science-and-religion, aliensIf intelligent alien life were found elsewhere in the universe, how would this impact the major religions of earth? Would people find it easy to continue believing the same things they were taught, or would it make it more difficult to believe in tenents such as humans being a special creation, prophets being sent to all human populations to deliver god’s message, etc?
I think chanches are that majority of churches are opportunistic and would adapt their dogmas so that aliens are actually our brothers in Christ. It’s tempting for churches to spread religion across masses: churches pay no taxes, believers are not called to army, they have juristic advantages. It’s business; thus, they will do they best to defend religion.
There would likely be a few courses of action, based on other things that have been discovered and religion’s reaction to those findings. Pick one or more, based on the religion:
1) Denial. “Our book of mythology doesn’t account for that, so you’re wrong. That just isn’t the way it works. God would have said so, otherwise.” (also good for: flat-earthers)
2) Revision of the Facts. “You scientists think they’re intelligent alien life? We, as a spiritual belief system, say that they’re angels/demons/gods/enlightened beings. And you can’t prove us wrong, so we must be right.” (also good for: intelligent design believers)
3) Diversion. “You say there’s alien life? And they’re intelligent? Hey! Those guys over there don’t believe in god!” (also good for: church coverups)
4) We told you so!. (This applies to Mormons/LDSers… I am unaware of other religions that have incorporated the potential for alien life.)
Overall, I think that the leaders would really just justify it away, and praise their deity for its incredible works, and the followers would accept it, hook, line, and sinker. I’d like to believe that some of the more liberal branches of organized religion would be a little more cerebral about it, but I’m not holding my breath.
If they were as similar to humans as Spock is, then it’d affect my atheism!
The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour; given the amazing ability of religious organizations and spiritual belief to dismiss, cherry-pick, or otherwise adapt to any other sort of evidence presented to them without modifying their dogma / belief, I doubt the discovery of alien life would have any significant effect on their collective belief.
The actions of the major religions are another story. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the discovery of alien life trigger calls for what amounts to a crusade, at least from some quarters. I’m sure that the debate on the proper course of action would be … vigorous … to say the least.
not a muslim myself but i am led to belive that islam already accounts for this situation.perhaps an apostate could enlighten us
I think that the answer to this question would likely depend on how we come to the knowledge that there is alien life out there to begin with.
If we learn of alien life because we pick up on a signal from some distant world, I doubt the religions would change much. I might even posit that some faiths would argue that the signal isn’t from an alien race, but rather from god itself. At most, they would encourage means of communicating back to them.
If we learn of alien life by way of an actual visit from the aliens, I suspect that the religions in general would withhold judgment until such time as can be determined whether or not the aliens shared the faith, so to speak. If it turns out that they don’t (as would likely be the case, then the religions would probably treat it as a hostile invasion and, when it’s over, seek to convert the surviving aliens (even if we lose the war).
If we learn of the life due to a firsthand but indirect observation of the life (such as the launching of a craft from the aliens’ home planet even if we don’t know where it’s headed) then a combination of the first two items above might happen, with the encouraging research into a means of getting to them in order to convert the masses.
If we learn of the alien life by virtue of landing on their planet and meeting the aliens firsthand, we know what’s going to happen, since it already happened on this planet as the Europeans colonized the Americas.
Of course, I’m painting with very broad brush strokes by lumping all religions into a single umbrella. There will undoubtedly be some faiths taking a more aggressive tack than others. Some will automatically assume that the aliens are hostile and others will assume benevolence. Either way, the assumptions they make will at least partially dictate the aggressiveness of their reactions.
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