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It is important to point out that Hebrew scholars have, for thousands of years, understood the word "Elohim" as one of the names of their God. While this word is a plural form of the name "Eloa," one of the names of God, Biblical scholars have never interpreted the word Elohim in the context of Genesis 1:1 to mean "gods." Rather, the Jews and Christians have always interpreted it to mean one God with a plurality of nature. Another aspect of the message to Rael is that all the religions were founded by extraterrestrials and all point to the same "universal" truths. According to Rael, the ETs told him that all religious leaders Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, etc.—were half human, half ET prophets who were created by the ETs to bring increasing light and knowledge to mankind in successive epochs. It is interesting to note that many of the UFO churches, as well as some groups identified with the New Age movement, believe that another leader—the New Age Christ, Matreya—will also be a half human, half ET light worker. He is to be the most powerful leader in history, and he will unify the world into a lasting peace through global governance. Regarding Jesus Christ, the Raelian movement states, "All the great prophets including Buddha, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed were messengers of these extraterrestrials. Jesus was born from the union of one of these extraterrestrials and a daughter of man, and his task was to spread the Biblical message in anticipation of the age of apocalypse."!** "The Raelian movement recognizes most other religions because it was our creators, the Elohim who started them. It was they who initiated the prophets whose role was to progressively educate and guide humanity."'~? While some might embrace this religious philosophy as an enlightened world-view, the messages from these "ETs" is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is the fact that the religious groups mentioned have radically different and mutually exclusive a4 world-views. The Eastern religions typically present a pantheistic world-view, where "God is all and in all things." This view, which is also embraced by the New Age movement, is not only incompatible with the Judeo-Christian worldview, it is also incompatible with 20th- One of the greatest scientific insights of the 20th century is that we now understand that space, time, and matter had a simultaneous origin (called a singularity by physicists) at a finite point in the history of our universe. Among other proofs, this discovery was an outcome of Einstein's theories of special and general relativity at the beginning of this century. So if, as pantheistic religions suppose, the universe is "God," then there was a time when God (the universe) did not exist, because there was a time when the universe did not exist. The existence of a finite universe demands that the cause of the universe 82 ALL ROADS LEAD TO ET According to official statements by the International Raelian movement, century cosmology. must be independent of time and space. This world-view, which is held by Jewish and