W e are alone in the universe because our religions will not tolerate otherwise.
We are alone in the universe because it is impossible to reconcile
our religious beliefs, laws and systems with the existence of
other sentient beings.
For a moment, take into consideration the primary religious myth
of the Western world, Christianity. In its grand cosmology, God
the Father (being one person in the triune godhead) reconciles
the chasm between himself and humanity by dispatching his only
begotten Son (the second person of the Trinity) to die for the
sins of mankind. Having accomplished this feat through a gruesome,
expiating death on a cross, the gap is bridged and humanity may
now enter into a full relationship with the godhead rather than
risk eternal damnation.
If there is an extraterrestrial intelligence in the vast universe,
in one of the hundreds if not millions of galaxies and billions
of stars like our own, orbited by innumerable planets resting in
the habitability zone, does this mean that God the Father must
send his Son to die again? If the civilization is older than ours,
or even younger, is the drama of redemption (requiring the death
of an innocent man) re-enacted throughout the universe?
Or, does the Christian drama stand true for all sentient beings
in the universe? Is the incarnation of God on planet Earth, a world
so hidden from the rest of our own galaxy, just a one-time event
that will stand true for all other intelligent life (read intelligent
souls) needing grace to be saved from hell?
The issue is, surprisingly, not new, but the answer cannot be reconciled
to our religious myths no matter how hard we try. Our religions
speak to our seemingly innate wonder at what else is out there,
to order the unknown. Religion, no matter the creed, answers the
most terrifying of all questions: what happens when we die? Judaism,
Christianity and Islam have posited a supreme being who makes humans
in his own image and who acts decisively in human affairs. He makes
deals with the patriarchs that their offspring will inherit a rather
small piece of land in perpetuity provided they follow his laws;
he suspends the laws of biology to perform parthenogenesis to bring
forth his son to die an agonizing death on a piece of wood to save
all of mankind; he speaks to the husband of a successful business
woman in the mountains to (re)found a religion that spreads faster
than any other in history.
There is no way to reconcile these competing claims with ourselves,
so how much so with the existence of aliens?
But nothing succeeds like failure, and religion on the whole has
failed to deliver mankind from any earthly problems; cured diseases,
ended poverty, insisted slavery was wrong or detailed celestial
mechanics. Still, it's entirely possible that in some fertile mind,
a theology of wrecked theology has been worked out, calibrated,
waiting in the wings for the latest crisis that often to shake
religion to its core. Yet no amount of solipsism or self-justification
will escape the central fact: our religions place man at the center
of the universe and we can tolerate no other. In a perverse way,
while God has instructed his believers that there is him and only
him and will not brook a rival, so mankind has replied with the
same statement only in reverse: there is us and no others.
There are no aliens because our religions cannot explain them away.
Even though religious fundamentalists rail and rage about how science
and secularism have denigrated mankind, it is they with their priests,
rabbis and mullahs who have denigrated the potential existence
of other sentient beings in the universe with a theology that God
prefers our species. Fights battles on behalf of our men, impregnates
our women and dies for our sins. Fundamentalists accuse secularists
of placing man on a pedestal, when it is they who have forced God's
hand (so to speak) by insisting that God is a man, or at least
behaves like one, when they really want to place humanity as the
pinnacle of creation. Religion is supposed to worship the deity;
fundamentalism makes man the object of God's desire. It is a form
of idolatry by other means.
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At the core of the West's central myth is the resurrection of Jesus.
This event, as the Church has taught, is unique and unparalleled
in human history. For a moment, let us ignore the resurrections
of Mithras and other divine superheros and take this claim at its
face value: it happened decisively at one point in time and will
never happen again. Yet what of those other worlds? If there is
life out there, perhaps a few thousand years behind us, are they
not in need of salvation that requires not only the death of the
divine Son but also his resurrection? Not to mention future civilizations
that may occur when ours dies out.
But if salvation through death on a cross occurs on Earth, then
we have to argue that its implications for the universe at large
means there can be no other sentient life forms out there. If God
reveals himself and his laws to human beings, then does he demand
that other civilizations refrain from eating shellfish or wearing
clothes made of two types of material as well? In the Christian
universe, does this mean that parthenogenesis, resurrection and
eventual parousia (the re-appearance of Jesus) is not unique to
our world?
And what of the end of the world, and the establishment of the new Jerusalem
(the kingdom of God)? What implications does this have for the entire known universe?
It seems deeply unfair that when judgement comes to Earth and the world is destroyed
and replaced by a different one, that other civilizations far from us will not
witness this event or cannot be privy to "salvation" by dint of the fact that they are ignorant of such activities. Should the entire
universe now be subject to the religious language and imagination of human beings
on Earth? Will the universe be destroyed and all life in it to accommodate our
vision of the End?
To avoid this, we must deny that there was, is or ever will be life in the universe.
We must be alone, because our theology will fail because of it. With the exception
of the hardcore fundamentalists, most people acknowledge how small and puny the
Earth is in relation to our galaxy and the universe at large. We accept this
as a physical reality, but not as a religious reality because it would make or
break our faiths. As previously mentioned, there are those who will scour scriptures
to adjust to the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence ("In my father's house are many mansions," John 14.2) or concoct a hodgepodge of different religious systems to synchronize
everything. Such exercises are nonsense, of course, because religions posit their
validity on having received God's laws. The rules of the supreme being must be
true throughout the universe, no matter who receives them; otherwise they are
mere suggestions, not laws.
Thus if God expresses his divine will to humanity, it either must be repeated
with other civilizations or there are no other potential receptors for the divine
word. Because mankind has never re-evaluated his religious language for the universe
at large, any intelligent life out there cannot not co-exist, or must become
victim to the human salvational scheme of things. So the word of God is only
given to human beings, not to the twelve-fingered sentient life form whose origins
are a methane lake.
Aliens do not exist because our religions cannot explain them away. At least
this way, we do not have to worry about their immortal souls. |
