Where do UFOs and Aliens fit in your religious beliefs?

[Robert F. Smith]

Last Sunday the New York Times published an article on a Pentagon program investigating UFOs (funded via Senator Harry Reid, and operated by his billionaire friend Robert Bigelow).  Several other articles have followed.  My question is "Where do UFOs and Aliens fit into your religious beliefs?"  Or "Where do they fit into your atheist beliefs?"

Video of part of 2004 encounter by 12 pilots and assistants: 

Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumentthal, and Leslie Kean, “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program,” NYTimes, Dec 16, 2017, online at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html .

Ralph Blementhal, “On the Trail of a Secret Pentagon U.F.O. Program,” NYTimes, Dec 18, 2017, online at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html .

“That Time The U.S. Navy Had A Run-In With A UFO,”  Popular Mechanics, Dec 19, 2017,, online at http://start.att.net/news/read/category/news/article/popular_mechanics-that_time_the_us_navy_had_a_runin_with_a_ufo-rhearst .

Aaron Mak, “How Conspiracy Theorists on Reddit Are Reacting to That New York Times UFO Story,” Slate, Dec 19, 2017, online at http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/12/19/how_conspiracy_theorists_on_reddit_4chan_are_reacting_to_the_new_york_times.html .

Edited December 21, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[CA Steve]

I have not seen anything that makes me believe in either, but I do not discount the possibility. I also believe any race sufficiently advanced to have reached our planet would have technology sufficiently advanced that we would not be able to distinguish them from God.

[JLHPROF]

My Cosmology is Mormon, so while I believe in life on other planets I don't believe in aliens, interplanetary travel (unless you mean heavenly visitors), or the like.  

[Exiled]

The fact that these aliens seem to be hiding from us makes me doubt their existence as far as aliens being among us now. Do aliens exist, however? It is a possibility.

[Robert F. Smith]

34 minutes ago, Exiled said:

The fact that these aliens seem to be hiding from us makes me doubt their existence as far as aliens being among us now. Do aliens exist, however? It is a possibility.

They do not appear to be hiding from us any more than we hide from the animals we observe in their natural settings.  Our technology seems to cause them no concern, and they seem to have other business to take care of.

[Bobbieaware]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

My Cosmology is Mormon, so while I believe in life on other planets I don't believe in aliens, interplanetary travel (unless you mean heavenly visitors), or the like.  

Can you not see how some might think ministers from a post-resurrection terrestrial kingdom visiting others who inhabit a telestial world of glory might seem very much like aliens visiting intelligent life-forms on a world other that their own?

Edited December 21, 2017 by Bobbieaware

[Eek!]

Very interesting that the US Navy is releasing transcripts and testimony and actual video footage of a UFO encounter.   I cannot recall an official government source releasing this kind of information within my lifetime, especially not without an accompanying debunking "explanation".   I would not be surprised if the intention here is to start preparing people for a big reveal. 

I have no problem with God having other sheep that live on other planets, some of whom may well be far more technologically and/or spiritually advanced than we are. 

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

Can you not see how some might think ministers from a post-resurrection terrestrial kingdom visiting others who inhabit a telestial world of glory might seem very much like aliens visiting intelligent life-forms on a world other that their own?

And following a prime directive not to interfere with Telestials . . . 

[RevTestament]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Last Sunday the New York Times published an article on a Pentagon program investigating UFOs (funded via Senator Harry Reid, and operated by his billionaire friend Robert Bigelow).  Several other articles have followed.  My question is "Where do UFOs and Aliens fit into your religious beliefs?"  Or "Where do they fit into your atheist beliefs?"

I believe in the separation of church and state. Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of any religion such as an UFO-believing cult. How dare congress use my tax money to support a religious cult belief. What is this world coming to?

I'm with you, if there are any men/aliens out there, they are bound by a code of silence for telestial  beings. We really know very little about our post-earth worlds, but being that I believe God controls all worlds I imagine space travel may be possible for non-terrestrial beings - they are just not allowed to approach a telestial world.

[Bobbieaware]

12 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

And following a prime directive not to interfere with Telestials . . . 

