Most scientists and objective thinkers now agree that there are billions of planets throughout the universe and that some of them, at least, must be similar and identical to ours. Most also believe that life is not a one time aberation from the normal but a normal course of events. The logical conclusion is that there must be life throughout the universe and probably many, many quite similar to life on Earth. And this is the conservative view. Others, including myself, believe that life devolves it's forms and composition based on the exigencies of the environment. The implication of this is that life is endemic to the natural, logical universe and that what we have here on Earth is simply a single sample of how it may appear and exist in other, even radically different environments. It also now appears -- based on quantum physics -- that life (especially our particular form, man) has a critical part to play in physical formation of the cosmos. That is, we are a critical "cog" in the overall machinery that we call the universe. Given this premise as stated above, if we were to develop the means of contacting and becoming intimately associated with a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations (whether made up of those who look similar to us or merely act similarly to us or both) how would this effect our perceptions, such as:
1. What would traditionally religious (church going) people say or think if we found that "religion" permeates other planets as well with forms of religious tranditions and services not unlike ours but under different names and different examples of "Messiahs"?
2. How would most people today (the average traditional church goer) react in finding out that the "exclusivity" of their religious Icon (Jesus, Muhammad, etc.) was obviously not so exclusive but part of a general pattern of natural, phenomenal progression socially?
3. If we found some of these distant civilizations with creatures of very "human" qualities but appearing much differently (perhaps like an octopus), would we now have to go through another round of ending "racism", "race" now being not the difference between colors of the same form but differing forms of the same "humane nature"?
4. If we found these "people" (say as described in No. 3 above) speaking a language almost identical to English, so much so that we could understand them about as well as we understand a cockney accent in England, how would this effect and affect our perception of ourselves? This based on the fact (as linguists see it) language is instinctive and not learned and that all languages on this planet are essentially the same with nuances of difference.
5. How would this affect our understanding as to the question as to whether there is or is not a God and our relationship to that proposed phenomenal reality?
Think about it and discuss.
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Comments: 27
As humans, and as our history has demonstrated, logic is NOT one of our strong points. I seriously doubt that visitors from another planet would be very well accepted by humans. I think they should stay home or go somewhere else, at least for now. They wouldn't like us much anyway - we cause too much trouble.
It seems a small leap to imagine that sentient life must exist elsewhere in the vastness.
Demonstrable proof that such life exists would be both a blessing and a curse. Recognition that we are not alone might just help us to overcome our insistance that our differences are somehow more important than our commonalities.
Ona baser level, the enemy of my (perceived) enemy is my friend.
I personally think that we will "grow religiously" prior to being able to contact other peoples. It is a universal law that prohibits "primitive societal collisions." Any culture which does not mature to the point of being more universal in spiritual aspect will "fall by the wayside" so to speak. To achieve technological superiority, any society must become very harmoniously functioning from a social point of view. Otherwise, it will, by a prime "law" of what I will call "psycho-physics" spin itself out of control from internal wrangling (such as is going on on earth right now). Which brings up...
Now I will post question Number 6 on the original article's list: "6) If all of the assumptions about the existence of "man" (in any physical form) is correct or nearly correct... and if we can reasonably assume that a) we cannot be the most advanced technological form in this vast universe, b) some must be at least a million years ahead of us technologically speaking, a small time compared to the total time available, and c) it is reasonable to presume that "they" have solved the "speed of light" constriction, why is it that we have not been visited by now at least in a way that is indisputable and quite apparent on the face of it?
I have an answer to this last question, but I invite others to post their views prior to my giving my own answer. Ta, ta!
The "Prime Directive" not only makes for good television, it makes good sense.
Any civilization smart enough to get here from there would have to view us as relatively primitive and strive to avoid interfering with our development. They would watch us the way we would watch some undioscovered tribe in the Amazon.
The fictional reference I used above often presents a species where individual members exist on different spiritual and intellectual planes.
It is certainly possible that an alien species could choose to contact one or a few enlightened individuals rather than land their spaceship in Central Park in broad daylight.
If we reflect on the pace of technological advancement over the past hundred years and realize that the pace is accelerating and extrapolate forward, a difference of only a few hundred years or possibly a few decades is likely all that separates us from the travellors.
We are also "off limits", "out of bounds", "quarantined", by the "leadership" of those most benevolently involved with it all, yet there are "criminal elements" in those "societies" also, that have had interactions here, primarily with a relative few who cooperate with them for the eventual (desired for them) control of this planet from a materialistic galactic perspective ...
And every bit of this is written about, first in stone, such as in the Sumerian Tablets, then in other forms throughout our history. So much of it denied and covered over in various ways by our controlling orthodoxies, secular and religious.
These very issues are but the fall-out of what has been called "The War in the Heavens" ... people should really begin to take off their blinders that our societal controllers have given us to use for such a limited reality as that of orthodoxy.
IMnsHO.
As to mixing up "spirituality" with "religiosity", I do this deliberately. I completely understand and sympathize with the tendency of "aware" people today being highly skeptical of "religion" as seen through the "eyes" of churches and various clerical machinations. My opinion, however, is that the religious phenomenon is a very natural process that has gotten a "bad name" from the misuse and misunderstanding of what it is all about by it's practitioners (churches). When I refer to "religion" I don't mean "organized religion" as preempted in name by those presuming to be it's spokesmen (or women). I mean "religion" in it's nascent and pure form, unsullied by human manipulation. Unlike many (if not most) "intellectuals" today who distance themselves from the primitive and unsophisticated belief system of the greater masses of people still stuck in ideas about the nature of "religion" as appropriate to our collective stage of evolutionary development a thousand or two thousand years ago, I prefer to remain free to speak openly and appreciatively about God and religion as a "facto prima facie." I don't let the ignorant take words like, "God" and "Religion" and hold them as hostages for their own narrow purposes. So I hope you will be understanding of this and perhaps stand beside me in revolting against this high-jacking of truth and prostituting it for their own narrow and selfish purposes. "God" is not a four letter word, nor is "religion."