Finding an alien species and its effects on religion

[Zolar V]

So every one is assuming their God is the same as our Judeo/Christian/Muslim God? No one considers the chance they might worship a completely different way? Not to mention want to impress that religion on us much the same way we have forced our religion on other less powerful peoples?

 

 

I was thinking a similar thought.

 

Lets say that the Christian god is the right one, and he has done his revelation to us. What if the alien species warships a single sentient being they call yiggsdrasil. Could that just be another name for the christian god?, or are they worshiping a false god?

On the same ideology of that thought process isn't any monotheistic deity the same idea of a single god and therefore be the same of the Christian God?

[Moontanman]

I'm not sure worshiping a huge Ash tree and all the accompanying Gods and goddesses qualifies as mono-theism but the fact remains that aliens might be bent on proselytizing anyone they find and might be every bit as deadly serious as we were and sometimes are at it. They might be monotheistic and worship a nearby black hole or pi or what ever but no matter what it is they do not necessarily agree with or respect the way most of this planet believes. Many North American Native peoples were basically monotheistic but you won't find many Christians who believe in praying to the great spirit. It would be easy for me to assume all advanced aliens would be atheistic but that would be quite an assumption...

[JohnB]

I've always liked this take on the idea. I think the final verse has incredible depth and promise.

 

Christ in the Universe

By Alice Meynell (b. 1847)

 

WITH this ambiguous earth

His dealings have been told us. These abide:

The signal to a maid, the human birth,

The lesson, and the young Man crucified.

 

But not a star of all

The innumerable host of stars has heard

How He administered this terrestrial ball.

Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word.

 

Of His earth-visiting feet

None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,

The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,

Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.

 

No planet knows that this

Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,

Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,

Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.

 

Nor, in our little day,

May His devices with the heavens be guessed,

His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way

Or His bestowals there be manifest.

 

But in the eternities,

Doubtless we shall compare together, hear

A million alien Gospels, in what guise

He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.

 

O, be prepared, my soul!

To read the inconceivable, to scan

The myriad forms of God those stars unroll

When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

 

 

Some might also find this article from the Vatican Observatory interesting as it covers the topic "Religious Implications from the Possibility of Ancient Martian Life."

[Zolar V]

I suppose within the idea of an all powerful monotheistic sentient being that we call god there is a bit of uncertainty that other cultures and other languages have the same name for the same god.

 

I'm not sure worshiping a huge Ash tree and all the accompanying Gods and goddesses qualifies as mono-theism but the fact remains that aliens might be bent on proselytizing anyone they find and might be every bit as deadly serious as we were and sometimes are at it. They might be monotheistic and worship a nearby black hole or pi or what ever but no matter what it is they do not necessarily agree with or respect the way most of this planet believes. Many North American Native peoples were basically monotheistic but you won't find many Christians who believe in praying to the great spirit. It would be easy for me to assume all advanced aliens would be atheistic but that would be quite an assumption...

 

You totally missed my point, i even said "a single sentient being THEY CALLED Yggdrasil." why would they have any idea what our yggdrasil is? a name is just a name, it does not imply any form of definition until we define it.

[Sayonara]

I recall reading a short story a while ago in which the planet was invaded by an alien race. It turns out that god is very much real and very much on their side. I can't for the life of me remember the name of it, but it was basically an exploration of this question (among others).

[Moontanman]

No Zolar you are missing my point, no matter if the aliens believe in one all powerful being or one with a set of smaller ones like most religions do there is no way they will assume ours and theirs is the same one. Just like the Native Americans Great Spirit wasn't allowed to go on under Christianity's idea of one God, I see no reason to think aliens would just welcome our religion with open arms and assume we are all one happy family under one true god either...

[Zolar V]

No Zolar you are missing my point, no matter if the aliens believe in one all powerful being or one with a set of smaller ones like most religions do there is no way they will assume ours and theirs is the same one. Just like the Native Americans Great Spirit wasn't allowed to go on under Christianity's idea of one God, I see no reason to think aliens would just welcome our religion with open arms and assume we are all one happy family under one true god either...

 

Your not understanding either, regardless of the aliens or our belief, what if the god(s) worshiped by both are one and the same.

Sure they think we are wrong for not worshiping thier god, and we think they are wrong for not worshiping our god. Also, you could bring this concept from the macro to the micro, what if the native's great spirit and the christian god is one and the same. Like previously stated, god my just show him/her-self to each culture in a way that can be best understood. So maybe the natives god and the christian god are one and the same, maybe even other monotheistic deities.

[Moontanman]

Your not understanding either, regardless of the aliens or our belief, what if the god(s) worshiped by both are one and the same.

