How Does Existence of Extraterrestrial Life Impact Our Religion and Perception of the Universe?

[ding]

religion is made up...Aliens are not

I never understood people like you. You give credence to alien life that may have "seeded" life on earth but then out of hand reject the notion of a God.

Why?

Obviously we are not alone in the universe. If the notion of God is soooo painful for you when discussing these possible life forms, then so be it.

Which notions of which gods are we to accept?

The Biblical account says one God.

This makes the most sense. There would simply not be enough congruence and order for competing gods to exist.

I have to note that the biblical account of a triune nature of gods is only one account among many competing accounts of gods. I see nothing in terms of congruence or order that would exclude competing versions of gods from the Christian gods.

It’s also important to remember that entire civilizations have flourished before there was any conception of the gods currently in vogue.

In a historical context, gods have been invented for many reasons. One of those reasons can be attributed to little more than human egotism and / or greed. If you think about the environmental and social dynamics that go/went into building religions, the truth is, they are not all that difficult to build. They’re so easy, in fact, they can be built by most anyone.

The model is to get a group of people to commit to both you and your ideas. Then it's a matter of surviving by fending off attacks against you from those who believe in a competitive believe system.
I present to you as a great "for instance": Scientology. The “belief system” (and for many, a full fledged religion), was literally conceived pursuant to a bet L. Ron Hubbard floated where he predicted he could devise a religion and do as well as J. Christ.

You have a really hard time separating God from religion, don't you?

 

[Muhammed]

Where is the origin of the angels in religious folklore? Earth (terrestrial)? or the heaven (extraterrestrial)?

The book of Enoch says that the angels were sent to watch over us, and that some had relations with human women and bore the Nephilem as a result.

That is all I know of any Judeo-Christian text that speaks of Angelic origen.

I view the spiritual world as a different dimension. Scientists would even agree that other dimensions exist.

Currently science thinks there are around 10 various dimensions

A Universe of 10 Dimensions

When someone mentions “different dimensions,” we tend to think of things like parallel universes – alternate realities that exist parallel to our own but where things work differently. However, the reality of dimensions and how they play a role in the ordering of our Universe is really quite...

www.universetoday.com

Our current 4 dimensions we are familiar with, includes time. This is a result of the other 3 dimensions but I think it possible to exist outside this 4 dimension parameter, meaning that time was created.

In fact, the Biblical account of creation makes more sense regarding this than any other religion since it says everything had a beginning. In fact, how can time be eternal if it measures point A to point B. You must have a point A, or beginning. In fact, the popular view in science until around 1959 was that the universe was eternal, only changing that view upon discovery of the Big Bang. There is a reason that a priest came up with the Big Bang Theory after all.

I think Lemaitre's hypothesis of the primeval atom was a direct result of him trying to make sense of the book of Genesis.

I was not brought up in a religious family. You could say I've been an athiest since birth.

I was taught the "big bang" hypothesis of the origin of the universe from science textbooks when I was a small child.

The first time I read Genesis I was in my 20s working out of town and staying in a motel a few days longer than expected and ran out of books to read. Being a voracious reader starved of new books to read, naturally I started reading the Gideon's Bible when I found it in the room.

I was very intrigued, because it was describing the big bang. It also described the origin of species in a way too, in that it got everything in the correct order.

Ever since that day I've never considered the Bible to be a religious book not worthy of reading. I learned to never judge a book by it's cover most fanatical worshipers, no matter how nutty they are.

 

[Votto]

religion is made up...Aliens are not

I never understood people like you. You give credence to alien life that may have "seeded" life on earth but then out of hand reject the notion of a God.

Why?

Obviously we are not alone in the universe. If the notion of God is soooo painful for you when discussing these possible life forms, then so be it.

Which notions of which gods are we to accept?

The Biblical account says one God.

This makes the most sense. There would simply not be enough congruence and order for competing gods to exist.

I have to note that the biblical account of a triune nature of gods is only one account among many competing accounts of gods. I see nothing in terms of congruence or order that would exclude competing versions of gods from the Christian gods.

It’s also important to remember that entire civilizations have flourished before there was any conception of the gods currently in vogue.

