If an Alien visited earth in the 1600's he would find a culture deeply rooted in religion with little scientific knowledge. If we travelled to other planets in 2080 will we find Jehoovers Witnesses?? Or some other form of religion...or will they be scientific and logical....will we still be religious in 1,000 years due to scientific breakthroughs in the last 100 years?
Future = Will we find "religion" on other planets! Will it survive on earth
by Witness 007 11 Replies latest jw experiences
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Awakened07
I think that if we were to come to a different planet inhabited by intelligent beings (on the same level as us or better), they would probably have their own religion(s) and God(s). Or at least some form of spirituality. And I think that at least the spirituality and belief in a God will prevail here on earth as well, it will just have to change with the times - as it already has been doing for thousands of years. More people will probably become atheist in the future, a few will become even more fundamentalist as a reaction to the changes, and a lot of people will willingly mold their understanding of their deity, scriptures and/or spirituality after the latest scientific findings. A belief in a literal, inerrant Bible and Koran will probably subside.
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Rapunzel
This is a very interesting question that you bring up - the general question of whether there is life on other planets, and the specific question of what - if any - religion these extra-terrestrials might practice. The French author, Fontenelle, wrote Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes, in which he dealt with this issue. And another author [I think it was Mark Twain, but I'm not suie] wondered if the whole Adam and Eve saga played itself out on other planets as it had on earth. Did God and the snake have a sort of "running bet" on whether the beings on other planets would fail or pass the test of obedience? Did they agree to make it the best out of 10, or the best out of 100,000,000?
There's one thing that I intuitively know, and that is that religion on earth probably could not survive if ever there ever contact between humans and extra-terrestrials. If anyone studies the various historical encounters between technologically advanced societies and those that are less advanced, he or she will see that it always turns out badly for the less advanced society.
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Satanus
Our religions are a reflection of our animal background/origins and our struggles w lack of resources. Life here has mostly been a fight among all life forms. If evolution on a different planet was different, then their religions would be of a different nature. Perhaps, if a planet was populated w life forms that cooperated more, their religions would be more benign.
Spirituality is a different story. Since all has 'spirit' in it, it can show itself wherever there is not interference.
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WTWizard
That's why the Catholic church started the First Dark Ages, and the Watchtower Society is working feverishly on starting the Second Dark Ages. Religion cannot survive when people work on science, when people use fully integrated thinking, or when everyone is fully honest. Religion thrives when science is stagnant, and people cannot find the good explanations for things that happen in nature. Religion thrives on superstition. Superstition thrives on a Dark Ages.
If the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger has its way, religion in the form of the Witchtower Society will survive. People who observe things that are discrepent from the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger will be stoned to death, keeping the brightest people out of the system and making everyone afraid to make observations. Superstition can thus be stable when no one bothers to explain things, and the Witchtower Society will continue feeding on it.
However, if science and fully integrated honesty become mainstream, religion will not survive. And good riddance.
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Alpaca
Interesting contemplations!!!
The subject raises some interesting questions. For example, is religion a psychic experience that occurs in evolution when brains get to be a certain size? If so, it is interesting that there are a number of species on the planet that have much larger brains than we do (elephants and whales, etc.) that don't seem to express themselves religiously. Maybe the tendency toward religiosity in humans is just a quirk of evolution?
What says that religion must be developed as part of the social response of sentient beings?
I agree with Satanus that religion is just a hold over from our ancient past when mystical, supernatural explanations had to suffice for phenomena that could not be explained any other way with the limited mental tools that early humans possessed. The curious thing is that we seem to have stalled, in the evolutionary sense, when it comes to using reason and rationality to define reality. On the other hand, the rise of logic and reason (let's be generous and say that it started with the Greek philosophers) has only taken place in an evolutionary blink. Maybe, if humans get their act together and avoid destroying the planet, evolution will eventually bring us to a point that religion will recede into obscurity as just a phase that our species experienced in our development.
Cheers,
Alex
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Awakened07
What says that religion must be developed as part of the social response of sentient beings?
Several reasons, IMO.
When a species 'awakes'; in this context becomes conscious of their surroundings in the manner that humans are today, can plan for the future and learn from their past, and begins to contemplate the big questions of existence, the belief in some sort of creator is the most intuitive one, especially with the limited knowledge these early sentient beings would have (early man).
Knowing that stars and planets are made from clusters of 'dust' and gasses that coalesce to form solid, more or less spherical objects due to gravity as a matter-of-fact, and that life arises as a function of reproducibility and natural selection [to keep it simple] is not something that comes overnight, or will seem intuitive to a relatively young, sentient life form. In fact, from human experience, that thought only comes around after a couple of hundred thousand years or so of constant observing and learning about the earth and universe.
"I make things. Something made me. Ugh." is a logical conclusion for a 'primitive' human. It's a logical conclusion and an intuitive one even to this day, in fact, because it's tough for the human mind to grasp the time spans involved, and how intricate, co-dependent complexity can arise from humble beginnings. In addition of course to - when it comes to early humans - a lack of opportunity to examine the universe, something that only comes around with rather complicated inventions and discoveries.
The same would most likely be the case for other intelligent beings on other planets. The same questions would be asked, and at least initially, the same conclusions most likely reached.
In addition to the 'creator' reason for believing, there's the question of death. To see someone you know and/or loved die and lie there lifeless, would make any early (and often current) human ask "Where did he/she go? He/she was so full of life, and now it looks like an empty shell".
Then there are real, spiritual experiences that early man (and current) must deal with. Dreams and visions - both after eating certain herbs and mushrooms or having epileptic seizures - and not - would have to be explained. Many early religions relied on drug induced visions.
There is also a need to feel important in the universe. We have pretty much been the pinnacle and even the entire point of the rest of creation for many thousands of years, until "recently" when we've been able to look out into the universe and see that we seem to be rather insignificant, and that if the universe was created for us as previously thought, there would be an awful lot of redundancy. To say the least. But it's a comforting thought.
Religions form from this because not all people have visions, and those who did probably became priests and "witch doctors" and seers and shamans and what have you (who probably after a while became a 'class' - maybe an inherited 'trade' - who kept their 'drugs' to themselves), while the others had to rely on their visions and interpretations in order to understand (or at least learn about) the God(s).
In addition, religion would be a common 'thing' in a society, a glue that would keep the tribe together and perhaps separate it from other tribes. "Us and them" from an early beginning. A common belief system would be good for the group, both inward and when faced with competing tribes.
So - at least initially and for a while - the most apparent and intuitive conclusion to reach for an early 'awakening' species, is that there is a higher, creating power, and to form a system of belief (or several competing ones) in that power. IM(current)O.
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Witness 007
I there were a "second Adam and Eve" somewhere, there would be no reason for a ransome sacrifice of Jesus....somewhere there would be a faithful Adam and Eve....therefore theologically by the bible, there cannot be another inhabited planet worshiping God.
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gaiagirl
Mmmm, I believe you just experienced a "logic meltdown". If you really believe in Adam and Eve, and that they broke a rule, then it doesn't matter what happened anywhere else, does it?
A more satisfying view is that of some of the ancient Greeks:
Hereclitus (500 B.C.E.) wrote that each star visible in the sky was the center of a planetary system.
Democritus (ca 425 B.C.E.) considered that the Milky Way was a cloud of stars, each with planets around them, but that only SOME planets were capable of supporting life.
Metrodotus (250 B.C.E.) wrote "To call Earth the only inhabited world is as unwise as saying there exists only one blade of grass in a meadow".
Smart fellows, those Greeks... -
Carmel
" Every fixed star has its planets and each planet has its creatures." Baha'i writings carm