Slashdot Mirror
Are the World's Religions Ready For ET?
Science_afficionado writes: At the current rate of discovery, astronomers will have identified more than a million exoplanets by the year 2045. That means, if life is at all common in the Milky Way, astronomers could soon detect it. Realization that the nature of the debate about life on other worlds is about to fundamentally change, lead Vanderbilt astronomer David Weintraub to begin thinking seriously about how people will react to such a discovery. He realized that people's reactions will be heavily influenced by their religious beliefs, so he decided to find out what theologians and leaders from the world's major religions have to say about the matter. The result is a book titled Religions and Extraterrestrial Life, published by Springer this month. He discovered that from Baptists to Buddhists, from Catholics to Mormons, from Islam to the Anglican Communion, religious views on alien life differ widely.
Well, the good news is that we found out Jesus is worshiped on other planets.
...just as an example, the early Christian theologians worked out these questions over 1700 years ago.
Not a big deal for the Christian worldview.
... is just to ban science and space exploration, heading this entire situation off entirely.
By the time ET's make contact with us, we'll have been raptured long ago. I think we're on for next week.
Robert J. Sawyer did a send up of mocking religious people's views on ET in his novel Calculating God . An alien lands on Earth and finds it odd that all the scientists of our planet are trending towards atheism, when his civilization finds the arguments of natural theology convincing. Of course, the god believed in by the alien (and mused on by Sawyer, who I believe remains an atheist) is an unknowable, silent, watchmaker god who sprung up spontaneously from the quantum vacuum, instead of the personal God that Earth's big three monotheistic religions believe in.
Ready for the world's religions?
At the current rate of discovery, astronomers will have identified more than a million exoplanets by the year 2045. That means, if life is at all common in the Milky Way, astronomers could soon detect it.
Being able to detect planets and being able to detect life on those planets are 2 different things.
Note that the article and book discuss what educated theologians think, not what the followers think.
Philosophy and "what if" questioning are a big part of religious educations. The general public, not really.
So while the Pope and Dalai Llama might be willing to welcome ET with open arms, wingnuts like Westoboro Baptist are going to have apoplectic fits about "devils" and "demons."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
When they land, they'll be a demonstrated fact. Religious faith deals with the invisible and unprovable; it's not involved in observable ET's. The alien's beliefs? We'll ask them. Only problem is, if they ry to convert us.
C.S. Lewis, Anglican and actually closer to Catholicism in theology, wrote, from 1938-1945, a science fiction trilogy known as the Space Trilogy that explores alien races in the context of Christianity.
I first read the trilogy when I was an atheist, and it helped remove that particular hurdle in my later study of the world religions that lead to my conversion to Catholicism.
And the answer is "How many logical fallacies can you fit into a paragraph." *ding ding ding*
Perhaps "I'd like Trolling Slashdot for 1000", and the answer is "Mention Religion in a summary, more than one preferably"
No, discussing alien life is not "new" and no, this is not some interesting twist on the discussion. Claiming that "we are going to find alien life by XXXX date" is akin to claiming "the world is going to end by XXXX date". I don't believe in your tarot cards, your phrenology, or what ever else you claim gives you the power to see the future. We all know that the potential is there, but.. well you can read the definition of the word on your own.
You hopefully stopped reading when the guy correlates finding planets with finding life, knowing it was a troll.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
" He realized that people's reactions will be heavily influenced by their religious beliefs," Really?
The religious will do this because they can't distinguish between their god and an alien?
Even as an atheist, I'm insulted for the believers among us....
And yes, is this a slow news day, I guess.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Religion is something that an ET might bring. It could be in the form of creation myths, some strange gap they discovered in physics and a religion built up around it. Or they may have always had a religion that drove them to pursue physics with a fanatic's zeal resulting in space travel while not straying from their core faith.
Or even worse, they could be way ahead of us in pretty much every science yet have a fanatical religion where the two options are pretty much to pray to some god or spread out and convert other species.
Another nasty variation is that they come with some religion that has a series of logical arguments that can pretty much convince anyone who doesn't have a PhD in rhetoric. So they come along drop off their book of faith and leave.
But if they do come with any religion at all we can all be certain that it will end up with adherents on Earth. Seeing that we have Neo Nazis there is no creed too stupid for some people.
... what do you think would happen if ET did exist, had a spaceship, was feeling a bit nefarious, and manifested itself as a booming voice from the sky? How hard do you think it would be for ET to convince the world's populations that it is in fact god (especially given the technological advantage), then instruct them to do whatever the hell it wants?
What makes you think this hasn't already happened?"
Fifty years of Yippie! 1968-2018
"Zero- versus One-based numbering".
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I'll listen very carefully. A civilization that has managed to get across the interstellar gulf alive, and chooses to tell us about some religion, well, I'll listen to them with full attention, and as open a mind as I can manage.
And I'll also listen very politely.
--PeterM
The original poster made the claim:
Intelligence is the only thing separating theists and atheists
I find that offensive - and I'm an atheist. In the past we've had people claim that whites are smarter than blacks, men are smarter than women, democrats are smarter than republicans and vice versa.
