Aliens and Demons

I have not seen Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, but I was inspired to expand on this topic by some of the discussion around it. As our current administration claimed to be releasing UFO files, conservatives like JD Vance started talking about how alien encounters must actually be with demons instead, while Spielberg suggested that the existence of aliens might challenge religion.

To the average person, this may sound ridiculous. What possible effect could aliens from elsewhere in the universe have on your belief in whatever deity created this particular world? Sure, aliens aren’t in the Bible, but neither are Americans, and we know they exist without shaking anyone’s belief in Jesus. And it made me realize that despite the pernicious, constant effect that fundamentalist Christianity has on our society and politics, a whole lot of people really just don’t know what its actual, specific beliefs are.

Let me lay mine on the table: in matters relating to God, I am an atheist who does not believe in a creator with whom I can have a conversation. As for aliens, our universe is, if not infinite, at least very very very big. If the planet earth represented the whole universe, our galaxy would likely be at a size smaller than an electron in comparison. Human minds can’t really wrap themselves around infinity, but if we use the logic of 100 random typewriters that last forever having their keys randomly pounded by immortal monkeys and eventually turning out the complete works of Shakespeare, then given an infinite universe and infinite timeline, any life form that can possibly exist, will exist, at some point.

Thus, I think it’s likely there is life on other worlds. I think it’s highly unlikely any of it has visited Earth. Science as we know it defines faster-than-light travel as being pretty close to impossible for us, and the only other chance we’d have to reach other solar systems would be a generation ship, which would take resources beyond what we’d be willing and able to do.

So why can’t fundamentalists have that same view of aliens that I do? Once you know how they think, it’s somewhat logical, from their perspective, if crazily literalistic from mine.

First, let us define our terms. A Christian fundamentalist is someone who worships Jesus as God in the flesh, and calls the Bible the unchanging inerrant word of God, to be taken literally except where the metaphor is obvious. Definitions of obvious may vary – I would call most of Genesis an obvious metaphor, while they insist it’s actual history. But when I say they accept there’s metaphor in there, I mean that when the Bible says Jesus is seated on the right hand of God, they’ll concede it doesn’t mean that God literally cannot move his hand because Jesus’ butt is weighing it down onto a golden chair. (That was my grandfather’s argument against biblical literalism, but it only goes so far.)

The fact is, nobody takes all of the Bible as eternal, literal, unchanging divine law, and the proof of that is that nobody, Christian or Jew, is still in the business of cutting the heads off turtle doves and sprinkling their blood around the house in order to cure skin rashes, as commanded by the Law of Moses. Christians will get past it by saying that once Jesus was sacrificed, animal sacrifice was no longer needed. But in that case, the Bible isn’t unchanging, as it shows God altering tactics at the very least, and changing his mind at most. Regardless, my point is that “literalism” varies from person to person.