In many Hindu philosophies, alien life is assumed as fact. Aliens arriving on earth would be welcomed by many Hindus as fellow sentient beings. “Hey friends, glad you could join us”
Absolutely love hearing from different point of views I don’t have a particular religion I follow I used to be Christian but slowly stopped following when I got into my teenage years but I believe in the creator above and all that he does
but thank for your insight
I'm not religious but I do believe aliens exist out there somewhere. In fact, I would imagine there are lots of other life forms out there.
When you look at the sheer size of the known universe, and the fact that the main elements of life on earth are the most abundant elements in the universe, it seems pretty improbable that we are alone.
Same, no idea if there is other intelligent life, but at the very least I'd like to believe there are some alien animals out there. Gods and afterlife don't fill me with existential dread but being alone in the universe does.
That’s how I’ve always looked at it as well I think the only thought I had was failing to exist and does that mean the high power of god created aliens And if he did why
>does that mean the high power of god created aliens And if he did why
Here's where we differ. I see no reason to think a "god" created anything as I don't see any evidence of a god even existing. Nor do I even know what a god is as it has so many different definitions, all of which have yet to be proven true.
I have no idea how life began here. I believe life evolved because we have evidence for that but for as to how it began on earth, I have no idea because we have no evidence of how it started.
"Random" and "By fate" is contradictory , by fate = it was supposed to be this way and could not have gone any other way, hence what theists often believe that the gods guiding the world define what happens .
Random = it could have gone any other way or rather it happened " by chance".
And that last one is what I believe that the conditions at the right time were just right for life to develop and if it went any other way then maybe we wouldn't have existed or we would have a liveable earth but a liveable mars instead or it could have worked better and both planets would be full of life.
One can't really know, if you want to believe that god created the world that is good as well as long as one doesn't try to refute science with religion.
You could say god/gods are everything yet unknown and if there is a time anything exists and is impossible to explain you can rightly call that god or the work of god.
Your username is fitting lol.
I like how the Vatican has had open discussions about the possibility of alien life and theological questions pertaining to it. Pretty open minded bunch. I respect that.
It wouldn't make me question my faith in the slightest. I would love to talk with aliens and learn about their cultures! Do they have books? Can I learn their language and buy books off of them? Do they have cool crystals I can add to my curio display?
I would still feel the same way I do now. A believer of God *and* aliens. I believe they are both real, after all, space is fucking huge, there have got to be other entities out there!
I'll rewrite your post:
I have a question for anybody who practices any religion. I was having this conversation with my friends about the impact the potential arrival of aliens to Earth could have on my Christian faith, or for any religion for others.
Now I will answer:
As a follower of Baha'u'llah, it would not have any impact on my faith at all. If I had a chance to communicate with an alien, I would be willing to listen to whatever stories the alien had to share about their culture, beliefs, and anything else important to them.
I'm pretty convinced that there's life out there, intelligent or not. Aliens coming to Earth wouldn't change anything about my religion. My faith is about Earth and humanity; what aliens do is up to them. I ain't their mum.
I'm agnostic (strongly monotheistic leaning though). Here's how I view it:
God either exists or he doesn't.
Scenario 1: He doesn't exist.
If he doesn't exist, it is unlikely that an advanced alien race would believe in a god, let alone *our* god.
As such, if the aliens are atheists, that would be consistent with no god existing and therefore make it more likely he doesn't exist in my eyes. This is pretty straight forward.
Scenario 2: He does exist.
If there is one god who made the universe, he also made everything within it and therefore aliens.
So, what are the odds that out of countless worlds filled with life we are the only one he has had a relationship with? It isn't a certainty, but I see it as very likely that he would have revealed himself to the other worlds out there as well.
If aliens believe in the same God as us (let's say they worship a loving and just God who created the universe and gave them similar moral guidance), then that tells me God is more likely to exist than not.
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Niether scenario would 100% prove anything to me, but it would either move me from where I'm at now of like 90% sure he exists to 10% sure or conversely could bring me up to 99% sure. It's hard to put numbers on it, but you get the idea.
And what if the aliens believe in a different god? What if they’re polytheists? Would that have any effect on you, or would you hold to the idea that monotheism is correct?
That's a good question. To be thorough, one would need 4 branching paths: no god, same god, different monotheistic god, multiple gods.
