Aliens with souls?

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Hypothetically, if we discovered another alien culture, would your faith be strengthened or weakened if that alien culture had something extremely similar to the Gospel / Church? Like, a Messianic figure who preaches the Gospel that we humans received is part of an alien religion?

I would personally be very stoked. I imagine that if God created other alien species, and he so wished it, he would probably provide them with some kind of path to salvation. If we discovered that, I bet many non-believers would convert.

Sort of silly to think about all this, but I think it’s also fun. 🙂
 
seakelp said:
Hypothetically, if we discovered another alien culture, would your faith be strengthened or weakened if that alien culture had something extremely similar to the Gospel / Church? Like, a Messianic figure who preaches the Gospel that we humans received is part of an alien religion?

I would personally be very stoked. I imagine that if God created other alien species, and he so wished it, he would probably provide them with some kind of path to salvation. If we discovered that, I bet many non-believers would convert.

Sort of silly to think about all this, but I think it’s also fun. 🙂
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If you haven’t read The Fire Balloons by Ray Bradbury, do so!

ICXC NIKA
 
seakelp said:
Hypothetically, if we discovered another alien culture, would your faith be strengthened or weakened if that alien culture had something extremely similar to the Gospel / Church? Like, a Messianic figure who preaches the Gospel that we humans received is part of an alien religion?

I would personally be very stoked. I imagine that if God created other alien species, and he so wished it, he would probably provide them with some kind of path to salvation. If we discovered that, I bet many non-believers would convert.

Sort of silly to think about all this, but I think it’s also fun. 🙂
Click to expand...
If we found them on another planet we would call them soulless rape their planet and enslave them as our history shows
 
Based on our own religious development could we expect any one of the following:
  • A species that contracted no original sin,
  • A species that is divided between having original sin and not,
  • A species that contracted original sin,
    (multiply these last two with each of the following)
  • A species that has no chosen tribe and no Messiah,
  • A species that has no chosen tribe, but a Messiah,
  • A species that has an extinct chosen tribe and no Messiah,
  • A species that has an extinct chosen tribe, but a Messiah,
  • A species that has a chosen tribe and no Messiah,
  • A species that has a chosen tribe and a Messiah,
    and how would we recognize each of these, particularly the one’s that we are less familiar?
I think it would have to take some deep understanding and historical investigation of this new intelligent species.

To try to declare them to be with or without immortal souls would be even longer in the undertaking unless their religious truths match our own to a miraculous extent. Of course, that would be a source of great joy, but I’d not expect things to be so simple.
 
wmw said:
Based on our own religious development could we expect any one of the following:
  • A species that contracted no original sin,
  • A species that is divided between having original sin and not,
  • A species that contracted original sin,
    (multiply these last two with each of the following)
  • A species that has no chosen tribe and no Messiah,
  • A species that has no chosen tribe, but a Messiah,
  • A species that has an extinct chosen tribe and no Messiah,
  • A species that has an extinct chosen tribe, but a Messiah,
  • A species that has a chosen tribe and no Messiah,
  • A species that has a chosen tribe and a Messiah,
    and how would we recognize each of these, particularly the one’s that we are less familiar?
I think it would have to take some deep understanding and historical investigation of this new intelligent species.

To try to declare them to be with or without immortal souls would be even longer in the undertaking unless their religious truths match our own to a miraculous extent. Of course, that would be a source of great joy, but I’d not expect things to be so simple.
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Absolutely. I was more just thinking about what you said: “a source of great joy,” that is, finding a matching faith in another species.

But that’s a good breakdown of the issue. This is fun to think about!
 
So, we could easily find a species that is sinful as our own, and only has non-Christian style religions that God in His time may later choose a people that would rise from their equivanent Abram, but we stumbling upon them, or they upon us, could not find any current or historical likeness to our Christianity and view of God.

Do we adopt them into our Christanity? Or is our human Son of God not a savior for this other species? Maybe we welcome the few who might be evangelized, but also allow that we have no revelation that speaks of those beyond our humanity except for a minor mention from Jesus that he has other flocks to tend; so, we may suspect that God may have a revelation yet in store for this alien species. Therefore, our new friends are welcome to worship the one God of all flocks as He has been revealed to us, but pray that He would make a new revelation that is suited to the alien flock. Since, even so many of our own are not accepting of Christianity how could we expect an alien culture to even think of it as to be their own religion.

Therefore, I find no reason to give doubt of our faith from any lack of a Christian like religion of any alien creatures even of advanced capability and/or intelligence.
 
I think the biggest issue is we [human race] have been our own worst enemy. We are terrible with our own recorded history. We have destroyed our own recorded knowledge repetitively throughout history, in fact it was just occurring in Egypt, as it has before.

Cultures have a tendency to re-write history to promote their own accomplishments and usually with bias altered historical facts. Greater accomplishments tend to be cloaked in a awe which tends to show man in the light of his own ego, a self made god.

