Do you think if we discovered extra terrestrial life it would affect the world's religious beliefs?

Question

Scientists have just released probes which should confirm by 2025 whether there is any other life out there... Would it make you take another look at your religion? How would it fit in with what you believe?

Answer 1

To be honest i think theres so much religious conflict as it is it would probably be best for all of us if we didnt know. It would only start a 'i told you so' approach from one side and a 'you faked it' the other and before you know it we'll be in a worse position than we are now. If we could just think 'wow thats awesome' as a HUMAN RACE, now that would be a miracle and id be glad to be a part of it

Answer 2

If theists are determined to be ignorant about something as blatant as evolution I don't think extra-terrestrial life will impress them much - I've heard people on here before just say God will have made them, too.

I'd be interested in a link about the probe, though?

I'd almost like to see a group of strongly religious aliens so that they could go to war with the theists and leave the rest of us alone, unfortunately that won't happen. Any race advanced to get to us would have outgrown such silly superstitions. I honestly don't know why we haven't.

Answer 3

I haven't heard about the 2025 thing -- but there's no way to prove a negative -- that is, that there ISN'T any life out there.

If life IS found out there somewhere, or if it finds us, it could be no big deal (like if it's simply alien bacteria) or profoundly world-altering (if the aliens are superior to us in any important ways). I can see new religious movements popping up all over the place to worship aliens. Don't plan on joining one myself, though.

Answer 4

Finding extra terrestrial life would have a massive impact on religion as we know it. But i am pagan so it would go along with our belief system. I have always believed that we would be very arrogant to believe that we are the only life form in the universe.

Answer 5

There are people who believe the Earth was created in 6 days, that man was made instantly from dirt, that woman was made from a rib pulled out of a man's chest, that a talking snake talked the first couple to eat some fruit and that somehow is responsible for all the pain and suffering in the world, that man and dinosaurs roamed the Earth side by side, that all the plants and animals that now live on Earth have ALWAYS been here, exactly the same, that it once rained for 40 days and nights causing water to flood the entire earth killing all the people except for one family, that that family built a boat that was able to hold two of each species of animal on Earth, that there were individuals who lived over 900 years, and lots of other impossible and ridiculous things.

If people can believe all of that in spite of mountains of evidence that these things are impossible and ridiculous,
how is finding some space aliens going to change their minds?

Answer 6

I recollect a kind of other living things as envisioned by Carl Sagan (in his book.........?) that there can be living things in the gaseous substance of (Venus?) or also some form of living thing in Jupiter or (this is from somewhere else,) within the Sun (s) and so on.
Expand your imagination to include living things as being evolved and living (and dying?) which are not only carbon based but silicon based or any other atom based in all shapes, sizes, using different forms of energy conversion, etc. living and evolving in all kinds of media (not only water and earth) but in all gaseous states, cold states, hot states (I mean like within the Sun/Stars and so on). And perhaps the one line that may run through ALL living things is that they acknowledge a Supreme Being WHO/WHICH for want of a better word we call God..........

Answer 7

It would if the extra terrestrial life was more advanced than us and had proved beyond doubt that the universe was not created by a God.

Answer 8

Did the discovery of evolution from single-celled life change Christianity here in the states? If anything, it just stirred up the hornet's nest.

Answer 9

It would depend on what ET looked like . If it looked like one from Independence day then I would be too busy hiding from it & crying for my mummy lol . A Grey or Asguard as they say in SG 1 would or could make me think again , it depends on their intentions LOL

Answer 10

I think some will tuen away from their faith while others will find something to support the idea of ET in their book of faith. Some will continue to deny the existance of ET even with proof.