Are the World's Religions Ready For ET? 534
Science_afficionado writes: At the current rate of discovery, astronomers will have identified more than a million exoplanets by the year 2045. That means, if life is at all common in the Milky Way, astronomers could soon detect it. Realization that the nature of the debate about life on other worlds is about to fundamentally change, lead Vanderbilt astronomer David Weintraub to begin thinking seriously about how people will react to such a discovery. He realized that people's reactions will be heavily influenced by their religious beliefs, so he decided to find out what theologians and leaders from the world's major religions have to say about the matter. The result is a book titled Religions and Extraterrestrial Life, published by Springer this month. He discovered that from Baptists to Buddhists, from Catholics to Mormons, from Islam to the Anglican Communion, religious views on alien life differ widely.
is Earth ready for Jesus? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, the good news is that we found out Jesus is worshiped on other planets. [smbc-comics.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Seriously?
You consider extremists to be a good example of a religion?
You consider Ku Kux Klan to be a good representation of Christianity as well?
They WHERE christian...
Re:Islam and Math / Science (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Islam and Math / Science (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh really?! You must be either ignorant, republican, a troll, in bad faith or all of them. Bye troll.
Actually, none of the above. However, one has to take a pretty twisted view of history to ignore the shaping of Western society, for better or worse, because of religious influence. Doesn't make that influence right or wrong, but if you can't even admit its influence, then that speaks more to your own bias than to religion's.
Re: (Score:3)
What ?! Islam can't tolerate Maths ? It's not like Arabs invented a big part of it back then...
Yawn... (Score:3, Informative)
...just as an example, the early Christian theologians worked out these questions over 1700 years ago.
Not a big deal for the Christian worldview.
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Interesting)
...just as an example, the early Christian theologians worked out these questions over 1700 years ago.
What "theologians" think has very little to do with what the rank-and-file religious think. I know plenty of Christians that believe in reincarnation, can't explain the concept of the Trinity, and don't know who gave the Sermon on the Mount. Among my acquaintances, belief in UFOs, alien abductions, etc. is much more prevalent among the religious.
Re: (Score:3)
Just because you say a prayer and call yourself a Christian.... doesn't mean you are one.
Matthew 7:21-23 21 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and
Re: (Score:3)
That same line is used by ministers all over the world to also refute atheists who while they reject the existence of God, do see wisdom in the Bible. The illogic being that if you do not embrace Jesus, you cannot possibly do right.
It's the single best reason to reject Christianity as a religion in general as far as I'm concerned.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Informative)
The illogic being that if you do not embrace Jesus, you cannot possibly do right.
Actually, thats a misunderstanding. The proper view is provided by the bible:
Romans 3:10 None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.
Whats said is that if you appeal to Christ's sacrifice, then you are accounted as righteous in the court of God's justice.
Re: (Score:3)
I know plenty of Christians that believe in reincarnation
Either
* You dont understand the definition of reincarnation, and how it is different than what christians believe
* They dont understand the definition of reincarnation, and how it is different than what christians believe
* Or, they arent christians.
You do realize that there are actual categorical boundaries for "christian", right? Calling yourself a communist and espousing the free market means you arent a communist; calling yourself christian and subscribing to a view of reincarnat
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Interesting)
They are what I term, Tupac-Christians. It's where you wear a gold chain and cross and you talk about 'god' and such, but you've only got a few toes in the pool of faith and you spend 99% of your time contradicting the faith. From my experience, most people that call themselves Christians fit this model, and most people that I would think are adhering closely to Jesus/Bible, would say that those other people are not real Christians.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Then there are the political preachers, those that preach the religion for personal gain whilst not practising the religion except to break all of it's tenets. You look at many of those right wing pseudo Christians and for them the ten commandments are just a score card, how many of them they can break upon a daily basis. When it comes to that lot being ready for ET, well can they screw a profit out of it, nope, than you bet they will strictly adhere to denial, especially as publicised ET will be the world
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Insightful)
christian theologists? but those guys working on these questions 1700 years ago worked it out wrong for current crop of christians.
now.. are christians ready for that the bible is not literal? some are, some are not. if they're biblical literalists(which is silly, if you read the fucking book) then yeah, aliens are a problem - however if you're a biblical literalist in the modern day then NOTHING is a problem. why is nothing a problem? because you can always invent ways around shit, from "god did it to test faith" to "before the flood animals were bigger, hence the dinosaur bones you can find in mountain ranges".
if you're religious enough you twist your observations to fit whatever you chose before making those observations.. I think it's a silly question to ask if the world religions are ready for ET when they're technically not ready to account for observations made on the earth even.
futhermore, those religions are mutually in disagreement with each other.
