NASA Asking Religious Leaders About Aliens - What Would Latter-day Saint Leaders Say?

[smac97]

Here: How would humans respond to the discovery of aliens? NASA enlisted dozens of religious scholars to find out.

Quote

A rabbi, a priest, and an imam walk into a research program funded by NASA to talk about the intersection of God and aliens.

It's not the start of a religious joke. It's precisely what happened at Princeton University's Center for Theological Inquiry in 2016 when two dozen theologians gathered to participate in a program partially funded by NASA to research how humans might respond to the discovery of extraterrestrial life. 

One of the religious scholars who participated in the program, the Rev. Dr. Andrew Davison of the University of Cambridge, told The Times UK earlier this month that he was one of 24 experts examining the existential question from 2016 to 2017.

Will Storrar, the director of the Center for Theological Inquiry, told The Times that NASA was interested in producing "serious scholarship" addressing the "profound wonder and mystery and implication of finding microbial life on another planet."

A NASA spokesperson told The Hill that the agency's astrobiology program provided partial funding in the form of a $1.1 million grant to the Center for Theological Inquiry from 2015 to 2017. The spokesperson said NASA was not involved in selecting the study's researchers. 

Davison, whose own work involves studying how astrobiology and Christianity interconnect, told the outlet that he and his fellow participants considered how followers of major religions might react to the discovery of aliens.

I suspect the leaders of the Church would not participate in such an endeavour if asked.  Do you think they would?  And if they did, what would they say about this?

What do you think the run-of-the-mill observant Latter-day Saint would say about this?

Thanks,

-Smac

[rodheadlee]

I'm interested in the answers. What do you all say?

[Fether]

5 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Here: How would humans respond to the discovery of aliens? NASA enlisted dozens of religious scholars to find out.

I suspect the leaders of the Church would not participate in such an endeavour if asked.  Do you think they would?  And if they did, what would they say about this?

What do you think the run-of-the-mill observant Latter-day Saint would say about this?

Thanks,

-Smac

The generic response would be “we believe in multiple worlds so that would be in Line with our doctrine”.

if the questions was specified to “what if we met inhuman like aliens?”, that may be a more interesting response. 

[The Nehor]

I don’t think we have to assume that the human form is the only form the children of God take.

[rongo]

6 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I don’t think we have to assume that the human form is the only form the children of God take.

What would "in His image" mean in that case?

[CV75]

54 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Here: How would humans respond to the discovery of aliens? NASA enlisted dozens of religious scholars to find out.

I suspect the leaders of the Church would not participate in such an endeavour if asked.  Do you think they would?  And if they did, what would they say about this?

What do you think the run-of-the-mill observant Latter-day Saint would say about this?

Thanks,

-Smac

I don’t think Church leaders would engage in an attempt to predict how Church members would react to the discovery of microbial life on another planet – not in their purview / job description.

My guess is that the reaction of Church members would reflect the same biases reflected in discussions of the Creation, Fall and Redemption we see periodically on this board.

I think this kind of research is a reasonable exercise for NASA to prepare to contribute to how governments might ethically address the discovery of life on other planets. I wonder what they are doing thee 5 years later.

[rongo]

It's fascinating just how hard it has been to find any sign of life --- even in the very distant past, and even lowering the bar to uni-cellular forms of life. Even hard-nosed skeptics admit that the most conservative of Drake's equation parameters still leave us with thousands of worlds with life, but still --- nothing. The talk has shifted to whether intelligent, advanced life can hide the signs from us (i.e., exploration via von Neumann probes, masking EMG radiation, etc.) --- or whether we're just out of luck as far as timing (i.e., advanced civilizations have risen and fallen, just not in Concert with our rise. Or, our fall will predate their rises). 

While our theology allows for life on other worlds, I think advanced life that doesn't resemble man at all would be fairh-shaking for many Mormons. What would God's point be? I personally believe we aren't intended to come into contact with others if God's children while in mortality.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Here: How would humans respond to the discovery of aliens? NASA enlisted dozens of religious scholars to find out.

I suspect the leaders of the Church would not participate in such an endeavour if asked.  Do you think they would?  And if they did, what would they say about this?

