Do Aliens Exist?

[Pavel Mosko]

Any sufficiently advanced technology will seem like magic to the primitive.

I know that old Arthur C Clark line.... It doesn't explain why UFOnauts can break every rule of physics this puts them out of the realm of a physical being. They are not simply extra terrestrials with advanced tech.

 

[46AND2]

I know that old Arthur C Clark line. It doesn't explain why UFOnauts can break every rule of physics this puts them out the realm of a physical being.

Well, since I don't think UFOnauts have ever visited, I also, by default, don't think they have broken every law of physics...

 

[46AND2]

I know that old Arthur C Clark line.... It doesn't explain why UFOnauts can break every rule of physics this puts them out of the realm of a physical being. They are not simply extra terrestrials with advanced tech.

Besides, would you not consider magic to be the illusion of supernatural? How do you suspect medieval people would react to a hologram?

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Besides, would you not consider magic to be the illusion of supernatural? How do you suspect medieval people would react to a hologram?

They would call it an apparition.

 

[Anguspure]

I find it interesting how many Christians attribute "close encounters" to demonic activity. In other words, they believe the stories, just not the source of the encounter.

Like demonic encounters themselves the whole field is full of deception and lies, so we need to be very circumspect about the stories that we read. Nevertheless it seems that there is a common thread running through it all.

 

[public hermit]

I really recommend it, at least the first two. Out of the Silent Planet is great and Peralandra is even better. I kind of got bored reading That Hideous Strength and never finished it, but you don't need the last book to appreciate the first two.

Out of the Silent Planet explores Mars, which is actually inhabited by multiple alien species who enjoy the protection of a planetary guardian angel and a relationship with God. It's also a critic against the arrogance of colonial mindsets and how against God such behavior is.

Peralandra takes us to Venus where the hero finds that the planet is still in its Garden of Eden period. Right about the same time the devil has shown up to repeat what he did on Earth. The whole story is about our hero trying to stop Satan from deceiving Venus' Eve and wondering what God is going to do about the devil trying to ruin yet another of his creations. This one has a climax I was definitely not expecting.

They're really great Christian Science Fiction stories.

Thank you, I will definitely check them out. Or, the first two at least.

 

[Lost4words]

Hello

I've always wondered if aliens existed. Many Christians say yes while many say no. Something I just read stated many Christians believe they do as why would God create such a huge universe? The answer to that was that to our minds it's huge but to God's, probably not. However, despite this, many Christians still believe aliens could exist.

Would God have created aliens and not told us? Would He have visited each creation separately and created a Bible separate for each species?

Yes as i have worked with a few!

 

[46AND2]

Like demonic encounters themselves the whole field is full of deception and lies...

You don't say.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I really recommend it, at least the first two. Out of the Silent Planet is great and Peralandra is even better. I kind of got bored reading That Hideous Strength and never finished it, but you don't need the last book to appreciate the first two.

Out of the Silent Planet explores Mars, which is actually inhabited by multiple alien species who enjoy the protection of a planetary guardian angel and a relationship with God. It's also a critic against the arrogance of colonial mindsets and how against God such behavior is.

Peralandra takes us to Venus where the hero finds that the planet is still in its Garden of Eden period. Right about the same time the devil has shown up to repeat what he did on Earth. The whole story is about our hero trying to stop Satan from deceiving Venus' Eve and wondering what God is going to do about the devil trying to ruin yet another of his creations. This one has a climax I was definitely not expecting.

They're really great Christian Science Fiction stories.

I read those stories as a child and found them entertaining stuff - but had no idea that there was supposed to be a religious message in them, despite my Catholic upbringing (likewise 'The Chronicles of Narnia'). Kids, eh?

 

[46AND2]

Like demonic encounters themselves the whole field is full of deception and lies, so we need to be very circumspect about the stories that we read. Nevertheless it seems that there is a common thread running through it all.

Out of curiosity, how do you determine which demonic encounter stories are truthful?

 

[Norbert L]

Hello

I've always wondered if aliens existed. Many Christians say yes while many say no. Something I just read stated many Christians believe they do as why would God create such a huge universe? The answer to that was that to our minds it's huge but to God's, probably not. However, despite this, many Christians still believe aliens could exist.

Would God have created aliens and not told us? Would He have visited each creation separately and created a Bible separate for each species?

Keep in mind that the word aliens is a way of saying intelligent life and other planets is another way of saying other worlds.

I recently became aware of the Christian history in dealing with this topic. As early as the 13th century there is a theological debate about whether God could create more worlds other than our own. The rational was if He could NOT create other worlds then He really wouldn't be omnipotent iirc. This topic has had serious theological coverage throughout history given to it off and on.