Sure they think we are wrong for not worshiping thier god, and we think they are wrong for not worshiping our god. Also, you could bring this concept from the macro to the micro, what if the native's great spirit and the christian god is one and the same. Like previously stated, god my just show him/her-self to each culture in a way that can be best understood. So maybe the natives god and the christian god are one and the same, maybe even other monotheistic deities.

 

 

I see what you mean, you are assuming a real one true God and I was assuming God is just mythology that we fight and kill over....

[Zolar V]

I see what you mean, you are assuming a real one true God and I was assuming God is just mythology that we fight and kill over....

QUOTE from zolar V [scroll up like 2 or 3 posts]

"Lets say that the Christian god is the right one,"

end quote

[Moontanman]

Ok, lets say they come from a planet with a large moon much like ours (it could be important as the book "Rare Earth" asserts) and they think that a planets moon is the personification of God, I guess the pagans who worship the Moon Goddess get the free ride and everyone else is screwed?

[Mr Skeptic]

I don't think anyone who can reach the moon would want to worship it. An omnipotent deity is well-suited to an advanced civilization since the more limited gods are much easier prey for science. On the other hand an emperor god is the other likely alternative, and that would be very inconvenient. Other than that, I think we'd have a god that more or less matched one of theirs. This is not necessarily a good thing, as being seen as worshiping the correct god improperly would be heresy which is often considered worse than disbelief.

[Severian]

I am often surprised that people who say that they are atheists because there is "no evidence for a God", often believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life.

[Moontanman]

I don't think anyone who can reach the moon would want to worship it. An omnipotent deity is well-suited to an advanced civilization since the more limited gods are much easier prey for science. On the other hand an emperor god is the other likely alternative, and that would be very inconvenient. Other than that, I think we'd have a god that more or less matched one of theirs. This is not necessarily a good thing, as being seen as worshiping the correct god improperly would be heresy which is often considered worse than disbelief.

 

 

The Pagans I know do not actually worship the moon no more than Christians worship a figure of a man on a cross, it's the personification of their goddess... In that vein I was thinking of aliens who also worship a god who is personified by their planets moon (The book "Rare Earth" asserts that a large moon might be a perquisite for life) other authors have suggested our large moon has had a great influence on both our cognitive skills as in people who could tell the seasons by the moon farmed more effectively, lived longer and had more offspring and observing the moon started off the observation of nature and the nature of reality. So i don't think the moon or sun for that matter can be dismissed as the personification of a Deity even in advanced societies. The Sun certainly does more for us than any abstract God does and some authors say that the Jews started out as sun worshipers and the entire idea of one God come from that sun worship....

 

Serveran, the fact that life exists here and we see the conditions that would allow life to exist in other places is makes the possibility of aliens a logical extension of reality, God on the other hand has no evidence what so ever, your assertion there is equal evidence for God and alien life doesn't hold true...

[rigney]

I doubt other life-forms exist; and if they do they won't be much differen't to us. They may have differen't DNA structure, maybe quad-chromosomes, but that's not changing much - other life will still follow the same rules we do. Expanding over two halves, a center and an exterior, a top and a bottom, and a front and back. As we're never going to be able to travel a light year, the belief in other life is just as skeptical as the 'taught religion'.

 

Do you honestly believe, or even think; this entire universe was put here just for folks like you and me? Go back to school Lad. You're a day late and a dollar short!

[Severian]

Serveran, the fact that life exists here and we see the conditions that would allow life to exist in other places is makes the possibility of aliens a logical extension of reality, God on the other hand has no evidence what so ever, your assertion there is equal evidence for God and alien life doesn't hold true...

 

There is no evidence for either one. 0=0 last time I checked, so the amount of evidence is the same.

 

The 'evidence' that you describe is circumstantial at best.

 

...and please try to spell my name correctly.

[Moontanman]

There is no evidence for either one. 0=0 last time I checked, so the amount of evidence is the same.

 

The 'evidence' that you describe is circumstantial at best.

 

...and please try to spell my name correctly.

 

 

No Severian, we have one example of a planet with life, from extremophiles to complex and very delicate life, we have no example of God, chemistry predicts that the same chemical reactions that happen here happen elsewhere in the universe so you are wrong, there is no 0=0 it's life 1 god 0 and lots of circumstantial evidence for life elsewhere but none for god....

[Severian]

You may as well use the same argument to "prove" that Hamlet is being played by an alien species on stage right now, somewhere out there in the universe. After all, the chemical reactions that created Hamlet can happen anywhere, and we already have evidence of one Hamlet being produced. So it stands to reason that in that huge huge universe, there must be another Hamlet somewhere.

[Mr Skeptic]

After all, the chemical reactions that created Hamlet can happen anywhere, and we already have evidence of one Hamlet being produced. So it stands to reason that in that huge huge universe, there must be another Hamlet somewhere.

 

I am fairly confident that aliens also do plays.