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Informative)
The only sensible answer... (Score:2, Insightful)
... is just to ban science and space exploration, heading this entire situation off entirely.
By the time ET's make contact with us, we'll have been raptured long ago. I think we're on for next week.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
An alien lands on Earth and finds it odd that all the scientists of our planet are trending towards atheism....
Maybe in the West, but not necessarily in the rest of the world.
Indian scientists significantly more religious than UK scientists [rice.edu]
...interviews with scientists revealed that while 65 percent of U.K. scientists identify as nonreligious, only 6 percent of Indian scientists identify as nonreligious. In addition, while only 12 percent of scientists in the U.K. attend religious services on a regular basis — once a month or more — 32 percent of scientists in India do.
Science and atheism - correlation is not causation.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
However, while only 4 percent of the general Indian population said they never attend religious services, 19 percent of Indian scientists said they never attend.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The short story "To Serve Man" [wikipedia.org], and the ensuing Twilight Zone episode, comes to mind :-)
We like stories with a twist because they ARE entertaining. They make us think, tickle our fancy, etc. There are SO many sci-fi stories dealing with how to interact with aliens who have their own religious beliefs, and the dangers of mis-steps and applying human assumptions to something that is, basically, alien.
Re: (Score:2)
Awesome. Every once in a while I get exposed to something totally new, at my age that's quite a feat. I'll have to check out these two books.
Is ET (Score:4, Funny)
Ready for the world's religions?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If ETs have enough energy at their disposal to get here, certainly they have enough energy to deal with anything that this world's religions can throw at them.
Depends. If they got here on a solar sail, they may not have much in terms of "space blasters" and such. Then again, just what CAN religion throw at them? Pamphlets? Tracts? Bibles?
The aliens will be anxious to talk with all religious groups, because this will give them insights into our thinking (and any Achilles heels we may have should we prove to be rabidly xenophobic).
That is, if they want to talk to us at all. They may be more interested in what other residents of this planet have to say. Or t
Re: (Score:2)
If ETs have enough energy at their disposal to get here, certainly they have enough energy to deal with anything that this world's religions can throw at them.
Depends. If they got here on a solar sail, they may not have much in terms of "space blasters" and such. Then again, just what CAN religion throw at them? Pamphlets? Tracts? Bibles?
Of course, if they came here on a Solar Sail, after thousands of years traveling here, they are probably anxious to get off their ship and onto solid ground. After taking care to squash any ants or other undesirable creatures that may be crawling around on the planet.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Suddenly all the Islamic terrorists like Hamas, Isis, and Iran are forced to think beyond Earth when making their genocidal plans.
Not a problem. (Score:2)
Rank of this problem in things we need to worry about: 4,534,211.
Re: (Score:3)
"Zero- versus One-based numbering".
Small steps... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I take issue with the premise (Score:5, Insightful)
At the current rate of discovery, astronomers will have identified more than a million exoplanets by the year 2045. That means, if life is at all common in the Milky Way, astronomers could soon detect it.
Being able to detect planets and being able to detect life on those planets are 2 different things.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sure we will have better telescopes in 2045. We probably would not even be able to detect life on the moon (if it existed) with 2045 telescopes. The reason we can try to detect life on the moon and mars, is because of our ability to send machines with sensors to those places. There is a big difference between having your sensor millimeters away from what you are trying to sense, and light years. The nearest star is 4.2 light years away.
If we are talking about not just life, but intelligent life that
Note: Theologians (Score:4, Informative)
Note that the article and book discuss what educated theologians think, not what the followers think.
Philosophy and "what if" questioning are a big part of religious educations. The general public, not really.
So while the Pope and Dalai Llama might be willing to welcome ET with open arms, wingnuts like Westoboro Baptist are going to have apoplectic fits about "devils" and "demons."
Re: (Score:3)
WIngnuts are everywhere. Those who believe that aliens built the pyramids and in the Annunaki will fall to their knees. One cannot evaluate mankind on the uber fringe.
Re: (Score:3)
What difference does it make? (Score:3)
When they land, they'll be a demonstrated fact. Religious faith deals with the invisible and unprovable; it's not involved in observable ET's. The alien's beliefs? We'll ask them. Only problem is, if they ry to convert us.