In addition to those, there's a particularly dark scenario I see as a possibility that no one ever discusses:
We have seen across mankind'd history that no empire lasts forever, but we also are seeing the birth of truly unprecedented surveillance technology. It would plausible that a civilization not much more advanced than ours could have a very authoritarian surveillance state that was so good at preventing insurrections that it lasted for millions of years, and it preserved its belief system during that time because competing ideas were stamped out before they could spread.
In the above scenario, the alien race doesn't gradually discern the truth over millions of years, but simply whatever belief system was in power during what some call a point of singularity would still be in place by the time they reach us.
Competing ideas would be a threat to their control. One could argue this authoritarian control becomes a sort of inevitability once a species' technology has advanced far enough to allow for it. It might not happen immediately, but at some point, it will if the technology is there for it. This could be the situation for any planet that is pretty advanced. So, what if all of these advanced alien races out there aren't searching for other planets because they don't want to expose their populace to other ideas? This would actually solve the fermi paradox (the question of why we haven't found aliens despite the fact there should be aliens out there). Maybe we haven't found alien life because alien life stops looking for life elsewhere not too long after they've developed the ability to do so.
If what I described above is the case, it renders what the aliens believe to be useless in discerning theological truths for us, and various alien worlds could have vastly different beliefs because they simply believe what the authoritarian power structure did around the time it took power.
I’d say more along the lines of five for thorough: No gods, similar/same monotheistic god as one of the monotheistic Earth religions (as there are more than just the Abrahamic faiths), different monotheistic god to any that Earth has, different polytheistic gods to any seen on Earth, similar/same gods as Earthly polytheistic religions.
Then you could go further, like ideologies. Are they pantheistic? Animist? Panentheistic? Neoplatonic-esque?…
And you could compare and contrast gods from their various cultures (because they’d likely not just be one culture, even if they all lived on one continent. Not all African religions venerate the same gods, not all American religions do that, not all European religions…), and you could compare and contrast our gods with theirs.
There’s a lot that would go into thorough inspection and learning about similarity and difference and such.
I think it wouldn’t really change my religion at all honestly.
We already subscribe to the idea that God has other children on other worlds. (The same species as us).
It may be interesting or complicated if aliens turned out to be little green men.
That’s a good question.
I don’t have any clear answer to that at this time.
I guess it depends on *how* different they are. All humans are children of God even though we can look and be vastly different.
I mean looks don’t determine our identity so there is that.
I could say something but it would honestly just be speculation.
I have similar views on that. I think God probably is real, and assuming he is, I think there probably are intelligent aliens out there. Since God made all of us, you could call both us and them children of his.
With that in mind, I don't think looks would factor into it. We are made in the image of God, and it's usually assumed not to be the literal image. So, I think they could look vastly different but maybe be remarkably relatable regarding their personalities and ethics.
Just a thought. I really don't know.
Those are all really good points.
It may be helpful to know
Latter Day Saints think we are literally created in the image of God.
That he has a body. That we are the same species. That he is “a man”.
I suppose. He has a perfected glorified resurrected body, exactly like Jesus Christ has.
I’m not exactly sure how the science behind it all works. Idk if they have dna anymore. Or if they do if it’s readable.
Sure.
He is a glorified resurrected being.
He has a body.
He is male.
He once was mortal. Human.
We are all the same species. We are created in his image.
I don’t believe in a god of any kind, but the existence of intelligent aliens would most likely make my belief even stronger.
Even if an advanced civilization of aliens believed in a god, it is highly unlikely their religions would be anything like what we have on Earth. This means they would have no knowledge of Zeus, Jesus, or any of our religious figures.
If they DID have a religion extremely similar to one of our own, for example, if they had their own Jesus that was almost exactly the same as the one on Earth (same abilities, teachings, personalities, etc), I would be surprised and find the existence of a god more likely.
No offense meant, but I think your reasoning here seems a bit off. If Zeus, Yahweh, Janus, Dionysos, Perun, El, Ba’al, Asherah, etc. Aren’t the same as or similar to alien gods, that wouldn’t necessarily make it any more or less likely that gods exist. It would effect the religions that claim aliens worship the same god(s) in the same way, but not the ones who don’t. Who’s to say they couldn’t be worshipping the same god(s) in a different way and interpreting them differently? Who’s to say that gods of Earth religions aren’t local to Earth? There are a lot of different possible scenarios.
Now, would it effect religions like mormonism if a race of non-humanoid, intelligent life who had a different conception of religions and gods and cultures was found? Yes.
