There are 5 subquestions, but let me focus on one: "Would meeting aliens change our understanding of the cross?" ("At the core of Christianity is the death of the incarnate Christ on a Roman cross, bringing redemption for humans. Is redemption unique to Earth?")
Haarsma identifies 4 theories:
1. Aliens are not fallen, and thus have no need for redemption....
2. Aliens are fallen, and they have their own relationship with God that is different from ours....
3. Aliens are fallen, but included in Christ’s redemptive work on Earth....
4. Aliens are fallen, but Christ’s incarnation and redemptive work are repeated on their own worlds....
The difficulty of all 4 of these options might drive you to avoid the question by choosing one of the 2 other options. The truth of Christianity implies the nonexistence of aliens. Or: If aliens exist, Christianity is not true.
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115 comments:
Billy Graham espoused Option 1.
Shouldn't Christians be asking the same questions about AI?
There is a Ray Bradbury sci-fi short story called "The Man" corresponding to Option 4.
If and when sentient life off earth is found/encountered, theologians will jump through hoops trying to square that circle. Maybe L. Ron Hubbard had it right to some extent...!
It poses a fascinating thought experiment, especially vis-a-vis Mormonism. Hear me out.
So much of our inter-humanity experience could be likened to first contact type situations. How much different was first contact between Cortez and Montezuma to our species and another elsewhere in the universe? Probably not much. We have a good number of analogues already, and the outcomes are less than ideal.
Number #3 and #4 sound very similar to the Mormon concept that Christian teaching half a world away can me transmogrified - truly or falsely - to any unknown distance any prophet-like person could choose to imagine.
In other words, I don't think most Christians would be all that philosophically affected, unless they actively chose to be. I think most would focus on the fundamental nature of the scripture, and how it's universal rules are still valid in yet a still larger universe that just has more souls in it than we thought.
For what it's worth, Isaac Newton thought there was a possibility of multiple inhabited planets with multiple instantiations of Christ coming to save them. I'm assuming one part of his assumption is that all created nature is created free and fallible--and does, indeed, fall. A theory of moral gravitation?
Ms. Haarsma might also have read James Blish's 'A Case of Conscience,' but she possibly would not have liked Blish's take.
It wouldn't mean anything for Christians unless they're literalists.
The point of the Bible is figurative.
AA, your two options are elucidatingly correct.
It's one of the many things I considered when as a 13 year-old, I spent a lot of time pondering the existence of a God and the stated need to worship it.
A much under-appreciated film from the 1980s is Enemy Mine. The entire film is essentially this concept of a human and an extraterrestrial finding similarities in their religious doctrine that allow them to cooperate, instead of killing each other.
I have to believe the possibility exists that sentient life elsewhere in the universe might be more like us than we imagine, and not the Borg-like death juggernaut men like Fermi, Dyson, and Von Neumann proposed. Maybe we might be able to learn something from the last 600 years of blundering.
All things being equal though, it's best not to make a move until someone else does. You never know which galactic colonial power could be watching.
This might be a bit Mormonish, which feels weird as I was raised Catholic and am now Episcopalian, but what if, since God-as-Jesus took on fully human form in order to redeem humanity, God were to take on the form of other sentient, intelligent beings and travel some similar life, death, and resurrection path, whatever would mean the same to those beings as Jesus' path through human life means to humans?
" The truth of Christianity implies the nonexistence of aliens. Or: If aliens exist, Christianity is not true."
Mmmmm. Maybe not. God is the god of the universe and that includes everything in it. Even aliens. Should they exist. There is nothing out there that suggests that there are aliens. But. You know, keep an open mind.
"Fallen"
Christians stick everybody with the knife of the fallen - aliens included - so ("good news") they can sell you their band-aid.
But if you say aliens don't exist then you're accused of being terribly closed minded, anthropocentric, lacking in comprehension of the expanse and possibilities of the universe, or whatever.
So you really can't win this round. Moderns hope to see aliens like our ancestors hoped to see God.
If I were the Son of God, I would reject option #4 out of hand. What's the point of being the Son of God if you have to periodically be substantiated and tortured to death on different worlds? If I were the Son of God, I would make this Crucifixion thing a one off.
If I were the Son of God, I would reject option #4 out of hand. What's the point of being the Son of God if you have to periodically be substantiated and tortured to death on different worlds? If I were the Son of God, I would make this Crucifixion thing a one off.
In The Horse and his Boy, CS Lewis tells each character in turn to not ask too many questions about the other characters, because (paraphrasing), "their story is not your story". IOW, humans don't need to know what an alien species' "deal" is with God, should their existence be proven. Similarly, I don't spend much time speculating on how/whether non-Orthodox Christians are going to heaven, nor non-Christians either. It doesn't effect my faith or my salvation one bit.