I asked myself after 30 years of being a Christian, why did I never hear about Christianity's historical teachings about this topic? After all when you meet other people and they say that life on other planets will disprove that God doesn't exist, it would of been nice to know the counter points to that assumption.

If you start watching this video at the 52:44 mark, there's an hours worth of analysis on this topic.

 

[Bobber]

Do aliens exist? I think I'd ask another question if some beings appeared on the scene and claimed to be so how much would you trust what they say? Would they lie to us about a great many things of their motives for being here when all the time they'd be wanting to take over the world? If they said your world is backwards for you have religions you look to....I'm sure the secularists would love it! Or if they said, what's wrong with you people? You mean you're not all serving the one true God? One wonders what they'd think of that.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Hello

I've always wondered if aliens existed. Many Christians say yes while many say no. Something I just read stated many Christians believe they do as why would God create such a huge universe? The answer to that was that to our minds it's huge but to God's, probably not. However, despite this, many Christians still believe aliens could exist.

Given the sheer vastness of the universe it seems unlikely that one tiny little planet tucked in the corner of a galaxy among billions of other galaxies is the only place where life of any kind exists.

It's possible, it just seems mind-boggling that it would be the case.

As to whether or not life actually does exist outside of earth, there's just no way to say. We literally can't say anything one way or another. But it seems reasonable to think that the possibility is good, again, given the sheer size of the universe.

Would God have created aliens and not told us? Would He have visited each creation separately and created a Bible separate for each species?

There were people living on continents right here on earth that the Church didn't know even existed until Europeans accidentally bumped into the Americas five hundred years ago. The Bible isn't a compendium of facts about the universe, it is a collection of texts which the Church believes and confesses shares the story of God's redemption in Christ.

As for the second part of your question, that's completely unknowable. My thoughts tend toward analogy: Jesus was a Jew born in a tiny little frontier province of the Roman Empire. And yet the Word becoming flesh was for all people, every nation, tribe, and tongue. For Christians living five hundred years ago the idea of people living across the ocean in the Americas was about as radical an idea for them as the idea of intelligent creatures living on distant worlds is for us today. To that end, as we believe that God's purpose in Christ is for the redemption and renewal of all creation, not just human beings, it's not altogether impossible to think that ultimately the only real difference between discovering people on another continent on earth and discovering people on other planets is merely one of scope. However, that's just one possible way of looking at the subject among others.

Given that we literally know nothing one way or the other on this topic, there is endless speculation to be had without anything resembling a substantive answer.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Ophiolite]

What is beyond the infinite?

The next bit of infinite. This goes on for quite a long way.

Hugh Ross has made some very good arguments in some of his books and lectures over the last few decades that they don't exist (the universe as a whole is an extremely hostile place when it comes to being able to support life) and the UFO phenomenon is actually a manifestation of demonic activity / the occult

In as much as the UFO phenomenon is extremely weak evidence for intelligent alien visitations and extremely strong evidence for human gullibility and incompetence that portion of his argument can be safely dismissed.

You are already going down the rabbit hole. There are no other life forms in our visible universe. That is why we should hold true to "US" being made in the image of God. He made us and all that is around us special here on earth. If we need to reach out beyond our boundary,to find other life forms, then we are missing the whole point of what God has given us within our boundary. God gave us dominion over the earth, nowhere else. Lets focus on that first.
Blessings

Humans are curious, creative, inventive, adventurous. If these are part of God's image then clearly he would expect us to explore the universe remotely (as we do) and in person.

Aliens are this generation’s centaurs and nymphs. The demons cleverly deceive using the zeitgeist of the times. For us, now, they manifest not as forest dwelling supernatural beings, but as beings from outer space. In the earlier 20th century, when ‘alien encounters’ began, these entities claimed to be from the moon or from Mars. Then, as space exploration improved, they shifted to claiming they have come from another galaxy. Now they claim to be inter dimensional.
It is all a lie.

Yes, it's sad that mental illness, or low intellectual capacity would muddy the waters with distorted perceptions and false memories.

It's not just Christians, but some of the top non-Christian researchers like Jacques F. Vallee note that these beings or craft seem to be non-physical or extra dimensional, and that the present day accounts mirror earlier stories of demons, fairies etc.

Despite his sound credentials in conventional science, Jacques Vallee's conclusions regarding the nature of UFOs are as insubstantial as the evidence he bases them on.

