How would contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life affect religion?

[The Mikado]

Go for it.

Does it lead to evangelizing to the aliens? Might they have a faith that gains popularity here? Would the existence of life on other planets cause crises for religions here on Earth or strengthen them?

Can we let the aliens take Jerry Falwell Jr and Franklin Graham home with them? Would we end up regretting that?

[The Mikado]

Taking a stab at my own question:

At least out of the Abrahamic faiths, I think Christianity would be hardest hit.

Islam has a baked in answer: its contention that God sent just about every group prophets at some point to tell them there's only one God and that Muhammad is just the final and greatest of these prophets with the most accurate version. IF an alien species is monotheistic, Muslims can easily go "Sure, God sent them a messenger! They're people of the Book. They just need to hear God's final prophecy..." and proceed from there. It's trickier if aliens believe in multiple gods, have no god, or, worse, have no cultural connection to the concept of God.

Christianity, though, has it tougher. The only Christian group designed with the possibility of aliens in mind are the Mormons, who'd probably be rejoicing at contact, but every other Christian group would really struggle with the idea of intelligent life who have existed for eons with zero chance of salvation. It would be the Native Americans all over again on a much bigger scale.

Aliens would, of course, not really be an issue for religious Jews at all, who have no universalizing inclination and wouldn't particularly care what God or Gods these aliens worship, as it'd have no theological consequence on Judaism if people exist on another planet.

[vitoNova]

Extraterrestrial beings would regard Earth's terrestrial, man-made religions the same way we homo-sapiens regard the hootings and hollerings of wild chimpanzees in the jungle.

Interesting?  Absolutely.  And should be archived and preserved for academic study.  Useful?  Again, absolutely.  Such screeching alerts other members of the tribe to look out for potential predators.  Or where to find the nearest fruit.  

But insightful into the actual workings of the Universe?   Not at all.  And not even close.

[The Mikado]

Extraterrestrial beings would regard Earth's terrestrial, man-made religions the same way we homo-sapiens regard the hootings and hollerings of wild chimpanzees in the jungle.

Interesting?  Absolutely.  And should be archived and preserved for academic study.  Useful?  Again, absolutely.  Such screeching alerts other members of the tribe to look out for potential predators.  Or where to find the nearest fruit.  

But insightful into the actual workings of the Universe?   Not at all.  And not even close.

So you're suggesting alien evangelists will have more luck spreading their faiths to us? That is a real possibility, too. Easy for a charismatic alien displaying advanced tech to seem like a guru worth following.

I would not rule out conversion the other way, though, or syncretism to form new alien friendly versions of Christianity and Islam and Buddhism, at least. Much like Mormonism is an attempt to update Christianity for the Americas, a new space religion incorporating some alien space God as being the same being actually as God the Father might be a popular new version of Christianity.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Extraterrestrial beings would regard Earth's terrestrial, man-made religions the same way we homo-sapiens regard the hootings and hollerings of wild chimpanzees in the jungle.

Interesting?  Absolutely.  And should be archived and preserved for academic study.  Useful?  Again, absolutely.  Such screeching alerts other members of the tribe to look out for potential predators.  Or where to find the nearest fruit. 

But insightful into the actual workings of the Universe?   Not at all.  And not even close.

So you're suggesting alien evangelists will have more luck spreading their faiths to us? That is a real possibility, too. Easy for a charismatic alien displaying advanced tech to seem like a guru worth following.

I would not rule out conversion the other way, though, or syncretism to form new alien friendly versions of Christianity and Islam and Buddhism, at least. Much like Mormonism is an attempt to update Christianity for the Americas, a new space religion incorporating some alien space God as being the same being actually as God the Father might be a popular new version of Christianity.

So here's a notion that sounds wild but when you think about it is not only plausible but it makes sense: "Alien Christianity" would not only be a possible future thing in this scenario, it's entirely possible that it (along with "Alien Islam/Buddhism/etc.") already exists!

Any society technologically advanced to be able to make contact with us is clearly also one that would have technology to monitor and study our world well beyond ours. This wouldn't be some sci-fi movie where they land and then have to learn all about our planet and society...they obviously would have to have ways to already observe and learn this, think of how we use satellites for observation now, who knows if they have dumped some undetectable with our current technology nanomachine satellites into our atmosphere and have been monitoring our planet via them for decades if not centuries. So by the time any contact happened, I think it's safe to say that the aliens would have knowledge of the planet's largest religion. And furthermore you know how people from advanced developed cultures on Earth love to appropriate things that they find unique and exotic from other cultures, including religions? (See white Buddhists, neopagans, etc.) It's not really a stretch to think that some aliens in that civilization would actually find Christianity so fascinating they'd start practicing it themselves (or some syncretic spin on it with their own society's history, etc.) And considering the time frame it's possible it's been around centuries as well, so maybe even had the chance to develop into a real notable religion on that world instead of just the equivalent of Wiccans today or whatever.

In fact, it's not unfeasible first contact would be made by these "alien Christians", after all if given the opportunity why wouldn't they want to visit the Holy Land?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Extraterrestrial beings would regard Earth's terrestrial, man-made religions the same way we homo-sapiens regard the hootings and hollerings of wild chimpanzees in the jungle.

Interesting?  Absolutely.  And should be archived and preserved for academic study.  Useful?  Again, absolutely.  Such screeching alerts other members of the tribe to look out for potential predators.  Or where to find the nearest fruit.  

But insightful into the actual workings of the Universe?   Not at all.  And not even close.

So you're suggesting alien evangelists will have more luck spreading their faiths to us? That is a real possibility, too. Easy for a charismatic alien displaying advanced tech to seem like a guru worth following.

I would not rule out conversion the other way, though, or syncretism to form new alien friendly versions of Christianity and Islam and Buddhism, at least. Much like Mormonism is an attempt to update Christianity for the Americas, a new space religion incorporating some alien space God as being the same being actually as God the Father might be a popular new version of Christianity.

The idea that human conceptions of "faith" "charisma" and "God" exist in or would have any relevance to wholly different species from different worlds seems...presumptuous.

[PSOL]

Depends if the Aliens take over or not

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The Rapture is very close to what aliens would do if they take us from this planet.

Everything religious wise is intertwined with aliens. The pyrimds were thought to be built by Aliens and whom were the first Gods, Moses, Jesus, Elijah, and the Pharaohs

The whole rapture thing is based on some alien life forms beaming us up to heaven, but it's impossible, in order to get to heaven, you must die first.

All that will happen is that people would assume that God is many Gods in these alien life forms

[Dr. MB]

The Rapture is very close to what aliens would do if they take us from this planet.

Everything religious wise is intertwined with aliens. The pyrimds were thought to be built by Aliens and whom were the first Gods, Moses, Jesus, Elijah, and the Pharaohs

The whole rapture thing is based on some alien life forms beaming us up to heaven, but it's impossible, in order to get to heaven, you must die first.

All that will happen is that people would assume that God is many Gods in these alien life forms

Have you ever had an experience with aliens yourself? Such as an abduction?

[Dr. MB]

According to J. Posadas any alien society advanced enough to explore the cosmos would have to follow communism as capitalism would stop any journey in its tracks before it could start. Since Marx was against religion we can only assume that alien Marx would take the same view, so once they arrive they'd bring the world revolution here and all religious influence across the planet would be eliminated.

[PSOL]

Taking a stab at my own question:

At least out of the Abrahamic faiths, I think Christianity would be hardest hit.

Islam has a baked in answer: its contention that God sent just about every group prophets at some point to tell them there's only one God and that Muhammad is just the final and greatest of these prophets with the most accurate version. IF an alien species is monotheistic, Muslims can easily go "Sure, God sent them a messenger! They're people of the Book. They just need to hear God's final prophecy..." and proceed from there. It's trickier if aliens believe in multiple gods, have no god, or, worse, have no cultural connection to the concept of God.

Christianity, though, has it tougher. The only Christian group designed with the possibility of aliens in mind are the Mormons, who'd probably be rejoicing at contact, but every other Christian group would really struggle with the idea of intelligent life who have existed for eons with zero chance of salvation. It would be the Native Americans all over again on a much bigger scale.

Aliens would, of course, not really be an issue for religious Jews at all, who have no universalizing inclination and wouldn't particularly care what God or Gods these aliens worship, as it'd have no theological consequence on Judaism if people exist on another planet.

I’d say Mormonism would be pretty damaged by the whole thing at least on par with other faiths. Mormonism accepts that there are different gods on different planets, and that just requires the extraterrestrial proselytizers to say that the faith doesn’t exist. Of course maybe that would require negating said god of godhood, creating a new layer of doctrinal escape hatches.

Most Abrahamic religions are pretty human-centric in particular, so the introduction of aliens would just lead to them being regarded as animals. That is until said aliens establish political power and cannot be regarded as fauna.

Addition: yeah, in Islam there is a limited # of people of the book that get second-class human rights

According to J. Posadas any alien society advanced enough to explore the cosmos would have to follow communism as capitalism would stop any journey in its tracks before it could start. Since Marx was against religion we can only assume that alien Marx would take the same view, so once they arrive they'd bring the world revolution here and all religious influence across the planet would be eliminated.

I’ve read (more) Marx (and fellow travelers and theoreticians) and this is just untrue. The aliens could merely have a numerous amount of easily extracted resources lowering input costs or have biologically more scientifically capable builders of said technology. In this Alien capitalism or feudalism or blorg hivemind mass wherever they are, something made it easier and possible for space travel.

Now for our human conditions, I would advise communism as an answer to explore the cosmos, as innovation is stifled under capitalism by not being prioritized over short-term profits and the fact that our environment doesn’t have the time it needs to be mostly livable in most places for the two centuries we need for space travel.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The Rapture is very close to what aliens would do if they take us from this planet.

Everything religious wise is intertwined with aliens. The pyrimds were thought to be built by Aliens and whom were the first Gods, Moses, Jesus, Elijah, and the Pharaohs

The whole rapture thing is based on some alien life forms beaming us up to heaven, but it's impossible, in order to get to heaven, you must die first.

All that will happen is that people would assume that God is many Gods in these alien life forms

Have you ever had an experience with aliens yourself? Such as an abduction?

Of course not, but in sleep I have dreamed of aliens and especially they say in sleep paralysis, you hallucinate aliens and I have.

We won't have contact with aliens unless it's the afterlife or we can visit other worlds or they come to us or we die

[Agonized-Statism]

For Christians at least, just reinterpret John 10:16 and you're good to go.

[Samof94]

Turtledove’s Race aliens had something like Shinto with divine emperors.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Probably the major religion that would have the least trouble assimilating the reality of extraterrestrial life would be Mahayana Buddhism, nothing about which requires that humanity qua humanity have a favored position in the cosmos.