All that said, I think it's probably #2. There is a lot of freaky stuff in the Bible, especially the Old Testament. Go listen to a couple episodes of the Lord of Spirits podcast and tell me in the midst of all that weirdness, you'd be shocked by a couple of aliens. You wouldn't even notice them.
In the end when things get incomprehensible, I can waive my hand and intone "it's a mystery", which is one of the greatest comforts of Orthdoxy.
I can speak as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: we believe that there are other earths with children of God on them.
Joseph Smith rendered by way of revelation, a [lost] Book of Moses (because of what has been lost over the millennia from Genesis) which contains the following:
31 And behold, the glory of the Lord was upon Moses, so that Moses stood in the presence of God, and talked with him face to face. And the Lord God said unto Moses: For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me.
32 And by the word of my power, have I created them, which is mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth.
33 And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.
34 And the first man of all men have I called Adam, which is many.
35 But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them.
Not only did God reveal to Moses that he’s created many earths, but we see that Moses very well knew of the Messiah and redeemer that would be provided.
How would it make Muslims feel? Or Jews? As a Buddhist, I can hope for a reincarnation on some other planet.
Option #2 would seem to include a decision by God not to save the beings who live on other planets. The humans of Earth are the Chosen People.
By the way, if you believe in a traditional Heaven, where you see other people who have lived and died on Earth, do you imagine there will also be those who have died on other planets? I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention such an encounter.
What if #5 the alien was wearing a crucifix with an alien on it nailed to the cross?
I was raised on Star Trek and Star Wars. Future generations appear to be no less interested in science fiction or a universe that is occupied by other sentient creatures other than themselves. Could an alien ask for a better, more culturally prepared population for first contact than the one we have now? Probably yes...things aren't so chill here right now, but we're talking about fractions and margins here. We're a long way from Cortez.
Christianity and belief in off world life are not mutually exclusive. The power of Christianity is its inclusivity. Maybe aliens should be careful of us. Within hours of proof of their existence some nutcase missionary will be trying to figure a way to spread the good news just like that guy who tried to contact the Sentinalese on Great Andaman Island.
They might just not answer the door when the Jehovah's witnesses knock, the same way we all do. Maybe they'll wish they'd never found us.
if this isn't a fallen world, I don't know what is, Aliens would be God's creation as well
I would add that as to whether Option 3 or 4 is in effect to any particular world, so far as I know, God hasn’t revealed it so we don’t know.
CS Lewis's space trilogy gets nicely into all this.
For me, someone with a actual theologian job title, I'm not really concerned.
The Bible is very narrow in what it focuses on in terms of the story it tells and that leaves out a lot of other things God is doing or cares about.
Biologos does great work.
Before reading his four theories I’ll put forth mine. Nothing. It will mean nothing to Christians who understand God’s Word. The Bible says that there are mysteries in this world that we cannot comprehend and the thought of alien life is certainly consistent with what Paul meant when he said we “see as if through a glass [mirror] darkly.” Taking the whole story of Creation as written it is very clear God first created Angels, which were spiritual but not physical beings. And their existence was not “good enough” for God. So He eventually created Man “in His image” but given the other condensed timescales in the Bible, we have no way of knowing what other “experiments” He tried before making humans. Elsewhere the Bible says that even people who have not heard the Gospel of Jesus can come to know and love God by pondering the majesty of the stars. I take that as a sign that we may very well “find things hidden” from man by our prior technological limitations.
To me this fits well into my overall philosophy that nothing that science and mathematics have revealed is in contradiction to God’s Word. It holds true so far and I expect it will hold true until I go to meet my Maker.
Ann Althouse said...
"By the way, if you believe in a traditional Heaven, where you see other people who have lived and died on Earth, do you imagine there will also be those who have died on other planets? I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention such an encounter."
The Mormons have a post-death interplanetary arrangement, but they don't die there, too, as far as I know.
But the tradition that the Bible is all God has done or spoken and there can’t be any more Scripture, would certainly be at question (if it isn’t already just from what we’ve discovered about and since the compilation and canonization of our current Bible.)
Angels qualify as aliens, and they seem subject to option 2.
Althouse asked: "By the way, if you believe in a traditional Heaven, where you see other people who have lived and died on Earth, do you imagine there will also be those who have died on other planets? "
I believe that Heaven will be so much more than we can possibly imagine while on this Earthly plane. I think that Heaven may be somewhat personalized/individualized, at least at our first entry---"In my Father's house there are many mansions." I did have a dream once about this concept, that seemed like a "true" and revelatory dream. If Heaven is personalized, then it makes sense that those who have come back from NDEs will have experienced familiar places and landscapes that are analogous to Earth along with loved ones they recognize. It's almost universal in NDEs for the person to be told that they may not go beyond a certain point, because if they do there's no going back to their life on Earth and thus we don't have testimony about what other beings there may be on the other side of that forbidden gateway.