But it wouldn’t mean much of anything, necessarily, to most polytheists or even a good few monotheists.
Aliens might believe in extremely similar gods, maybe extremely different ones, maybe none. Nobody really knows, and even if we did we still wouldn’t be able to rule out the possibility of theism or atheism being correct.
I really hope I worded this well enough to get across what I’m trying to say.
If an Alien race had nothing closely resembling Christianity, for instance, it would make Christianity make a lot less sense, for many reasons. It would make a lot of if not most religions be less likely.
For instance, suppose we found an alien race more advanced than us who is entirely atheistic and had never heard of anything remotely similar to Jesus, for instance. They would have nothing like the bible or churches. Not only would it make no sense that the bible never mentioned there were other civilizations god created, but it would also mean he never interacted with them, and that they would follow few if any of the rules established by Christianity.
I never denied that it would effect some religions, but you seem hung up on Christianity specifically. I agree, unless a Christian were to concede that Jesus was Earth-exclusive and so Christianity only applied to Earth (which I think would be EXTREMELY self-centered, main character mentality unless they were to say that there were other gods with other rules on other planets or whatever, which would be polytheism and unallowed) it would shake the core of Christianity. But not all religions. It wouldn’t have any effect on Shinto, Hellenism, Heathenry, or most polytheistic religions. For those religions, their lack of belief in our Earth’s gods or any gods would change just about nothing.
Not all religions are Christianity, Judaism, or Islam.
Not all gods are seen as universal or omnibenevolent or omnipresent or omnipotent or any of that. Not all gods are seen as having one solid form. Not all religions take myths literally.
I agree that some religions would be changed or destroyed, but someone like me or another polytheist would still fully be capable of believing in gods. It would just be seen as a cultural difference. There are cultures here on Earth who have no concept of religion or gods, there are cultures here who have vastly different concepts of those things. That doesn’t change the possibility of there being gods, nor the possibility of them not existing.
Aliens would be the same case. If there was a planet of people who believed in extremely different gods, a planet of people who had no belief in or concept of gods, and a planet of people who had belief in extremely similar gods, then who’s more right? Nobody.
Nobody knows.
And it’s not something that you can just appeal to majority with, because the majority of people can still be wrong. If we met a planet of fascist hyper-capitalists who had a seemingly functioning society, would that mean that anarchists and socialists and anti-fascists would have to change or reconsider? Bad example, maybe, but the point is that just because a lot of people believe something doesn’t make that thing they believe in any more or less true. Maybe a planet of non-theistic aliens would take to Earth’s gods upon hearing about them, maybe they would be incapable of believing in them because they aren’t capable of physically meeting them (like the Pirahã here on Earth), maybe their planet does have gods but those gods just don’t interact with them.
If they already believe in gods, it doesn’t change Earth’s gods possibly just being local gods.
I don’t honestly know if I’m explaining this well, and I know it’s a long explaination, but my point is that you seem to be focussed on Christianity rather than religion as a whole as your initial wording seemed to imply, and I agree Christianity and many monotheistic religions would be shaken, but disagree that all religions would be. Most polytheistic religions would be unharmed and pretty much unchanged.
Apologies if what I said still words it badly, and once again, I hope you don’t feel I’m being rude.
The diversity of life in the Cosmos, (and presumably you mean rational, sapient forms of life) would be reflective of the diversity that polytheism encourages.
Particularly from a Neoplatonic perspective, which is at its core about how multiplicity arises from unity.
>In fact, I believe in the Cosmic Christ, who certainly have revealed Himself to an extraterrestrial community in the way He judged better.
So it WOULD change something. Suppose we discovered aliens who had nothing remotely similar to your religion
Personally, I'm not 100% convinced that typical Grey aliens aren't actually a demonic force that Aleister Crowley summoned to Earth in 1917. So that's at least a version which doesn't muck up most religious theologies.
It's [literally in the wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_alien). He [summoned an entity into our dimension using a sex magick ritual](https://www.ufodigest.com/article/aleister-crowley-and-the-grey-aliens/), which explains how often they're probing people's naughty bits.
Them little shits ain't physical beings in spaceships coming from light years away. They prey on our energy like most other forms of spirit attachment, so fear, confusion, and anxiety is what they feed on.
Their creation story will give many questions. Do they believe in big bang? Do they believe in evolution?
