The true implications of discovering extraterrestrial life

This is something most of us probably already thought of quite a lot. The TRUE implications of such a discovery would really be "world-shattering", in a literal sense almost.

Once we discover only one alien civilization or life on another planet, we can confidently assume there are 100s, 1000s, millions or even more other planets with life.

What is most mind-boggling is to imagine such another planet, and how life and then ultimately a civilization might have evolved.

Here on Earth, most of our values, our technology, our science are often the result of certain circumstances or random discoveries. It is unlikely to assume that the same things will happen elsewhere.

They could develop technology entirely different from ours. Think about how common things here were discovered, electricity, radioactivity, philosophy. How many discoveries on Earth are a result of some random accident or sheer luck of someone discovering something.

Would "aliens" have discovered the principle of, say, optics..and started to build telescopes at one point in their evolution? Or did they come up with something entirely different?

Would it be possible that a civilization on another planet, at some point, would ALSO discover something like we did, for example the wheel, machinery, use of fossil sources to create energy, motors etc..... BUT POSSIBLY instead of what we did, then abandoned the discoveries as nonsense? For example, they could have been at the same stage as us at one time shortly before we started to build cars - but then simply because things went different the discovery that a motor could drive a four-wheeled vehicle never made it.

And so on.

Even more so when it comes to philosophy, understanding of the the world and then in particular religion.

There MIGHT be reason to assume that species on various planets might develop religions, simply because we can assume that an "intelligent" species wants to have things explained and is looking for answers - as we do.

But it would be easy to imagine that such religions might differ greatly from ours, they could be bizarre...or just entirely different. Mind you, I am talking about 100s or 1000s of theoretical planets and civilizations.

Would those races fight each other because everyone will (naturally!!) state that their belief is "the correct one"? This wouldn't be the first time this happened - EXCEPT..then it would include the entire universe!

How could ONE religion (Christian, Buddhism etc..) still stand its ground knowing there is 1000s of other religions and beliefs on other planets? I think the implications of that would be much bigger as initially thought.

reply to post by flexy123


I would expect that ALL species being 'intelligent' would have gods or religions surrounding important historical figures and such.

I don't think that the discovery of UFO poses a problem to the religious in all honesty. Even the Vatican has admitted that life on other planets does not make their religion invalid, it just proves further that God had plans for more than just humans.

From what I've gathered, none of the religious texts I ever read state specifically that humans were the only intelligent life in the universe.

Then again, all my thoughts and opinions are of terrestrial origin. Other species may not ( probably not ) think anything like us in those terms. Depending on their basic biology they could perceive time differently than us and perceive many other things differently as well.

~Tenth

reply to post by flexy123


i don't think it would be earth shattering.

they'll probably have televised interviews with any alien visitors to alleviate any fears.

then public appearances. where there would for sure be an assassination attempt, thus setting the precedent for future alien visitations.

but if there isn't any assassination attempts, then we'll slowly accept them once we get to know them.

and in the future they might get visitor permits, and sight see.

its not to bad. i don't think it'll happen because they are completely ignoring our military and our governments, thus this attitude of ignorance.

I think as soon as its confirmed, about 99% of Earthlings will wet themselves with fright. It absolutely will blow minds. Many will be emotionally and psychologically crippled by the revelation.

I certainly hope whatever civ it is that we interface with that they've evolved some form of religion other than the "I'm going to paradise forever and you are going to burn forever" crap they've thrown together for us here on Earth.

I also feel its super unlikely that our social and technological cultures will be comparable. More likely they'll be thousands of years ahead. We can't get to them in the foreseeable future, so they'll have to come to us.

reply to post by flexy123


I doubt that religions are wide spread amongst other civilizations, as they wouldn't even be popular here if children weren't brainwashed and indoctrinated from birth by so many parents, in the hopes of "saving their souls".

I know many who aren't religious even though they were subjected to religious indoctrination, my entire family for the most part.

Most of our children are not taught one way or the other about God, and allowed to find these answers for themselves, so far none of them have decided worshipping mother gooses fairy tales are the way to go, except for my youngest daughter who attends every Sunday and Wednesday night.

Just from my experience I am quite sure they would disappear entirely in one generation if we stopped beating the belief in "God" into their heads from birth. This is not even to mention being invented in the first place.

Originally posted by flexy123
...Once we discover only one alien civilization or life on another planet, we can confidently assume there are 100s, 1000s, millions or even more other planets with life...

I agree, but with one caveat...

...Say we find life on Mars. The first thing we would need to do is prove that it developed INDEPENDENTLY on Mars. If we discover that it is extremely similar to Earth life, then that could indicate that the two planets "cross-pollinated" themselves -- i.e., Life started on one of the two planets, then somehow jumped to the other (possibly hitching a ride on a meteor).