I do hope that there is work yet to be done by us once we are in Heaven because we are wired that way, and I've wondered: if there IS work, perhaps it's related to helping other beings in the universe.
@Quayle
Very interesting. Do you believe you are called to proselytize to them? Do you believe they would be receptive to your message since they would've already been touched 'by the holy spirit'?
Interesting you chimed in. As soon as I saw 3 and 4 I knew there was something similar.
It's turtles all the way down
Appropriate post for a Sunday morning coming down. Thanx for the philosophical brain worm.
I don't really understand why people conclude that if there is sentient life on other planets, that would call Christianity into question.
God created the Heavens and the Earth----He's got this.
1. My first response was to the headline and not, apparently, the multiple choices.
2. My answer above is most consistent with number one or two, but unknowable, as the answer key is not provided using the Bible as a study guide.
CS Lewis wrote about what option 1 would look like, in his space trilogy, but I think he intended it as allegory.
Atheists will spend an eternity looking for ways to demonstrate the foolishness of divinity. While such mind games are part of that, as such with many of the sciences, they are not mutually exclusive - as has already been mentioned.
I'm also reminded of the line from a The The song Armageddon Days: "if the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today/he'd be gunned down cold by the CIA"
This is an out-of-bounds or "division by zero" error for any traditional religion. You simply can't have concept for a new / external / alien entity when the belief system was created and accepted as 100% complete and perfect to the believers. In this fashion the Christian Bible has a "new testament" that supersedes the Jewish "old testament." This is why Islam holds that Mohammed is the last prophet, even as Abraham and Jesus are acknowledged as earlier / inferior / obsolete "messengers of truth."
Jumping ahead to the industrial and science era, many 19th century USA protestants (to include Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Seventh-day Adventists, etc.) all followed new living prophets as they added best-science-of-the-era visions and special revelations to old Christianity. The 20th century Scientologists may offer a theological solution to the alien-division-by-zero issue, but I'm not an expert on $$$$$$$ proprietary pay-to-learn teachings.
I'd guess most believers in any religion would incorporate aliens as either "all God's children" or see them as angels or demigods or special messengers or something. That's a matter for a new prophet to decide, per the only way absolute truths can form.
The 1990s Sci-Fi TV show Babylon 5 explored aliens as religious figures -- with one type of aliens strategically appearing as angels.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105946/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5
Doesn’t matter. Ain’t never gonna happen.
I think Christianity's truth is a human phenomenon, the mortal understanding of God. And imperfect, because it is mortal. Aliens? Since we don't know what they are, or even if they are, their religions and their God is their business and not subject to our ken - yet.
What is AA hearing or thinking? A lot of 'aliens appearing' topics this morning,
The truth of Christianity implies the nonexistence of aliens. Or: If aliens exist, Christianity is not true.
From my time at Bible college, which is a long ago and distance part of my life, there is no implication that aliens do not exist. The same God that created man in his own image could easily have created another life form somewhere else that was not in his own image. There is nothing in the Bible, the inherent word of God, addressing the issue. Just like the question of whether our pets will be in heaven with us. :)
The Vatican actually has an official policy on this. That is, Jesus the Christ was sent to Earth for humans. He is our savior.
Aliens are either fallen- or they aren't.
If they are fallen, God has either provided a means for their redemption, or hasn't.
Of course, that begs the question- do extraterrestrial intelligent lifeforms exist? According to some theorists, a universe cannot exist without an observer, and the observers are intelligent lifeforms. And one intelligence is all that is needed- or necessary and sufficient, however you want to put it. Tied in with the various anthropic principles. The weak anthropic principle being the most obvious, and easily understood by a sharp 5 year old. Why does the universe exist the way it is? Why are the constants constants? Etc... And the answer is- because if anything was different, even by a little bit, we couldn't exist. The universe is fine tuned for human existence. The ultimate anthropic principle states that the universe only because of us. Whether through random chance, of guided by the hand of God, everything we observe is ours.
And also related- The Fermi Question- Where are they?. The "they" being XTs. Whether you use the Greenbank Equation, or invent you own guesstimating process, any group of scientists or students has always come up with the same conclusion- not only should others be easy to find, but really, we should be them. The Sun is a relatively young star. Older dying stars on the same sequence - assuming life can only exist around a star like ours- should have had civilizations that arose and spread throughout our galaxy. We've been searching for over 70 years now- zilch, nada, nothing. Ether we're it, or or Fred Saberhagen's Berserkers exist and they're on their way here now.
