If Extraterrestrial Life Exists, What’s Your Response?
Are You Opposed, Indifferent, or Open to it?
Without a doubt, we are seeing more and more compelling and legitimate witnesses coming forth with their encounters with anomalous flying aircraft. Even further, sources inside our government are risking their careers to tell the public that the government knows more than it is saying. Politicians, who are from both sides of the aisle and would otherwise gain no political advantage from it all, are discussing this topic. All that said, I think it is time for all of us to do some honest soul-searching on how our belief systems may be impacted by it all.
In just a sampling, Joseph Curl reported last week on The Daily Wire, that the government-based All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), tasked to track reports of UFOs/UAPs, gets anywhere from 50 to 100 reports a month. While only about 2% to 5% of these end up being “really anomalous,” Curl points out that this is still a significant number of anomalous reports. Curl also states that these reports have increased significantly since David Charles Grusch went public with his knowledge of intelligence reports that the US Government is now in possession of intact craft of “non-human” origin.
Curl additionally reports that the AARO has correlated information about many of these UFOs/UAPs. There are orbs that are small, “three feet at most,” while others are “as big as a car,” that they are most often seen “at altitudes where aircraft fly, between 10,000 to 30,000 feet; the orbs “range between being stationary and being capable of flight speeds up to Mach 2; and despite their velocity, no thermal exhaust has been detected thus far in any of the reports.” And yet, he reports, the Pentagon and NASA have no idea what they are.
What Is Your Response?
We can’t quite yet say where this will end up, but we seem to be closer than ever to answering the age-old question about the existence of extraterrestrial animal life. And I do think it is something that each of us must grapple with individually. I personally know three types of responses to the idea of alien life, and each response can be from people of religious faith, agnostics, and all-out atheists.
Those Opposed
The first are those who are opposed and even hostile to the very idea of alien life by their notions of the realities of this world. To point, the existence of aliens contradicts their belief system; therefore, they are opposed to it. For those of religious faith, the problem comes in that aliens do not fit in with their idea of the relationship between God and Man and God’s revelation to Man, the Bible. Aliens pose uncomfortable questions about the Bible’s silence on this topic and Man’s favored status with God.
As to agnostics and atheists who are opposed to the idea of alien life, there is a certain sort who are generally skeptical of anything seemingly fantastical and that is outside one’s normal experience in this rather ordinary world. They find the idea ridiculous that beings would have such outlandish technology and would even waste their time visiting us.
Those Indifferent
The second type of response is complete indifference to it. People I know like this are usually quite dismissive of the topic and want no discussion of it at all. These are people who have their feet planted firmly on the ground of the earth, and want to be about the business of living their lives right here and now. Though I cannot say for sure, I’ll bet that Mother Theresa had this attitude, and I can’t help but admire those who live their lives in this way.
There are also, of course, others in this category who are too absorbed with their own lives, caught up with addictions, illness, mourning, and other such problems to think about anything else.
Either way, “indifferent” people have no time or inclination to even consider aliens and their possible existence. I believe that these people come from all varieties of belief systems.
Those Open to It
The third response is one of openness to it. That is the category I find myself in. Presuming to speak for fellow believers in God who are also open to the possibility of alien life, I can say that as a Catholic, I see no reason why God, the Creator of the Universe, could or would not create life on other planets, dimensions, or completely other universes. It is not a question as to whether God can do it, but rather whether in fact He did do it. His will be done.
That it is not mentioned in our divinely revealed Deposit of Faith poses no issues because we already know that that revelation is incomplete. Christ told us so himself when he stated, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.” John 16:12. The Bible does not give us answers to every mystery in our material world, nor was it intended to do so. We know the essentials for sure. While we know the things that God wants us to know, what exactly the afterlife entails, for example, we do not know. Most importantly, we know that when we die we will be judged by how we treated one another in this life, and that we will live eternally thereafter either in Heaven or hell based on that judgment. Far less do we have information about extraterrestrial life, other than the angels (and we do not know much about them either).
As to agnostics and atheists, they can certainly fit aliens well into their belief systems as long as there are no seemingly supernatural aspects involved with their existence. As long as aliens’ exploits can be explained by incredibly advanced technology alone, I’m sure that most agnostics and atheists would have no problem with the existence of aliens.
Questions to Ask Ourselves
All that said, I think some honest and pointed questions need to be asked of ourselves, such as:
Would my belief system be contradicted or discredited in any way if the existence of extraterrestrial life is proven?
How does my belief system account for such life in a credible, truthful fashion?
Am I always seeking the truth, or am I staying inflexibly rigid in my own pre-determined beliefs?
Food for thought.
Alec, excellent thought-provoking piece. You made me think about Creation, the start of the jet age, atomic age, and some of Carl Jung's thoughts on the "arrival" of flying saucers in the 20th Century. I'll attempt a piece in response over the next few weeks!