The Raelians Are Coming!

[Mr Morningstarr*]

The Raelians are a secular and hedonistic religion who believe humanity was created by extraterrestrial life. But putting the UFO nonsense to one side they have some pretty interesting ideas.

The Raelian Church was founded in 1974 by Claude Vorilhon, otherwise known as Rael. Claude was a sports car journalist and test driver for his own magazine Auto Pop and had a career as a professional motor racer in the 90s.

In the book Le Livre qui dit la vérité (The Book That Tells The Truth) Claude tells how he was visited by an alien lifeform in a secluded volcanic crater in France. The otherworldly visitor told Claude that all life on Earth had been created by highly advanced scientists from another planet using DNA manipulation. Brilliant.

The alien space traveller told Claude that it was his mission to pass this information on to the rest of mankind in preparation for the return of these super-scientists known as Elohim and that he must build an Embassy for the Elohim.

In his later book Les extra-terrestres m'ont emmené sur leur planète (Extraterrestrials Took Me To Their Planet), Claude explains how Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad were some of the many prophets sent to Earth by the Elohim in the past but their messages had been misinterpreted by simple idiotic humans. Claude tells of how how he was taken to another planet and actually met Jesus and Co and had ancient texts such as The Bible explained to him properly. Claude describes the planet he visited as a kind of Utopia free of money, sickness and war. Kind of like Star Trek then.

Claude swiftly began the Raelian movement and took the title Rael. But his teaching didn't stop at simply informing the world of the Elohim, Raelism is much better than that.

Firstly Rael began preaching the benefits of liberal sexual relationships in ending all worldly suffering. It does make perfect sense, Rael teaches us that if we all stop fighting and start fucking all wars would end and peace would break out. It's a pretty simple concept which comes from the Raelians belief in individualism. This is where far fetched nonsense about aliens and spaceships should take a back seat, the loony's right on this one. Teaching individualism makes people responsible for their own actions, there's no get out clause in Raelism.

These liberal views on sexual sensuality have seen the Raelism movement accused of paedophilia and sexual brainwashing. Sex seems to be quite a big part of Raelism, it's very hedonistic and controversial tapes were made of couples shagging at Raelist seminars. The movement has denied any links to paedophilia though and is quite outspoken in it's condemnation of paedophilia particularly in the Catholic Church.

Another brilliant aspect to Raelism is their links to Clonaid. Raelians believe cloning is the first step towards immortality and in 2002 a member of the sect announced she had given birth to the worlds first cloned baby, Eve. Raelians belief in physicalism and the non-existence of the soul means they believe people's minds and personalities can be reproduced genetically and transplanted into cloned bodies so they can live forever. Fucking brilliant!

Raelians believe that Government should only include individuals of a certain intelligence. Although it would be a democracy candidates would need to meet certain intelligence criteria. Now that has to be a good idea. Furthermore the movement believes that capitalism is the path to a money free existence once a global community is created. It's the only natural progression as far as I'm concerned.

And here's a nice little bit of fantasy to finish off. Rael has claimed that the Elohim have huge super computers which have been recording everyone's DNA throughout history. All of mankind could one day be resurrected once the data is released and the cloning technology perfected. Not everyone will be though, boring bastards will be left in the ground. People who have made an outstanding contribution to world history will be resurrected and either given eternal life or posthumously punished for their crimes. Rael has spoken of suicide bombers being "reincarnated" to face trail and punishment for their crimes!

In summary, if you're going to follow a faith and believe in mumbo-jumbo I heartily recommend Raelism. It sounds fucking cool!

[timey]

That last bit is stupid though. If you cloned famous people they would still not be the same person so it would be wrong to punish them for what their earlier incarnation did. A clone is not the same personality as the beign it is copied from.

[Mr Morningstarr*]

Well that's the thing. The Raelians believe in physicalism, and that your "soul" can be physically reproduced.

Think about it. If there isn't a soul, and I don't believe there is, all thought and consciousness is dependent on brain chemistry and physical structure. If that was recorded and reproduced exactly you would have the same person reproduced.

[karnautrahl]

Riiight...bring on the Kool-aid.

How would you genuinely measure REAL intelligence that would be fully functioning in the role of leading a country and deciding policy. Puzzles and paper IQ tests do NOT cut the ice I konw-I once had a score placing me in the genius class..should you meet me, you'll soon realise just how wrong that actually is. I'm not kidding, I can't work out tons of stuff LOLOLOL.

IF they can reliably predict IQ, EQ and a spectrum of vital skills then I could see that policy being of benefit.

[timey]

Well that's the thing. The Raelians believe in physicalism, and that your "soul" can be physically reproduced.

Think about it. If there isn't a soul, and I don't believe there is, all thought and consciousness is dependent on brain chemistry and physical structure. If that was recorded and reproduced exactly you would have the same person reproduced.

Yeah, but they are pretty sure that that is not the case. Clones are individuals with separate consciousness and, usually, different life experiences. I don't believe that you could punish a clone for what its original did. That would be the stumbling block for me with this cult. Apart from that, I'm not into cults of any kind anyway, even ones that believe in individualism. I mean, if you belive in individualism then a cult of any sort is not compatible with that, IMO.

[Mr Morningstarr*]

They're talking about growing a person with the exact same physical properties as the original. Not just producing a baby with the same DNA.

They reckon the Elohim have records that can map even a person's consciousness.

[Shibumi]

Yo, where are the Raelian bitches at?

[Mr Morningstarr*]

Are you interested in signing up?

[Shibumi]

Hell yea man. Sexual Brainwashing? My own clones? Plus I love Star Trek. I should have invented this. Guess I better get my ass to France.

[Mr Morningstarr*]

I'm pretty sure they have sects in the US. I'm gonna look up one in the UK, they sound like fucking good fun.