I know that old Arthur C Clark line.... It doesn't explain why UFOnauts can break every rule of physics this puts them out of the realm of a physical being. They are not simply extra terrestrials with advanced tech

UFOs are misinterpreted natural phenomena or man-made artefacts. There is a small, but finite possibility that a very small percentage of them represent a hitherto unrecognised natural phenomenon.

Like demonic encounters themselves the whole field is full of deception and lies, so we need to be very circumspect about the stories that we read. Nevertheless it seems that there is a common thread running through it all.

That thread is the gullibility of humans.

After all when you meet other people and they say that life on other planets will disprove that God doesn't exist, it would of been nice to know the counter points to that assumption.

I suggest the best response is to encourage them to get an education so that you can have a serious discussion with them.

Given the sheer vastness of the universe it seems unlikely that one tiny little planet tucked in the corner of a galaxy among billions of other galaxies is the only place where life of any kind exists.

It's possible, it just seems mind-boggling that it would be the case.

I think there are, on this matter, two equally astounding possibilities. The first is that the Earth is the only planet in the universe to harbour intelligent life. The second is that it is not.

 

[Anguspure]

Given the sheer vastness of the universe it seems unlikely that one tiny little planet tucked in the corner of a galaxy among billions of other galaxies is the only place where life of any kind exists.

It's possible, it just seems mind-boggling that it would be the case.

As to whether or not life actually does exist outside of earth, there's just no way to say. We literally can't say anything one way or another. But it seems reasonable to think that the possibility is good, again, given the sheer size of the universe.

I don't think that its a problem to suppose that life might be present on other planets within the universe, the problem is the sheer vastness of space. The distances are such that the idea of aliens flying through physical space as fast as possible (the speed of light) to get here borders on absurd.

Of course we could say that they have developed hyperspatial travel and then we would notice that the "spiritual" entities in scripture have already mastered this and (apart from one occurence witnessed by Ezekial) do not need to use machinery to get around.

 

[Scholastica]

CS Lewis uses something along those lines for how the beings called eldil, what humans would know as angels, travel. They are imperceptible energy beings whose forms exist on a radically different wavelength than ours — for them, gaseous matter doesn't exist, and liquids and solids are gaseous, so the planets of the Solar system are just clouds. To them, light itself is the water through which they swim, and the Sun is their wellspring. "Visiting" a planet means moving into one of those moving clouds and then keeping pace with its orbit to maintain the appearance of standing still, while using some sort of projection to interact with wispy, ephemeral creatures they cannot fully see (read: people).

 

[jayem]

Just in the Milky Way galaxy are an estimated 100-400 billion stars, and 100 billion planets. Odds are good that some of these have the right chemical and physical properties to support life. At least simple life forms. It's been speculated for some time that silicon based life might be possible. Experiments have shown that enzymes can be modified to catalyze silicon-carbon hybrid compounds. Which could be the basis for a type of extra-terrestrial life.

Possibility of Silicon-Based Life Grows - Astrobiology Magazine

 

[Pavel Mosko]

As to whether or not life actually does exist outside of earth, there's just no way to say. We literally can't say anything one way or another. But it seems reasonable to think that the possibility is good, again, given the sheer size of the universe.

Size isn't everything!

But seriously the universe is a hostile place for most life. Pretty much every place out there is too cold, too hot, to radioactive, to much gravity, not enough gravity, no air, no water, has poisonous gas, has volcanic activity, has high winds of 200+ an hour, etc. etc. This is why Christian Astronomers and Astrophysics tend to see our Earth as designed specifically for life.

 

[Ophiolite]

I don't think that its a problem to suppose that life might be present on other planets within the universe, the problem is the sheer vastness of space. The distances are such that the idea of aliens flying through physical space as fast as possible (the speed of light) to get here borders on absurd.

There are ways this problem might be addressed:

• Hibernation
• Generation ships
• Frozen embryos monitored, revived and raised by AIs
• Artificially extended lifespans

Aliens with naturally long life spans might think nothing of a two century trip.

In short, the considerable distance between planetary systems is not necessarily the obstacle it appears to be at first sight.

 

[Anguspure]

There are ways this problem might be addressed:

• Hibernation
• Generation ships
• Frozen embryos monitored, revived and raised by AIs
• Artificially extended lifespans

Aliens with naturally long life spans might think nothing of a two century trip.

In short, the considerable distance between planetary systems is not necessarily the obstacle it appears to be at first sight.

SETI would have picked up signals from any civilisation advanced enough for this sort of thing less than a couple of centuries old, then they have to come from somewhere and no plausible candidates for star systems capable of supporting intelligent life are anywhere near within that sort of range.