[Zolar V]

I am fairly confident that aliens also do plays.

I would have to agree, but with the stipulation that the aliens evolved on a planet much similar to ours, and therefore would have a degree of similarities between us.

I mean considering we are the product of the stimuli that we have evolved to overcome/abuse.....

[jcarlson]

Considering the fact that there are something like 30 billion trillion (3*10^22) stars in the observable universe, even if only one in 10 billion stars has a planet similar to what earth was 3.5 billion years ago when life formed (and it seems, instead, that the odds are much higher), that's still 3 trillion planets with favorable conditions for the formation of life, and that's only life as WE know it.

 

Statistically, life elsewhere in the universe is likely. However I think the odds of ever meeting them or even communicating with them is much lower, due to the fact that most of the stars in the universe are in other galaxies which are far to distant to have any hope of contact.

 

I don't see how recognizing this fact is at odds with not believing in god. There is evidence that life can arise spontaneously in the universe, given the right conditions. We're it. Given the vastness of the universe and the immense population of possible host star systems, it is reasonable to believe these conditions exist elsewhere in the universe as well. On the flip-side, there isn't any evidence of any kind of supernatural deity.

Edited August 4, 2010 by jcarlson

[Edtharan]

You may as well use the same argument to "prove" that Hamlet is being played by an alien species on stage right now, somewhere out there in the universe. After all, the chemical reactions that created Hamlet can happen anywhere, and we already have evidence of one Hamlet being produced. So it stands to reason that in that huge huge universe, there must be another Hamlet somewhere.

Think of probability here. If life has a probability of existing (call it 'X'), and the probability of a sentient species writing "Hamlet" as 'Y', then the probability of another species writing Hamlet is X * Y. So the chances of a species existing is greater than the chance of a species existing and writing Hamlet.

 

As the chances of a species specifically writing Hamlet is small, the chances of a species existing and writing Hamlet is corispondingly small as well. So your "Hamlet" argment is really just a strawman.

[Severian]

As the chances of a species specifically writing Hamlet is small, the chances of a species existing and writing Hamlet is corispondingly small as well. So your "Hamlet" argment is really just a strawman.

 

It is certainly not a Straw Man. While I admit the chance of them performing Hamlet is less than the chance of them existing (obviously), the post I was criticising did nothing to quantify the probability, and did not attempt to estimate the cut-off at which the argument is no longer valid. In other words, his argument really amounts to "if it can happen, it will happen"; I was pointing out that that is a silly argument that can be used to "prove" all manner of ridiculous notions.

[Edtharan]

It is certainly not a Straw Man. While I admit the chance of them performing Hamlet is less than the chance of them existing (obviously), the post I was criticising did nothing to quantify the probability, and did not attempt to estimate the cut-off at which the argument is no longer valid. In other words, his argument really amounts to "if it can happen, it will happen"; I was pointing out that that is a silly argument that can be used to "prove" all manner of ridiculous notions.

The reason why I called your argument a strawman is that you werere presenting Moontanman's argument as one of probability. He wasn't. It was an argument about evidence.

 

As this is a complete mis-representation of Moontanman's argument, it is in fact a Strawman.

[Severian]

The reason why I called your argument a strawman is that you werere presenting Moontanman's argument as one of probability. He wasn't. It was an argument about evidence.

 

As this is a complete mis-representation of Moontanman's argument, it is in fact a Strawman.

 

I was not misrepresenting his argument. He only has evidence of life on Earth, as I only have evidence of Hamlet on Earth. His claim was that having the correct ingredients and circumstances for life imply that intelligent life must form; I pointed out that any planet with the right ingredients and circumstances for intelligent life also have the right ingredients and circumstances for Hamlet to be written. So if he has evidence, so do I!

[Moontanman]

I was not misrepresenting his argument. He only has evidence of life on Earth, as I only have evidence of Hamlet on Earth. His claim was that having the correct ingredients and circumstances for life imply that intelligent life must form; I pointed out that any planet with the right ingredients and circumstances for intelligent life also have the right ingredients and circumstances for Hamlet to be written. So if he has evidence, so do I!

 

 

You have absolutely no evidence of intelegent aliens much less aliens writing hamlet. I never claimed that having the correct ingredients and circumstances for life will produce intelligent life. As a matter of fact i happen to be a member of the "Rare Earth" school of thought, life is common, i expect life to be found in our solar system on at least 4 different planets/moons. Intelligent life is another matter altogether. The idea that intelligent life means they write hamlet is just silly severian....

 

The contention here was life vs god, we have a planet full of life but no evidence of god. this i have to admit does not prove there is no God but it shows we have evidence of life and lots of circumstantial evidence that life might exist on other planets but life does not = intelligence nor does intelligence = hamlet. Now please stop putting words in my mouth severian....