Gutterboy

The discovery of single celled extraterrestrial life would deal a blow to the sort of creationists who love to repeat BS like "life can't come from dead chemicals!"

Then again, if they are irrational enough to buy creationism in the first place I'm sure they'd have no problem explaining it away. They'd just look dumber in the eyes of the general public, which probably isn't a bad thing considering the amount of people who believe in special creation.

[ August 24, 2002: Message edited by: Gutterboy ]</p>

The Other Michael

You star fella bring cargo?

cheers,
Michael

Friar Bellows

I agree. Doesn't stop science fiction writers, though.

Infinity Lover

I recall this item on Discovery about a monk who, during the middelages, got burned at the stake, because of openly expressing the notion of extraterrestial life.
We've come a long way since then.

My guess is, that if E.T. popped up, religion would find a way to b.s. their way around it, and somehow worm it into their doctrine...

...they always do.

Starboy

Well yah inifinity lover, christianity can predict anything as long as it has already happened.

Starboy

ohwilleke

I'm not sure aliens would have much of an effect on religion. Many people would be reaffirmed in religion, to which people often turn in time of Crisis, and aliens not believing in God don't differ significantly from most of humanity not believing in any particular religion.

Kenny

What if the aliens believed in monotheism, God as a triune being, and upon studying our various religions, concluded that in the person of Jesus Christ there was incarnation of the second person of the Trinity on our planet. What kind of impact would that have on secularism? Would any of you change your beliefs as a result?

Personally, I would find the alien’s opinions very interesting, but I see no reason why the fact that they are aliens necessarily makes them experts on all matters of philosophy and religion. It is true that the very existence of aliens might create a host of new theological questions to be dealt with, but it is difficult to know what they would all be until we actually found out what the nature of the aliens we might encounter is. Are they fallen beings like us? Do they require redemption? If so, do they require it in the same mode that we do?…

I see no compelling theological reason, as a Christian, to deny the existence of intelligent aliens outright, however.

God Bless,
Kenny

P.S. It is interesting how this ties into an argument my wife and I had recently. Personally, I am very skeptical about the existence of intelligent aliens because of my estimation of the probabilities of finding other life inhabitable worlds. Even if they are out there, I think they are probably rare and so far away that we will never come in contact with them. But, my wife thinks that my low estimate of the probabilities fails to adequately consider the possibility of God’s creative activity and His possible desire to create other intelligent beings.

Radcliffe Emerson

The monk you saw on Discovery was burned for far less than suggesting extraterrestrial life. He dared to suggest there were other planets in the solar system, that earth wasn't the only one. This led to conjecture about other life and how did Jesus fit that equation?
Ridiculous bullsh*t.

Abacus

Heh! You're dreaming now.

What if the aliens took a liking to Hinduism?

I would tend to agree with this. With current spaceflight technology, it would take tens of thousands of years to reach the nearest stars (excluding the Sun). There is no guarantee that we will ever make more than a modest improvement on this technology. We, and any other civilizations, may be permanantly stuck in our own star systems.

The other possibility (and probably more likely) is to make contact remotely, say via radio signals. I'd like to know how weak radio signals become after traversing many, many light years. Would we be able hear anybody else? Would they be able to hear us?

doubtingt

It would probably have an effect similar to the helio-centric model, and evolution. Religious belief is clearly motivated, in large part, by egoism. Anything that is inconsistent with the notion that humans are the central and "special" feature of a human-like God's creation is a threat to that egoistic world view.

Thus, many theists would respond by denial or post-hoc rationalizations that minimize its relevance.
However, theism is not based in any kind of rational coherence with known facts in the first place. Thus, one more fact of nature that is inconsistent with their beliefs will be unlikely to cause them to rethink their views.