And I made and sent off my previous comment before scrolling down- and realizing almost all of it applies to the previous post.
"Maybe aliens should be careful of us. Within hours of proof of their existence, some nutcase missionary will be trying to figure a way to spread the good news just like that guy who tried to contact the Sentinalese on Great Andaman Island."
The consensus opinion among people who get tenured salaries or grant money from the Paul Allen Foundation to think about such things is, "Not likely, dawg."
Patterns from history strongly support the idea that in such a scenario, the belief system or religion of the more advanced culture rapidly replaces the beliefs of the less advanced culture. There are many examples. The Celts gave way to the Church of Rome within two centuries of Constantine's edicts on religion and in turn became missionaries to the Germanic peoples. All those Celtic religions which endured for uncounted centuries have utterly vanished, leaving only educated conjecture about their rites and doctrines. (I do not include the absurd antics and prancings of modern-day "druids" and other so-called neo-pagans.)
In a likewise manner Cyril and Methodius converted the pagan Slavs to the Byzantine church in the 9th century. And the religious history of the Americas is well-known. Firearms, horses, and steel armor had profound religious significance to people who had never dreamt of such things. One reason why Christianity has not supplanted many Oriental beliefs is that the Europeans were often regarded as on an equal footing with the Asiatic priestly castes if not outright inferior.
The means of interstellar travel, if such means exist, will be virtually unfathomable to human intelligence for centuries to come. Consequently, the aliens will be evangelizing us, not the other way around.
"In the end when things get incomprehensible, I can waive my hand and intone "it's a mystery""
This was basically my short answer to the question, too.
Well there's an entirely different set of possibilities that simplifies and shortens the list of options, and that arises in the event that Christ wasn't the Son of God but a very perceptive human. In that case, his teachings could be viewed as a "Christian ethic" as opposed to a "Christian religion" and its main message (forgive your enemies and treat others as you would like to be treated) applies not just to humans and this particular planet but to the interactions between any sentient beings regardless of type or planet of origin. No options needed.
Powerful stuff. And worthy of being celebrated for millennia. Too bad actual religions of various popular types haven't followed that ethic, and worse, have commanded the exact opposite.
"It poses a fascinating thought experiment, especially vis-a-vis Mormonism. Hear me out."
In 'The Expanse,' the Mormons build a huge space ark and they are headed out into deep space to colonize distant planets outside of our solar system...
Oh, and God can do whatever He wants.
Doesn't answer to nobody...
Blogger stlcdr said..."Atheists will spend an eternity looking for ways to demonstrate the foolishness of divinity."
Actually, we don't have a club or bylaws. Personally, I spend virtually no time on it anymore.
@Quaestor
"One reason why Christianity has not supplanted many Oriental beliefs is that the Europeans were often regarded as on an equal footing with the Asiatic priestly castes if not outright inferior."
Yeah that's true. There are more than a few Nepalese and Tibetan Buddhist Lamas that laugh in Christianity's general direction. There's a lot of Jesus's teaching that is more than a little bit 'eastern inspired', and I don't dismiss the possibility There's hidden cross-cultural transmission.
Regarding interstellar travel, according to Frank Drake, the more we can make ourselves look like cockaroaches, the better.
'Well there's an entirely different set of possibilities that simplifies and shortens the list of options, and that arises in the event that Christ wasn't the Son of God but a very perceptive human.'
I've been trying to turn water into '92 Screaming Eagle forever.
No luck...
The universe is a human creation inferred from signals of unknown fidelity. The "big bang" theory is a revelation of a faith serving a religion of capital, control, and selfiesh (sic) desire. Our universe expands with scientific observation in a frame of reference where accuracy is inversely proportional... limited to offsets from the observer.
Such a discovery would simply reinforce the flat earthers.
“What is AA hearing or thinking? A lot of 'aliens appearing' topics this morning”
I blogged the new Joel Achenbach piece then researched this question, which has interested me since I was a teenager. My feeling at the time was that Christianity should mean that there is no intelligent life on other planets.
What would life on Earth mean for secular ambition, other than an opportunity for choice to dismiss it when it is deemed inconvenient?
Faith is a logical domain of trust.
Religion is a behavioral protocol.
Ideology is a secular model to realize them.
Judge a philosophy by the character of its principles, not principals.
God did not have to give us taste buds.
Atheism is a faith that places its trust in men, starting with the individual, and expanding its universe with secular incentives (e.g. force, bennies, pleasure).
Michel Faber's novel The Book of Strange New Things is a great take on many of these questions.
The existence of alien life will wreak havoc on Christianity and the Incarnation. The primacy of Christ doesn't make much sense if there is intelligent life (with moral capacity) on other planets. Or, maybe, the Christians can band together and send missionaries to make first contact? Guns and the gospel is how we did it in the 17th - 19th centuries.