When I was an adolescent— I’m guessing I was about 11 to 14 years-old — I clearly remember reading a statement by a well-known science fiction writer (I don’t remember is name) who said the only people on earth who wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out intelligent material beings from another world were visiting the earth would be the Mormons. He said since the Mormon God is a human-like being who lives on another planet within the material universe, and since the Mormons believe this material God from another planet has visited the earth and interacted with earthly humans, the idea of visiting aliens wouldn’t seem all that strange.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Bobbieaware

[jkwilliams]

Short answer: They don't have much to do with my religious beliefs at all. I'm with CA Steve on this in that I wouldn't rule out the possibility that aliens have visited from other planets, but I don't see any incontrovertible evidence , either. If there are such visitors, that's great, but I don't spend much time at all worrying about it. 

Edited December 21, 2017 by jkwilliams

[Rain]

The possibility of aliens in basic human form? That works for me. If you get too far from that then it changes things for me. I couldn't tell you how far is too far because obviously our colors on earth are different though none of us are rainbow colors. And through the years we have had a lot of different sizes. Then there are differences with deformities of various kinds. I do find it unlikely that everyone from one planet would have deformities such as gnarled hands from arthritis, but maybe I don't understand those things well enough.

It just goes back to God making man in his own image. If you have a group of people who walk on 3 legs, have 5 arms, blue skin, green hair, spikes all over their backs and a head that is a cube, I'm not sure how both they and us can be made in His image without one of the planets having serious deformities. 

Edited December 21, 2017 by Rain

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

When I was an adolescent— I’m guessing I was about 11 to 14 years-old — I clearly remember reading a statement by a well-known science fiction writer (I don’t remember who) who said the only people on earth who wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out intelligent material beings from another world were visiting the earth would be the Mormons. He said since the Mormon God is a human-like being who lives on another planet within the material universe, and since the Mormons believe this material God from another planet has visited the earth and interacted with earthly humans, the idea of visiting aliens wouldn’t seem all that strange.

Sounds like something the late Robert A. Heinlein would say.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

The possibility of aliens in basic human form? That works for me. If you get too far from that then it changes things for me. I couldn't tell you how far is too far because obviously our colors on earth are different though none of us are rainbow colors. And through the years we have had a lot of different sizes. Then there are differences with deformities of various kinds. I do find it unlikely that everyone from one planet would have deformities such as narled hands from arthritis, but maybe I don't understand those things well enough.

It just goes back to God making man in his own image. If you have a group of people who walk on 3 legs, have 5 arms, blue skin, green hair, spikes all over their backs and a head that is a cube, I'm not sure how both they and us can be made in His image without one of the planets having serious deformities. 

Once upon a time, the late Isaac Asimov wrote a science-fact article on what aliens on other planets would most likely be like.  Using the best logic and science he could muster, he showed how the structure and appearance would probably look somewhat like the human form -- for very practical reasons.  He may have written that in his regular column in Analog Science Fiction - Science Fact.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Short answer: They don't have much to do with my religious beliefs at all. I'm with CA Steve on this in that I wouldn't rule out the possibility that aliens have visited from other planets, but I don't see any incontrovertible evidence , either. If there are such visitors, that's great, but I don't spend much time at all worrying about it. 

Nor should you -- unless you are a 14 year old boy with an urgent question.

[Bobbieaware]

9 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Sounds like something the late Robert A. Heinlein would say.

Might very well be; I’ll look it up. Thanks for this good lead, Robert.

[hope_for_things]

13 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Last Sunday the New York Times published an article on a Pentagon program investigating UFOs (funded via Senator Harry Reid, and operated by his billionaire friend Robert Bigelow).  Several other articles have followed.  My question is "Where do UFOs and Aliens fit into your religious beliefs?"  Or "Where do they fit into your atheist beliefs?"

Video of part of 2004 encounter by 12 pilots and assistants: 

I'm not quite a theist and I'm not quite an atheist.  So where do my beliefs fit?  First, I think its extremely likely that other life exists outside of earth.   I also think its likely that intelligent life has evolved outside of earth on some distant world.  I don't find any of the theories that aliens have visited earth to be credible and I don't believe we've had any contact at any point in history with intelligent alien life, at least there hasn't been any credible evidence to support that idea.  

I think the Fermi paradox is an interesting problem when it comes to finding evidence for intelligent life on other worlds, and it presents some problems.  Perhaps if intelligent life does exist it is extremely rare.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

As an orthodox believer a few years ago I had a very different idea about intelligent alien life.  Because I believed God was orchestrating everything going on in the universe, I believed that God would protect our planet earth from any aliens life as part of the purpose of this plan of salvation to keep this earth pristine.  So whenever I read sci-fi books or watched movies with scary aliens, I wasn't bothered because I believed God would never let any of that happen.  God was controlling everything and would not allow an alien race, humanoid or other life form to visit earth.  I also believed that God created everything so essentially God wouldn't create a race of scary aliens that were bent on the destruction of other life forms.  (Oddly enough you could say that humans fit that definition from the perspective of other animals on this planet).  

