The intersection of Dante’s Inferno and Paradiso and Extraterrestrialism

The need for alien (extraterrestrial) contact via UFO incursion denotes a mind-set that is deficient; not mentally deficient but, rather, intellectually and culturally deficient.

In Dante’s Comedy (The Divine Comedy for some) we are treated to the Circles of Hell and the Celestial Bodies of Heaven (with a sojourn around Purgatory’s Rings, which don’t factor into my suggestion here).

My previous and ongoing excursions about the insignificance of Earth and Earthlings relates to how extraterrestrials might see us (or, better, ignore us).

But Earth and its inhabitants (sentient and otherwise) are unique, but not to an extent that would incur alien visitors, and here’s why….

While the Earth is a container for odd, even spectacular, flora and fauna, it is so inconsequential in the cosmos scheme of things – you know my position on this – that only a happenstance reconnoiter by advanced extraterrestrials could account for alien visitation, but even then not in the numbers that UFO reports indicate.

If UFOs are von Neumann-like probes, that, too, could not account for the number of UFOs purportedly witnessed by Earthlings; the numbers staggeringly exceed what a sane, advanced civilization would send forth to our lonely planet.

(Crossover from other dimensions or a parallel universe can be credibly accepted for UFO incursions, but that for another time.)

My point here is that the desire by many UFO buffs to seek an ET explanation for UFOs is a shirking of what is wonderful about our planet.

No outsider civilization could have – even if we could interpret an alien culture – the human products that transcend creativity, even divine creativity.

For instance, the art of Michelangelo, Raphael, vanGogh, Picasso, and the many other painters you are familiar with (and some you aren’t).

The writings of Sophocles, Plato, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Joyce, Dickinson, et al.

The music of Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Mahler, Schoenberg, and multiple others (most you know, many you don’t).

The scientific and technical genius of Euclid, Newton, Galileo, Leibniz, Einstein, Bors, Jobs, and dozens of others you’re familiar with).

You know the philosophers: Aristotle, Maimonides, Kant, Nietzsche and psychologists: Freud, Jung, Skinner, and political leaders: Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Peter the Great, Washington, Lincoln, and the raft of religious founders: Moses, Abraham, Mohammed, Luther, Smith and other brilliant humans, too numerous to cite here.

These are what one would find and do find in Dante’s Paradise.

Then there are the scourges of humankind: Nero, Attila, Mao, Hitler, and today Trump; just seeing if you’re paying attention.

This group inhabits the lower circles of Dante’s Hell.

But then we have the (non or different) sentient creatures of the Earth: whales, dolphins, octopi, plants, trees, various mammals, and all the glories of life here.

Can there be an advanced extraterrestrial civilization to compare with Earth?

(And don’t give me the meme that that’s why ETs visit here. They don’t even know we and Earth exists.)

We are one of a kind, alone in our brilliance and cultural significance.

Do we need ET intrusions in our existence? I don’t think so.

RR