If ET shows up proselytizing (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll listen very carefully. A civilization that has managed to get across the interstellar gulf alive, and chooses to tell us about some religion, well, I'll listen to them with full attention, and as open a mind as I can manage.
And I'll also listen very politely.
--PeterM
Re:If ET shows up proselytizing (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine yourself as a native American 500-some years ago, being suddenly greeted by strange-looking beings from a world beyond the horizon, who somehow managed to cross the unfathomable breadth of the entire ocean alive... and they've got a religion they'd like to tell you about.
Re: (Score:2)
...that's providing you survive the wonderful new diseases they've brought with them.
Re:If ET shows up proselytizing (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a small technical difference between building floaty things out of sticks that can go some distance in a quite hospitable environment and building flying things capable of 100% support of life in extremely hostile high radiation/zero gravity/no atmosphere/low temperature conditions across distances between stars.
The nearest star is just about 2.5 billion times farther than a 10k mile sea voyage.
Anyway, I didn't say I'd just believe what they said. I said I'd listen very carefully, and very politely.
--PM
This just in (Score:2)
Space Trilogy (Score:5, Interesting)
C.S. Lewis, Anglican and actually closer to Catholicism in theology, wrote, from 1938-1945, a science fiction trilogy known as the Space Trilogy [wikipedia.org] that explores alien races in the context of Christianity.
I first read the trilogy when I was an atheist, and it helped remove that particular hurdle in my later study of the world religions that lead to my conversion to Catholicism.
Innocence (Score:2)
Re:Space Trilogy (Score:5, Insightful)
C.S. Lewis, Anglican and actually closer to Catholicism in theology, wrote, from 1938-1945, a science fiction trilogy known as the Space Trilogy [wikipedia.org] that explores alien races in the context of Christianity.
I first read the trilogy when I was an atheist, and it helped remove that particular hurdle in my later study of the world religions that lead to my conversion to Catholicism.
Hmm, I read those books while a christian and become atheist not long after.
ET would disprove God (Score:2)
I thought that might grab your attention - practising religious or not (I am not. Disclosure: I am a nihilistic fatalist agnostic and proud), it is a very controversial statement to make. What I'm about to follow that with is probably nowhere near, but still, controversial.
According to the one religion I'm somewhat familiar with, and possibly others as well, humans are the most intelligent (on a sliding scale) form of life in the Universe (not counting the monotheistic God who is apparently omniscient and o
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When you reconcile your concept of Christianity with the common convention within the faith that God is creator of all, and the appearance of superior aliens would necessarily be His creation, and therefore real and acceptable, then you'll abandon your concept and accept what is Christianity.
If aliens come, Christians will accept them as God's creation. Even if they are Satan's tools, they are God's creation. We'll probably preach the Gospel to them. That;s what we should do, and invite them to dinner.
Re: (Score:2)
read it again: when God created Man he gave him dominion over ALL THINGS. Including aliens.
If that is an acceptable premise, then God lied to Man if he made aliens superior to Man to the point where a guy in a rubber suit and a torch for a finger lands in the middle of Central Park using a propulsion system nobody on this planet has even conceived of.
Re: (Score:3)
You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet - Psalms 8:6
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
There's so much lost in translation that I'm reluctant to go with the literal interpretation here (especially as an atheist), but this seems pretty limited in sco
Re: (Score:2)
uh... angels don't live among us nor do they interact with any other of God's creations - they're not allowed to. Your point is invalid.
I'd like Bulls*&t for 1000 Alex! (Score:5, Insightful)
And the answer is "How many logical fallacies can you fit into a paragraph." *ding ding ding*
Perhaps "I'd like Trolling Slashdot for 1000", and the answer is "Mention Religion in a summary, more than one preferably"
No, discussing alien life is not "new" and no, this is not some interesting twist on the discussion. Claiming that "we are going to find alien life by XXXX date" is akin to claiming "the world is going to end by XXXX date". I don't believe in your tarot cards, your phrenology, or what ever else you claim gives you the power to see the future. We all know that the potential is there, but.. well you can read the definition of the word on your own.
You hopefully stopped reading when the guy correlates finding planets with finding life, knowing it was a troll.
Can we even detect ourselves from beyond LEO? (Score:2)
Before getting all confident that we can detect ET civilization, how about sending a satellite or three to 10-20 Lunar orbits (what's the Lunar equivalent of the AU?) to determine if we can detect ourselves -- especially when Earth is between it and the Sun.
If not, then no sense bloviating on religion and ET.
