The idea that aliens would prove religion is wrong.... makes no sense.

[skykiii]

This has just been on my mind today: The idea that if aliens exist, it proves religion/The Bible wrong.

Lots of videos I've seen, articles I've read, and even sci-fi movies and novels treat this as a default assumption.

But it makes no sense: if God can populate one planet, then God can populate others.

And correct me if I'm wrong (I'll admit I haven't read it cover-to-cover yet) but I don't recall the Bible explicitly saying "Earth is the only inhabited planet."

So where does this bullshit come from?

 

[Meat Target]

It's a New Atheism intellectual parlor trick from like 2008.

 

[DiggieSmalls]

I think it comes from the whole "made in god's image" interpretation and the fact they think if alien life exists that there would have to be a jesus like savior for all of the species. I dunno. Somebody can probably explain it better.

 

[Osama Bin Laden]

well no, that's just dumb lol. if aliens exist, wouldn't that mean the possibility of God could exist?

 

[draggs]

"In His image" means thinking creatures with moral consciousness

God created existence so God created ayyymaos

Fedora-tipping atheists aren't their best

 

[Catler]

It's reddit tier nonsense, religion can't be proven true of false.

Is religion BS? Almost certainly, but aliens wouldn't change much...except give the JWs a whole new planet to go door knocking on.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

If it turned out 95% of all alien individuals and species believed in reincarnation and pantheism rather than theism, I'd have to give that one some serious thought.

But who knows? Maybe they're all Muslims. Maybe they're all agnostics. Or maybe they're like us and nobody agrees on anything.

The only real issue for Christianity, specifically, is the universality of sin and atonement. Are aliens suffering from the fall of man that changed the entire cosmos? Did they have their own fall? Did the death of Jesus atone for them as well, or did he somehow have to die for every alien species individually as well? Would that mean the one death wasn't enough. If he only died for us, why us?

Those issues might not be impossible to figure out, but I don't really have any answers at the moment.

 

[Omnium Ultimatus]

Trying to prove whether religion/The Bible is true or false is like trying to assemble thousands of identical jigsaw puzzle pieces from multiple nondescript sets that were dumped together into a huge pile. It's not impossible to discern what aspects of a religion are true and what are false, but you'd need to get your hands on that data and the means by which to discern it objectively.

This is yet another rabbit hole I have no interest in going down. I was never a Christian, so maybe I don't understand. But what I do understand is that the truth is like a jigsaw puzzle, and can be interpreted in a lot of ways and can change depending on the availability of information.

It's entirely possible that the validity of religion and the existence of aliens aren't mutually exclusive, but I'll judge for myself whether that's the case once I actually witness aliens and cross-reference my experience with scripture, but again, I don't give thought to things I can't know within reason.

 

[DOUBLE_WHEEL]

Are aliens suffering from the fall of man that changed the entire cosmos? Did they have their own fall?

C.S. Lewis' second book in his space trilogy Perelandra touches on this with Ransom going to Venus to stop the fall of another species by stopping Satan from corrupting them. I've always liked the idea of different species having an Eden and before fall point.

 

[TenMilesWide]

I like to imagine first contact with the grey ayylmaos going something like that episode of Star Trek with the "Sun worshippers."

"Hey wait a minute there little monkeys, why do you know our holy book? Who told you about YHWH?"

 

[Dysnomia]

Religious aliens would likely have their own conflicts. It could be over details that make no logical sense to us. They may look at us and not understand what exactly we are fighting over either. But humans and other beings out there are separated by a vast ocean of space and most of us will likely never meet. It's pointless to worry about what our religion means in terms of life out there. We're bound to the Earth for the foreseeable future and it's impossible for us to fully understand what, if anything, our existence and beliefs mean to the greater cosmos.

 

[Anasûrimbor Kellhus]

Bill gates in a rubber suit telling me to gigavax and stop driving to save the planet doesn't disprove shit.

