Posted on 11/04/2014 8:38:50 AM PST by EveningStar
Religions have surprisingly diverse approaches to the issue of possible extraterrestrial life, David Weintraub found. Below, a quick survey adapted from his book "Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With It?" and interviews with the author.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
Big theological problems with “aliens”.
Do they have souls?
Were they unfairly cursed with “all creation” due to Adam’s sin here on earth?
Did Jesus die once for all here on earth?
Do the aliens even know they need a Savior and that they have one?
If they overcame the temptation to sin the presence of a serpent doesn’t matter.
We didn’t and thus needed salvation.
"Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute." -Baha'u'llah
"Regarding the passage (in) which Bahá’u’lláh states (that creatures are) to be found (on) every planet cannot be considered to be necessarily similar or different from human beings on this earth. Bahá’u’lláh does not specifically state whether such creatures are like or unlike us. He simply refers to the fact that there are creatures (on) every planet. It remains for science to discover one day the exact nature of these creatures." -Shoghi Effendi
Thank you. Wonder how Quix is doing these days...
Could Christianity Accommodate a Genuine Extra-Terrestrial Reality? - Michael S. Heiser, PhD
Agreed.
I’m not an Evangelical Christian, but I imagine they’ll be just fine.
Well, that’s pretty stupid. I consider myself a Christian and hold no such views. IMO the Bible just doesn’t address the issue.
He might want to read “A Wrinkle in Time”, which addresses the issue of extraterrestrials from a Christian perspective. So do C. S. Lewis’ adult science fiction books dealing with life on Mars and Venus.
I just realized you beat me to it.
the elites used to fret about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin...
then they worried about the existence of the biblical giants (see the Cardiff Giant for a laugh)
now they get their panties in a wad about aliens....
what will they postulate about once this runs its course?
My own view, for what it’s worth, is first let’s get us some aliens, then see how they fit into whatever theological structure we’re invested in.
My personal pinion is that there are no such creatures, but I see no theological objection to there being such.
Just as the english phrase “for ever” is often used in the bible as the translation of the hebrew word that described something that was, in fact, a finite time, the phrase “all creation” as translated to english could mean only the earth.
Depending on the context.
There are places in the new testament where a literalist will see the writer saying that all who say Jesus is Lord are saved and then the writer turns around and says not all that says Jesus is Lord will be saved. It’s often because the translation doesn’t capture the full meaning of the point.
I think it’s a risk we all take. If a mother says to her son, “if you don’t look both ways before crossing the street, you’ll get hit by a car.” It doesn’t mean that. It means the risk is much greater. But a lot of people take some similar statements in the bible and hang on every word literally when, in fact, the reader’s translation terribly contradicts the overall message of His Word. It is because they are missing the point being made, while literally “over” interpretting the statement.
A whole volume of the Perelandra books was devoted to preventing original sin by another planet's Adam and Eve, I think it was on Venus.
A nice touch in the Perelandra books was the angels manifesting themselves with respect to an absolute frame of reference.
I agree with you 100%, and I’m Catholic, but also agree that the Bible simply doesn’t mention it.
Why the author had to come up with separate views for different Christians makes no sense as (and I don’t want to argue—but Catholics believe the Bible, too) all Christianity is based on Scripture.
What about mainline Protestants? What about Orthodox Christians?
I would contend that Roman Catholics, Evangelists, Mainline and Orthodox would all naturally have the same view, which is, there is no mention in the Bible about life elsewhere from Earth, and the Bible is focused on MAN’S relationship with God, and man is a being on Earth.
I don’t recall, but I don’t think so. There’s more than one of that opinion.
“...that any creatures arriving which presented themselves as aliens could only be Satanic demons in disguise.”
That is a pretty common view and quite a valid one with respect to the UFO phenomenon and associated sub-culture.
It really differs very little from occultism or other sort of supernatural obsessions and beliefs.
If one doesn’t believe in demons, then understanding it as hoaxes, charlatanism, weird beliefs and mental illness suffice.
But the above has nothing really to do with the topic of this thread which is a hypothetical examination of what religious would say if actual real extraterrestrial intelligent life were known.
The Book of Genesis is pretty explicit in addressing the issue actually.
Genesis 6 specifically.
Christians should consider “UFO’s” or “aliens” nothing more than Fallen Angels (Demons). It’s happened in the past over & over again, and it’ll happen again more than likely.
Exactly!
IMO this will be the great deception of our time. It’s happened before and will happen again.
Larry Norman was a great songwriter. Not always the most coherent theologian. An even more likely theological objection would be to suggest that Christ died on the cross on this planet once and for all, terrestrials, extra-terrestrials or whatever. Especially if you factor in his title from Revelation: The Lamb who was sacrificed before the foundation of the world.
Exactly, Scripture tells us just what we need to know to establish a relationship with God and find salvation. How could an all knowing being give us a compendium of all there is to know? There are SO many things that we would LIKE to know that simply aren't addressed in Scripture. I would think that anyone who has done even a minimal amount of Bible study would know this first hand, since it's happened to me more times than I can count. I am quite surprised that any believing Christians would dogmatically think that extraterrestrial life is in conflict with Christian belief.
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