Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!princeton!njin!paul.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ac3p+@andrew.cmu.edu (Alison R. Carter) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Extraterrestrials and human religion Message-ID: Date: 3 May 91 07:16:16 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 55 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I find it interesting that the subject of extraterrestrial life has been addressed on this bboard. However, the original posting of nearly two weeks ago has had only one or two responses. I find it disappointing that the posters on this board have been so nearsighted as to converse in local, terrestrial human religious matters rather than address this rather uncomfortable issue. My view is this, and is completely out of league with any beliefs in the original creation: We evolved independently as a planet within the life zone of our sun, and if it happened to us, it can happen many times over in a universe of a billion galaxies and over a thousand trillion stars. So how can a religion created by a straggling group of shepherds, just past the step of evolving from animal to sentient, possibly sum up the whole of creation? We see what happens around us, and all the similarities of being human. All human religions have something in common because we are all human. We have two eyes, two arms, two legs, a sex drive, and the sky is blue, rain is wet, grass is green, there's a sun and a moon. Therefore, human religion is strictly human. Could it possibly be that all the applications of Christianity will apply to other, possibly completely different, intelligences? If they reproduce asexually, or if they are docile by nature, or if they are pure intelligence with only marignal material existence, how can it be that they could be governed by the same jealous god that made Adam and Eve as his first creation, or that the same god needs to send the same son to the whole of the universe in different forms to tell any of them what to do? We are the humans. We are animal, violent, greedy creatures just out of our embryonic evolutionary stage. To assume that the rest of the universe worships the same god of humanity is assuming a lot. And why, if Christianity is the only correct religion, would such a god reveal itself to one filthy human desert tribe whilst the rest of civilization supposedly falls to spiritual ruin by creating their own "false, untrue" religions e.g. hinduism, Egyptian religion, Assyrian religion, and the scores of separate tribal beliefs that evolved in North America and Africa? I have a feeling that god is not male or female, nor is it partial to any race of evolved beings, it is immaterial, and incapable of omnipotence by itself or sentience. It cannot father children or issue commands. I seem to see that god, in itself, or spirit, is simply the high power that we are just learning to tap into and use as sentients just newly capable of reaching into the realm of the emotional and spiritual plane. Anyone tell me if I'm wrong here... A. Carter The Darwin's advocate