this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
241 points (96.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35689 readers
1334 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

....with the James Web Telescope looking for sources of artificial light to identify potential intelligent life, and the news this week of Perseverance searching for microbial life on Mars it feels like we are getting closer to a major discovery. But what - if anything - would it mean for the religions on Earth if life is proven to exist out there?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 116 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] Zeth0s@reddthat.com 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Catholic Church nowadays is actually already ready to incorporate extraterrestrial life in their preaching. There is a whole astronomical "research" center in Vatican dedicated to align scientific theories such as big bang within catholic preaching.

This is part of it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Observatory

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] june@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remember being taught that Jesus presented himself to the rest of the world after his resurrection and that beyond that ‘the rocks testify’ and that all man is without excuse.

It always bothered me, even before I began deconstructing, and was one of a few things that never set well with me.

I’m surprised that in all my study of Augustine I never saw this about him before.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] baked_tea@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thing is, information like this won't get to everyone, but close to everyone will hear about finding life elsewhere

[–] frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 year ago

Fair point. I thought for a long time that the fact that Christianity simply couldn't have spread over the globe for a millennium and a half after Christ's death was a slam dunk argument against its core tenets, though. I cited Augustine here because I thought it was quite funny when I found out that one of the Church Fathers inadvertently agreed with me! It proved to me that my argument wasn't a case of me indulging in special pleading or anything like that: it really is a good argument.

Fact is though that all of us, Christian or not, religious or not, find difficulties when it comes to justifying our core beliefs. We constantly adjust to take in new information without really letting it get at our fundamental ideas. I don't see why discovering alien life would be any different for most people.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] eldopgergan@lemmy.world 60 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] curiosityLynx@kglitch.social 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not all religious people are the Westborough Baptists, rabid creationists, prosperity gospel followers and massive hypocrites you know personally. Nor are the rest all militant fundamentalists who think terrorism is a good idea.

There are Jains, parts of the Salvation Army and many more that are perfectly reasonable and don't go against anything science has to say. Because at the end of the day, religions and science have very little overlap, as most religious beliefs can neither be proven nor disproven.

[–] eldopgergan@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

I agree and disagree as well.

Religion as it is refers to a way of life. Ideally what your way of life is should not change with what others do or not do.

But realistically, what we have seen is that religion lets people justify their own shortcomings just because they are part of a secret group and then force their "way of life" on others.

At the same time, holding onto a single "way of life" is intrinsically prone to mistakes, since we are never given complete knowledge about everything and will never have it. We need to change constantly to be better versions of ourselves.

If there are people who believe in something greater than them, and are prepared to change if they have the necessary proof, then I'm afraid I can't call them religious. I'd call them spiritual.

[–] zikk_transport2@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago

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

[–] thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Chadarius@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Legolution@feddit.uk 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I read that as "...electron deniers" and did a double-take. Now, wouldn't that be something!?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

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...

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] fische_stix@reddthat.com 28 points 1 year ago

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

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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

[–] Bear_Paw@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Death to all who reject Avis!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago (7 children)

They would just claim god created them, too. They already did this with the universe when the whole thing about there being other stuff than the earth came up.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] ModdedPhones@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 year ago

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

[–] MrFlamey@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] qpnaosc@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

Or say that science is lying again :p

[–] Bookmeat@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

Religion is all fantasy anyway so they'll just retcon it.

[–] Elephant0991@lemmy.bleh.au 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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.

[–] curiosityLynx@kglitch.social 5 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Same for the big bang someone here claims to be a proof that all religions are false.

load more comments (12 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] electrogamerman@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

They'll just make a new Testament saying a man cannot lie with that of another planet

[–] weew@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 year ago

Facts have never stopped religion before.

[–] cedarmesa@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)
[–] anteaters@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Where did you get that idea from? Even the pope accepts evolution and the big bang as creation history. Religion accepts scientific truth all the time, they just attach "... because of god" to everything.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Kodemystic@lemmy.kodemystic.dev 16 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Bewilderbeast@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] keropoktasen@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

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.

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.

[–] TwystedKynd@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Tankaus@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would the ignorant become well informed?

I have my doubts.

[–] lingh0e@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

They'll do their own research and make their own well informed, reasonable conclu...

Sorry, I can't keep that bullshit up.

Most groups will move their goalposts as far as they need to in order to make the new reality fit their narrative. They won't actually change their minds about anything here on earth.

Other groups will start attacking the sources of the new information. The weaker will simply question the facts, like they did during the pandemic. There will also probably be a more militant arm, physically attacking telescopes and sources of extraterrestrial information like Gary Busey's son did in Contact.

A few will embrace the knowledge that there is intelligent life outside our planet... and immediately start preparing missionary trips to spread the word of their upcoming redemption like some kind of latter day Prior of the Ori.

A very small group will see this as the truth it is... that their accepted view of reality isn't correct, that maybe they should rethink things.

In short, we can absolutely depend on the religious to ruin things for everyone else, just like always.

But seriously, we should also be hopeful that whatever intelligent life we may possibly discover doesn't have their own problems with religion... because that will not end well for anyone.

[–] NotNotNathan@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

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

[–] ClevelandRock@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] dan1101@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] milos_obilic@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] writeblankspace@geddit.social 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

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?

[–] bossito@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] number6@feddit.nl 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Naz@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›