Observation

Well, you know me. I think being less "spiritual" is a step in the right direction. Human beings waste far too much time and energy on superstiton...

wink

Hey, I'm as sprititual as ever, man!

....which is to say 'not at all', but I'm not less so! wink

Well then, lets bring things back to a datum of sorts: Would our(human) discovery of a prior civilization on Earth, which was actually alien in origin, prove, disprove, or have no effect on your belief in a Supreme Being?

No effect. What do alien astronauts have to do with God?

I don't know. I simply pose the question.

But, what does God have to do with Aliens? If there is a God who created Man, did God also create the Aliens?

*swims by, sees tasty looking worm floating on hook*

OK, I'll bite - essentially, finding the remains of an alien culture that stood up to all scrutiny would first off, establish that life exists on other planets, which could cast the whole of the Bible into doubt - as one thinks that God should have probably decided to let the prophets who wrote it know about something important, like, say, the existence of species on other planets.

Not to mention that if they looked nothing like us (which odds are no alien race would/should), but were obviously of a highly developed civilization, would result in one of 3 options:

1 - The Bible lies to us (bzzzzzzt! Wrong answer!)

2 - We're Gods children, these are the children of Satan (be popular on the 700 club)

3 - God created these artifacts when he created the rest of the earth just to test our faith (the deus ex machina of all religious fundamentalists, not realizing that this view would mean that God is really a big asshole).

Of course, none of this is to say that there ISN'T a highly powerful being up there which created us AND the aliens, but would people be willing to run and re-interpret the Bible to account for this view?

Now, if we find these artifacts and it turns out we are DESCENDED from the aliens, whooooooo boy.....

The BINGO scenario in my book.

And yet, the existence of God is not inconsistent with this idea either. But our interpretation of our "faith" would certainly need re-examination.

And perhaps it could explain the phenomenon of Jesus and to a lesser extent Moses.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

It's not a stretch to say humans may have developed an entire belief system(Judeo-Christian in particular) built upon observation of the technological machinations of a visiting alien.

Hah! Good point! Hadn't considered that. It would shoot down all that egocentric business, wouldn't it? Wouldn't affect my beliefs, though: I don't buy all that "Word of God" stuff now, I wouldn't if Vorlons showed up on my door. It might give other people pause for the reasons you suggested, though.

Chavez, Seabass,

You might want to read C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy for a possible answer to your alien-Bible question. My pithy response to "the Bible doesn't mention aliens therefore the Bible is wrong" is simply to note that the Bible doesn't mention 800 million things (like vaccines, food processors, dildos), and that doesn't validate or invalidate it.

I find no evidence in the Bible that God did or did not create other species aside from the ones on this planet. If you want to debate the line "God created man in his own image" be my guest. I would be shocked if we were alone in the universe, though I don't think that they're on their way here right now or have been here before.

Well, given the lack of evidence to as of right now, it might be a stretch;

But I see your point. Think about some of our everyday devices right now and how they might look to some desert resident from about 2000 yrs ago (more in Moses' case): tv, telephone, gun, plastic explosive, airplane - and I haven't even gotten to anything too awful exotic yet!

But the question would really be that even IF evidence was found, how many religious authorities would enter the dialogue in a positive way? to a certain extent, religion is based upon tradition and dogma - and a new dialectic of this sort would have a chance to shatter existing dogmas and render tradition and the authority of church leaders irrelevant.

I agree on a few points, mainly that the "angels" etc MAY have been extraterrestrial phenomena, but also, as a skeptic/agnostic, I highly doubt that any other life we may encounter would much resemble humanity; however, if they DO, that in and of itself would in my mind create a definite suspicion that we are either from the same gene stock due to colonization, or that God DID create 2 races of humanity.

Either way, if they're out there, I'd like them to shit or get off the pot and show up already. wink

But my essential belief insofar as the humanistic/religious reaction would be that many fundamentalists and those who may stand to lose influence due to their inflexible interpretations of the Bible would definitely try to turn their following against any sort of evidence of an alien race spawning man - even though an alien race being the forefathers of man casts SOME of the stuff in the Bible into doubt but doesn't necessarily discredit the Judeo-Christian ethos.

Then do the Aliens believe in the same God the Christians, Muslims, Jews and most other Human beliefs do?

Well, it IS a different century, but Copernicus was facing execution for saying the Earth orbited the sun.....

And if "man was created in God's image", what if aliens bear no resemblance to us - say the flying saucer lands and some Cthulhu-looking chap steps out? Is that an indication that they are not of God (which by extension would probably mean they are of the devil), an indication that God has many faces, or an indication that evolution follows its own course, with no hand of God evident?

