<<< if 'god' were to show up tomorrow, wouldn't people in general think that he/she/it were just some scary space alien and perhaps try and nuke him/her/it?>>>
I find it funny that millions of people will blindly accept the concept of an invisible spirit creature they call god but not be able to comprehend a possible existence of another race of humanoid beings that may populate another planets much like our own. You ask if god was to show up tomorrow would people possibly consider him to be an alien and try to nuke him. I would say the possibilities are rather strong that they would. Even though we have advance tremendously as a culture since the late 1930's we still seem to have the same insecurities when it comes to things we do not completely understand as they did then. In 1938 H.G. Wells produced a radio play from his book "War of the worlds" and it set up a panic that has had no equal in its reaction since then. Even though it was stated in the beginning that it was only a radio play thousands of people took it to be very serious and ran rapid through the streets of New York and other surrounding cities.
I do not think most people of this decade would react as quickly as those in 1938 because we are much more skeptical and open to many more forms of news and information now then they were then. But, the level of fear and the reaction to that fear once something has been confirmed would out weigh that of the War of the worlds event and could be catastrophic. Of course good old god would wave his magic wand and everyone would end up sipping tea and nibbling butter crackers as they waited to be delivered upward and onward.
If you look up the definition of the word alien I think you would have to agree that the common consensus of the belief of what and who god is, would indeed define him as an alien. Maybe not one of the large headed black eyed so called "Grays" or close relative but an alien just the same. We also tend to limit space travel possibilities based on our limited knowledge of what we believe are the full capacities of known physics. Until we are actually deep into our universe, far away from our planet, we cannot absolutely say what laws of physics are definite and which ones are not. We understand the concept of the speed of light but without more knowledge of how the universe absolutely works we cannot say that the speed of light is absolutely the fastest form of calculating speed. It is all we know right now. We do not know it all. There could be secrets in this universe that are so incredibly far beyond our present comprehension our most creative minds could not even venture a guess on what technology would be use as a simple light switch to turn any of it on just so we could look at it. A mere few hundred years ago we thought riding on a horse was the fastest way of traveling, well ....that and dropping off a very high cliff. Now we type words in a chat room and people from all corners of the planet can see what we are saying in written form a few short seconds after we hit send. That's mind boggling in itself but it is nothing compared to what we might be doing a hundred years from now.
It is very possible that earth and it's inhabitant species are but in the embryonic stages of existence in our universe when compared to other possible civilizations. My guess is we are but a speck in the whole time game. With that in mind it would be very easy to conceive the possibilities of a much superior race popping in and out of our world as they check us out. Another common thought subscribed to is that if we were indeed visited that it would be in the way of an invasion. That again is based on our own understanding of visiting other places and on our own history of exploring so called new worlds on our own planet. Throughout human history we explored, discovered, invaded, and then conquered. Just because some of our ancient ancestors used this particular form of making friends and influencing people doesn't mean a more superior and much more intelligent race would act in the same manner. Maybe they are a lot more civilized then we give ourselves credit for. We could be the laughing stalk of the whole universe, who knows. These concepts and thoughts are only limited by your own prejudice and lack of imagination. I'm sure that if one of Christopher Columbus's men told him that on the next trip he wanted to go to the moon they would have fed his sea going ass to the fishes. Now look where we are. You just never know.
Dave