If more advanced alien life was to suddenly be revealed what would its effect be on the worlds religions?

Question

Ok, so imagine that on some rainy Tuesday it all kicks off, and we as humanity suddenly have to deal with the arrival of an alien race on our doorstep.

Without getting sidetracked too much, assuming that these aliens are the vastly superior life forms that have been butchering cows and raping white trash for generations, and have the technology advantage and no doubt their own culture (possibly own religion etc) too.

On the surface, perhaps the two dont necessarily come into conflict, but consider the threat of our Earth centric religious views suddenly being brought to bear against a race who has more knowledge of the universe - or having to deal with the fact that we are not a "chosen race".

Would discoveries such as this change religion forever? Would it spell the beginning of the end for them? Would they adapt to encompass them also? Or indeed, is there no conflict at all?

SPECULATE!!!

Best answer wins 10 points and a jammy dodger

I did run a search on it, found a few similar things and one quite similar form 9 months back, but it wasnt very well answered

Answer 1

With the fact we can't even get to mars if any life showed up here it would hugely advance life.

Answer 2

I never converted to Christianity, neither did my grandfather, even though he was locked in a cellar in a straight jacket for two days and beaten when he wet himself. Of course, afterward he repeated the words the priest told him to, even though they made no sense to him because he didn't know how to speak english yet, just so he wouldnt have to back into that cellar beneith the mission school. If you call torturing children into claiming they accept a person as a God in a language they do not speak as converting, then sure, I bet lots of people would convert. As for the non-native settlers being more "advanced", you sure have not done your research. Those people did not bathe ( they considered it unhealthy, my grandpa said you could smell them literally a mile away if the wind was blowing in the right direction) and the earth was flat. No, they just got lucky. The only thing they had on us that was more advanced was immunity to the diseases they brought with them accross the ocean. We didn't have immunity, so 90% of native americans died from things like small pox and measles and thyphoid feaver. The remaining 10% were usually children and elders, who on top of disease were massacred in horrendous ways. But you don't hear about all that in the history books. Edit: I myself converted to Islam a few years ago, its the only religion I found whoes holy book lacked hypocracy. I personally believe the Creator shaped EVERYTHING in the world, including hypothetical aliens that might be more advanced than us "I created the heavens and Earth, and all that is in between" - Quran. If those aliens believe differently, then only God can judge them.

Answer 3

Well, the church has twisted and changed its stance over the centuries so this wouldn't be much different. Galileo was imprisoned for suggesting that the earth rotates the sun and that was only a couple of hundred years ago.

The church would no doubt see it as more 'proof' of a God in some twisted logic.

As for the other religions, I would imagine they would adapt too, but don;t know enough about their teachings to pass comment.

PS Can I just have the jammy dodger as I'm Hank Marvin!

Answer 4

Well, Christian ministers might actually start preaching that these aliens are demons trying to trick us, that would be the same ones who say that dinosaur bones were put there by the devil to trick us.

Some people would change their views, but the fundamentalists would probably rigidly hold their views. Islam, I believe would do the same thing with some moderates changing their beliefs but the extremists holding their views. The paganism is too broad to sweep them all together, but if your religion is based on the the earth's movement (ex. solstice) and astronomy or on Gods/Goddesses with human flaws then I don't see how it would have much effect on the religions. Judaism would copy Islam and Christianity with the whole moderates and fanatics ideal.

Answer 5

Whist not being arrogant enough to believe that in the whole vast universe God might not have created other living creatures similar to ourselves, I do know that God has a plan for our earth and mankind. He tells us about it in his word to us The Bible. His plan was that earth should be populated by humans, no mention was made of alien races. If, however, he does have a plan to include aliens I am sure he will let us know about it beforehand, after all, he has always let mankind know, in the form of prophecies, about future, momentous, life changing events. He is doing that right now but sadly very few are willing to listen.

Answer 6

That questions comes up once a month doesn't it.

My suspicions are since all the DNA we know about exists on the Earth that if they found DNA on Mars or one of Jupiter's moons then it probably came from Earth and not visa versa.
But dream on about the Aliens because if there was other life forms they couldn't get to Earth without scaling quite a few impossible parameters to travel here.

Answer 7

Jeez! Somebody just asked this last week. Didn't you read it then? It doesn't take a lot of thought; close minded, emotional, religious zealots would fit any inconsistencies into their belief structure, as they always have.

However, the point is moot. I refuse to believe that any alien culture advanced enough for space travel and adventurous enough for exploration would be willing to come within 10,000 light years of our planet; especially if they could "scan" us beforehand.

Answer 8

There would probably be less of a shift than you think.
There's a lot of cyclic thinking in religion. Anything that seems to challenge religious doctrine is seen as a distraction ortest of faith to be ignored.
Christians have managed to dismiss dinosaur fossils as a simple test of faith for centuries.
Some may decide to question their faith but most pass it off or consider the aliens as a misguided creation of god. (ie created first and disgarded for example)

Answer 9

Perhaps they would know God as well, what would that do to all the non believers?

Why do we assume aliens (in effect foreigners) would have no concept of God?
If they are intelligent then they will question how they came into existence, the existence of other beings neither proves nor disproves the existence of God.

Answer 10

Possibly nothing because they are advanced technologicallydoes not mean (No matter what atheistscthink) that they would not have a theology or that it would be dissimilar to ours. Wouldn't that be interesting the aliens come down and start laughing saying "atheism, We quit that silly idea centuries ago"

Answer 11

Just parallel what happened when new continents were discovered on earth:
They'd fall all over themselves to be the first to get the franchise on his/her home world. The lure of new wealth and fame would be too hard for them to resist. Then would come the conquests, the plundering, the insurrections...