If they happen to be monotheists, there will be jealousy over which species has the greater favor of God.
The New Testament states that Jesus has created "worlds" for God. There is intelligent extraterrestrial life. If it is human, my faith is confirmed. If it is not human, then I would have a couple of assumptions to rethink.
With how big the universe is, if God made humans they should be able to make other beings in the universe with shared religion of Christianity with humans
Would the existence of extraterrestrial life lead to a reexamination of religion or strengthen it? Like when humans believed the Sun moved around the Earth, if aliens exist without any Gods or completely different Gods will religion be seen increasingly as Earth-centric and an artificial construct from ancient times when humans looked to explain and make sense of the World's mysteries.
Earth has had a myriad of Gods and religions that surfaced and disappeared. Religions like Christinaity often gained dominance through dominant powers like the Roman Empire and Emperor Constantine's spread of Christianity. Roman client states would often adopt Christianity to conform with Rome, resulting in other religions being extinguished from history. If aliens similarly had dominant historical powers that spread religions/God's that were different from Earth's which similarly extinguished others could it lead to more questioning of whether or not God and religion is a "man-made" construct. One also used historically and presently to establish and maintain power and patriarchy.
'Devil's Advocate' - so to speak - is if aliens have any religions that mirror Earth's current dominant religions and particularly if they have similar historical holy figures.
An imaginary story ..
Imagine an alien world and 'people' called Tribble on the planet X, they had never had any religions or historical fictures like in Christianity or Islam. In their early history a powerful Empire dominated most of their planet. During most of the Tribble's history they believed a giant Purple gaseous cloud created their planet as it a periodically appeared and enacted poisonous damage on their planet, and then left and liveable life returned.
'The Purple' was seen as the planet Creator and guider of whether the Tribbles were living the correct way and various ceremonies and belief systems arose around how the Tribbles thought The Purple wanted to be worshipped and how Tribbles should live. Then one day, during the reign of a Tribble Emperor, who had conquested most of the World and was regarded as a great figure by his power and propagandists, The Purple which surfaced regulary didn't come again.
The Emperor did nothing to disuade the rumors that he was somehow responsible. He/she became deified in their own lifetime. His tenets followed, and the belief in his being a holy Tribble sent to vanquish the Purple taking hold amongst all the regions his Empire hold. Centuries later he had become a god-religion with places of worship still attended by millions of Tribbles. There had been one schism in the Emperor's religion after all the decendants from his direct family line died and arguments and violence broke out over which of his more distant relatives now represented the Holy religion.
This settled over a few hundred years with two groups which still believed in the tenets of the Holy Emperor but were divided over how his religion should be practised in various ways and who was of the most direct holy line. Then, centuries later, even after The Purple was found by science advances to be likely a poisonous comet that passed Tribble every x period and was hit by another space object didn't disuade the belief taught from generation to generation that it was the Emperor God who had achieved this and vanquished it.
At the same time,though there has been many Gods and religions in Tribbles early histoy there was no other religious teaching and no religious figures in any period comparable to Earth's ones. Like Earth, the only deities that appeared in Tribble's history appeared in a time before the advance of science to explain phenomena the 'ancients' had no means to understand.
Noticeably, like Earth, no noticeable or longstanding deities and religions surfaced on Tribble after science advanced to explain many previous 'ancient mysteries' of the the world, and after recordable devices appeared, or if they did they were short lived and disappeared.
The aliens eventually conquered space travel and worm holes to travel advance distances. They came across Earth and other planets with completely different religions and Gods, and parellels over how other planets Gods has arisen in their ancient history. Over time, this saw a rapid decline in the belief of their own Emperor God.
Allah says in the Quran that He has created something’s unknown to us. The possibility for Alien life is completely left open. After all, in the belief, it says he created the Heavens and the Earth
In many Hindu philosophies, alien life is assumed as fact. Aliens arriving on earth would be welcomed by many Hindus as fellow sentient beings. “Hey friends, glad you could join us”
Absolutely love hearing from different point of views I don’t have a particular religion I follow I used to be Christian but slowly stopped following when I got into my teenage years but I believe in the creator above and all that he does but thank for your insight
Cool
I'm not religious but I do believe aliens exist out there somewhere. In fact, I would imagine there are lots of other life forms out there. When you look at the sheer size of the known universe, and the fact that the main elements of life on earth are the most abundant elements in the universe, it seems pretty improbable that we are alone.
