# If aliens exists .. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 10, 2007, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493 "2007-12-10T17:01:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kuboydal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@Kuboydal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kuboydal)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/21 "2007-12-11T03:26:08Z")
[QUOTE=Swampwolf] Kind of off-topic, but not completely: there’s a book called Sparrow [/QUOTE] She wrote a sequel. If you liked The Sparrow it is certainly worth reading. I enjoyed them both immensely. ---
**Author:** ![kitemaker\_chuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a88e4f/32.png) [@kitemaker\_chuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitemaker_chuck)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/22 "2007-12-11T03:30:06Z")
I’ve always wondered if aliens would ever try to convert Earth people to THEIR religion. ---
**Author:** ![Kuboydal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@Kuboydal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kuboydal)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/23 "2007-12-11T03:31:53Z")
[QUOTE=kitemaker\_chuck] I’ve always wondered if aliens would ever try to convert Earth people to THEIR religion. [/QUOTE] I’m sure we are far too intelligent to fall for that. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/24 "2007-12-11T06:44:07Z")
Well, as a devout Christian of the Episcopalian flavor finding out there was intelligent life elsewhere in the universe wouldn’t shake my faith at all. I don’t take all of Scripture literally but believe in the\* points \* it makes. So when, in Genesis 1:1 it says “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth…” I take that to mean the following. “Sure, he got the ball started on our planet, and has continued to act with us ever since. God also created the _heavens_, the rest of the universe, and most certainly can have created other worlds as well. How he has acted there we haven’t discovered yet.” I don’t know if, in this life, I’ll learn whether or not there is other intelligent life, but I wouldn’t be surprised, in the life to come in Heaven, that I would meet other people that didn’t come from my own birth planet. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/25 "2007-12-11T07:02:46Z")
I very much would like to see the view point of a person of Muslim faith ! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/26 "2007-12-11T09:58:33Z")
[QUOTE=cormac262] Did you ever, by chance, read Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End” ? If you haven’t, you should. 'nuff said. [/QUOTE] Yes. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/27 "2007-12-11T14:03:14Z")
[QUOTE=Swampwolf] Kind of off-topic, but not completely: there’s a book called [_The Sparrow_](http://www.amazon.com/Sparrow-Mary-Doria-Russell/dp/0552997773/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197318084&sr=8-4) by Mary Doria Russell which deals with a newly-found planet with advanced alien life, and Earth’s Jesuit mission to it. It’s an interesting take on Aliens+religion, as well as cultural differences and how they affect religion. Plus, it’s very good SF (not phenomenal, IMO, but very good) [/QUOTE] Or for earlier Jesuit/alien religious fun, without the assraping, there’s Blish’s\* A Case of Conscience\*. I always prefer the ambiguous novella version to the full novel, but both are good. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/28 "2007-12-11T14:15:55Z")
[QUOTE=kitemaker\_chuck] I’ve always wondered if aliens would ever try to convert Earth people to THEIR religion. [/QUOTE] Probably, but the baptism in boiling ammonia would mean that only the really hardcore would join. ---
**Author:** ![JohnM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/848f3c/32.png) [@JohnM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnM)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/29 "2007-12-11T18:51:45Z")
[QUOTE=Napier] According to a physicist by the name of Max Tegmark, at either Penn State or U Penn (I can never keep them straight), there are infinitely many planets inhabited by people who call themselves Christians and read the Holy Bible and go to church Sunday and so forth. [/QUOTE] BTW, he was at the Univ. of Pennsylvania (aka Penn), and is now at MIT. To help you keep them straight, Penn State is the state’s land grant university and has a long history as a football power, while Penn is in the Ivy League. Dr. Tegmark has proposed an elaboration of the multiverse theory which would not only imply what you said above, but that there are a similar infinite number of universes where everyone on Earth worships Moloch and practices child sacrifice. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/30 "2007-12-11T18:55:58Z")
[QUOTE=kitemaker\_chuck] I’ve always wondered if aliens would ever try to convert Earth people to THEIR religion. [/QUOTE] According to Erich Von Daniken, this has (maybe) already happened. See ‘Chariots of the Gods’. Or better still, _don’t_ waste a few hours of your life you’ll never get back. _Don’t_ read ‘Chariots of the Gods’. To describe EvD’s theories as half-witted is a terribly unfair insult. To things that are half-witted. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Credible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a8b319/32.png) [@Justin\_Credible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Credible)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/31 "2007-12-11T20:52:47Z")
[QUOTE=Baker] Well, as a devout Christian of the Episcopalian flavor finding out there was intelligent life elsewhere in the universe wouldn’t shake my faith at all. I don’t take all of Scripture literally but believe in the\* points \* it makes. So when, in Genesis 1:1 it says “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth…” I take that to mean the following. “Sure, he got the ball started on our planet, and has continued to act with us ever since. God also created the _heavens_, the rest of the universe, and most certainly can have created other worlds as well. How he has acted there we haven’t discovered yet.” I don’t know if, in this life, I’ll learn whether or not there is other intelligent life, but I wouldn’t be surprised, in the life to come in Heaven, that I would meet other people that didn’t come from my own birth planet. [/QUOTE] Awesome post. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2007, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493/32 "2007-12-11T21:30:40Z")
See, my position is that alien life absolutely does exist, but God does not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-exists/429493.md?page=1)