Religion on another planet?

Question

If there is intelligent life similar to ours on another planet, do you think they would have evolved to believe in a God/Gods like we have? Or do you think religion is just a human trait?

Lorenzo, does your answer mean you think aliens would have their own God/Gods in their own image?

Very interesting answers so far!

Answer 1

It has been said that If triangles had a god, it would have 3 sides.

p0pp3t: yes, that is what I mean. Consider that intelligence does not come without a price. And that these higher level functions are always overlaid on the baser emotional functions of survival needs, like fear. Animals experience fear, but can't carry it any further. With our intelligence, we have the ability to mitigate fear with our imaginations.
Primitive man feared thunder and lightening the same as animals do. With the development of language, we imagined that there was a god of thunder, now to be respected as well as feared, and eventually to be worshiped.
Any intelligent species would not have started out that way.
They would have had to develop.
If the human race can evolve enough, they will see the need no longer to cling to primitive fear-based religions.
I suspect that if we were to meet aliens advanced enough to get to Earth, they would also be more advanced on the social evolutionary scale as well.

Answer 2

Bravo, I am glad you have come out with this question as this has been haunting me for a long time.
I have thought many times that what would the status of Christianity or the Saviour be in relation to any other alien but intelligent culture that would have evolved in another planet.
But we accept by faith that God and Christ is not only the creator of this world and the religion we have here but He is also the creator of the Universe and all things therein.
After all who or what are the creatures of light ( and darkness for that matter), don't they also worship (or be afraid of) the Lord God?
As for your query whether religion is 'just' a human trait, well I should say, yes. To worship anything awesome is inbuilt in our psyche I suppose. That is why in most of the religions apart from Christianity you worship anthing that frightens you. From fire to lightning, mountains, rivers, trees, the male sex organ, female sex organ, food, money, book..........all are worthy of worship (at least in India).

Answer 3

Scientology would have us believe that our God is an alien and that we are all descended from aliens.

But putting that aside I do believe that intelligent life would have some sort of God. Afterall Gods in general evolved when man was evolving and asking questions about things they didn't understand. Creating a God was a way of dealing with all the things they didn't understand.

Answer 4

It depends, but I think more likely than not they would.

Religion evolved as a way for primitive people to make the world around them comprehensible and predictable. Most intelligent beings will probably find a comprehensible and predictable universe more comforting than an incomprehensible and unpredictable one, so I imagine most alien species would invent some kind of religion during their primitive stage.

Answer 5

I think beliefs are a trait common to all intelligent life throughout the universe.
When a species starts trying to understand its surroundings and not just react to them, it builds a belief system to help it explain what it perceives as eluding its grasp or understanding (i.e thunderstorm=the world is angry).
Religion kicks in when a member of this species states that it understands what those elusive principles of nature want and makes itself the leading caste of the species.
As a leader, the only thing you are not allowed to say is "I don't know".
You've got to know, you are the leader.
Therefore when one of you subjects asks you why there was a storm that destroyed the crops (?), you say it was god's will and you reaffirm your power by implementing ritual that will appease the gods.
There has to be intelligent life out there and they will have to be social.
Therefore they will have leaders, that will try to explain the unexplainable, and develop their own concepts of god in organised religion.
Who knows, may be it was ET in the end who was crucified to redeem our sins.

Answer 6

Intelligent life forms on another planet will not be in human form. It is not logical to assume they would follow the exact steps of development that humans followed here on Earth.
To many variables were involved to make that a real possibility. Most likely what we will find will be intelligent fish, or intelligent birds of one kind or another.

Now, do fish and birds have Gods? I certainly don't know.
Were I to guess, I would guess: "no", they don't have Gods,
Popes, or even Archbishops and Bishops.

Answer 7

This reminds me of a short story many years ago. Set far in the future when mankind was extremely advanced, scientists built a super computer on a distant asteroid and filled it with every concievable piece of information known to man. When complete the computer was asked the ultimate question," Is there a God?" "THERE IS NOW"!! came the reply.

Answer 8

There must be some kind of "religion" out there too. But whether it is a God, we don't know! Cuz we, as humans, believe there is something greater than us and we called it "GOD"! So for those alien, technology can be God for them for example!

Answer 9

Nope..yet regardless of the undeniable fact that..i strongly disagree with missionaries besides...it is misguided to push you ideals on a society..it somewhat destroys the middle of the team...look at what got here approximately to extremely some the South American Indians..do you even see very lots of them around anymore? i do no longer believe that..different planet, different united states of america..notwithstanding..enable human beings problem approximately their souls their very own way.

Answer 10

I really don't know - but it's a good question.

The need to worship seems to be a human trait - celebrities if not a deity.

I hope that aliens are more sensible than us, in that regard. But who knows.