…with the James Web Telescope looking for sources of artificial light to identify potential intelligent life, and the news this week of Perseverance searching for microbial life on Mars it feels like we are getting closer to a major discovery. But what - if anything - would it mean for the religions on Earth if life is proven to exist out there?
I remember being taught that Jesus presented himself to the rest of the world after his resurrection and that beyond that ‘the rocks testify’ and that all man is without excuse.
It always bothered me, even before I began deconstructing, and was one of a few things that never set well with me.
I’m surprised that in all my study of Augustine I never saw this about him before.
Yes, I always kind of respected the Mormons for at least trying to reconcile the existence of the Native Americans with the New Testament, beyond ‘the rocks testify’, but they also inadvertently showed how absurd the whole idea was by stretching every kind of evidence (biblical, linguistic, genetic, archaeological, etc.) so much to make it work! And of course even that didn’t seem to account for the Polynesians and… well, everyone else.
I was always especially fond of the idea that Jesus revealed himself to the Aztecs and they somehow got so confused that they ended up worshipping a giant feathered snake instead.