 

[Idiotron]

Depends on who these aliens are.
For example, in the movie Mission to Mars:

Spoiler

the aliens are revealed to be responsible for the creation of life on Earth, directly contradicting most holy books

 

[WhiskeyJack]

I mean, there's plenty of religions that directly talk about aliens/other planets being inhabited. Not just Scientology either. Plus all the really old religions talking about beings coming down to Earth to teach people writing, agriculture, math, and so on. Aliens would fit in perfectly with their beliefs. And a fair number of religions dealt with other realities, parallel Earths, etc. So even the Multiverse being real wouldn't "prove religion is wrong" or anything. Most religious beliefs are basically metaphors anyway, and are up to interpretation to fit existing knowledge. Hence why Catholics have generally just accepted stuff like Evolution (which had some hilarious results when certain fedora-tippers a century ago tried debating GK Chesterton about Darwinism) or outright invented Big Bang Theory.

I suspect this whole "aliens disprove religion" thing is very Christian-centric thinking, like most atheist rhetoric. Not that aliens would effect Christian beliefs either, of course. If God can make one world, he can make more.

 

[Geddy Lee's Fee and See]

I think it comes from the whole "made in god's image" interpretation and the fact they think if alien life exists that there would have to be a jesus like savior for all of the species. I dunno. Somebody can probably explain it better.

From what I've heard from a friend that's really into aliens and UFOs, only humans are fallen because we ate of the fruit and we directly disobeyed God, hence God became man in the form of Jesus Christ to save us from our original sin. Aliens are in a state of perfect grace because they obeyed God when Satan did the same shit to them (or maybe he didn't do it to them at all) and hence they have no original sin. It kinda makes sense to me: God only does what He has to do to save the people that are fallen rather than people that are already in good standing with Him already so Jesus didn't need to come to save them since they were already in good standing with God and free from sin (as God created them).

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Wouldn't this in turn means that god exists because, despite being nearly statistically assured, we never had any evidence of alien life?
Not that it really works, since humanity is still the one with souls, and the aliens are glorified animals. It's just the usual atheistic argument that assumes their own dimwitted view on religion and thus creates retarded arguments.

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

From what I've heard from a friend that's really into aliens and UFOs, only humans are fallen because we ate of the fruit and we directly disobeyed God, hence God became man in the form of Jesus Christ to save us from our original sin. Aliens are in a state of perfect grace because they obeyed God when Satan did the same shit to them (or maybe he didn't do it to them at all) and hence they have no original sin. It kinda makes sense to me: God only does what He has to do to save the people that are fallen rather than people that are already in good standing with Him already so Jesus didn't need to come to save them since they were already in good standing with God and free from sin (as God created them).

Exactly. If we encountered an intelligent alien species with a rational soul, there shouldn't be a purpose or need for them to be baptized and have faith in Christ to be saved.

Either as you noted they'd have no original sin or there would be some other means by which God revealed Himself to them and provided them the means of salvation. Even now people who are unaware of Christianity or who are unable to overcome invincible ignorance can be saved if they live according to natural moral law, it's nowhere near as certain as faith in Christ but it is still possible.

God doesn't want anybody to go to Hell, only if they freely choose to separate themselves from God and refuse all of His attempts to bring them back will that happen. Even someone who commits suicide by jumping from a bridge can still repent on the way down.

 

[I Love Beef]

Militant atheists are merely practicing a reactionary demagogic form of paganry that is much more materialistic and is ultimately contradictory in its existence and logic. Ultimately it's like Satanism but more edgy, pretentious, and whiny.

I get being angry at the contradictions of religious institutes but you blame humans and their failures to live up to their beliefs and what dogma happens to be manifest today, not their core beliefs and what good they intend.

Militant atheists are retarded in the sense they belief they can gain morality from "science" and to shun all conceptual intrinsic aspects as "illogical" like a bunch of retard wannabe Vulcans. While in nature based worship there is unique and applicable wisdom gained, intrinsic and introspective religions helped to teach man that we are more than just our basest aspects. I'm sure aliens are looking at militant atheists and rolling their eyes at the fedoralords because somewhere down their histories it birthed their Stalins, Pol Pots, and Hitlers.

 

[Monolith]

suffer not the xeno to live

 

[Fascist Frederick]

In Genesis God created heaven and the earth, not earths. It's feasible he would have created other "earths" later, but it's never mentioned. Like all other things in the bible, take it literally until someone realizes it doesn't make sense, then say: "Actually it's metaphorical."