Would Finding Alien Life Change Religious Philosophies? [View all]

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http://www.livescience.com/48208-religion-extraterrestrial-life.html

By Megan Gannon, News Editor | October 09, 2014 07:21am ET


The nonprofit Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute's Allen Telescope Array in California has been listening for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. So far, no aliens have tried to get in touch.
Credit: SETI Institute

The discovery of extraterrestrial beings — be they slimy microbes or little green men — would dramatically change the way we humans view our place in the universe. But would it shatter religion? Well, that depends on what you believe.

In his new book "Religions and Extraterrestrial Life" (Springer 2014), David Weintraub, an astronomer at Vanderbilt University, takes a close look at how different faiths would handle the revelation that we're not alone. Some of his findings might surprise you.

Public polls have shown that a large share of the population believes aliens are out there. In one survey released last year by the companySurvata, 37 percent of the 5,886 Americans who were polled said they believed in the existence of extraterrestrial life, while 21 percent said they didn't believe and 42 percent were unsure. Responses varied by religion: 55 percent of atheists said they believed in extraterrestrials, as did 44 percent of Muslims, 37 percent of Jews, 36 percent of Hindus and 32 percent of Christians.

Weintraub found that some religions are more accommodating to the idea of E.T. than others. Those with an Earth-centric spiritual point of view are the most likely to be made uncomfortable by questions about the discovery of aliens. Certain evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, for example, are of the opinion that God's sole intent was to create people here on Earth. Some believe that if God created life anywhere else, it would say that in Genesis, Weintraub said.

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