I have not read the entire Bible cover to cover, but I know you have. I don't think it ever says that the Creation(s) described in Genesis was the one and only Creation, does it? I mean, there's the problem of where Cain and Abel's wives came from -- there must have been another Creation over in the next Garden, right?
The whole creation story raises a lot of questions and you’ve named one of them. What if Cain and Abel’s wives were aliens? By extension, we are, too. I think this is awesome.
I come from the cult of St. Ellie Mae Clampett, personally. Whose devotees embrace all our fellow-creatures as fellow-beings and siblings, and are in no hurry to decide what isn't sentient. (Personally I hold the diapering of non-human fellow-primates to be an early heresy, and not an example to be followed with chimps or with any other creatures.)
But as for predicting how humans will react to obviously sentient extraterrestrials? For humans, it seems an inveterate and unthought routine to assume that difference means wrong and right, inferiority and superiority, natural enslaved persons and natural masters. We don't just do it with animals. We do it with humans from other lands/groups/languages/ways. With humans of faiths other than our own. with children as opposed to adults. With women as opposed to men. With non-binary people as opposed to men, if not as opposed to all binary people. With poor people as opposed to rich people.
So meeting aliens we'd want to deny their sentience. If that were impossible we'd want to establish their inferiority. If that were impossible? I don't know. SF stories in this category posit mass psychological blowouts and Ways We're Secretly Superior Really, variously.
(And how funny to treat the Bible as f it weren't written by humans, classic theology and philosophy as if it centered humans for some more universally fundamental reason than human solipsism and decision.)
If you're going to reach people who cleave to the Bible, they're only going to listen to the Bible. That's where I come in. Sadly, though, you may be right, though, that people will look for reasons to dismiss entire groups of people will certainly focus on dismissing an entire new genre of beings. Dammit.
Hey, I'm big on the Biblein', too. And I know from *liberal* seminary what blowouts people experience from the notion of treating the Bible as a set of documents.
And I still kind of boggle at that difficulty, given the gnarly self-contradictory contents you've noted.
I always considered religion a human, and in this case, an earthling conceit. While there’s some believers who are open to the idea of extraterrestrials I think for most it would be a shoot first, ask questions later situation.
Excellent point. From the New International Version: "I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd." I think it's interesting that scientists assume Christians would get their knickers in a twist over this. Maybe some do, but there's precedent, so...
And after looking more carefully at the photo you include, I’m pretty sure tens of millions of Americans who voted last November are aliens (though surely not illegal aliens - heaven forbid!)
I have not read the entire Bible cover to cover, but I know you have. I don't think it ever says that the Creation(s) described in Genesis was the one and only Creation, does it? I mean, there's the problem of where Cain and Abel's wives came from -- there must have been another Creation over in the next Garden, right?
The whole creation story raises a lot of questions and you’ve named one of them. What if Cain and Abel’s wives were aliens? By extension, we are, too. I think this is awesome.
I come from the cult of St. Ellie Mae Clampett, personally. Whose devotees embrace all our fellow-creatures as fellow-beings and siblings, and are in no hurry to decide what isn't sentient. (Personally I hold the diapering of non-human fellow-primates to be an early heresy, and not an example to be followed with chimps or with any other creatures.)
But as for predicting how humans will react to obviously sentient extraterrestrials? For humans, it seems an inveterate and unthought routine to assume that difference means wrong and right, inferiority and superiority, natural enslaved persons and natural masters. We don't just do it with animals. We do it with humans from other lands/groups/languages/ways. With humans of faiths other than our own. with children as opposed to adults. With women as opposed to men. With non-binary people as opposed to men, if not as opposed to all binary people. With poor people as opposed to rich people.
So meeting aliens we'd want to deny their sentience. If that were impossible we'd want to establish their inferiority. If that were impossible? I don't know. SF stories in this category posit mass psychological blowouts and Ways We're Secretly Superior Really, variously.
(And how funny to treat the Bible as f it weren't written by humans, classic theology and philosophy as if it centered humans for some more universally fundamental reason than human solipsism and decision.)
If you're going to reach people who cleave to the Bible, they're only going to listen to the Bible. That's where I come in. Sadly, though, you may be right, though, that people will look for reasons to dismiss entire groups of people will certainly focus on dismissing an entire new genre of beings. Dammit.
Hey, I'm big on the Biblein', too. And I know from *liberal* seminary what blowouts people experience from the notion of treating the Bible as a set of documents.
And I still kind of boggle at that difficulty, given the gnarly self-contradictory contents you've noted.
The older I get, the more I understand just how impossible it was to, as I was trained to do, interpret the Bible literally.
I always considered religion a human, and in this case, an earthling conceit. While there’s some believers who are open to the idea of extraterrestrials I think for most it would be a shoot first, ask questions later situation.
To which I say “Klaatu barada nikto”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaatu_barada_nikto
Is that translated to "Come give Grandma a kiss?"
Could be. We aliens do not fear multiple interpretations. Oops, I mean humanoids.
I KNEW IT!!
John 10:16. Just sayin’.
Excellent point. From the New International Version: "I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd." I think it's interesting that scientists assume Christians would get their knickers in a twist over this. Maybe some do, but there's precedent, so...
I can take anybody who says they ain’t! 👽
And after looking more carefully at the photo you include, I’m pretty sure tens of millions of Americans who voted last November are aliens (though surely not illegal aliens - heaven forbid!)
We are all stardust
Everything that is or ever was came from deep inside of dying stars
So I guess that makes all life alien