I suspect that the people making such claims are the stupid ones. Not in the sense of IQ, but in the sense of being dumb-asses looking to affirm their "I'm better than someone else" beliefs, same as some religious people have internalized a "holier-than-thou" attitude and look down on other religions and the "unwashed heathen".
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Mormonism is a form of Christianity, so I assume you meant "Neither is any other form of Christianity". Otherwise that's like saying "Cats don't photosynthesize. Neither do mammals."
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Someone commented above about C. S. Lewis, but Madeleine L'Engle has also used ET to examine religious themes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Most religious people make a non-binding prediction that there is no life on other planets. Doubly so, but still non-binding, for intelligent life. This is because we are the most important species and planet.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet - Psalms 8:6
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
There's so much lost in translation that I'm reluctant to go with the literal interpretation here (especially as an atheist), but this seems pretty limited in scope to me. Unless you're a strict Biblical literalist - which is not a majority of Christians - there are any number of ways these statements can be bent to be compatible with the idea of life on other planets. Sects like the Catholic church have already managed to adapt to the fact of evolution and the age of the Earth without much effort; they stopped taking the early books of the Old Testament literally a long time ago. (It's the New Testament that's really important for most Christians.) I don't doubt that some adherents would freak out (not necessarily for purely doctrinal reasons!), but I'm pretty certain that Pope Francis would simply invite the aliens to mass.
I also have infinite confidence in the ability of diehard literalists to come up with contorted explanations for anything that contradicts the Genesis narrative. People who believe that the speed of light must have drastically changed over the course of several thousand years are capable of pretty much any type of cognitive dissonance.
Let's suppose that in a few years someone discovers definitive proof that there is life a few thousand light years away.
It will be big news for a week or two. People who are into the idea of ETs will be happy; people who aren't comfortable with them will question (or flat out disbelieve) the evidence. Everyone will discuss the possible implications until they get bored with the topic.
After a month or so, it will fade into the cultural background and life will continue as before. With no way to get there and no means to communicate, the fact of the existence of extra-terrestrial life simply won't have much impact on anyone's day-to-day life.
Net effect on humanity: minimal.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Many people who call themselves Hindus believe that. However, Hinduism is essentially a ritual complex that can include both people who believe that and people who do not believe that.
Wikipedia is not a useful source for this particular issue. Perhaps you live in the backwoods somewhere and have not become aware of over a century of problems arising because Hinduism is presented in ordinary reference sources through a Western religious lens? Meanwhile, scholars of comparative religion and anthropologists have always been keen to emphasize the ritual-centered and inclusive features of Hinduism. It is involvement in this ritual complex, combined with a tolerance of other people's beliefs (i.e. it's fine to be atheist, but it's best to keep your belief that your fellow Hindu's object of devotion doesn't exist to yourself) that makes one a Hindu, even if one personally rejects the supernatural.
How is that belief superstitious and incompatible with atheism? It's any atheist's observation of the anthropic principle.
And now, in an effort to steer this thread towards something resembling topicality, I offer up the James Blish classic sci-fi series After Such Knowledge, in particular, the first volume, A Case of Conscience .
In which the aliens feel sorry for us because they know our religions are bunk, but feel ethically constrained from telling us so. Turns out they have perfect ethics and no religion, which represents something of a problem, if you're a Jesuit...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Seriously?
You consider extremists to be a good example of a religion?
You consider Ku Kux Klan to be a good representation of Christianity as well?
They WHERE christian...
The uniform lack of any good advice indicating a technology in any way advanced from those the insights were supposedly given to. Nothing so advanced as "wash your hands before touching any wound", or a reasonable tip about cooking to eliminate parasites (instead of, for instance, forbidding shellfish and so on... just dumb, straight up primitive stuff.)
All religions fail this simple test: Their all-knowing patron (of whatever type) manifests as utterly clueless. So whatever else might have been going on -- and that certainly leaves a very wide field -- visiting aliens can be very cleanly ruled out.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
We should thank secular values for keeping religion in check and forcing its reformation. BTW islam needs a deep reformation too ASAP if you didn't notice.
What ?! Islam can't tolerate Maths ? It's not like Arabs invented a big part of it back then...
Just a note: the number of "infallible" doctrinal statements by the Catholic Church can pretty well be counted on your fingers. General statements by the Pope or the Cardinals don't count.
At the current rate of discovery, astronomers will have identified more than a million exoplanets by the year 2045. That means, if life is at all common in the Milky Way, astronomers could soon detect it.
It means nothing of the sort. The methods that we're using to identify exoplanets cannot detect life on those plants.
Mormonism is a form of Christianity
Mormons may agree with that, but many other groups that identify as Christian would not.
Joseph Smith's life story seems closer to L. Ron Hubbard's than Martin Luther's.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Oh really?! You must be either ignorant, republican, a troll, in bad faith or all of them. Bye troll.
Actually, none of the above. However, one has to take a pretty twisted view of history to ignore the shaping of Western society, for better or worse, because of religious influence. Doesn't make that influence right or wrong, but if you can't even admit its influence, then that speaks more to your own bias than to religion's.