None of the above. The belief in a limitless, unfathomable, Diety necessarily includes a whole lot of For Him To Know And You To Find Out. If you’re not OK with that you’ve already missed the point.
Ann Althouse said...
"Option #2 would seem to include a decision by God not to save the beings who live on other planets. The humans of Earth are the Chosen People.
By the way, if you believe in a traditional Heaven, where you see other people who have lived and died on Earth, do you imagine there will also be those who have died on other planets? I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention such an encounter."
Why not?
The things we find incomprehensable god does not.
We are descendants from the Adamic tribe. The aliens you assume to exist are from the Hollywood fantasy tribe. They don’t exist. However Angel spirits do exist and are under God’s authority having been sent here by God to serve us. The great Angel Rebellion war is over and the rebels lost.
"Actually, we don't have a club or bylaws. Personally, I spend virtually no time on it anymore."
I need to amend my comment. I never spent anytime "looking for ways to demonstrate the foolishness of divinity.". I did spend a lot of time pondering the existence of God. That's what I don't do much of anymore. At this point it would just be retreading old ground.
5. Nothing at all.
An expansion of revelation following the scientific model is intrinsic to the Christian philosophy.
While we don't have aliens in the Bible, though those Nephilim are tricky characters, it is interesting to see how the Bible focuses on a specific storyline, that of the Jews, but every so often we get a glimpse that the story is really bigger than what we're told. Like Melchizedek, or Jonah being sent to Ninevah. My favorite glimpse of their being a bigger story is Pharoah Necho in 2 Chronicles 35.
Aliens fit into that category for me, if they do exist, it's just a different part of the bigger story and like Aslan said to Lucy, that's not our story to know. At this point at least.
As far as heaven, the traditional perspective on going to heaven isn't really Biblical. We're physical beings not souls with flesh packaging. Though I think that CS Lewis found the right imagery in his The Great Divorce.
Jesus himself said "I have other sheep, not of this fold." As a scientist I am perforce agnostic on the matter, but that statement is plenty good enough for me. I am also a believer, with non-trivial training in theology. Despite common belief in the pews, I hold that 'The Christ' is eternal, and showed up on Earth in the full humanity of Jesus -- in Hebrew 'Yeshua', meaning 'God provides'.
There is no basis, either scientific or theological, for assuming that there is (or is not) intelligent life elsewhere. If, however, there is, then sound theology requires a presumption of free-will and, in consequence, the tendency to sin, with all that entails. Should such life be green and slimy with 12 legs, The Christ will, in the "fullness of [their] time", also have come to them, in their form. Maybe even named Gzonkpifft, or something similar in their language.
We may never know. Not all intelligent life is technological, even on Earth ... dolphins being a strongly notable example. We have other highly-intelligent life right here. There is no basis in either sciece or theology for assuming we are alone. Science does, however, make it rather clear within the neighbourhood we can contact it is probably extremely rare, at most.
What if the story of Christ is what humans on Earth needed to hear? Perhaps there is another story for others, either beings that live on Earth and don't communicate like humans or aliens that look nothing like humans living on another planet? Maybe it is but one story that tells us to think beyond just ourselves and strive to be better while recognizing we may never be perfect.
I've always liked Arthur C. Clarke's way of tweaking Christians in his book "Childhood's End", where the first aliens, referred to as Overlords, arrive on Earth:
"When the Overlords finally reveal their appearance, they resemble the traditional Christian folk images of demons, with cloven hooves, leathery wings, horns, and barbed tails."
IOW they look like Satan.
Heh
Regarding “in His image,” my assumption has long been that the drive to create things, especially things that “last” is the Human trait most like God the Creator. I read His phrase “in My image” as being His self-image, and that God primarily sees Himself as The Creator. It does seem to be the trait is demonstrably different than animal behavior, dependent on our self-awareness, which is what the Serpent described as “becoming like God” by eating the forbidden fruit.
Even if there is other life out there in the universe, Christianity has already considered the possibility and isn't bothered by it at all.
Jesus can do whatever He wants to do with other planets. The Bible is about man's relationship with God on this Earth.
The ending of the Gospel is quite curious. Simon Peter asks, "What about John here?" And Jesus responds, "What's it to you? Worry about yourself. YOU follow me."
Life on other planets and their relationship with Jesus Christ isn't our business. It's between Him and them.
trek tried to envisage creatures that were bereft of emotions, like the Andromeda, big brained ones, or the Andromedans, but Aliens are likely as prone to arrogance to every other sin, the Ferengi were the more extreme, along with the Klingons and Romulans,
I’m imagining a near future in which political candidates will be negatively characterized as extra terrestrial life deniers.