Ancient man in the area of intellect and technology has been relegated to stupid and barbaric. This is obviously not true since we can’t explain our own ancient technology and the energy applications behind the technology. In other words, man, power and labor doesn’t explain our own past creations. We’ve done ourselves a disservice. When we compare Levitated Mass with for example with the …

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilithon

We can quickly conclude we do our ancient humans an injustice. This can’t be explained away by brute force and labor, that does not explain the precision of the technology applied nor where the energy arrived from to fuel the technology.

We need a critical analysis of our own history from scratch, much of it is convoluted speculation. Truth is, by large we don’t even know the sequence of events which bought us to this moment. How can we speak of aliens when we can’t understand our own purpose of existence in the universe or our accurate accomplishments in all honesty.

The aliens aren’t the answer for everything “we” accomplished and failed to preserve the knowledge of the “how” in jealousy of each other.

At the moment this seems the biggest issue and much to quickly rationalized with a stretch of the imagination, that because we can’t solve the equation, it must be aliens.
 
Blue_Horizon said:
Yep I think they could be classed as human.
I hears of a study recently by DNA specialists who have been researching human DNA.
They have concluded that we have scattered large blocks of DNA that come from interbreeding with another “species” (Neanderthals) and this enabled us to live in much colder climates (white skin and more hair I suppose).
Unfortunately their DNA isn’t totally harmonising with the “base DNA” and, surprise surprise, these blocks of DNA are exactly the ones associated with the many autoimmune diseases that affect the human race today.
We are in fact rejecting their DNA!
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This Neanderthal DNA causing autoimmune diseases doesn’t make much sense. Our immune system DNA is a very active part of our genome while those parts ID’d as Neanderthal are inactive.

The lastest research is abandoning the Neanderthal interbreeding theories in favor of a theory of all hominids/apes having 94% the same DNA set. From this set the difference of the species is in activation caused by the interaction of DNA markers, RNA and other intercellular processes. This is a huge tidal shift in the science let alone how this will be taken by the public and this is still a rather young theory that is being quitely circulated in case it might quickly be disposed before the mass media runs with it.

I don’t subscribe tothe idea that we are Neanderthal or that Neanderthal’s are human nor do we have the necessary information or revelation to determine if they have immortal souls. By the time of the formation of the Bible the point was moot. Humans are a very distinct and narrow range of activated DNA.
 
Before I seriously consider whether or not aliens have souls, I’d like to know the evidence for aliens in the first place.
 
i think its not logical for them to have souls, if simmiliar creatures exist. What do you think?
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I’ve been taking this as the main topic question. It presupposes that similar intelligent creatures such as ourselves, though possibly very visually different, are in existence. The question is, “is it logical for them to have souls?”

I have gone past the answer of a resounding, YES, It’s logical for them to have immortal souls. To then exploring their religious beliefs and history in search of them being another flock of Jesus needing salvation, but respecting that God may well have a separate salvation plan for them. Even the question of if there is sin among them should be questioned.

On our history of imperialistic actions (hopefully we have learned something), but if this begins to unfold then it would be our duty as Catholics to fight for their rights and expanding human rights to sapient rights in order to avoid their destruction, enslavement, & exploitation of their persons or planet (possibly extending this right of local ownership to their entire solar system). It may be the greatest witness that we are Christians to be willing to be human shields for the ultimate in strangers. Hard enough that anyone would die even for a friend.
 
seakelp said:
Hypothetically, if we discovered another alien culture, would your faith be strengthened or weakened if that alien culture had something extremely similar to the Gospel / Church? Like, a Messianic figure who preaches the Gospel that we humans received is part of an alien religion?

I would personally be very stoked. I imagine that if God created other alien species, and he so wished it, he would probably provide them with some kind of path to salvation. If we discovered that, I bet many non-believers would convert.

Sort of silly to think about all this, but I think it’s also fun. 🙂
Click to expand...
I think so too! 😉 I like to write science fiction and keep up with discoveries of planets around other stars, SETI, etc. But for the record, I’m a UFO/aliens are already visiting skeptic.
wmw said:
Based on our own religious development could we expect any one of the following:
  • A species that contracted no original sin,
  • A species that is divided between having original sin and not,
  • A species that contracted original sin,
    (multiply these last two with each of the following)
  • A species that has no chosen tribe and no Messiah,
  • A species that has no chosen tribe, but a Messiah,
  • A species that has an extinct chosen tribe and no Messiah,
  • A species that has an extinct chosen tribe, but a Messiah,
  • A species that has a chosen tribe and no Messiah,
  • A species that has a chosen tribe and a Messiah,
    and how would we recognize each of these, particularly the one’s that we are less familiar?
I think it would have to take some deep understanding and historical investigation of this new intelligent species.

To try to declare them to be with or without immortal souls would be even longer in the undertaking unless their religious truths match our own to a miraculous extent. Of course, that would be a source of great joy, but I’d not expect things to be so simple.
Click to expand...
I’d think one way to know they probably have souls is if they express to us that they do think about their origins and have some concept of a “higher power.”

