How Would Religion React to Proof of Intelligent Alien Life? | Unveiled

<h4>

How Would Religion React to Proof of Intelligent Alien Life?</h4>

Science and religion are totemic pieces of modern society. It can sometimes appear as if they’re total opposites, destined to be at odds. And some are concerned about how Earth’s religions might interpret the major, scientific discoveries we hope are on our horizon.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question: how would religion react to proof of intelligent, alien life?

While there are some 1.2 billion atheists and agnostics in the world, 85% of the Earth’s population identifies with a religion. Therefore, the question of how religious groups would react to extra-terrestrial life is a massive and important one, so much so that NASA has actually invested in researching it. In 2014, the agency awarded $1.1 million to  the Center for Theological Inquiry in New Jersey to look into “the societal implications of astrobiology”. The move met with backlash from The Freedom From Religion Foundation, who argued that “science should not concern itself with how its progress will impact faith-based beliefs”. Given the significance of religion in our social fabric though, isn’t it better to know ahead of time how people might react to the announcement of alien life? 

After all, proof of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe would likely provoke serious questions about the narratives and worldviews of the planet’s major religions. The Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are all concerned with life on Earth and the human race, with the rest of the cosmos created almost as an afterthought. That’s not to say that the cosmos doesn’t come into Abrahamic scripture. In the Bible, God creates the Earth, the atmosphere, and eventually, the sun, moon, and stars. Interestingly though, he uses the same amount of time – a single day – to create Earth as he does to create all the stars in the sky. If we discover life in other places in the universe, something that is statistically probable given its size and the abundance of chemical elements needed, how would it fit in with the story of creation as set out in the Bible? Would the revelation deal a fatal blow to major religions, leading people to renounce their faith in droves? Would society have to reorganize around new belief systems and leaders?

If that’s your line of thinking, you might be wrong; there’s not really any evidence that supports the idea. Importantly, NASA’s study, which involved faith leaders from numerous religions collaborating on the question together, focused just on “astrobiology” in general. This means alien life of any stripe, intelligent or not. Discovering extraterrestrial life COULD mean finding evidence of an intelligent, alien society, presumably in another solar system; or it could be as simple as finding bacteria on Mars. In the case of the latter, it might not be too difficult for religion to come to terms with the discovery. After all, here on Earth, we have incalculable eco-diversity, and it’s not as if the existence of the animal kingdom and all its strange quirks is something that religious people take issue with, just because those lifeforms aren’t humans.

But it WOULD be erroneous to say that scientific discoveries and religious teachings are not, and have never been, at odds. There are plenty of religious people who do take issue with some parts of modern science. There are creationists, for instance, who deny the existence of dinosaurs, though the majority of Christians don’t do this. And, indeed, there’s some evidence in scripture attesting to the existence of dinosaurs, likely because ancient humans could have and did find dinosaur fossils. It may have been harder for them to reconcile the dinosaur bones with the fauna they had encountered, but humanity has clear evidence of the existence of these large beasts dating back to many years before the Bible.

There’s also evolution to consider. It’s often touted as something that disproves the idea that God created the world. And, for biblical literalists, who believe that God created the universe and modern humans in six actual days, it is definitely a major problem. But for everyone else, it isn’t such a definitive issue. In fact, Darwin himself didn’t intend for his theory of evolution to be a treatise against the existence of God, or to be controversial at all. Christian scientists can easily reconcile evolution and religious thought by believing that God guided evolution and was responsible for it, that he created all those animals and decided how they would evolve. Again, it’s true that there are people who rail against evolution, even today, particularly in the United States, where many would still prefer evolution not to be taught in school. But Christians in the U.S., while very visible, are still a small number of the total Christians in the world. If, by and large, religious people acknowledge things like evolution and dinosaurs – which they generally do – then there’s no reason why they wouldn’t also be able to acknowledge alien intelligence. After all, it says right there in the Bible that God created all the stars; this could be taken to mean that God, too, created alien life. He’s supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, so could certainly have more than one inhabited planet active at once. Evolution didn’t destroy Christianity when Darwin published his theory, just like the Big Bang theory didn’t, and just like the birth of paleontology didn’t. Religion can and will adapt, and there’s far more precedent for that than for the demise of society when faced with something scientifically extraordinary.

There are passages of scriptures, however, that could be interpreted as problematic for alien life, like the line in Genesis that God created humans in his own image. This means that if aliens arrived on Earth and looked totally different to us, it could be assumed that they are not God’s children! However, it could also be argued that this passage is not literal, or at least that it does not refer to appearances only. It could also refer to traits like rationality, or compassion. The meaning of this idea, “Imago Dei”, is still widely debated by religious figures and theologians today. It may be one of the most interesting pieces of Abrahamic scripture. So, again, there are plenty of things in the Bible that can be re-interpreted and reapplied following first contact with intelligent, alien life.

So far, we’ve only focused on monotheist religions, but one of the other largest religions in the world is Hinduism, which has over 30 million different deities for people to worship. Hinduism is a polytheist religion, and humans have had many belief systems like this over the millennia. Ancient Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, Norse mythology, and so on, all use large pantheons of gods, each overseeing different aspects of the world. There are over 1 billion Hindus, who comprise 15% of Earth’s population. They’d likely have a far easier time grappling with extra-terrestrial life than monotheist religions. After all, who’s to say that all those millions of gods aren’t also tending to other planets? Or that there aren’t millions MORE gods that live in different realms and deal with alien species? In polytheistic religions, intelligent alien life probably wouldn’t cause a belief crisis at all.

Lastly, there’s no reason that an intelligent, alien civilization wouldn’t have a religion of its own. In science fiction, aliens often DO have their own religions. Aliens may want to introduce us to their own religion, then, hopefully not in a violent way, but to share cultures. Their discovery of humans could be leading to a similar crisis back on their home planet too! Then again, it’s also possible that there are many sentient species out there, some already in contact. Earth (and its religions) might just eventually settle into the existing order of things. Though we’ve had many religious conflicts and wars here, religions can also be respectful of each other… so perhaps that is what would happen. And all of them teach values like empathy and kindness. More religious diversity in a galactic society could be something to be celebrated - including by people who don’t believe in any religion at all.

First contact with peaceful, intelligent aliens could only be a good thing, and it’s something the majority of people on Earth would likely be on board with - religious or not. While there are many deep and meaningful questions surrounding the possibility… that’s how religion would react to proof of intelligent, alien life.