If intelligent life is found in the universe will it change religion(s)?
If intelligent life is found in the universe will it change religion(s)?
....with the James Web Telescope looking for sources of artificial light to identify potential intelligent life, and the news this week of Perseverance searching for microbial life on Mars it feels like we are getting closer to a major discovery. But what - if anything - would it mean for the religions on Earth if life is proven to exist out there?
So, fun fact, St Augustine, who is considered one of the Church Fathers, explicitly argued that if the 'Antipodes' (i.e., southern continents not connected to Europe, Asia or Africa) actually existed and had humans living there, that would prove the Gospel was untrue.
The reason for this is as follows: Christians of his era believed that the reason God had allowed the Romans to destroy the Second Temple and push the Jews into exile was to prepare the men of all nations (as understood at the time) for the coming of the Gospel. The idea was that the Jews had taken the Old Testament, and the prophecies of the Messiah therein, across the whole world. Augustine argues that if the Antipodes contained human beings who had never had any kind of contact with Jews, and therefore no contact with the OT, and no contact with Christians, and therefore no contact with the New Testament, either, that must mean the Gospels are false. Why? Because there's no conceivable reason that a just God would have deprived entire civilisations of the chance of redemption.
Of course, we now know that at the time Augustine was writing (4th-5th century AD), there were literally millions of people who had never had the slightest contact with the Jews or Christians and, furthermore, wouldn't do so for another millennium. So, per Augustine's argument, all those millions were condemned to Hell (the concept of Purgatory didn't exist at this point, but condemning them all to no chance of Heaven, just because they were unfortunate to be born a long way away from Jersualem, is clearly also unjust). Either God is incredibly unjust and unmerciful, which means the Gospels are untrue, OR the Good News wasn't actually spread to all men, which must also mean that they're not true.
The upshot of this is that one of the Church Fathers has, in retrospect, irrefutably argued that the Gospels are untrue. The amount of special pleading required to make out that, actually, the Maori or the Easter Islanders or [insert any other uncontacted peoples here] had an opportunity to accept Christ and somehow missed it entirely is far beyond any sane interpretation of the evidence.
Now, as you might have noticed, this hasn't stopped people from believing in the Gospels. I don't see why the discovery of life on another world would dislodge people from a belief that is transparently false when nothing else has.
Lmao no. Just how "vaccines cause autism" never changed...
Same as every other times when science have disproven religions fairytales. They adapt. God also made those lifeforms
Nothing. As long as people are scared of dying and other people are willing to profit from it, religion has a home
Religion is all fantasy anyway so they'll just retcon it.
In general I think it would just give religions a new group to hate. They would be "Creatures not of God, but of the Devil Himself" in the same way that Christians think of other religions as born of the Canaanites and influenced by Satan.
Did other advances in human knowledge change them?
Most of them still think the universe was made in 6 days by a bearded toga dude in the sky and if you are gay you are going to magical underground fire place.
Facts have never stopped religion before.
We'll need to take the word of Jesus to them, to save them. /s
I don't think it will. People generally don't let facts get in the way of their beliefs. I mean look at some of these wild ideologies people believe to be truth. Some ideologies obviously can't be factual, but people believe them as such anyway. Then they use circular logic to justify them. They'll just circle their way out of the fact other intelligent life exists.
I think it's like the discovery of exoplanets, scientists were pretty sure they existed and already believed they existed in numbers, but when it was proven to be true, there wasn't a whole lot of philosophical change in culture because of it. Though it did narrow down one of the Drake variables for the existence of intelligent life.
It's pretty hard to change mindsets. Even with proof, some would still close their eyes and shut their ears denying any fact presented in front of them.
Nah, it'll just be another, "Gawd werks in mysterious wayz!"
Religion evolves, even if some creationists don’t believe in evolution. It wasn’t too long ago the the pope conceded that the church was wrong and Galileo was right. If extra terrestrial life is discovered there will be a period where all religions attempt to incorporate the news into their doctrine one way or another to keep the money rolling in.
With new worlds to deliver The Word to? Nah they wouldn't change, but they'd get serious about space travel.