What do you think the run-of-the-mill observant Latter-day Saint would say about this?.................

The average LDS Joe would blow it off as irrelevant and immaterial.  Same response from the Brethren:  We already know who the extraterrestrials are and how they got that way.  No mystery at all.  Merely the next step in evolution.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

It's fascinating just how hard it has been to find any sign of life --- even in the very distant past, and even lowering the bar to uni-cellular forms of life. Even hard-nosed skeptics admit that the most conservative of Drake's equation parameters still leave us with thousands of worlds with life, but still --- nothing. The talk has shifted to whether intelligent, advanced life can hide the signs from us (i.e., exploration via von Neumann probes, masking EMG radiation, etc.) --- or whether we're just out of luck as far as timing (i.e., advanced civilizations have risen and fallen, just not in Concert with our rise. Or, our fall will predate their rises). 

While our theology allows for life on other worlds, I think advanced life that doesn't resemble man at all would be fairh-shaking for many Mormons. What would God's point be? I personally believe we aren't intended to come into contact with others if God's children while in mortality.

Very advanced life is out there in great profusion -- just not the version of life that scientists expect.

[strappinglad]

I am convinced that " aliens " have visited for at least 70 years if not centuries. The evidence is clear that craft moving in ways that no nation on earth can duplicate, have been seen, and recorded by cameras and radar. I don't worry about us finding microbial life on another planet. We are still finding new species of microbes and insects etc. currently here on earth. 

God's image as we think of it includes African Pygmies an Icelandic behemoths . What is the " true " image? 

For all those wondering... No I don't believe the moon landings were a hoax nor that the earth is flat, so there !!

[Chum]

36 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

I am convinced that " aliens " have visited for at least 70 years if not centuries.

Dude. We call them immigrants.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, rongo said:

What would "in His image" mean in that case?

In one of his images, in his image in being physical, in his image in being bipedal, and those are just the simple ones.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, rongo said:

It's fascinating just how hard it has been to find any sign of life --- even in the very distant past, and even lowering the bar to uni-cellular forms of life. Even hard-nosed skeptics admit that the most conservative of Drake's equation parameters still leave us with thousands of worlds with life, but still --- nothing. The talk has shifted to whether intelligent, advanced life can hide the signs from us (i.e., exploration via von Neumann probes, masking EMG radiation, etc.) --- or whether we're just out of luck as far as timing (i.e., advanced civilizations have risen and fallen, just not in Concert with our rise. Or, our fall will predate their rises). 

While our theology allows for life on other worlds, I think advanced life that doesn't resemble man at all would be fairh-shaking for many Mormons. What would God's point be? I personally believe we aren't intended to come into contact with others if God's children while in mortality.

The Universe is still young. The first stars appeared 0.1 billion years from the Big Bang. The Universe is only 14 billion years old. And unless the life was radically different from ours you need quite a few different elements to form. In most cases this means you need what is left of dead stars. The first stars were also unlikely to have planets.

If there is unicellular life outside of Earth we would have a hard time finding it unless it was in our solar system. We have found planets in the “Goldilocks” zone but we can’t tell if there is life there and many of them would not be pleasant.

Advanced life would be easier to find but still not easy. We would have to monitor the right stuff to find them and it assumes they use the same methods of communication.

[rodheadlee]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The Universe is still young. The first stars appeared 0.1 billion years from the Big Bang. The Universe is only 14 billion years old. And unless the life was radically different from ours you need quite a few different elements to form. In most cases this means you need what is left of dead stars. The first stars were also unlikely to have planets.

If there is unicellular life outside of Earth we would have a hard time finding it unless it was in our solar system. We have found planets in the “Goldilocks” zone but we can’t tell if there is life there and many of them would not be pleasant.

Advanced life would be easier to find but still not easy. We would have to monitor the right stuff to find them and it assumes they use the same methods of communication.

Things may change when the JWT goes operational. 

[LoudmouthMormon]

Folks, I had them hide all evidence of my intergalactic confederacy from you, like 50 years ago.  Look all you want.  Meat sacks can be determined, I'll give ya that.  But no really, the timeline for still set for the 2820's.  Y'all still have six apocalypses and a mass extinction event to weather before you get to us.