When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6: 1 to 4)

Ancient Astronauts? The Nephilim? Pyramids? The Moa Heads on Easter Island? The Nazca Lines? Ancient Power Generators in the Pyramids? …

Search any of these topics, on the Internet, and you will find a huge supply of articles and videos. People love these topics, and I think its popularity is growing.

The Nephilim are in the first four verses of Genesis chapter six, in the Bible.

“The Nephilim were on the Earth in those days.”

That is a simple statement, but it is not explained, at all:

• READ: Sons of God/Wikipedia

I am writing as a Christian, and I have almost never heard a discussion of this topic in a church. The Nephilim are not a popular sermon topic. They are a lead-up to a topic everyone talks about; Noah, and his flood, and the Ark, and all those animals going in two by two. That is one of the most popular topics in the Bible. The Nephilim are just part of the problem that made the flood necessary.

So, who were the Nephilim?

Were they ancient astronauts who came from another planet? Were they angels? They seem like characters in a science fiction story.

There is a popular idea, in modern culture, that ancient aliens, or astronauts, visited the Earth, and that is how our ancestors came out of their caves, and found civilization. According to the theory, we didn’t discover technology and culture, they were given to us. For example, there is a common idea that the pyramids of Egypt are too complex to be designed and built by ancient Egyptians. Some intelligent beings gave them the idea and possibly built the first ones.

This is a very persistent idea, and it is not going away.

Scientists usually criticize this “ancient alien” thinking and label it pseudoscience, but they can’t completely prove that it is wrong. Ancient history is like the bottom of the ocean, we know about it, but it is surprising how much we don’t know, and we are only beginning to learn. Scientists often have only their theories to contradict the pseudoscience ideas.

• READ: 7 Ancient Sites Some People Think Were Built by Aliens

To understand this part of our modern culture, imagine that you are an Atheist who does not believe in God or any supernatural being. For you, there is nothing to pray to.

Possibly you don’t need to imagine that.

If there is no divine force, there must be an explanation for how all living things happened, and that is typically Darwin’s theory of evolution. I will skip many details, and say, it all started in the primordial pond; in theory. Possibly lightning struck a pond of mineralized water, at just the right temperature, and a strand of something like DNA formed. Somehow, that microscopic strand survived, and somehow evolved into a single living cell. From that, all life evolved.

It all started from nothing.

The universe is huge, possibly infinite. If the theory is true, what are the chances that the same accident happened in another primordial pond? Could life also originate on another planet?

There’s a lot of nothing out there.

I believe that is the philosophical root of Ancient Alien thinking. If life happened here, it could happen anywhere. ET and his friends evolved on another planet.

For many people, who are often highly educated, it is easy to believe in alien life on other planets. This belief is more than possible, it is necessary for many. Did you know that Atheists commonly believe in life on other planets? That’s what opinion surveys tell us.

We could make a change in the foundation and believe in God. There is a story of how an angel, a being from another world, spoke to a young woman named Mary and told her that she would become pregnant, without a man.

The baby was born and named Jesus. He taught and performed miracles, and then he was executed on a cross, but three days later, he returned from the dead, and later he ascended back to Heaven, and we are now waiting for his return, as our king. I skipped over some details.

What we believe comes from where we start, but we all believe.

Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1: 21 to 23)