Think I’d answer my own question “not necessarily”. In theory, an entity capable of doing the whole Genesis style creation thing would be able to create as many sentient species as he/she/it might want. However, if such an entity existed and scattered sentient species–why keep it a secret for umpteen-thousand years? Would there need to be a travelling Jesus, as mentioned above?
Lots of issues here that could call traditional beliefs into question. I think it may have a bigger religious impact than is often considered in SciFi…
How would finding extraterrestrials be qualitatively different from finding humans who lived on previously undiscovered continents and had never heard of western religions, as happened in 1492 with contact between Europeans and Native Americans? The “alien Jesus” issue came up then, as did questions about the literality of Genesis (were New World animals on Noah’s Ark?).
I see it as vastly different from 1492. Back then, news travelled slowly. Now, if anything major happens, people all over the world can be reading about it on the internet as it happens. Back then, questioning Church doctrine was a good way to get killed, excommunicated, or otherwise inconvenienced. Not so much today. Also think (no cite, opinion only) that the population as a whole is less religious now than they were then…
One question that would have Christians confused is the whole idea of humankind being “fallen”. Are we to assume aliens are also “fallen” just as we are? If they aren’t fallen, then they are truly morally superior to us. If they are fallen (they reveal to us their sinful ways) and they don’t have a religion similar to Christianity, they’d we’d be left wondering why God left these folks in the dark. Why were humans blessed with the Word, but he kept the Alpha-Centurians out of the loop for so long? There would be people who would feel that this indicated our moral superiority and try to make all kinds of arguments for why these aliens should be destroyed or actively resisted.
But except for a few brave, fanatical Christians, I don’t see folks trying to “convert” the aliens. If the aliens landed here, that would mean they were a million times more technologically advanced than we are. They would possess knowledge of things that we have never imagined. Even if only a few landed on Earth, they would most certainly have the upper hand. We would be scared shitless, and that fear would keep us from spouting off too much about anything. Our beliefs would suddenly seem quite naive and provincial…the most arrogant of us would be cowed into silence. The aliens would represent the depth of our ignorance about everthing. With their arrival, not only would our religious beliefs be shaken, but so would our scientific understandings of the universe. Everyone would have doubts.
Oh yeah, there would be loudmouths demonizing the aliens, saying that they were of the devil. But they wouldn’t be brave enough to say it to the aliens’ faces. There would be “fire and brimstone” talk for the heathen aliens.
If we landed on another planet and found intelligent life? Yeah, we’d be sending missionaries in a hot minute. But only if that life was clearly more primitive than ours.
Heh. If these aliens were by and large biologically identical to humans in body shape (like in an old sci-fi movie), it would be a massive and compelling argument for christianity. Wouldn’t that be fun!
Could also be argued to support the “God was a spaceman” theory mentioned in the OP. Maybe the aliens seeded this and other planets with life umpteen-jillion years ago, and now they want to see how we turned out…
Speaking of which…there will always be the wacky contigent who insist that something is a “hoax”. The religious wackjobs will believe that the “athiest scientists” invented the aliens to shake people’s faith in the specialness of Man. The political wackjobs will believe the government invented the aliens to scare us into sheep-like submission and suck all of our tax money into R&D. The racist wackjobs will believe the Jews invented the aliens to set the stage for the New World Order. The paranoid schizophrenic wackjobs will believe that the aliens were invented by the CIA so that special homing devices could be installed in everyone’s brain without anyone knowing about it.
I think if the Aliens showed up and claimed that they had seeded us or genetically engineered homo halibis or something … If that were seen as a believable thing it probably would shake a percentage of the Population’s faith in a Diviner being - can’t speculate how much - but some.
Further if they said “We have watched your species for 3,000 years” (like like Kang and Kodos) and we have digital film of Jesus, Budda and Mohammed and interviews with their followers that don’t jibe with scripture" that could have an impact.
But failing that, the mere existence of an Alien? I agree that those who insist on a neo-Copernican view of man and God alone together in the Universe would have a hard time – but all the rest of the ~85% of belivers? Nah.
FWIW a Catholic answer to a rep from the Vatican Observatory and an great summation of C.S. Lewis’ view in an otherwise pedestrian rant
I look forward to making love to our future alien overlords.
You might welcome them. I’ll boink them.
Ummmm, would it negate god? Well, if ET came down and said that god was crud and had proof of it, then yeah, I’d say it would negate it pretty damned good. Would the existence of an alien negate it? At first glance, it might make some uneasy, but I think that belief in god would spark back up when people start saying that ET was made by god and they just don’t know it.
You might have top wrap your brain around to accept Space Jesus, and you’d have metareligions that integrate yet more gods and prophets…think of the emergence of global religions on Earth, only expand it to multiple planets.
I went to the Vatican website a while back and punched in search phrases like “life on other planets” and “extraterrestrial intelligence.” Believe it or not, the Catholic church really does keep abreast of, and consider just about everything.
What I gathered was that if we find life on another planet but it isn’t intelligent, then it’ll be just like life here on Earth. That is, God gave it to us and we’re supposed to be responsible shepherds of it.
If it turns out to be intelligent, then the interesting question becomes, “was it created in God’s image?” Seems like the Church is sorta kinda willing & prepared to reinterpret what “God’s image” means.
But they really have thought about it, and I don’t think aliens landing on the White House lawn tomorrow would negate God at all.
The Roman Catholic Church has safeguards against new findings that come out. Ultimately, it points to god as being its creator. For example, evolution is crazy talk. There’s NO way we came from a lower life form. However, if evolution is proven to be TRUTH (I’m talking unmitigated Truth), then god is simply the spark that causes evolution to be possible.
This came from a priest, who was my high school teacher. I remember thinking “Wow. That’s pretty fucking convenient, isn’t it?” This is perfectly summed up in Stranger on a Train’s post earlier in the thread.
It would negate some of the more literal fundamentalist sects, but would in no way negate the general notion of God or more flexible versions of revealed religion.