Because science says there must be.
These are the conversations that make me a lurker. Several comments from Quaestor, ridespacemountain, and quayle are thought provoking.
Matt Groening was right!
“What would life beyond Earth mean for Christians?"
Who cares? Even on Earth, most intelligent life is not Christian.
“By the way, if you believe in a traditional Heaven, where you see other people who have lived and died on Earth, do you imagine there will also be those who have died on other planets? I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention such an encounter.”
This is a theme in the Mark Twain short “Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven”. Where all the aliens ( people from other worlds) have their own heaven, because to some drinking and gambling are religious practices. Stormfield makes the final claim “Heaven for climate, Hell for company.”
The enormity of space is barely understood now after having been understood for scores of years. Distances measured in thousands of light years. Billions, billions, of galaxies. What vanity to see our fraction of a fraction of a grain of sand in this vast void as being of such significance as to draw God’s son to us alone. To believe in this stunning silence we are the only ones.
@Paddy O: CS Lewis's space trilogy gets nicely into all this.
I agree. It is the canonical exploration of the concept, and a cracking good story even if you have no interest in religious allegory.
When I read it for the first time, I fully comprehended and enjoyed the first two volumes, but found That Hideous Strength to be pretty rough sledding for a callow teenager. Now that I am well into my middle age, I know it was the most important, and most pertinent to our current situation, of all of the books. It rivals Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged for prescience, and is much better written. Everyone ought to read it.
Who is now our Pendragon? Trump doesn't seem up to the job.
@MJB Wolf: nothing that science and mathematics have revealed is in contradiction to God’s Word
As Heisenberg said, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist. But at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”
This happened for me in one of my more advanced math classes, probably Complex Analysis. We derived the famous equation known as Euler's identity (e^Ï€i + 1 = 0) from scratch, using a Taylor series expansion. When you understand what all the terms mean and the deeper implications of their unexpected connection, it hits you like a divine revelation.
There are so many other beautiful and profound equations in mathematics and physics: Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism (especially in tensor formulation), the Riemann Zeta function, Einstein's field equations of general relativity, as well as the famous E=mc^2 identity of special relativity, Newton's laws of motion and gravity, Boltzmann's equations (of which there are 2, completely unrelated to each other), the Pythagorean Theorem, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Cauchy's theorem of residues, and the Schrödinger wave equation, among others. While all of them give a peek into the mind of God, none of them can top the Euler identity for sheer mystical beauty and wonderment.
Extraterrestrial life would have no effect on my faith apart from curiosity about alien religion.
The truth of Christianity implies the nonexistence of aliens.
Please stop.
My faith already accounts for the existence of filthy xenos, and their need for extermination.
THE EMPEROR PROTECTS!
1. The chance of life existing on earth is zero.
2. The chance of it existing beyond earth is less.
Ergo, no need to worry about this little situation.
R C Belaire:
Maybe L. Ron Hubbard had it right to some extent...!
What, make up your own and scam as many people as possible?
All this depends on if we go find them or if they come find us.
Whoever goes to make the contact has the tactical advantage.
If they come here, it depends on if they have a religion or not as to how our integration into their culture will proceed and it will be us who will be doing the integrating.
TelfordWork:
Angels qualify as aliens, ...
I don't see how. When we speak of aliens, we speak of a civilization not a series of one-offs to do specific tasks.
Perhaps God is an emergent properly of a sufficient amount of thought across a sufficient number of creatures.
Just how arrogant does someone have to be to make up rules for a supreme being?
What about the theory that we are in a simulation?
Perhaps the aliens are running the simulation.
lgv:
There is nothing in the Bible, the inherent word of God, addressing the issue. Just like the question of whether our pets will be in heaven with us.
How about first deciding which 144K humans are getting in.
Original Mike:
stlcdr: Atheists will spend an eternity looking for ways to demonstrate the foolishness of divinity.
Actually, we don't have a club or bylaws. Personally, I spend virtually no time on it anymore.
And if you look at threads, they're almost always responses to someone trying to demonstrate divinity, not our "looking for". Don't bring it up and you'll hear nothing from us.
OK, nothing from all but a rabid few.
n.n:
Atheism is a faith that places its trust in men, starting with the individual, and expanding its universe with secular incentives (e.g. force, bennies, pleasure).
Nope. You're reading in. Atheism only means living without deity(ies).
M Jordan:
1. The chance of life existing on earth is zero.
Um, no. The chance of life existing on earth is 100%.
2. The chance of it existing beyond earth is less.
At that point, this is true.
This is all fun, but the ONLY POSSIBLE ANSWER is that we don't know.