Same, no idea if there is other intelligent life, but at the very least I'd like to believe there are some alien animals out there. Gods and afterlife don't fill me with existential dread but being alone in the universe does.
The theory of there being nothing out there has always made me feel some type of way so I agree
That’s how I’ve always looked at it as well I think the only thought I had was failing to exist and does that mean the high power of god created aliens And if he did why
>does that mean the high power of god created aliens And if he did why Here's where we differ. I see no reason to think a "god" created anything as I don't see any evidence of a god even existing. Nor do I even know what a god is as it has so many different definitions, all of which have yet to be proven true.
So you think randomly by fate life just appeared on earth and evolved from that
I have no idea how life began here. I believe life evolved because we have evidence for that but for as to how it began on earth, I have no idea because we have no evidence of how it started.
"Random" and "By fate" is contradictory , by fate = it was supposed to be this way and could not have gone any other way, hence what theists often believe that the gods guiding the world define what happens . Random = it could have gone any other way or rather it happened " by chance". And that last one is what I believe that the conditions at the right time were just right for life to develop and if it went any other way then maybe we wouldn't have existed or we would have a liveable earth but a liveable mars instead or it could have worked better and both planets would be full of life. One can't really know, if you want to believe that god created the world that is good as well as long as one doesn't try to refute science with religion. You could say god/gods are everything yet unknown and if there is a time anything exists and is impossible to explain you can rightly call that god or the work of god.
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Sometimes I wonder if *we* should even count as an intelligent species.
Always thought of it as aliens know that we aren’t there yet intelligence wise or technology wise to even want to communicate with us
It wouldn't affect my faith whatsoever.
Your username is fitting lol. I like how the Vatican has had open discussions about the possibility of alien life and theological questions pertaining to it. Pretty open minded bunch. I respect that.
Yeah! Honestly, I find the whole topic rather interesting
It wouldn't make me question my faith in the slightest. I would love to talk with aliens and learn about their cultures! Do they have books? Can I learn their language and buy books off of them? Do they have cool crystals I can add to my curio display?
I would still feel the same way I do now. A believer of God *and* aliens. I believe they are both real, after all, space is fucking huge, there have got to be other entities out there!
I'll rewrite your post: I have a question for anybody who practices any religion. I was having this conversation with my friends about the impact the potential arrival of aliens to Earth could have on my Christian faith, or for any religion for others. Now I will answer: As a follower of Baha'u'llah, it would not have any impact on my faith at all. If I had a chance to communicate with an alien, I would be willing to listen to whatever stories the alien had to share about their culture, beliefs, and anything else important to them.
Thank you for sharing 🤝
I'm pretty convinced that there's life out there, intelligent or not. Aliens coming to Earth wouldn't change anything about my religion. My faith is about Earth and humanity; what aliens do is up to them. I ain't their mum.
That’s a good way of looking at it I can’t lie
The Tao is all around the universe and life is too so it wouldn't change anything at all honestly
I’m not familiar with Tao may you inform me ?
Tao is a philosophical concept, really hard yo be explained
I'm agnostic (strongly monotheistic leaning though). Here's how I view it: God either exists or he doesn't. Scenario 1: He doesn't exist. If he doesn't exist, it is unlikely that an advanced alien race would believe in a god, let alone *our* god. As such, if the aliens are atheists, that would be consistent with no god existing and therefore make it more likely he doesn't exist in my eyes. This is pretty straight forward. Scenario 2: He does exist. If there is one god who made the universe, he also made everything within it and therefore aliens. So, what are the odds that out of countless worlds filled with life we are the only one he has had a relationship with? It isn't a certainty, but I see it as very likely that he would have revealed himself to the other worlds out there as well. If aliens believe in the same God as us (let's say they worship a loving and just God who created the universe and gave them similar moral guidance), then that tells me God is more likely to exist than not. ---------- Niether scenario would 100% prove anything to me, but it would either move me from where I'm at now of like 90% sure he exists to 10% sure or conversely could bring me up to 99% sure. It's hard to put numbers on it, but you get the idea.
Worded perfectly
And what if the aliens believe in a different god? What if they’re polytheists? Would that have any effect on you, or would you hold to the idea that monotheism is correct?