And the crux of my argument is not so much an issue with your beliefs personally jabba- you seem to have a very liberal Christian interpretation, which I wholeheartedly applaud - I'm wondering what the reaction of fundamentalists and church heirarchies would be.

And if not, do we lump them in with Buddhists, Sikhs, and Hindus as "the devil"? wink

Not quite right regarding Copernicus.

"Nicholas Copernicus was born February 19, 1473, in Poland. He entered the University of Krakow in 1491, then in 1495 went to Padua and studied medicine. In 1500 he was called to Rome and took the chair of mathematics there. He began to believe that the earth went round the sun about 1507 and from that time until his death worked, more or less intermittently, on his exposition of his theory. He delayed the publication of this exposition because of fear of being accused of heresy. Copernicus died May 24, 1543, just as his book was published. The knowledge of the time was not sufficient to prove his theory; his great argument for it was from its simplicity as compared to the epicycle hypothesis."

Then Galileo picked up the ball and ran with it by showing that Jupiter has moons orbiting it rather than the earth. Just so ya know.

Carry on.

kronos,

Do you think all the religions you mentioned believe in the SAME GOD? Wouldn't they believe in seperate Gods? I know the belief is in one god, but don't the religions you mention each believe that the one God is their God?

I think they all believe that if they are right, then the Gods believed in by the other religions will all be proven to be false Gods and therefore not exist.

It sort of sounds like an election. Whoever has the most people who believe in their God, win the election and that is what God will be.

Well, the thing is...most of the religions recognize that the Supreme Being -God, in the normal parlayance- is The One God. But the problem is that they/we all interpret God in different ways. Interesting that Muslims believe in the same God that the Jews and Christians do, the Jews believe in the same God that the Muslims and Christians do, but the Christians have a problem saying they believe in the same God the Jews and Muslims do.

The subject of God is interesting in that there is two ways of seeing the whole thing:
One God/Many Worlds
One World/Many Gods

I choose the former. If there is one Supreme Being it/he/she is the same God for the Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and the Martians.

But do the Martians believe in God? Is the belief in a Supreme Being a unique phenomena to Humans?

And if there is a God why has he lost his sense of humor?

I have often wondered who the Gods think God is.

The universes are vast I am small (but only in comparison to John Holmes), how in the hell am I supposed to figure this stuff out. I was raised catholic until I was 14 when I was rebaptized as a Baptist, then I joined the Marines and became a druid (it just makes more sense to me). When you're little it is easy to believe, you know what your told, but when you get older and jaded a tad the world is just so different. I am still surprised I believe anything at all.

Speaking of belief, what a test of faith the Catholics are having right now. How many times have you heard jokes or stories about priests who liked little kids too much? This has been going on for a while. I feel sorry for the priests who are really devoted, who really would give up marriage, sex, kids and grand kids to serve their God, but if they would just stop making it such a superhuman task to stay a catholic priest it might start attracting a different kind of person. Same thing goes for Nuns. I have never met a more wretched bitch than a Nun I once knew, but I know plenty more that are the nicest people on the planet. I have also heard stories about Nuns that aren't quite right in the head the same way that some of those priests that I mentioned aren't. If you think that it is not as rampant as the news makes it out to be - here is something that you may not know: 14 priests in New Hampshire have either come forward of have been discovered for child molesting. That is just recently, and New Hampshire is a small state. One or two may have been expected (unfortunately), but fourteen makes me want to puke.

Why in the fuck did I bring this up?

Priests should be allowed marriage. There is obviously no proof that celibacy makes for a more spiritual individual.

Besides, there's nothing Biblical about celibacy. The Catholic church came up with the idea to stop their priests from carrying on their marriages in order to keep them -the priests- manageable. You can't send a priest on a mission to some far-off land if he's dragging around a family. And if you can't send priests to far-away lands you can't get new converts, etc. etc. etc.

Good?
Bad?

God?
Hmmmmmm...

Good management technique though. Can't dispute that.

Well, it HAS been a while since I studied Renaissance history.....

Well, we know it was intact about 4500 yrs ago when he created the platypus.....maybe his hemmorhoids have been acting up?

My point exactly.

Then what is the Matrix?

I think that's the best explanation for a supreme being.

A slow-moving kung-foo flick...

Jason! He didn't mean it Neo, I swear he didn't. Sorry Trinity, he was joking. Er wait. Those are movie characters, Oh Okay. I know you dislike it, but "Slow moving?' They take Keanu Reeves from Keanu to being "the one" in under two hours. Now how do you explain that?

Wow! Maybe he really IS the one!