We don't know if there are sentient beings on other worlds, so obviously we can't know if they are or were in need of salvation.
The Garden of Eden story (and I regard it as a metaphor or allegory, but your mileage may vary) describes how a God-created people ended up as the forked-up people that we are. CS Lewis's novel Peralandra imagines an Eden on Venus, where obedience to God is still possible. Read it to see what they decide.
To Christians, Christ's life, teachings, death, and resurrection give us a vision and hope for escape from the prison we have built for ourselves.
Thank you for the mathematical elucidations, Hassayamper. I’ll finish with the observations that mathematics has been called “the language of the universe.” And the Judeo-Christian God seems quite fond of numbers with one of the chapters shared by the Bible and Torah titled Numbers.
Interesting thread. First, I'm an atheist because I have seen nothing that requires a supernatural god. Maybe I will someday or maybe as I'm dying I will wish it so much that I will become a believer.
As for extraterrestrial life, it seems with the vastness of our universe it should exist, but again I see no evidence. We are working off one data point here on earth.
I think other life is likely but due to the vastness mentioned previously we will never know. There could be only one, or ten, or a million but we will never interact. Vastness.
n.n:
Atheism is a faith that places its trust in men, starting with the individual, and expanding its universe with secular incentives (e.g. force, bennies, pleasure).
Nope. You're reading in. Atheism only means living without deity(ies)
Yes, a faith in mortal gods, experts, etc.
1. The chance of life existing on earth is zero
Improbable, but not impossible.
"When we speak of aliens, we speak of a civilization not a series of one-offs"
They're definitely alien in the general definition of the word, but I supposed you can define alien in a way that excludes them. Plus, we really don't know much about angel culture other than where it intersects the human story.
We always should be willing to expand our philosophical dreams.
What kind of operational capability would it take to survive the death of a star? A galaxy? A universe? Maybe God is a self augmenting organic intelligence and every universe is a simulation running on the hardware that is God?
If the universe is created, then I am sure God can stop it, save it, copy it, extract parts of it and add it to other universes. That kind of God could stop time, reverse it, make new timelines, and no one in this universe would ever know anything ever happened. And maybe, who knows, some individual beings would be interesting enough to be saved for later use.
But I feel about God the way other commenters feel about meeting aliens. I am not so sure I want God's attention.
But I do believe now in a Creator, and I while I think It is likely evil, I find it more valuable to believe in a universe that improves.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Hassayamper, I had the same problem with That Hideous Strength! I think I started it 2 or 3 times before I made it past the first 100 pages, at which point it become really extraordinary, and prescient, book. Definitely important for our times and definitely should be read by so many more. I just wish that first 100 pages was more inviting...
I wonder if maybe we all just have to be the Pendragon within our own immediate contexts, and see transformation taking shape from below in society
n.n:
Oligonicella:
Nope. You're reading in. Atheism only means living without deity(ies)
Yes, a faith in mortal gods, experts, etc.
You know by now I'm atheist. You should also know that I by no means have faith in "experts". No one else should either post-COVID.
"Mortal god" You're using a term with no meaning.
For diversitists, it would mean another color or class in their religious taxonomy, a minority to supercede all other minorities. Take a knee.
For the Pro-Choice religious, a probable "burden". Abort. #NoJudgment #NoLabels
An alien... migrant or human Spring. Forewarned is forearmed.
"Yes, a faith in mortal gods, experts, etc."
No. That doesn't follow.
Religion and XTs. The existence of XTs, AFAIK, doesn't invalidate any earthly religion. Our religions, except for some cults (Scientology is a cult) and the Church of Human Expansion, simply don't take XTs into account.
But Science, with it's creation myth of The Big Bang that started everything, cannot deny the existence of XTs, and to date, hasn't proved any exist. Believing they exist, or that they don't exist, is a matter of faith, since there's no proof either way.
Wait- you're still pondering- The Big Bang? Creation Myth? Scientists have these wonderful mathematical models showing exactly how it happened, including a necessary rapid inflation needed to explain the universe today. But no explanation of how it started, or perhaps more importantly, why. Did a Supreme Being who lives outside space and time and THIS universe say "Let there be light!" and there was? That's a better explanation then no explanation.
And then there's 3 beliefs about the universe. There's enough mass that the expansion is going to slow down, reverse, and collapse again. (Although recent theorizing says there never was a an actual big bang. the universe is cyclic and avoids a gigantic black hole. Also nothing more then a religious belief.) If there's that much mass- we're living in a black hole, and nothing outside the Schwarzschild Radius can observe what's going on in here. But is there something outside the Schwarzschild Radius of is beyond that nothing? And within this giant black hole there exist other black holes.... that we cannot observe the inside of, but they can see us. Second theory- there's not enough mass to draw us back. The universe just keeps expanding- into nothing, apparently, getting bigger and bigger, as entropy increases, and eventually we get to the heat death of the universe, cold, dark, matter, ever expanding into nothingness, with no observers. And the third least likely IMHO, least likely IF The Big Bang is true, is it expands forever, at slower and slower rates, approaching a zero expansion rate. There is an endpoint, an edge so to say, but the universe never quite gets there. That also leads to heat death.