I like the list you made - I’ve done speculation like this for my own writing and not come up with as many ideas - I’m going to print out your list, hope you don’t mind! 😃
 
Oops, I should have put a TM and “all rights reserved” notice in it. (jk!)

What they express to you about their spirituality or origins?

Yes, just some intelligible language at all. What do dolphins speak?
They are the closest thing to an alien intelligence, but right here on our coastal waters.
Do we even know what intelligence is?
Thank God we have revelation to be assured that they are an animal, but if we didn’t we’d have to rely on scientist:
dolphins-world.com/dolphin-intelligence/

What a mess they might make of it.
 
wmw said:
Oops, I should have put a TM and “all rights reserved” notice in it. (jk!)

What they express to you about their spirituality or origins?

Yes, just some intelligible language at all. What do dolphins speak?
They are the closest thing to an alien intelligence, but right here on our coastal waters.
Do we even know what intelligence is?
Thank God we have revelation to be assured that they are an animal, but if we didn’t we’d have to rely on scientist:
dolphins-world.com/dolphin-intelligence/

What a mess they might make of it.
Click to expand...
Yes, I’ve thought similar about whales and the higher apes as well. And I don’t wish to skirt the borderline heretical, but it does seem like they have, I guess I’d say a higher animal soul (?) than a cockroach or even a mouse or snake or something. It seems as much as possible we should refrain from killing them, using them for experimentation especially if it causes them suffering, and so on. And try to learn from them and communicate with them. Just as a part of stewardship and learning about and respecting God’s creation. :twocents:

Sentience - whether extraterrestrial or whatever - I see as being comprised of intelligence, abstract/symbolic thinking, some sort of language, self-awareness and other-awareness, the ability to form cooperative relationships, a conscience, and wondering about how oneself and one’s world came into existence - the how and the who that brought it about. There are probably more things to add to the list, but those are what I can think of for now.

Then we get down to the $64,000 dollar question - does sentience guarantee the presence of a soul that is analogous to a human soul?
 
If an alien can dance to James Brown then they have soul. :cool:

But seriously, God chose to become human to redeem us? Why not an alien if they had fallen?
 
Anyone heard of airman Charles Hall, (a devout catholic btw) and his alien experiences at Nellis Airforce Base in the 1960’s? Well worth hearing him on YouTube. He’s so credible, you just can’t help believe him, but his story is truly astonishing in its implications, if it is true.
 
wmw said:
I’ve been taking this as the main topic question. It presupposes that similar intelligent creatures such as ourselves, though possibly very visually different, are in existence. The question is, “is it logical for them to have souls?”

I have gone past the answer of a resounding, YES, It’s logical for them to have immortal souls. To then exploring their religious beliefs and history in search of them being another flock of Jesus needing salvation, but respecting that God may well have a separate salvation plan for them. Even the question of if there is sin among them should be questioned.

On our history of imperialistic actions (hopefully we have learned something), but if this begins to unfold then it would be our duty as Catholics to fight for their rights and expanding human rights to sapient rights in order to avoid their destruction, enslavement, & exploitation of their persons or planet (possibly extending this right of local ownership to their entire solar system). It may be the greatest witness that we are Christians to be willing to be human shields for the ultimate in strangers. Hard enough that anyone would die even for a friend.
Click to expand...
If aliens exists as material being created by God then they sure have a soul.
I think that the main difference between animal soul and human soul is immortality and this points to the relationship with God. I do not think that the intellectual level is essential because there are saints who had a very humble intellect in their human life.
Also, the snake in Genesis, was the smartest animal.
If aliens have immortal soul like we have, I think they should also already have a relationship with God, without our intercession.
Is it possible for a human who genetically modifies himself with animal genes, to die meaning his soul leaves the body, and then an animal soul takes place and then that individual lives like a zombie?
 
Ion said:
If aliens exists as material being created by God then they sure have a soul.
I think that the main difference between animal soul and human soul is immortality and this points to the relationship with God. I do not think that the intellectual level is essential because there are saints who had a very humble intellect in their human life.
Also, the snake in Genesis, was the smartest animal.
If aliens have immortal soul like we have, I think they should also already have a relationship with God, without our intercession.
Is it possible for a human who genetically modifies himself with animal genes, to die meaning his soul leaves the body, and then an animal soul takes place and then that individual lives like a zombie?
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Reminds me of the movie “The Fly”. Well maybe (I don’t want to rush to judgement in any of these cases), but I don’t know if it matters much to our relationship with such a person. Doubt and compassion should dictate that we should treat well such a human/animal creature. Of course the movie makes the decision easy since more lives are put in danger and protecting them becomes paramont.
 
If aliens have immortal soul like we have, I think they should also already have a relationship with God, without our intercession.
Click to expand...
On this part, I reserved the possiblity that they could be like humans that lived between Adam and Noah or between Noah and Abram (Abraham). They only had a religious sense, but little knowedege or reliable revelation about God. Should we allow them to live in ignorance of God when we have revelation to share? No, but I would point out the possiblity that they could have or have had their own visit from Jesus.
 
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