Probably not, they will just interpret/twist their holy writings to support what happened. Or if they can't think of anything it will just be a "God works in mysterious ways" explanation.
I recall reading or hearing a rumour that the Vatican had a sealed scroll somewhere which is "to be opened in the event of positive extraterrestrial contact or proof".
Given secrets of that type don't often stay secret, it amounts to something like: "God made all life and the creator is in all living creatures" (handwaving).
In other words, the major religions already have their shit prepared.
65% of Americans already believe that there's intelligent extraterrestrial life, which is about the same as the percent that identify as religious so there must be a fair bit of overlap already. Americans used to be a lot more religious just a few decades ago but I don't have historical belief-in-aliens percentage at my fingertips.
My expectation is that a remote-radio-signal-only detection of alien intelligence will have almost no effect on society, not in the near term anyway. It's too abstract to factor in to most people's lives. Finding relics within our solar system from long-gone visitors might have a bit more of an impact because I expect there'd be a "gold rush" to find more, since they may have practical value and are limited in supply. The only thing that would have a serious and widespread impact would be actual live aliens (or "live" alien AIs, same thing really) in the solar system itself. At which point the outcome is basically "what outcome do the aliens want this to have? That's the outcome we get."
If they're more intelligent than us but with the same morals we're doomed, so we might have not time to adapt our religions.
if there are religious aliens, why haven't their alien televangelists hit us up for donations yet?
Me personally, I think God created all of our planets and all of our stars and whatever life lives in the universe, even outside of Earth. People who believe the same way would just stay the same and would praise God more for how great he is.
For the others though (iykyk)... well, they're gonna be like all the other flat-earthers or they call these aliens devil spawn or whatever.
The irrational will always find ways to remain irrational.
Like everything else, it depends on which religion you ask. Some will be fine with it, while others will be frothing at the mouth in denial, to convert them, or call for full on extermination. Just ask yourself "how does X group treat the humans they hate the most" and you'll have your answer.
If the discovery of life on other planets is anything like the discovery of life on other continents, then yes, we will force them to change their religion (and economic model).
Oh, is that not the question?
Well, it's a suitable answer anyway. No way we'd change our beliefs to accommodate aliens when we can change the aliens to accommodate our beliefs.
I think the discovery of intelligent life outside earth will cause existential crisis to a lot of people, and some of them would turn to (new?) religions to cope.
Really depends on the religion and the kind of life discovered. No religion would have any issue with life on other planets in general, as long as it's not provably intelligent life.
If it is provably intelligent life, some branches of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism (in order of age) would get into a crisis of belief while other branches would readily adapt. There likely would spring up many sects, some of which would claim that intelligent life to be angels/demons. There would be theological debates about whether these beings have their own original sin, etc.
Meanwhile, most other religions would simply not care all that much. Ancestor worship literally wouldn't give a shit. Religions with reincarnation would simply expand their notions of what you can be reincarnated as. Many local pagan religions have creation myths that apply only to their local region. If those creation myths survived contact with colonizers and the knowledge that the world is larger than the area they cover, the knowledge of aliens existing wouldn't make any more of a difference.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if several new alien-based religions sprang up.
Some fandoms are basically religions, especially sport club fandoms. They wouldn't give a shit.
Lastly, it would be a boost to militant/proselytizing atheism/materialism, which also are like religions to some people.
The real chaos would happen if all the recent UFO stuff turns out to be true. Aliens existing RIGHT HERE ON EARTH could quite possibly cause changes in one or more major religions, but maybe not immediately.
I think that if we had inexorable proof of alien life there would absolutely be a shift in the public. I'd love to think we'd grow closer as humanity.
Permanently Deleted
Just meeting another person who didn't automatically believe in your allegedly true God unless you told him about it should have put religion to rest forever.
Moreover, it's almost funny how thousands of cultures who had no contact between them at all have imagery of red devils with bad intentions yet nobody manages to have even a similar idea of what our supposed God is.
The irrational will always find ways to remain irrational.
Religions have for a long time evolved from "lets explain the world" to a perfectly effective brainwashing detergent. What is one more step.