In a historical context, gods have been invented for many reasons. One of those reasons can be attributed to little more than human egotism and / or greed. If you think about the environmental and social dynamics that go/went into building religions, the truth is, they are not all that difficult to build. They’re so easy, in fact, they can be built by most anyone.

The model is to get a group of people to commit to both you and your ideas. Then it's a matter of surviving by fending off attacks against you from those who believe in a competitive believe system.
I present to you as a great "for instance": Scientology. The “belief system” (and for many, a full fledged religion), was literally conceived pursuant to a bet L. Ron Hubbard floated where he predicted he could devise a religion and do as well as J. Christ.

My point was that in order for there to be "order" one entity must run the show. In other words, one God more powerful than any other.

Now you could argue that since there is disunity, which there is, then that means that there are competing gods.

The Bible actually agrees. Once mankind fell in the garden men were sometimes referred to as "gods" in scripture. Power was given to man, on a very small scale, allowing man to create disorder, and the same can be said for angelic beings such as Lucifer who fell. But by in large we have overall order within the disorder and we inherently know that good is more powerful than evil.

Sorry for the confusion.

 

[BreezeWood]

Now that the pentagon has released a report that confirms extraterrestrial vehicles, there MUST be extraterrestrial sentient life, no?

Which Religion Is Friendliest to the Idea of Aliens?

In the annals of most world religions, a quick walk-on from an alien would not, at least on the surface, seem particularly strange. Unusual occurrences are kind of key to the whole enterprise. And adherents of both camps—UFO-watchers and the religious—know what it means to believe in the face of...

gizmodo.com

Before the question can be answered, it is a good idea to consider the issue of the definition of religion. For most people in the Western tradition, religion is something that follows a set form of patterns. There is a God, there are usually sacred books, and places to go for people. Generally, when it is explained that many non-Western and indigenous cultures do not think of religion in this way, it opens their minds to the fact that they’ve had an idea of religion that is not universal across the planet. In many indigenous spiritualities, for example, extraterrestrials, often called “star people,” exist and are even ancestors of certain tribes on Earth. Even in certain Western indigenous spiritualities, such as pre-Chrisitian Irish, for example, extraterrestrials came from the clouds and provided humans with knowledge about how to live.

Even in the Western traditions—take Catholicism for example—talk of extraterrestrial life has been going on for more than one thousand years. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII established a space observatory (which was there already) to study “unexplained flying objects.” Buddhism also references the existence of other worlds. It is obvious that most religions and spiritualities have considered the existence of beings from other worlds. It is actually not new.

So people of a religious or even Christian background have given thought to this topic, but what about NOW? Today?

Given that this is a real thing, I want to consider the likely morals and character of these extraterrestrials; what can we deduce from what we do know?

1) These sightings go back thousands of years to ancient Hindu records of battles among the gods in vehicles flying through the sky. So our Friendly Space Aliens have been around for some time it would seem. Experts int he Pentagon on this subject have said that they have faound evidence of extraterrestrial 'visits' for thousands of years also.

2) This would seem to imply that these 'Unidentified Extraterrestrial Aliens', UEA for short, have no malice toward us or they would have enslaved or genocided us by now, and they have not.

3) So what is there purpose for being here? To protect us? From what? To guide us in some way? Are they the voices behind the prophets and the Messiah?

4) How does this impact your faith, if UEAs are in fact real?

I put this in an outline to help specify what we are refering to in our comments, but what do you think?

Are UEAs what were refered to across the globe as Angels?

.

there MUST be extraterrestrial sentient life, no?

.
all life is sentient what they might be is sentient without physiology to traverse the universe if so non have as yet made it or why would they make the trip in the first place.

 

[ding]

Oh brother

 

[Crixus]

Now that the pentagon has released a report that confirms extraterrestrial vehicles, there MUST be extraterrestrial sentient life, no?

Which Religion Is Friendliest to the Idea of Aliens?