If life on mars was NOT independent of life on Earth, then that still may mean that we would know of only one place that life spontaneously came about.

However, I do agree that if we find life elsewhere (Mars or someplace else in the solar system, such as Titan, Europa, or Enceladus -- life that seems to have origins very independent of life on earth, then that DOES seem to indicate that life may be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy/universe.

If life just happened to spontaneously spring up twice in the same solar system, then odds are it is common.

By the way, I DO feel life is probably relatively common in the universe (maybe not EVERYWHERE, but probably a lot of places).

Originally posted by Urantia1111
I certainly hope whatever civ it is that we interface with that they've evolved some form of religion other than the "I'm going to paradise forever and you are going to burn forever" crap they've thrown together for us here on Earth.

Well, there are other ideas of a "belief in a supreme creator" right here on Earth that don't involve heaven and hell, and people don't freak out about it.

I don't believe "earth shattering" result from a ET visitation or disclosure. Although some extremist religious sects might try to complicate matters as they try to either "fit alien life" into their doctrine or "demonize" said life.

Generally people are awake enough now to realize that life elsewhere is plausible and it is only a matter of time before we find the indicator. Should that indicator come from proof of microbial life in multiple forms/places in our own Solar System it would soften the blow even more.

If ET came and landed in front of us in spaceships, people will be afraid, after all Hollywood has hyped up both "good" and "bad" aliens so our first instinct would be to figure out if they are here in solidarity or not.

I disagree about the "world shattering" part.
Certainly the prospect might cause some consternation among some.

If intelligent life on some far away rock is detected, all in all, it'll likely be too far away for us to really do anything about it in person, even sending a neighborly fruit basket, and then, there's the question of whether we could communicate at all, or even if they'd recognize or respond to attempts at long distance communication.

The world didn't fall apart or shatter when there was exclamation mark worthy front page, magazine cover headlines about discovering life on Mars way back when (which has now been swept under the rug as a 'maybe not').
In the case of another intelligent civilization, there will be some new interest garnered in space travel for sure.
Some people will find religion.
Some people will lose religion.
Some people will change to a different religion.
Some people will invent new religions.
Doom-sayers and prophets will multiply like flies on a corpse.
Active ATS membership will go up.

All in all, however, the world will continue to turn, and most people will wake up the next day, as well as the day after, ad infinitum, and go about their days as they've always done.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I wouldn't be expecting them all to have gods and religions except the ones under the annanuki empire's thumb, for the Higher Ups remember who they are. And the Good Family is the inverted pyramid to infinite Family and Progression, with the Spirit of Peace and Love uniting all, like Fibre Optics, and no one Good asks for any form of worship. Infinite Progression, (not a low frequency finite duality "creator" I keep having deep discussions with mystery school, masons and rosicrucian about. Turn the dial up on all the Ideal Atttribues of a Hero of Love: Humble of Heart, Compassion, Love, Giving, Caring, Responsible, Equality and that is Family, in infinite progressive ever growing ways.

Anyone with religions hasn't gotten far in space travel technology. Spirituality maybe, religions no.

Originally posted by Unity_99
I wouldn't be expecting them all to have gods and religions except the ones under the annanuki empire's thumb, for the Higher Ups remember who they are...

We Earthlings have religion (in fact we Earthlings have many and various religions spanning a broad spectrum of beliefs), and the people of Earth who who hold those various religious beliefs are not under the annanuki's empire's thumb.

If we assume that earth is "average", then it seems possible that other beings on other planets out there somewhere in the universe may also be average like us, and may have religions.

reply to post by flexy123


Life on other planets? Yeah, when humans can find a planet that's a duplicate of earth and we can travel to it. Then, when on the new planet we start wiping each other out and start looking for another planet, there you go, life on other planets.

Until then, it's just a wish.

reply to post by flexy123


I read an interview over 20 years ago in Omni with Freeman Dyson. It discussed some of the things we can know about alien civilizations. One conclusion (of Dyson) was the alien civilizations would have economies. Why do we have an economy? To allocate limited resources between competing (and perhaps unlimited) "wants and needs" (or uses).

As for religion, what is the protocol for interacting with aliens? Consider - are the aliens "Fallen" or un-corrupted? If they are un-corrupted, perhaps we should limit contact with them so as not to corrupt them and put them into a state of sin. If they are Fallen, well, then, have they heard about Jesus? They are ripe for conversion.

reply to post by flexy123


I think aliens showing themselves to the public now or in the near future would probably be a bad idea. We can't even accept one another as humans let alone a whole new civilization. Humans are not ready for them because we don't yet have the brain power as a whole to understand what it is they can give us and probably won't have these powers for hundreds if not thousands of years. The aliens want to bring us intelligence and all humans want are "things". For instance if they landed we would go crazy for ways to make material things instead of linking our combined minds into "super humans" so we can figure out how to do those things. Humans always look for the next step instead of the end picture even if the picture is already complete we want to build on it. We take things farther than they should go and once we stop doing this they will visit us. I think.

edit: we won't have these powers again for a long time. the Egyptians had the ability to act as one but over time it was lost.