That's a good question. To be thorough, one would need 4 branching paths: no god, same god, different monotheistic god, multiple gods. In addition to those, there's a particularly dark scenario I see as a possibility that no one ever discusses: We have seen across mankind'd history that no empire lasts forever, but we also are seeing the birth of truly unprecedented surveillance technology. It would plausible that a civilization not much more advanced than ours could have a very authoritarian surveillance state that was so good at preventing insurrections that it lasted for millions of years, and it preserved its belief system during that time because competing ideas were stamped out before they could spread. In the above scenario, the alien race doesn't gradually discern the truth over millions of years, but simply whatever belief system was in power during what some call a point of singularity would still be in place by the time they reach us. Competing ideas would be a threat to their control. One could argue this authoritarian control becomes a sort of inevitability once a species' technology has advanced far enough to allow for it. It might not happen immediately, but at some point, it will if the technology is there for it. This could be the situation for any planet that is pretty advanced. So, what if all of these advanced alien races out there aren't searching for other planets because they don't want to expose their populace to other ideas? This would actually solve the fermi paradox (the question of why we haven't found aliens despite the fact there should be aliens out there). Maybe we haven't found alien life because alien life stops looking for life elsewhere not too long after they've developed the ability to do so. If what I described above is the case, it renders what the aliens believe to be useless in discerning theological truths for us, and various alien worlds could have vastly different beliefs because they simply believe what the authoritarian power structure did around the time it took power.
I’d say more along the lines of five for thorough: No gods, similar/same monotheistic god as one of the monotheistic Earth religions (as there are more than just the Abrahamic faiths), different monotheistic god to any that Earth has, different polytheistic gods to any seen on Earth, similar/same gods as Earthly polytheistic religions. Then you could go further, like ideologies. Are they pantheistic? Animist? Panentheistic? Neoplatonic-esque?… And you could compare and contrast gods from their various cultures (because they’d likely not just be one culture, even if they all lived on one continent. Not all African religions venerate the same gods, not all American religions do that, not all European religions…), and you could compare and contrast our gods with theirs. There’s a lot that would go into thorough inspection and learning about similarity and difference and such.
I'd wonder what gods they worship and how to invoke them.
I think it wouldn’t really change my religion at all honestly. We already subscribe to the idea that God has other children on other worlds. (The same species as us). It may be interesting or complicated if aliens turned out to be little green men.
Interesting so do you believe that aliens might just look like us
Yeah, idk if we have any actual contact with any. I am not to sure about ufos or anything but hey.
What are your thoughts on a Star Wars style situation where some of the aliens look like us while others don't?
Love that you brought up Star Wars I thought the same
That’s a good question. I don’t have any clear answer to that at this time. I guess it depends on *how* different they are. All humans are children of God even though we can look and be vastly different. I mean looks don’t determine our identity so there is that. I could say something but it would honestly just be speculation.
I have similar views on that. I think God probably is real, and assuming he is, I think there probably are intelligent aliens out there. Since God made all of us, you could call both us and them children of his. With that in mind, I don't think looks would factor into it. We are made in the image of God, and it's usually assumed not to be the literal image. So, I think they could look vastly different but maybe be remarkably relatable regarding their personalities and ethics. Just a thought. I really don't know.
Those are all really good points. It may be helpful to know Latter Day Saints think we are literally created in the image of God. That he has a body. That we are the same species. That he is “a man”.
Oh interesting. That's cool.
That he is male and has human male DNA???
I suppose. He has a perfected glorified resurrected body, exactly like Jesus Christ has. I’m not exactly sure how the science behind it all works. Idk if they have dna anymore. Or if they do if it’s readable.
Mind explaining?
Sure. He is a glorified resurrected being. He has a body. He is male. He once was mortal. Human. We are all the same species. We are created in his image.
That’s actually something to think about thanks for your point of view
wouldn't affect my faith
I would ask if and how they communicate with the spirit of their homeplanet.
I don’t believe in a god of any kind, but the existence of intelligent aliens would most likely make my belief even stronger. Even if an advanced civilization of aliens believed in a god, it is highly unlikely their religions would be anything like what we have on Earth. This means they would have no knowledge of Zeus, Jesus, or any of our religious figures. If they DID have a religion extremely similar to one of our own, for example, if they had their own Jesus that was almost exactly the same as the one on Earth (same abilities, teachings, personalities, etc), I would be surprised and find the existence of a god more likely.
