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I saw on this page a link to another story titled "Hawking warns over alien beings" and it made me wonder... do most people that don't believe that God created
by duck 16y ago
I saw on this page a link to another story titled "Hawking warns over alien beings" and it made me wonder... do most people that don't believe that God created the universe believe in aliens? And if not, why?
- jcl 16y agoThere are people for whom aliens fill the same "unknowable higher power" role that deities typically fill. But these people usually also believe that aliens have played some active role in life on Earth. Hawking, on the other hand, believes that intelligent life could exist somewhere else -- that terrestrial life isn't that special. That's not quite the same thing as "believing in" aliens. It's like the difference between "believing God exists" and "believing God could exist".
- pbhjpbhj 16y agoIs there any way to show that aliens haven't played an active role in life on Earth though? We consider terra-forming (there was a story about Darwin doing something akin to it on Ascension Is. IIRC) as a natural way we could extend our reach to other planets. If there is intelligent alien life, or was, could it not have terraformed our planet. > Interesting parallels to various theologies and running start theories go here <.
- tomjen3 16y agoI don't think that question can be answered. First you would have to define what you mean by "believe that God created the universe" and then "what you mean by believe in aliens". In addition, I don't see how the two belies are orthogonal.