Those are my thoughts.  

Edited December 21, 2017 by hope_for_things

[Bobbieaware]

16 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Sounds like something the late Robert A. Heinlein would say.

Sure enough, ‘Stranger in a Stange Land” was in my collection! Your encyclopedic mind has helped solve a mystery I’ve been wondering about for many years. It appears Heinlein did indeed have some good things to say about the Mormons. Thanks again.

[Gervin]

I recall that CS Lewis had an interesting essay on this topic in  the book God In The Dock.  I'm too lazy to look up the title of it.

[CA Steve]

Actually when I think about it, my expectation for aliens visiting our planet is raised a bit, though not for organic based life forms. We are hearing more and more about artificial intelligence as a potentiality and what its capabilities could mean form the human race. Given the limitations of an organic form for space travel, it makes much more sense to expect that we may be or have been visited by self aware machines, sent here either by a race that created those machines and/or were eliminated by them.

 So I expect that the chances we have or will be visited by an alien artificial intelligence are much higher than by an organic one.

What would be the ramifications for religion if indeed we encountered an alien artificial life, especially one that had taken over or even destroyed their own creator?

[The Nehor]

[provoman]

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Last Sunday the New York Times published an article on a Pentagon program investigating UFOs (funded via Senator Harry Reid, and operated by his billionaire friend Robert Bigelow).  Several other articles have followed.  My question is "Where do UFOs and Aliens fit into your religious beliefs?"  Or "Where do they fit into your atheist beliefs?"

Video of part of 2004 encounter by 12 pilots and assistants: 

Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumentthal, and Leslie Kean, “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program,” NYTimes, Dec 16, 2017, online at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html .

Ralph Blementhal, “On the Trail of a Secret Pentagon U.F.O. Program,” NYTimes, Dec 18, 2017, online at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html .

“That Time The U.S. Navy Had A Run-In With A UFO,”  Popular Mechanics, Dec 19, 2017,, online at http://start.att.net/news/read/category/news/article/popular_mechanics-that_time_the_us_navy_had_a_runin_with_a_ufo-rhearst .

Aaron Mak, “How Conspiracy Theorists on Reddit Are Reacting to That New York Times UFO Story,” Slate, Dec 19, 2017, online at http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/12/19/how_conspiracy_theorists_on_reddit_4chan_are_reacting_to_the_new_york_times.html .

To your question, the scriptures provide the answer:

 

And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.

[Exiled]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Nor should you -- unless you are a 14 year old boy with an urgent question.

Why do you think the "aliens" do not appear to everyone and only to those who end up claiming some authority over the rest of us?  If the aliens really wanted us to follow what they have to say, wouldn't it be better to appear to a wider audience or maybe on television?  How about communicating a little better in the written words they supposedly want us to believe?

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

Actually when I think about it, my expectation for aliens visiting our planet is raised a bit, though not for organic based life forms. We are hearing more and more about artificial intelligence as a potentiality and what its capabilities could mean form the human race. Given the limitations of an organic form for space travel, it makes much more sense to expect that we may be or have been visited by self aware machines, sent here either by a race that created those machines and/or were eliminated by them.

 So I expect that the chances we have or will be visited by an alien artificial intelligence are much higher than by an organic one.

What would be the ramifications for religion if indeed we encountered an alien artificial life, especially one that had taken over or even destroyed their own creator?

The ramifications are simple:  It would eliminate us as inefficient and illogical.  Unless, of course, Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg were correct in their application of the three laws of robotics in "Bicentennial Man."  In that yarn, the AI became self-aware and wanted to be human.  Robin Williams played him in the movie brilliantly.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 minutes ago, Exiled said:

Why do you think the "aliens" do not appear to everyone and only to those who end up claiming some authority over the rest of us?  If the aliens really wanted us to follow what they have to say, wouldn't it be better to appear to a wider audience or maybe on television?  How about communicating a little better in the written words they supposedly want us to believe?

I was just trying to be cute, in my own ham-handed way.  Sorry.