No Stupid Questions

So, fun fact, St Augustine, who is considered one of the Church Fathers, explicitly argued that if the 'Antipodes' (i.e., southern continents not connected to Europe, Asia or Africa) actually existed and had humans living there, that would prove the Gospel was untrue.

The reason for this is as follows: Christians of his era believed that the reason God had allowed the Romans to destroy the Second Temple and push the Jews into exile was to prepare the men of all nations (as understood at the time) for the coming of the Gospel. The idea was that the Jews had taken the Old Testament, and the prophecies of the Messiah therein, across the whole world. Augustine argues that if the Antipodes contained human beings who had never had any kind of contact with Jews, and therefore no contact with the OT, and no contact with Christians, and therefore no contact with the New Testament, either, that must mean the Gospels are false. Why? Because there's no conceivable reason that a just God would have deprived entire civilisations of the chance of redemption.

Of course, we now know that at the time Augustine was writing (4th-5th century AD), there were literally millions of people who had never had the slightest contact with the Jews or Christians and, furthermore, wouldn't do so for another millennium. So, per Augustine's argument, all those millions were condemned to Hell (the concept of Purgatory didn't exist at this point, but condemning them all to no chance of Heaven, just because they were unfortunate to be born a long way away from Jersualem, is clearly also unjust). Either God is incredibly unjust and unmerciful, which means the Gospels are untrue, OR the Good News wasn't actually spread to all men, which must also mean that they're not true.

The upshot of this is that one of the Church Fathers has, in retrospect, irrefutably argued that the Gospels are untrue. The amount of special pleading required to make out that, actually, the Maori or the Easter Islanders or [insert any other uncontacted peoples here] had an opportunity to accept Christ and somehow missed it entirely is far beyond any sane interpretation of the evidence.

Now, as you might have noticed, this hasn't stopped people from believing in the Gospels. I don't see why the discovery of life on another world would dislodge people from a belief that is transparently false when nothing else has.

Religion would change if religious people learn to look beyond 6 feet in front of them, but I guess that's less possible than proof of extraterrestrial life.

Lmao no. Just how "vaccines cause autism" never changed...

Facts have never stopped religion before. Why would it change now?

Will proof of aliens change the brainwashed ultra religious? Not a chance. Hell, there are flatearthers and election deniers. I don't expect much from about 30% of our population.

Same as every other times when science have disproven religions fairytales. They adapt. God also made those lifeforms

Religion will just claim God made aliens, too.

Or that they're a test for the faithful. The way some do about dinosaur fossils.

I am also fully convinced that religious people could scientifically discover God and not believe it's actually God, so...

Nothing. As long as people are scared of dying and other people are willing to profit from it, religion has a home

Religions are unlikely to change substantially, I imagine they'll just find some way to explain the existence of aliens that fits their existing scriptures and world view.

There will be new religions that pop up as a result though, for sure.

I think a lot of religious people will reason it this way- "Yes, there are aliens, but God chose us."

In general I think it would just give religions a new group to hate. They would be "Creatures not of God, but of the Devil Himself" in the same way that Christians think of other religions as born of the Canaanites and influenced by Satan.

Religions adapt.

Did other advances in human knowledge change them?

Most of them still think the universe was made in 6 days by a bearded toga dude in the sky and if you are gay you are going to magical underground fire place.

I think at least with Christianity it would be similar of changing the everything orbiting the Earth to Earth orbiting the Sun. They'd just declare that it is all God's creation and be done with it.

Facts have never stopped religion before.

Religion didn't change when it went up against intelligent people on earth. Why do you think intelligence from space would make a difference? If anything they'll use it as a way of validating their own beliefs.

💀

We'll need to take the word of Jesus to them, to save them. /s

What if the aliens are religious and their god is the one true god?

It's pretty hard to change mindsets. Even with proof, some would still close their eyes and shut their ears denying any fact presented in front of them.

I don't think it will. People generally don't let facts get in the way of their beliefs. I mean look at some of these wild ideologies people believe to be truth. Some ideologies obviously can't be factual, but people believe them as such anyway. Then they use circular logic to justify them. They'll just circle their way out of the fact other intelligent life exists.

I think it's like the discovery of exoplanets, scientists were pretty sure they existed and already believed they existed in numbers, but when it was proven to be true, there wasn't a whole lot of philosophical change in culture because of it. Though it did narrow down one of the Drake variables for the existence of intelligent life.

Nah, it'll just be another, "Gawd werks in mysterious wayz!"

Would the ignorant become well informed?

I have my doubts.

Religion evolves, even if some creationists don’t believe in evolution. It wasn’t too long ago the the pope conceded that the church was wrong and Galileo was right. If extra terrestrial life is discovered there will be a period where all religions attempt to incorporate the news into their doctrine one way or another to keep the money rolling in.

If one of those aliens turns out to be Jesus, I might have to become a Christian.

With new worlds to deliver The Word to? Nah they wouldn't change, but they'd get serious about space travel.

Probably not.

By the way, to all who are ridiculing religious folk: the big bang theory was theorised by a Catholic priest, and it only strengthened his faith.

Probably not, they will just interpret/twist their holy writings to support what happened. Or if they can't think of anything it will just be a "God works in mysterious ways" explanation.

Me personally, I think God created all of our planets and all of our stars and whatever life lives in the universe, even outside of Earth. People who believe the same way would just stay the same and would praise God more for how great he is.

For the others though (iykyk)... well, they're gonna be like all the other flat-earthers or they call these aliens devil spawn or whatever.

I recall reading or hearing a rumour that the Vatican had a sealed scroll somewhere which is "to be opened in the event of positive extraterrestrial contact or proof".

Given secrets of that type don't often stay secret, it amounts to something like: "God made all life and the creator is in all living creatures" (handwaving).

In other words, the major religions already have their shit prepared.

65% of Americans already believe that there's intelligent extraterrestrial life, which is about the same as the percent that identify as religious so there must be a fair bit of overlap already. Americans used to be a lot more religious just a few decades ago but I don't have historical belief-in-aliens percentage at my fingertips.

My expectation is that a remote-radio-signal-only detection of alien intelligence will have almost no effect on society, not in the near term anyway. It's too abstract to factor in to most people's lives. Finding relics within our solar system from long-gone visitors might have a bit more of an impact because I expect there'd be a "gold rush" to find more, since they may have practical value and are limited in supply. The only thing that would have a serious and widespread impact would be actual live aliens (or "live" alien AIs, same thing really) in the solar system itself. At which point the outcome is basically "what outcome do the aliens want this to have? That's the outcome we get."

if there are religious aliens, why haven't their alien televangelists hit us up for donations yet?

Did you know the Big Bang is called that because Adam was banging Eve?

No, it wasn't. Science has long proven that religion is a pure hoax, that's why many studious individuals were burned to death or persecuted throughout human history.

I don't know why the existence of aliens would rattle anyone's belief. Unless you can find a way to take away their threat of dying, they're going to believe in God.

And if there's life on other planets, 
then I'm sure that he must know,
and he's been there once already
and has died to save their Souls

Larry Norman, "In Another Land", 1976

If they're more intelligent than us but with the same morals we're doomed, so we might have not time to adapt our religions.