Scientists say that speculating what's past the edge of the universe is useless, because it's nothing. But if it's nothing-it has no existence. How can we be expanding into something that isn't there?
The universe is a fascinating and frustrating place to contemplate. Cosmologists play with numbers to "prove" their points. But nobody, not even the most esteemed scientist, nor Dr Fraudci, knows. Theories come and go, consensus is reached then evaporates. An all knowing all powerful God is a better explanation for the universe's mysteries then the ever changing science. Or, I guess, if you're an atheist, simply accepting that it is what it is. an unknowable reality.
God is bigger than humanity (obviously).
God made humanity in his image, and Jesus had a personal relationship with God the father. Jesus humanized God. Before Jesus, God was terrifying. And in truth, God is still very scary if you feel his presence. He is so much more powerful than we are, and he knows every sin we've ever done.
Substitute the word "animals" for "aliens."
Most animals are not sinners. They're not intelligent enough to sin.
Dogs, on the other hand, sin all the time. And they know it!
They've been hanging out with us, and have picked up a guilt/innocence theology.
Jesus did not come to save the dinosaurs. Jesus came to save sinners. And to be a sinner you need to have the freedom to sin, and the knowledge to know what sin is.
Consider also the possibility that earth is heaven (and hell). And we've been given the freedom to create a paradise.
The importance of breeding and having children might be part of our mission to fill up the universe with human life. Man + Woman = Creation. Sex is the uniting force in the universe. And I am struck by how Satan wants to stop humans from breeding and having children.
Atheism only means living without deity(ies)
Atheism means you think you can keep your secrets. You can kill your neighbor and bury him in your backyard and get away with it. Atheism by its very nature leads to nihilism, and evil.
God is a totalitarian dictator who believes in absolute freedom. There is no escape from God, nowhere to hide.
Theologians have pondered the possibility of extra-terrestrial life and aliens relationship to God and salvation for centuries. Here is a link to one Catholic take on it.
https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/what-can-catholic-theology-say-about-extraterrestrials/#Extraterrestrials%20and%20The%20Principle%20of%20Sacramentality
Saint Croix:
You're on a tear this morning.
Dogs, on the other hand, sin all the time. And they know it!
They've been hanging out with us, and have picked up a guilt/innocence theology.
Wolves and primates exhibit guilt/innocence w/out hanging out with humans. We're not that unique.
Atheism means you think you can keep your secrets. You can kill your neighbor and bury him in your backyard and get away with it.
This would explain why the vast majority of murderers claim religion. And they always believe they'll get away with it.
Atheism by its very nature leads to nihilism, and evil.
You just want to believe that so they can be persecuted. And by the way, screw you for calling me evil.
Weren't you the one who sniggered at Althouse for being atheist when she isn't? Clean the surface of your mirror before calling others evil.
God is a totalitarian dictator who believes in absolute freedom.
Unless, of course, he want's to turn you into a pillar of salt for turning around.
I don't see any issue. We know there are trillions of suns and planets in the universe, all of which, I presume, are considered by Christians to be part of God's creation Therefore, any life of any kind anywhere else in the universe is easily included as part of God's creation.
"Atheism means you think you can keep your secrets. You can kill your neighbor and bury him in your backyard and get away with it. Atheism by its very nature leads to nihilism, and evil."
This is just dumb. Atheists are no more prone to personal depravity than are believers in god, and believers in god are no less prone to personal depravity than atheists.
"There is nothing out there that suggests that there are aliens."
There is nothing out there that suggests there is a god.
Mark and I agree. The temperature of hell is dropping as we speak.
Atheists are no more prone to personal depravity than are believers in god
Is this science? It sounds like a faith statement to me!
I think people go temporary atheist when we sin -- we forget God. And sure, there are people who sin in the name of God. For instance, if you are following a dangerous prophet, you might sin. And even if you are following Christ, you're still going to sin.
Believing in God doesn't mean that you will cease being a sinner. But belief in God is the path to becoming a better human.
"Is this science? It sounds like a faith statement to me!"
It is my statement of opinion about human nature.
...belief in God is the path to becoming a better human."
It can be one path to becoming a better human, for some. It isn't the only path, or a necessary path. One doesn't need to believe in God to be a good and ethical human.
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