are we not aliens ourselves? how do we look to the simeans who perhaps saw us crawl from the ocean or descend from the heavens several ages ago. here are some great thoughts on the matter:
Our first questions to the extraterrestrials should be about science rather than theology. Or maybe the questions should be even more practical than that: Are you friendly? Do you mean to kill us or enslave us? Did we mention that we have nukes?
But irrespective of the order, it's clear that inquiries into the spiritual lives of our friends from the stars will be of universal interest. What might we expect to learn about them, and from them?
To begin with, the question of whether aliens have souls is a non-starter. If they are intelligent, sentient beings, they get the same presumptive metaphysical accoutrements as we. In other words, if you tend to think that humans have souls, chances are you'll extend that to aliens. If you think that we don't, then you'll almost certainly think that they don't, either. Yes, a few fundamentalists will insist that we have souls and they don't, and a few total flakes will insist that they do and we don't -- but the overall debate about the existence of the soul will be largely unaltered.
If and when we encounter aliens, we will likely find that they have several religions, as well as competing non-religious and anti-religious modes of thought. The science fiction commonplace of mono-cultural alien races -- like the geographically homogenous desert, swamp, and ice planets these beings hail from -- seem improbable. Alien civilizations are likely to enjoy (or endure) the same intra-species diversity of cultural expression as we do, including religion. Some of their religions may look strikingly similar to some of ours, at least at first glance, while others will look completely unlike anything ever believed or practiced on Earth. In any case, it's doubtful that we will find an exact match between any two. ---http://www.blog.speculist.com
In the words of physicist and author Paul Davies, "The existence of extraterrestrial intelligences would have a profound impact on religion, shattering completely the traditional perspective of God's special relationship with man. The difficulties are particularly acute for Christianity, which postulates that Jesus Christ was God incarnate whose mission was to provide salvation for man on Earth. The prospect of a host of 'alien Christs' systematically visiting every inhabited planet in the physical form of the local creatures has a rather absurd aspect."Most Christians don't give much thought to the existence of extraterrestrial life, and if pressed for an answer, they usually either deny their existence, or suggest that there is an underlying deception that links them with fallen angels. According to Tariq Malik, staff writer for Space.com, a telephone poll, which questioned one thousand Americans, revealed that regular churchgoers were less likely to believe in extraterrestrial life (about 46 percent) than non-churchgoers (about 70 percent)...Additionally, in May of 2005, a survey conducted by the National Institute for Discovery Science was given to pastors, priests, and rabbis across the United States, asking basic questions relating to extraterrestrial life. Out of all of the comments posted in the survey, not a single one formed the basic conclusion that angels, by definition, are intelligent beings whose origins are not from Earth. All of these people have been reading and studying the Bible most of their lives, and couldn't see the basic fact that one of the primary themes of the Bible is God's intervention in the affairs of humanity through extraterrestrial beings. http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com
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