On Dec 20, 2009, at 11:39 AM, lurkernomore20002000 wrote: > Seeing Avatar, and reading a lot recently of reports of possible liquid water > on other planets, had me thinking that if "intelligent" life is found, then > Christian missionaries would feel compelled to immediately go and try to > convert the inhabitants. I am not poking fun at them. But, I figure that a > world view that holds that Jesus is the "Lord of the Unverse", does really > allow for any renegade provinces that may not have heard the "good news". I > think discovered life on another planet, (if it happens) is going to be a > tough one here.
I would suspect, like in Avatar, that the primary harm to other intelligent lifeforms would be due to militarism and/or corporatism. But keeping in mind that these two are, at least in the US, associated with ethnocentric levels of god worship and esp. Christian fundamentalism, the chances are fundie types would want to impose their primitive beliefs on even a more advanced civilization--which they would see Coulter-like, as "Godless". It's interesting that in the Star Trek mythos their civilization had developed what they called "the prime directive", no interference with civilizations with less development. It would take humanity "getting over" it's collective "God delusion" in order for that to happen IMO. Unless militarism ceases or dramatically decreases, the chances of humanity (collectively) moving beyond primitive religious conceptions is unlikely, as the survival mode that war thrusts upon a nation or people will inevitably force them into more primitive religious memes. I tend to agree with HHDL, who when he spoke to Hindu leaders at the Kumbha Mela a number of years back said 'the time of conversion has ended'. It could also be that space travel will require that forms of spiritual mastery, like being able to go into suspended animation, be wedded with technology. Such scientific realties could render primitive earth religions obsolete and potentially catalyze human evolution.