"On no guis final proof of extraterrestrial life won't change anything because i still have to work tomorrow"
....what? really?
that seems quite a strong reaction and it smells just as strongly of bitter grapes...

i think, for the most part, there is enough speculation and discussion about all of this that, yeah, i agree, the world won't fall apart, the apocalypse won't come, and sure, you'll have to keep going to work..
well, assuming they're benevolent..
but that seems like quite shallow thinking to me;
sure we've -suspected- that they exist, such continuous rampant speculation that i feel we'd fare a lot worse if it could somehow be proved they don't.... but speculating and knowing are so different.
from that moment we would look up at the stars and we would not wonder, we would KNOW.
that question that has driven us from the very beginning of our monkey lives will finally have an answer
and it's the sort of answer that comes with literally uncountable questions of it's own.

like a group of islanders visited by europeans for the first time... it doesn't matter what tidings they bring, whether they bring peace or war or alien indifference... life on the island may continue
but we would no longer live on The Island, just one of many.
i guess what i am trying to say is it may not change most individual lives overmuch
but it would definitely change the context we live in
and over time, that will by necessity causue incredible change. earth-shattering indeed.

reply to post by decepticonLaura


If humans cant change there own nature what hope would aliens doing so.

reply to post by AthlonSavage


Aliens have the option of going somewhere where they don't have to deal with others who's views conflicts theirs. Like other planets or ships of like minded beings where what they do affects no one but themselves. But here on earth what you do in america could affect china for instance. But in order to get to that place where separation is possible you must get along for a while. A thousand years of peace would do it haha. The battles humans fight are petty to the ones aliens are fighting. There are aliens fighting over which gender is superior and we are still stuck on religion and race.

reply to post by flexy123


Before you were formed,
I readied the expansive fields.
You are seeds of the Earth,
and the rich black fields are readied for you.
And as the owner of the vineyard
does cut his most cherished vine
and bring the cane to his new bought fields
there to take root and spread,
so shall your root stretch out
and your leaves apply
the light of a multitude of stars,
and your flower be prosperous therein.
Whosoever you do meet
seek their path as you do yours.
Rejoice in Us for their sake.
Be not timorous in new surroundings,
nor fearful for your place beside Me,
for I prepared it
before the universe was made.

Originally posted by Unity_99
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

I wouldn't be expecting them all to have gods and religions except the ones under the annanuki empire's thumb, for the Higher Ups remember who they are. And the Good Family is the inverted pyramid to infinite Family and Progression, with the Spirit of Peace and Love uniting all, like Fibre Optics, and no one Good asks for any form of worship. Infinite Progression, (not a low frequency finite duality "creator" I keep having deep discussions with mystery school, masons and rosicrucian about. Turn the dial up on all the Ideal Atttribues of a Hero of Love: Humble of Heart, Compassion, Love, Giving, Caring, Responsible, Equality and that is Family, in infinite progressive ever growing ways.

Anyone with religions hasn't gotten far in space travel technology. Spirituality maybe, religions no.

edit on 16-10-2012 by Unity_99 because: (no reason given)

Here's the problem with everything you've said.

It's conjecture. I know that you are under the impression that you know all these races and all this information that you've claimed to know for years, but I don't buy it.

I'm sorry, but to claim knowledge of such things without any actual evidence to back it up is pretty damn spurious.

So I apologize Unity, but I can't take your information seriously, because you've never actually presented anything to take seriously in that context.

~Tenth

The true implications of discovering extraterrestrial life, page 1


Hi all,
Who knows what the true implications would be? Though there are some (Sec Gov) who know and have known for some time we are not alone and possibly the product of an EBE race(s).

I came to consider those in the know have two main reasons for their interacting with EBEs while keeping the secret mute outside of compartmentalized ('need to know') above top secret clearance.

One: Effect on Religious fundamentals adopted by founding fathers in the Court of Law "Swearing on the Bible", which would be shattered for a variety of reasons. Making sworn testimony moot.

Two: Highly Advanced Technology. Getting it, exploiting it for defence/offensive purposes and keeping it hush-hush so as to become beyond a 'super power'.

Three: EBEs don't want their continued presence directly known to the public.

What the implications would be vary based on when (what era) the Public were made aware they are here and why.