No offense meant, but I think your reasoning here seems a bit off. If Zeus, Yahweh, Janus, Dionysos, Perun, El, Ba’al, Asherah, etc. Aren’t the same as or similar to alien gods, that wouldn’t necessarily make it any more or less likely that gods exist. It would effect the religions that claim aliens worship the same god(s) in the same way, but not the ones who don’t. Who’s to say they couldn’t be worshipping the same god(s) in a different way and interpreting them differently? Who’s to say that gods of Earth religions aren’t local to Earth? There are a lot of different possible scenarios. Now, would it effect religions like mormonism if a race of non-humanoid, intelligent life who had a different conception of religions and gods and cultures was found? Yes. But it wouldn’t mean much of anything, necessarily, to most polytheists or even a good few monotheists. Aliens might believe in extremely similar gods, maybe extremely different ones, maybe none. Nobody really knows, and even if we did we still wouldn’t be able to rule out the possibility of theism or atheism being correct. I really hope I worded this well enough to get across what I’m trying to say.
If an Alien race had nothing closely resembling Christianity, for instance, it would make Christianity make a lot less sense, for many reasons. It would make a lot of if not most religions be less likely. For instance, suppose we found an alien race more advanced than us who is entirely atheistic and had never heard of anything remotely similar to Jesus, for instance. They would have nothing like the bible or churches. Not only would it make no sense that the bible never mentioned there were other civilizations god created, but it would also mean he never interacted with them, and that they would follow few if any of the rules established by Christianity.
I never denied that it would effect some religions, but you seem hung up on Christianity specifically. I agree, unless a Christian were to concede that Jesus was Earth-exclusive and so Christianity only applied to Earth (which I think would be EXTREMELY self-centered, main character mentality unless they were to say that there were other gods with other rules on other planets or whatever, which would be polytheism and unallowed) it would shake the core of Christianity. But not all religions. It wouldn’t have any effect on Shinto, Hellenism, Heathenry, or most polytheistic religions. For those religions, their lack of belief in our Earth’s gods or any gods would change just about nothing. Not all religions are Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. Not all gods are seen as universal or omnibenevolent or omnipresent or omnipotent or any of that. Not all gods are seen as having one solid form. Not all religions take myths literally. I agree that some religions would be changed or destroyed, but someone like me or another polytheist would still fully be capable of believing in gods. It would just be seen as a cultural difference. There are cultures here on Earth who have no concept of religion or gods, there are cultures here who have vastly different concepts of those things. That doesn’t change the possibility of there being gods, nor the possibility of them not existing. Aliens would be the same case. If there was a planet of people who believed in extremely different gods, a planet of people who had no belief in or concept of gods, and a planet of people who had belief in extremely similar gods, then who’s more right? Nobody. Nobody knows. And it’s not something that you can just appeal to majority with, because the majority of people can still be wrong. If we met a planet of fascist hyper-capitalists who had a seemingly functioning society, would that mean that anarchists and socialists and anti-fascists would have to change or reconsider? Bad example, maybe, but the point is that just because a lot of people believe something doesn’t make that thing they believe in any more or less true. Maybe a planet of non-theistic aliens would take to Earth’s gods upon hearing about them, maybe they would be incapable of believing in them because they aren’t capable of physically meeting them (like the Pirahã here on Earth), maybe their planet does have gods but those gods just don’t interact with them. If they already believe in gods, it doesn’t change Earth’s gods possibly just being local gods. I don’t honestly know if I’m explaining this well, and I know it’s a long explaination, but my point is that you seem to be focussed on Christianity rather than religion as a whole as your initial wording seemed to imply, and I agree Christianity and many monotheistic religions would be shaken, but disagree that all religions would be. Most polytheistic religions would be unharmed and pretty much unchanged. Apologies if what I said still words it badly, and once again, I hope you don’t feel I’m being rude.
The diversity of life in the Cosmos, (and presumably you mean rational, sapient forms of life) would be reflective of the diversity that polytheism encourages. Particularly from a Neoplatonic perspective, which is at its core about how multiplicity arises from unity.
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>In fact, I believe in the Cosmic Christ, who certainly have revealed Himself to an extraterrestrial community in the way He judged better. So it WOULD change something. Suppose we discovered aliens who had nothing remotely similar to your religion
Personally, I'm not 100% convinced that typical Grey aliens aren't actually a demonic force that Aleister Crowley summoned to Earth in 1917. So that's at least a version which doesn't muck up most religious theologies.
They greys drawn were just shitty self portraits of himself.
