Aliens and Theology

Just listening to Strangers and Aliens Episode 52 in which they talk about the possibility of alien life existing and is it compatible with the Bible. I thought it was a very interesting discussion, and I was kind of surprised to find that y'all basically lined up with what my thoughts on it are. The sci-fi Christian had a similar discussion not long ago and they were way different from my thoughts.

Has anyone else listened to this episode? What did you think of it?

I wonder what older cultures thought about alien life before Darwin and the introduction of the theory of evolution?

The podcast was pretty good! They explained what they weren't going to do, than they looked at the subject from all sides, brought an outside opinion, gave a final word, and didn't thoughtlessly ignore any counter-opinions.

Now that you mention it, I've never heard of any culture that believed in aliens (before the introduction of evolution).

WhiteBoy wrote:

I wonder what older cultures thought about alien life before Darwin and the introduction of the theory of evolution?

I'd guess that what we think of as "alien life" has unnecessarily eliminated the possibilities we might consider to be TRULY alien. Ideas prior to evolutionary theory are now looked back on as "illogical" or as nonsensical fantasy. And many were in their conception. But the idea of "Mal'ak", in light of what we now understand about the universe, indicates that they are likely MORE than our typical, limited concept of alien life. Not just extra-terrestrial but extra-dimensional life forms.

Of course, as soon as I translate that word from Hebrew a switch typically goes off in our heads saying, "oh,they don't count. That's supernatural, a different kind of thing altogether." But that line of thinking only holds if we think of "supernatural" as nonsensical "magic", rather than something that simply operates beyond the physical reality we can observe.

You've probably guessed by now that "Mal'ak" translates to "Messenger" or "Angel" as it appears in the Old Testament. And although I think it's possible that a more traditional idea of "alien life" exists somewhere in the universe, I don't think we should rule out "Angels" as "aliens". They were assembled by a God of order, and so have being that is every bit as ordered as our biological forms. We just tend not to think of them that way and lump them in with our vague, ethereal notions of "spiritual" beings.

I've been seriously behind on podcasts, and just caught the most recent ones, including SBU and SaA. I heard the reference to alien life and need to go back and listen to it tomorrow on the way home from work.

I think the main reason cultures before Darwin did not think much about alien life is their model of the universe -- earth was the center and unique. Other heavenly bodies were not worlds. As the model of the universe changed and expanded, so did the imagination regarding life on other worlds. I think . . .

Spiritual/supernatural beings and their existence is one reason why I, personally, cannot discount the possibility of other life out there, too. Other, different life. Just looking at our world, there are microbes and insects and mammals and birds, all physical, and humans who have the divine spark, and angels and demons, creatures of the spirit world. The possibility that God created life somewhere else, out there, is at least a possibility considering what we already know he did here.

But, if I think to ask the question while in heaven and God's answer was, "Nope, Ben, you guys were it," I wouldn't be surprised either . . .