In the annals of most world religions, a quick walk-on from an alien would not, at least on the surface, seem particularly strange. Unusual occurrences are kind of key to the whole enterprise. And adherents of both camps—UFO-watchers and the religious—know what it means to believe in the face of...

gizmodo.com

Before the question can be answered, it is a good idea to consider the issue of the definition of religion. For most people in the Western tradition, religion is something that follows a set form of patterns. There is a God, there are usually sacred books, and places to go for people. Generally, when it is explained that many non-Western and indigenous cultures do not think of religion in this way, it opens their minds to the fact that they’ve had an idea of religion that is not universal across the planet. In many indigenous spiritualities, for example, extraterrestrials, often called “star people,” exist and are even ancestors of certain tribes on Earth. Even in certain Western indigenous spiritualities, such as pre-Chrisitian Irish, for example, extraterrestrials came from the clouds and provided humans with knowledge about how to live.

Even in the Western traditions—take Catholicism for example—talk of extraterrestrial life has been going on for more than one thousand years. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII established a space observatory (which was there already) to study “unexplained flying objects.” Buddhism also references the existence of other worlds. It is obvious that most religions and spiritualities have considered the existence of beings from other worlds. It is actually not new.

So people of a religious or even Christian background have given thought to this topic, but what about NOW? Today?

Given that this is a real thing, I want to consider the likely morals and character of these extraterrestrials; what can we deduce from what we do know?

1) These sightings go back thousands of years to ancient Hindu records of battles among the gods in vehicles flying through the sky. So our Friendly Space Aliens have been around for some time it would seem. Experts int he Pentagon on this subject have said that they have faound evidence of extraterrestrial 'visits' for thousands of years also.

2) This would seem to imply that these 'Unidentified Extraterrestrial Aliens', UEA for short, have no malice toward us or they would have enslaved or genocided us by now, and they have not.

3) So what is there purpose for being here? To protect us? From what? To guide us in some way? Are they the voices behind the prophets and the Messiah?

4) How does this impact your faith, if UEAs are in fact real?

I put this in an outline to help specify what we are refering to in our comments, but what do you think?

Are UEAs what were refered to across the globe as Angels?

I don't think it really does. It would depend on which religious leaders of what religion I guess. I'm thinking zelots from all of them would go crazy, the vast mayo would likely deal with it.

 

[jwoodie]

There are lots of flying objects which haven't been identified, but jumping to a conclusion that they represent extraterrestrial life is another matter. As to a potential effects on religious beliefs, the belief in an anthropomorphic God would be at greatest risk.

 

[harmonica]

religion is made up...Aliens are not

I never understood people like you. You give credence to alien life that may have "seeded" life on earth but then out of hand reject the notion of a God.

Why?

Obviously we are not alone in the universe. If the notion of God is soooo painful for you when discussing these possible life forms, then so be it.

hahahhahHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHH ===painful!!! PROVES you are out of your mind---painful - where they heck did you get that from????!! hahahahahah
--easy = there is no proof of god

 

[Blackrook]

If aliens came to Earth it would be a devastating blow to the Christian faith, which teaches that man was made in the image of God and that Christ redeemed man by becoming man.

 

[JimBowie1958]

If aliens came to Earth it would be a devastating blow to the Christian faith, which teaches that man was made in the image of God and that Christ redeemed man by becoming man.

I disagree.
We are made in Gods Image in that we have souls and moral responsibility. At first it was just an obligation to avoid the Tree of Good and Evil, but afterwards it was more complex.

I think that it is likely other sentient races have been created and worship God as we doo.

Consider this passage from Revelations:

Revelations Chapter 4 says:

6...In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back.
7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.
8 Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:

“‘Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty,’[b]
who was, and is, and is to come.”

9 Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever,
10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.”

 

[ABikerSailor]

If aliens came to Earth it would be a devastating blow to the Christian faith, which teaches that man was made in the image of God and that Christ redeemed man by becoming man.

I disagree.
We are made in Gods Image in that we have souls and moral responsibility. At first it was just an obligation to avoid the Tree of Good and Evil, but afterwards it was more complex.

I think that it is likely other sentient races have been created and worship God as we doo.

Consider this passage from Revelations:

Revelations Chapter 4 says:

6...In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back.
7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.
8 Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:

“‘Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty,’[b]
who was, and is, and is to come.”

9 Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever,
10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.”

Not that I agree with you on most of this, but Genesis says in the original Hebrew, not in the beginning but rather in a beginning.

We are not the first time God has experimented.