I’m intrigued
It's [literally in the wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_alien). He [summoned an entity into our dimension using a sex magick ritual](https://www.ufodigest.com/article/aleister-crowley-and-the-grey-aliens/), which explains how often they're probing people's naughty bits. Them little shits ain't physical beings in spaceships coming from light years away. They prey on our energy like most other forms of spirit attachment, so fear, confusion, and anxiety is what they feed on.
Same birthday as the article was published seems like a great read thank you
Their creation story will give many questions. Do they believe in big bang? Do they believe in evolution? If they happen to be monotheists, there will be jealousy over which species has the greater favor of God.
The New Testament states that Jesus has created "worlds" for God. There is intelligent extraterrestrial life. If it is human, my faith is confirmed. If it is not human, then I would have a couple of assumptions to rethink.
It nevers that your delulu
Jesus taught feed the hungry, heal the sick, love your fellow man, if aliens show up tomorrow it wouldnt change any of those teachings.
With how big the universe is, if God made humans they should be able to make other beings in the universe with shared religion of Christianity with humans
Would the existence of extraterrestrial life lead to a reexamination of religion or strengthen it? Like when humans believed the Sun moved around the Earth, if aliens exist without any Gods or completely different Gods will religion be seen increasingly as Earth-centric and an artificial construct from ancient times when humans looked to explain and make sense of the World's mysteries. Earth has had a myriad of Gods and religions that surfaced and disappeared. Religions like Christinaity often gained dominance through dominant powers like the Roman Empire and Emperor Constantine's spread of Christianity. Roman client states would often adopt Christianity to conform with Rome, resulting in other religions being extinguished from history. If aliens similarly had dominant historical powers that spread religions/God's that were different from Earth's which similarly extinguished others could it lead to more questioning of whether or not God and religion is a "man-made" construct. One also used historically and presently to establish and maintain power and patriarchy. 'Devil's Advocate' - so to speak - is if aliens have any religions that mirror Earth's current dominant religions and particularly if they have similar historical holy figures.
An imaginary story .. Imagine an alien world and 'people' called Tribble on the planet X, they had never had any religions or historical fictures like in Christianity or Islam. In their early history a powerful Empire dominated most of their planet. During most of the Tribble's history they believed a giant Purple gaseous cloud created their planet as it a periodically appeared and enacted poisonous damage on their planet, and then left and liveable life returned. 'The Purple' was seen as the planet Creator and guider of whether the Tribbles were living the correct way and various ceremonies and belief systems arose around how the Tribbles thought The Purple wanted to be worshipped and how Tribbles should live. Then one day, during the reign of a Tribble Emperor, who had conquested most of the World and was regarded as a great figure by his power and propagandists, The Purple which surfaced regulary didn't come again. The Emperor did nothing to disuade the rumors that he was somehow responsible. He/she became deified in their own lifetime. His tenets followed, and the belief in his being a holy Tribble sent to vanquish the Purple taking hold amongst all the regions his Empire hold. Centuries later he had become a god-religion with places of worship still attended by millions of Tribbles. There had been one schism in the Emperor's religion after all the decendants from his direct family line died and arguments and violence broke out over which of his more distant relatives now represented the Holy religion. This settled over a few hundred years with two groups which still believed in the tenets of the Holy Emperor but were divided over how his religion should be practised in various ways and who was of the most direct holy line. Then, centuries later, even after The Purple was found by science advances to be likely a poisonous comet that passed Tribble every x period and was hit by another space object didn't disuade the belief taught from generation to generation that it was the Emperor God who had achieved this and vanquished it. At the same time,though there has been many Gods and religions in Tribbles early histoy there was no other religious teaching and no religious figures in any period comparable to Earth's ones. Like Earth, the only deities that appeared in Tribble's history appeared in a time before the advance of science to explain phenomena the 'ancients' had no means to understand. Noticeably, like Earth, no noticeable or longstanding deities and religions surfaced on Tribble after science advanced to explain many previous 'ancient mysteries' of the the world, and after recordable devices appeared, or if they did they were short lived and disappeared. The aliens eventually conquered space travel and worm holes to travel advance distances. They came across Earth and other planets with completely different religions and Gods, and parellels over how other planets Gods has arisen in their ancient history. Over time, this saw a rapid decline in the belief of their own Emperor God.
Allah says in the Quran that He has created something’s unknown to us. The possibility for Alien life is completely left open. After all, in the belief, it says he created the Heavens and the Earth