 percent above average would be required to be eligible to hold a governing position.” The eighth and final belief is that the world should be run by only one government based on humanitarianism. As previously mention before, this governing body would only consist of geniuses. “humanitarianism will allow "individuals to make a fortune for themselves depending on their own merits, but not for their children.”
On the Raelian website it says “The Raelian Revolution, the world's largest Atheist, non-profit UFO related organization - over 60,000 members in 90 countries...”. This religion has gone a long way since the so called “encounter” that Rael had. Many people would find it hard to follow a religion based on a UFO encounter. But like many other religions the installment of faith must be present. We must have faith in something that we haven’t completely experienced or seen. Some people have faith in a God but have we ever seen this God. Rael said that he has met our creators from outer space but there is no proof that he has so the followers would have to take his word for it. Rael has a lot of information to back up the religion including passages from the bible that would be interpreted in a different way. Examples would be when Jesus walked on water, he was able to do this because the creators shot him with an antigravity beam. The beam created turbulence interpreted as a storm, but when Jesus stepped into the boat, the beam stopped and therefore the storm also stopped. The parable of Matt. 13:24-30 is about the farmer who went out to spread seeds in a field and how some seeds were eaten by birds, some seeds fell into different areas, some seeds fell on rocky ground so when they grew, they were scorched by the sun, some seeds fell among thorns which grew and were choked by plants, some seeds fell on good ground and bore much fruit. The Raelians interpret this parable to mean that there were three failures by the aliens to create life on earth. The birds represent the aliens where they were threatened by human life and tried to destroy life on earth. The other attempt took place on a planet too close to our sun; therefore, the heat scorched the planet and destroyed all life. The third attempt, among the thorns, was made on another planet that was too humid and allowed the plant life to overpower animal life. It is evident with these examples that the Raelians strongly interpret the bible scientifically.”… traditional Christian belief is outdated and unfunctional in present society. "We need an authentic contemporary form of spirituality”” (Harvey Cox) Those who have a logical mind set where they believe humans were not created by a God but created scientifically (example earth was created with the Big Bang Theory rather than a God) could have a strong belief in this religion because they require a more logical, scientific reasoning for their beliefs.
This religion raises many questions. Are we really the product of a successful alien experiment? If Elohim cloned humans in their own image, who cloned Elohim? “Many people find it difficult to accept the Raelian Movement, or any other UFO group, as a religion. Before labeling the Raelian Movement as religion or non-religion, it is important to explore the concept "religion." It is said for a religion to exist, there must be a higher power present that demands propitiation and conciliation. Raelians believe that they should now bow down and look up to the Elohim and humanity makes their own future. It’s hard to follow a religion where people do not worship a higher power because there is no motivation. The motivation being that if bad things are done, you will be punished by the higher power and if good is done you will be rewarded. Raelians believe that if something is done wrong, it will only lead to an unfortunate future that you shaped from your wrong doing. The Raelians main focus is eternal life through DNA cloning. This is defined as life after death for them. Many find this concept very unethical because it is wrong to create a person that already exists and to mess around with God’s own creations. We are all different and that is what makes the world special. It is also wrong for humans to create life synthetically. Identical twins are a different scenario because it is a random event. Cloning has sparked many controversies all over the world including an event in 1997 where a wealthy couple lost their baby due to a heart defect, funded Clonaid to create a healthy duplicate. Another controversy of cloning is to allow homosexuals to have babies based on the DNA of both spouses. Many reject this religion because of the unethical reasons of cloning. It is hard to accept a religion into someone’s life where it is based on a UFO encounter. The Raelians religion is very scientifically based which make it difficult for a lot of people to have faith in this religion.
Society will never truly know if we are alone in this universe without being provided with believable rock solid information. One single person and his encounter with extra terrestrials sparked a religion that resulted in many followers from all over the country. It will never be known if he is telling the truth or if he spent his spare time thinking this through to draw people to it. Many people have faith in a religion but once they lose it, either they lost a loved one and wonder why has God done this to them or how God allowed it to happen, they may turn to another religion such as Raelians where there is no God present but simply our creators of life, the Elohim. The Raelian religion is growing by the year drawing more and more followers but there are also many others who reject this religion because of their own beliefs. We will never know how we came to be in this world either by aliens or created by a God, either way the installment of faith has to be present to follow a religion. The choice of religion is based on the person’s beliefs.

Bibliography
Faye Whittermore. April 2001. “Raelians”. Available on-line: New Religious Movements: http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/rael.html

Mother Site of the Raelian Religion.
http://www.rael.org/ (Last visited 04/02/05).

Rael. 1998. The Final Message. London: The Tagman Press.

Rael. 1986. Let's Welcome our Fathers from Space. Japan: AOM Corporation.

Shupe, Anson D. 1981. Six Perspectives on New Religions. New York: Edwin Mellen Press. 75-80.