The underlying question is, as NASA chief historian Steven Dick says, to answer the following question: would the religions of Earth resist contact with extraterrestrial beings?
This is a fundamental point. Discovering intelligent beings exacerbates the Copernican principle (popularized by Carl Sagan under the name of the principle of mediocrity ), which says that there is no cosmic privilege over the location of the Earth in the Cosmos, nor is there any for its inhabitants. Discovering other civilizations would mean “a new level of distressing doubt about the importance of human beings in the cosmic scheme of things,” says theoretical physicist James Gardner.
For astronomer Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research of the SETI Institute , dedicated to searching radio waves for emissions from extrasolar civilizations, she thinks it is nonsense to wonder if her discovery will affect faith in God. “If both exist, and God is responsible for them, how can their existence undermine God’s position? ” Now, continues this radio astronomer, the contact would have a devastating effect on the current religions of the world, but not for the future on Earth of the religion itself. He has even speculated that the message we received from ET might have the effect, intended or not, of evangelizing us and converting us to a new cosmic faith. How? Science historian and notorious skeptic Michael Shermer wryly put it in the January 2002 issue of Scientific American in what he called Shermer’s Last Law : “Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God.” In fact, in the 20th century various religious movements have been born whose object of worship is extraterrestrial beings. Jill Tarter abounds in this regard: “Faced with a social organization that can be shown to be stable and an understanding of the nature of the higher Universe, it will be difficult for humanity to resist the attraction of its religion and its God(s)”. Perhaps, Tarter points out, the doubt did not appear in the contact generation, but in the subsequent ones, because let us not forget that, historically, the most powerful civilizations have imposed, in one way or another, their beliefs on the others.
What if aliens are atheists?
Tarter thinks their influence would be greater if aliens declared themselves atheists: “Next generations of humans, growing up with the knowledge of the existence of other technologies with great tradition and no obvious need for religion, will find it increasingly difficult to agree with them.” according to the particular terrestrial beliefs”. The psychologist Douglas Vakoch, who also works at the SETI Institute and investigates the cultural impact that a possible contact would have, does not share this opinion because he thinks that the religions of the Earth respond to our own interests, which do not have to coincide with those of the alien religions s. What if they are atheists? He also doesn’t think anything will happen. “Similarly, if a very advanced civilization said it believed in God, I don’t think Richard Dawkins would begin to believe.” And he adds: “The real challenge of a contact is how we are going to keep our minds open to beings totally different from us.”
For his part, the emeritus professor of physics at the British Open University and strong defender of the science-religion binomial, Russell Stannard, does not see the foundations of faith in danger due to the existence of intelligent beings on other worlds: “the first thing I would ask them is what is your opinion of God? And if they don’t have it or don’t believe in a Superior Being, it doesn’t bother him either because, for him, being more intelligent does not imply being more spiritual : “we all know very intelligent people who are spiritually pygmy, and people with a low IQ who lead a life deeply spiritual. And he explains: “The true measure of spirituality is how close you are to God, how is your true relationship with God.”
Now, the fundamental stumbling block is not in the effect that extraterrestrial contact would have on our faith in some kind of God, but when we believe that God has acted directly in human history. This is especially worrying in Christian religions, since the idea that God became man in the figure of Jesus, who came into the world to save us and forgive our sins, is central to them. Perhaps his vicarious sacrifice – which is actually a theological interpretation of Jesus’ death – serves all the civilizations that have existed, exist and will exist throughout the Universe? Even for those that existed before humanity and have already disappeared? Or maybe they should be saved in a different way? Or maybe they don’t need it? Steven Dick clearly states the problem: “Does his passion and victory on Earth serve for all the planets? If the answer is ‘No,’ we need a savior for every planet.”
For the Lutheran theologian Ted Peters it is clear that “just as Jesus is human like you and me, we would find a specific extraterrestrial Jesus” . And he insists that it is also probable that they do not have original sin and live in a state of grace, without needing the arrival of a Jesus. Now, how would theologians know that they are not really in sin? Even more, can the notion of original sin be extrapolated to other civilizations?
The solution is twofold: either there is a single savior who goes through all the planets dying and rising, or there is a legion of saviors , each on their planet, incarnating the same spirit of the same God. Stannard is one of the few who is not disgusted by the idea of a savior jumping from world to world: “If we like to travel from country to country, I don’t understand why God would dislike doing it from planet to planet.” Be that as it may, both solutions are, to say the least, colorful.
Reference:
Peters, T. (2018) Astrotheology: Science and Theology Meet Extraterrestrial Life, Cascade Books
