Sooooo....alien life.

[FuzzBall 005]

I was in Chem. class with my teacher talking about atom particle charge diffusions...I think...well I had a branthunk and thought about what will happen thousands of years later if we meet with sentient life...and we discover that they have a religion diffrent from what most people believe.

My daythought was were all the mega radicals go and try to kill as many as they can and once they are slaughtered by the aliens superior technology they wage a war on all humanity and were almost brought close to exstinction and become there slaves...all just becuase some people couldnt handle that they believed in zortog the life giver...ooh and the pope gets a megaman suit in my thought.  

[Lethkhar]

I think if we ever meet sentient alien life, it will present so many challenges to our understanding of ourselves that we won't even be able to make very much sense of them. Just think of all the things we take for granted; the way we think could be completely different.  

[D i v i n i t y]

kinda off topic but...
I hope we meet an alien civilization that is completely irreligious OR subscribes to some totally different religion that is completely different to any of our religions on Earth. This would throw a lot of Christians off. "So Jesus didn't die for people on other planets or spread the Word in any other planets?"  

[B1g_crunch]

I hope these aliens are atheist so I can live on their planet away from the zelots here.  

[dl1371]

I kinda hope that the aliens have a religion like christianity so that christians can see how utterly stupid their religion is in the first place  

[Labtech Soosh]

Here's what I see happening: hysteria.

If aliens arrived it would challenge the very beliefs of the zealots out there and utterly confuse them. You don't want that to happen, when people like that get confused to such a point bad things happen...like REALLY bad things. I'm talking about complete psychatric breakdowns and trauma.

I'd picture the zealots calling the aliens "demons" as the only way to make sense out of their own beliefs, then start a holy war against them.
Which the zealots ultimately wind up losing... because aliens wouldn't give two shits about nuking the masses on this planet.

 

[dl1371]

Pirate Captain Sushi

Here's what I see happening: hysteria.

If aliens arrived it would challenge the very beliefs of the zealots out there and utterly confuse them. You don't want that to happen, when people like that get confused to such a point bad things happen...like REALLY bad things. I'm talking about complete psychatric breakdowns and trauma.

I'd picture the zealots calling the aliens "demons" as the only way to make sense out of their own beliefs, then start a holy war against them.
Which the zealots ultimately wind up losing... because aliens wouldn't give two shits about nuking the masses on this planet.

proof of survival of the fittest  

[In Search of a Dream]

Pirate Captain Sushi

Here's what I see happening: hysteria.

If aliens arrived it would challenge the very beliefs of the zealots out there and utterly confuse them. You don't want that to happen, when people like that get confused to such a point bad things happen...like REALLY bad things. I'm talking about complete psychatric breakdowns and trauma.

I'd picture the zealots calling the aliens "demons" as the only way to make sense out of their own beliefs, then start a holy war against them.
Which the zealots ultimately wind up losing... because aliens wouldn't give two shits about nuking the masses on this planet.

I hope they recruit the sane ones.  

[MiniSiets]

Lethkhar

I think if we ever meet sentient alien life, it will present so many challenges to our understanding of ourselves that we won't even be able to make very much sense of them. Just think of all the things we take for granted; the way we think could be completely different.

I agree. They could be so vastly different from us that we won't even be able to comprehend it at first. And likewise, there could be so much about them that is similar to us that it would be quite unnerving--particularly to the religious. If we discovered other sentient life in the universe, and we learned that they too had a history of war, politics, and religion, I think it would greatly diminish the concept that many religions have regarding humans being the pinnacle of creation. I mean, I would certainly hope some Christians might stop to think about it for a moment when we encounter another intelligent race from across the galaxy that has never even heard of the word "Jesus". Why is it that Christianity is not among their many religions? Do they have souls? If not, how can you tell? What makes beings with souls different from beings without souls if it isn't superior intellect and complex emotions? Why would God create them? If they do have souls, how is Jesus supposed to reach them? This is why I think the discovery of extraterrestrial life would be absolutely devastating to any religions that preach humans as being the ultimate purpose of the universe.

It's interesting how in BioWare's sci-fi game Mass Effect they recognized the possibility of this social phenomenon too. When you speak to one of the characters in the game (Ashley Williams), one of her comments makes it clear that once interstellar communication was made possible, religion lost a great deal of influence over humanity.  

[[-Erik-]]

Obviously devil worshipers!!!!1!1

 

[Lethkhar]

Apparently it wouldn't make a difference: http://www.reporternews.com/news/2008/may/14/catholic-church-faith-in-god-alien-life-ok/  

[MiniSiets]

Of course, many people can simply employ cognitive dissonance and go on with their faith anyway. I still think though that for the majority if/when they are actually confronted with an alien culture, they would likely find themselves reevaluating their beliefs. It's happened before even among missionaries to other human cultures. I think serious reconsideration of their beliefs wouldn't kick in until they actually experience what it's like in a completely different culture and environment where the people have no exposure or interest to their religion. Simply speculating your reactions as the Catholics do in that article probably isn't a good indication of how it would really happen. It's one thing to simply talk about a certain event, but another to actually experience it. Just take Christopher Hitchens' brush with waterboarding for example.

From my experience, a lot of what helps a person stay strong in their faith is a constant social reinforcement from others around them. It wasn't until I actually had stopped going to church and lacked any contact from fervent believers for several years that serious doubts about my own beliefs really began to set in. Likewise for the alien encounter scenario, with enough exposure to a culture that completely lacks any interest or respect for human religions, people would begin to see the connection that their religion is nothing more than a product of the culture they were born into and has no basis in reality.