Re: (Score:2)
they did that with Voyager: turned it back on Earth and the answer came back "Inconclusive". I don't think they were that far away, either.
Paging Arthur C. Clarke... (Score:2)
Didn't Clarke write in Fountains of Paradise that the sudden appearance of an alien probe ship would basically invalidate most religions on the grounds that they're all Earth-centric?
Re: (Score:2)
Christian theology is mute on the subject of extraterrestrial life. I personally believe that if ET comes, we have to accept extraterrestrial life for what it is.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh,dear, excepting that angels and such are extraterrestrial....
Re: (Score:3)
Mormonism is a form of Christianity, so I assume you meant "Neither is any other form of Christianity". Otherwise that's like saying "Cats don't photosynthesize. Neither do mammals."
Re: (Score:3)
Mormonism is a form of Christianity
Mormons may agree with that, but many other groups that identify as Christian would not.
Joseph Smith's life story seems closer to L. Ron Hubbard's than Martin Luther's.
Erm... (Score:2)
It isn't like we are getting live video from these exoplanets. I find it a bit unlikely that any major (or minor) religions will be shaken by spectrograph squiggles, even if we are pretty sure they are evidence of biology.
Come again? (Score:4, Insightful)
The religious will do this because they can't distinguish between their god and an alien?
Even as an atheist, I'm insulted for the believers among us....
And yes, is this a slow news day, I guess.
Plus what religion might ET bring? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or even worse, they could be way ahead of us in pretty much every science yet have a fanatical religion where the two options are pretty much to pray to some god or spread out and convert other species.
Another nasty variation is that they come with some religion that has a series of logical arguments that can pretty much convince anyone who doesn't have a PhD in rhetoric. So they come along drop off their book of faith and leave.
But if they do come with any religion at all we can all be certain that it will end up with adherents on Earth. Seeing that we have Neo Nazis there is no creed too stupid for some people.
Re: (Score:2)
Another nasty variation is that they come with some religion that has a series of logical arguments that can pretty much convince anyone who doesn't have a PhD in rhetoric. So they come along drop off their book of faith and leave.
How is that a bad result? If they arrive, drop off a set of supremely-convincing beliefs, and leave, the only result is that everyone now has the same religion. Everyone having the same religion means no more religious conflicts. As long as the religion isn't "sacrifice your lives for your alien overlords", I'd say it'd be a positive outcome.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Everyone having the same religion means no more religious conflicts."
Wow. You ARE new here.
Will religion suvive tens of generations in space? (Score:2)
No!
Re: (Score:2)
Hopefully religion will die off and/or they will all stay earthbound. Father figures that are figments of your imagination demand you say on earth thats it.
Are the world's non-religious ready? (Score:2)
I mean, I don't exactly believe in the Star Trek universe which is even more fairy tale than most religions. Where are we in their world order - are we equals, enemies, slaves, pets, food, pests or just a honking big X-factor that threaten their very existence? Since their military power would be mostly unknown it'd be real easy to get paranoid. Just dealing with wacko humans is bad enough, what do you really know about an alien or how they think? Nothing. I think we'd jump right into a military arms race w
Re: (Score:2)
Are scientists ready? (Score:2)
I wonder less whether religions are ready for ET and more whether science is ready for the discovery of inorganic life. Nearly everything I read on the subject carries a stated or more often unstated assumption that evolved alien life will have the same carbon-and-water basis that we do.
Re: (Score:2)
The scientific community would LOVE to discover proof of inorganic life. It would be a huge new field for biologists to explore! Right now we assume life will be carbon-based because that's the only kind of life we know is possible; we haven't yet conceived of how inorganic life might be possible, and we haven't seen empirical evidence that it is, so in absence of that we proceed as though it's not. But if we found empirical evidence that it was, scientists would jump at the research opportunities to figure
Scientology's already there (Score:2)
Huh? Not even wrong! (Score:2)
With neither real facts nor justification of any assumptions of the frequency of life, multicellular life, intelligent life, technological life, stupid-enough-to-give-itself-away life, this article starts off on the wrong foot and gets worse. It doesn't matter how many exoplanets you can find, one, ten, hundreds, millions, billions, trillions - finding life on those planets is a completely different step. Finding life on a planet that has is not trying to be found is not likely to be possible, and this open
Re: (Score:2)
Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (Score:2)
The finest single work of fiction concerning the relationship of religion to life on other worlds was Mark Twain's "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven".
