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The Roman Catholic approach is to say that only their dogma allows access to God. Believers, wherever they live, can only be saved through Christ, the crucifixion and the sacraments proffered by Catholic priests. That's a tough one for aliens. How exactly do they learn about Jesus? God first has to tell them that salvation is available on our distant planet. Then the devout among them must turned their telescope, radio receivers and other tracking systems towards earth in order to beam back copies of the Bible and papal encyclicals. The task is made even more difficult for life-forms which transmit information through smell, electrical impulse or other means, not to mention aliens which have not yet reached the level of technology required to eavesdrop on earth or who live so far from us that it may be billions of years before they hear the Good News. Then there's the question of providing priests to give the sacraments. Since priests can only be ordained by bishops who have been authorised by the Pope, does it mean that the Vatican regularly holds secretive ordinations for the different races of aliens who land in St Peter's Square at night when no-one is looking? Each to his own The Catholic approach underlines the impossibility of any earthbound religion claiming to be the only authority on God's existence. If the deity does exist and has created many alien species, it is reasonable to assume that each one must find its own path to God. But that still begs a question: if humanity is not the centre of universal religion, does worship of God follow the same pattern on every planet? If Christianity reflects the true faith, the Son of God must be on an eternal cosmic journey, spreading the gospel from planet to planet and being executed again and again and again. Other questions also come to mind, such as what form of execution is practised on each planet and what is the gender of the Virgin in species which require three or more sexes to reproduce? In other words, if both aliens and God exist, it is highly unlikely that the human version of the deity reflects God's true nature. We are therefore drawn away from the Jewish-Christian-Muslim concept without knowing what replaces it. Perhaps the Hindu version is the most accurate, allowing, as it does, for thousands of gods to represent the one godhead. God's irrelevance Yet the more we contemplate the possibility of life on other planets, the more remote our earthbound god becomes. He is such a petty deity, obsessed not with happiness or prosperity, but the minutiae of sexual behaviour, diet and appropriate forms of worship. Set against the backdrop of space, our earthly god reflects not eternal truths but mundane human concerns. The questions we ask about God - does he perform miracles, will he forgive us our sins, is he one or three-in-one or many-in-one? - reveal nothing more than our own insecurities. Since our species first became capable of reflective thought, we have marveled at the universe, knowing that we can only ever glimpse a few of its glories and that we will never fully understand it. It has always unsettled us, and our invention of a god-creator is our vain attempt to bring its magnificence down to human size and comprehension. We start by recognising that the probability of other intelligent species in the universe undermines the claim that man was made in God's image; we end by understanding that compared to the vastness of space, God himself is parochial, insignificant and irrelevant. for a summary of this chapter click here or move on to Chapter Three: God the creator? 
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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist. What is the difference between science and faith? science is certain of nothing and requires proof of everything faith is certain of everything and requires proof of nothing Which do you trust? "I know there is no God" or "I believe there is no God" ??? Check the answer |
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