ETI: Compatible with religious thinking?

(Author: norro)

Although the discovery of primitive life on Mars would be earth-shattering (so to speak), it would not come close to the impact that a discovery of ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) could have.

Religionists are already explaining that microbes could have long ago "hitched a ride" on volcanic excretions from Earth that eventually landed on Mars (thus preserving the Creation interpretation of Earth's divine "specialness").  Perhaps, but would this Earth-centered theory also account for the possible existence of little green (or gray) "men" that exhibit extraordinary amounts of intelligence?

If such (or other) intelligent beings were to surface on our collective "radar," what would that say for the future of our current major religions?  Would they be able to accommodate this broader view of Creation, or would they shun it as the Church once did with heliocentrism?

Dr. Ted Peters, Research Professor at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, along with Research Assistant Julie Froehlig, set about to find some answers to these questions.  The Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey was designed to explore

whether scientific confirmation of ETI would throw longstanding religious beliefs into crisis mode.

Survey respondents self-identified with these seven religious traditions:  "Roman Catholicism, mainline Protestantism, evangelical Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity, Mormonism, Judaism, and Buddhism."  According to counterbalance.org, their responses "indicate widespread acceptance of the existence of ETI and the incorporation of ETI into their existing belief systems."  It was the non-religious respondents that were more likely to predict "imminent collapse of earth's religious belief systems" should ETI become a known reality.

Resources

http://www.counterbalance.org/etsurv/index-frame.html  

Copyright August 5, 2012 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved