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In his new book "Religions and Extraterrestrial Life" (Springer 2014), David Weintraub, an astronomer at Vanderbilt University, takes a close look at how different faiths would handle the revelation that we're not alone. Some of his findings might surprise you.
Public polls have shown that a large share of the population believes aliens are out there. In one survey released last year by the company Survata, 37 percent of the 5,886 Americans who were polled said they believed in the existence of extraterrestrial life, while 21 percent said they didn't believe and 42 percent were unsure. Responses varied by religion: 55 percent of atheists said they believed in extraterrestrials, as did 44 percent of Muslims, 37 percent of Jews, 36 percent of Hindus and 32 percent of Christians.
In light of it being Columbus Day, it's kind of a fun speculation, but a somber one as well.
There is move afoot to dumb down AP History for not teaching enough "patriotism, respect for law and order" and to avoid/obfuscate and/or present a less harsh view of American History like - colonization and its impact on Native Americans; slavery and Jim Crow and its impact on African Americans.
Seriously, the article at Space.com and I assume the book as well posits a good question: if we were to discover extraterrestrial life, how would we as a society deal with it? Currently, we're having many difficulties between science and the many faiths that insist any science conforms to what its holy writ said before telescopes...or radiometric dating...or quantum mechanics.
It's also interesting that fairly modern faiths like Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Baha'i Faith (from the article) all accept the possibility of extraterrestrial life coinciding with the telescope coming into popular usage by astronomers at the time.
Would we, or could we develop a "Prime Directive"? Note the origins of it in vintage faux Star Trek history:
The creation of the Prime Directive is generally credited to original-series producer Gene L. Coon, although there is some contention as to whether science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, who wrote of the Prime Directive in an unused script for the original series, actually came up with it first. The Prime Directive closely mirrors the zoo hypothesis explanation for the Fermi paradox.
The directive reflected a contemporary political view of critics of the United States' foreign policy. In particular, the US' involvement in the Vietnam War was commonly criticized as an example of a global superpower interfering in the natural development of southeast Asian society, and the assertion of the Prime Directive was perceived as a repudiation of that involvement.
In an interview published in a 1991 edition of The Humanist magazine, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry implied that it also had its roots in his belief that Christian missionaries were interfering with other cultures. Wikipedia
It would be interesting (and I think, a very good idea) if we could get some practice with one another in a Prime Directive primer before encountering and trying to convert say...the Klingons.
Space.com: Would Finding Alien Life Change Religious Philosophies?
Megan Gannon, News Editor
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