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook... [gutenberg.org]
Twain's Captain Stormfield dies and makes his way to Heaven, to find that Heaven is inhabited with uncounted numbers of souls from billions of different planets; every planet has its own Redeemer, but all represent the same God.
The idea that God is human is laughable; any religion that restricts God to a single planet, o
Madeleine L'Engle (Score:3)
Much ado about nothing (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's suppose that in a few years someone discovers definitive proof that there is life a few thousand light years away.
It will be big news for a week or two. People who are into the idea of ETs will be happy; people who aren't comfortable with them will question (or flat out disbelieve) the evidence. Everyone will discuss the possible implications until they get bored with the topic.
After a month or so, it will fade into the cultural background and life will continue as before. With no way to get there and no means to communicate, the fact of the existence of extra-terrestrial life simply won't have much impact on anyone's day-to-day life.
Net effect on humanity: minimal.
Science_afficionado doesn't understand science (Score:3)
At the current rate of discovery, astronomers will have identified more than a million exoplanets by the year 2045. That means, if life is at all common in the Milky Way, astronomers could soon detect it.
It means nothing of the sort. The methods that we're using to identify exoplanets [wikipedia.org] cannot detect life on those plants.
Re: (Score:2)
And what do you think the current religions are? They've been watching their own privat
Re:Religion is a weakness. (Score:4, Interesting)
... what do you think would happen if ET did exist, had a spaceship, was feeling a bit nefarious, and manifested itself as a booming voice from the sky? How hard do you think it would be for ET to convince the world's populations that it is in fact god (especially given the technological advantage), then instruct them to do whatever the hell it wants?
What makes you think this hasn't already happened?"
Re: (Score:3)
The uniform lack of any good advice indicating a technology in any way advanced from those the insights were supposedly given to. Nothing so advanced as "wash your hands before touching any wound", or a reasonable tip about cooking to eliminate parasites (instead of, for instance, forbidding shellfish and so on... just dumb, straight up primitive stuff.)
All religions fail this simple test: Their all-knowing patron (of whatever type) manifests as utterly cl
Re: (Score:2)
The average intelligence of theists is a lot lower than atheists, I don't think they would even believe science if it was true. Intelligence is the only thing separating theists and atheists, other than that, we are all basically the same.
Not flaimbait. Just facts!
[citation needed].
So what happens when a believer converts to atheism? Did their IQ suddenly go up? The opposite argument can be made. If, as a believer, they were smart enough to drop their religious beliefs, seems that IQ and religious belief are not tightly correlated.
Religion has more to do with cultural influences than inherent intelligence.
Re: (Score:2)
So what happens when a believer converts to atheism? Did their IQ suddenly go up? The opposite argument can be made. If, as a believer, they were smart enough to drop their religious beliefs, seems that IQ and religious belief are not tightly correlated.
Nothing has to happen.
You can have a world with stupidity highly correlated with religion even with people converting to/from religion/atheism and without anyone changing their IQ.
If, as a believer, they were smart enough to drop their religious beliefs, seems that IQ and religious belief are not tightly correlated.
Only if religion caused stupidity. If it is just correlated, then there is no problem.
Re: (Score:3)
The original poster made the claim:
Intelligence is the only thing separating theists and atheists
I find that offensive - and I'm an atheist. In the past we've had people claim that whites are smarter than blacks, men are smarter than women, democrats are smarter than republicans and vice versa.
I suspect that the people making such claims are the stupid ones. Not in the sense of IQ, but in the sense of being dumb-asses looking to affirm their "I'm better than someone else" beliefs, same as some religious people have internalized a "holier-than-thou" attitude and l
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You'll have proof by 2024.
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense. Highly unlikely events? Multitude of convincing arguments? ...and if we are alone, the fact that failing to colonize other galaxies before the sun exhausts all its nuclear fuel would finish us does not make us the ones to seed life in other galaxies and colonize distant solar systems. That's simply a non-sequitur.
Re: (Score:2)
Points!
Re: (Score:2)
Most religious people make a non-binding prediction that there is no life on other planets. Doubly so, but still non-binding, for intelligent life. This is because we are the most important species and planet.
Re: (Score:3)
And now, in an effort to steer this thread towards something resembling topicality, I offer up the James Blish classic sci-fi series After Such Knowledge, in particular, the first volume, A Case of Conscience [wikipedia.org] .
In which the aliens feel sorry for us because they know our religions are bunk, but feel ethically constrained from telling us so. Turns out they have perfect ethics and no religion, which represents something of a problem, if you're a Jesuit...
Re: (Score:3)