Aliens and Religion

I find I agree with you a great deal LuckLC. Evolution could hardly undermine religion in its own right -- it doesn't disprove creation, it just proves that evolution works.

Your assessment on how God is infinite and therefore capable of creating infinite species, all in God's image, is also apt.
 
Christians and christianity in general, will always find a way to incorporate unpleasant things (also known as "facts") into their belief system. If not entirely, at least in a way these nasty facts can be tolerated.

Nevermind two thousand years of astronomy, geology and a slew of other things.
 
All I have to say is that the ancients must of had advanced technology. It was lost in the Middle Ages. How you can tell is by the structures and the art of the times. There is nothing to prove or disprove the existance of aliens.
 
Being a fan of Star Trek, the question of gods actually being superior aliens arises a lot. Actually Star Trek has shown several times how advanced technology can be seen as godlike to a less advanced society. I firmly believe there really are not any gods. But just beings which may be higher up in the evolutionary chain or have far superior technology. I do not think religion is a bunch of fairy tales but an explanation given by primitive people who did not understand what they saw.

Chariot of the Gods is also a great read if you want to do any research of aliens and religion as well.
 
Scientists estimate that just in the Milky Way Galaxy alone, there are 72 civilizations completely unaware of each others intimate existence.
Imagine worlds with their own rich histories and religious worldviews, like our own, which could be asking the same exact questions we are posing.

It's extraordinary to think about, but there is something menacing to that speculation- it is very possible that it is impossible for any civilization to visit another, because interstellar travel has yet to even be considered obtainable. The only things that promote the idea of such are purely speculative theory. The problem is that such theories usually include a 'wormhole' of sorts, which by further theory ultimately demands a power that even all the nuclear bombs on Earth, ignited and contained in a square inch, could not suffice.

However, there is a rather intriguing idea of how we could create such energy, proposed by Stephen Hawking. He stated that an advanced civilization could put millions of giant mirrors encircling a star, which would redirect all the projected energy into a single point, thereby creating enough power to open up a wormhole- which could take us anywhere.

But before getting too carried away, we have to take a step back and acknowledge that wormholes, in and of themselves, are theoretical. And without interstellar travel, we will hardly be able to leave our own solar system. Even if we were able to travel at light speed, we could never hope to meet other aliens, because the estimated minimum distance any civilization could be is 300 light years away.



With all that said, I feel that there is a big issue to take with the worldviews of atheists and religion. They are always going over one another with things they deem as evidence or facts, but neither has an empirically proven answer.

The Big Bang theory, for example, is not an exclusively atheistic view. It was developed by a Catholic scientist and theologian. He utilized his studies of the movements of celestial bodies beyond the galaxy and contrasted them with Christian scriptures. The Bible has a lot to say about space, and among it, a winning verse which tells that God stretches forth the Heavens. The important thing to know in this is that the context does not equate to a 'fixed' stretch, but meant to tell it is continually stretched. And not a continued creation- but an expanding of a finished one.

But in that, there is a presumption that God exists. Even though it is something intriguing to behold in ancient scripture, it doesn't give a non-believer enough to ascertain a worldview which includes God.

Where atheists have received ample insight and discoveries of how the universe works, they found it all with no answer to the universe's origins following them. Where literal interpretations of the holy books, with no evidence to demand that it should be looked at differently used to prevail over potential speculation, the Bible is now standing the test of scrutiny.
We are now coming to what has always been the truth, certain details of the Bible that were always neglected. For example, the first chapters of Genesis- the Days of Creation and the events of Eden, are two completely different stories.
They are allegorical, to broadly teach others about the creation and dilemma of man. They were probably oral traditions told by Moses, never actually meant to be taken any way in the first place beyond the scope of their fundamental notions for man to believe in principle and practice.



No matter how much one may be in arms with theism, the truth remains that even if the inventors of an idea of an ultimate, sentient creator are just that- inventors- they were inventions to make sense of our existence.
Which means that theory and religion are not really so different in retrospect. They are both two sides of man's philosophy which we practice everyday- one side deals in empiricism, and the other deals in purpose and meaning.
The very nature of our ideas on virtues are based on something that empirical science cannot satisfy, because nothing yields a harmony to the universe in contrast to human thought.

In other words, we are not really gazing at the universe from afar, but we rather are the universe. How does the universe not recognize it's true self, and yet have the capacity to have human virtue?



Which brings me, finally, to aliens_



Everything I've stated thus far is to reveal the bigger picture. There's a myriad of things we don't know, and things we take for granted which can so easily shape errant bias. It's quite frankly troublesome to know that we don't know for sure why we exist.
And aliens no doubt would feel the same way.

The Church is oddly open to the idea of aliens, and even though that may seem contrary to Christianity, I have a good idea of why they don't fear the possibility.

Basically, it rests in one of the most holy beliefs of Abrahamic religion- that we are made in God's image and likeness.
In a more understandable way of putting it, we are the great imitators of God. Which ultimately means that aliens would also be as well, and like Christianity, they would have a common idea of man's sins and imperfection.
See, Abrahamic religion holds that man, or all intelligent life, is subject to many of the truths of Godly wisdom that without the capacity to know, you couldn't really be any different then an animal- because the great Logos, or Logic, of the universe demands it of those made in God's image.
Abrahamic religion is far more complete then most people realize, and it is something that is unfortunately neglected in atheist vs theist debate. On both ends.


But to the point, if God came to us in a fashion which befitted us, He would have come in a fashion that befitted aliens, and so the idea that the Bible is only subject to mankind is not really so hard to imagine.
Especially if interstellar travel happens to be impossible- civilizations may as well be entirely different universes altogether. The Book of Man is best kept as simply that. The Book of Man.

A lot of atheists say that the religious put too much emphasis on mankind, and makes us too important when we're something like a piece of dust in an ocean.
However, the Bible doesn't place too much importance on man either. It's only within man's own workings that importance is really placed.

All these things support a speculation that Christianity and aliens can both be real and true.
 
I've always felt that God, as a creator, wouldn't just create one planet and stop. I'm sure God would be creating other planets and have other projects going on as well. Perhaps that is why the stars were placed so far apart... to act as a buffer so these civilizations would not interfere with each other (just speculation here). Nothing in the Bible says anything for or against life on other planets, so it does not conflict with Christianity. Perhaps there's life on other planets, and perhaps there isn't. Just because there are lots of stars out, doesn't mean they have to have life (though it's possible they do). Most stars are in clusters, which would not allow life to come about anyway.... but perhaps there are a few stars out there with planets that DO have life on them. I don't think we'll ever know in our life time.

Actually, I have met some aliens before... they made some damn good tacos.
 
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