are we alone in the universe with over 700 quintillion planets are we the only sentient beings this little question has perplexed and confounded humans for centuries the natural curiosity of man leads him to speculate about such ideas as carl sagan put it space exploration leads directly to religious and philosophical questions the ideas of god aliens and ufos all spring from the same well if you happen to turn on the television at night or traverse the weird corners of the internet you're bound to come across plenty of conspiracy theories about alien races that live among us
unidentified space vehicles that carry out surveillance under cover of the night and much more it might seem like this is a relatively new phenomenon the ancients were busy foraging and surviving they would not have had time to lay back and spot ufos you might think well even though that seems like a plausible argument the reality is far from it the construction of the pyramids has long been contested it is not just modern humans that believe that extraterrestrial beings visited the planet to construct or help in the construction of the various pyramids on different occasions in
human history people have believed in the existence of extraterrestrials other examples of ancient constructions that lead people to speculate alien involvement includes the nazca lines in peru the city of teotihuacan in mexico pumapunko in bolivia vagina negara vastu temples in india stonehenge in england and the hieroglyphics some believe were found on mars moreover archaeologists often discover paintings from ancient cultures that correspond to some people's idea of alien life forms or ufos examples of these paintings can be found everywhere from the colorado plateau in the americas and the middle east to jihadistgar in india and sanjingdui
in china a little understanding of ancient artistic tendencies would refute most of these claims however it is impossible to dismiss them entirely without definite evidence which begs the question what do major religions and their holy books say about this here we will focus on the bible several evangelists believe that the bible has many instances that hint at the existence of aliens as such they believe that the unexpected is inevitable since they believe that humans will come into contact with aliens in the future they cite various passages that can be interpreted as proof of these novel
beings a passage in the book of exodus is cited as a prominent example it concerns the story of the cloud that moves with the israelites the book of exodus chapter 40 verse 36 and 37 reads throughout all their journeys whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle the suns of israel would set out but if the cloud was not taken off then they did not sit out until the day when it was taken up in this example the cloud appears as a sign from god the book of exodus mentions the cloud at other
points as well offering different variations on the same motif in chapter 40 verses 19 and 20 the book of exodus reads the angel of god who had been going through the camp of israel moved and went behind them and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them so it came between the camp of egypt and the camp of israel and there was the cloud along with the darkness yet it gave light at night thus the one did not come near the other all night and in another example from the book of
exodus the cloud turns from a mere sign into a signature of god's glory chapter 16 verse 42 says it came about however when the congregation had assembled against moses and aaron that they turned toward the tent of meeting and behold the cloud covered it and the glory of the lord appeared the trouble with this approach is that almost any ancient text not just the bible can be interpreted to encourage the idea of alien life forms the ancient texts used to be poetic so they are open to interpretation at the hands of the reader many of
them were abstract so they often discussed spiritual beings for instance in the ancient egyptian religion the sun god ra sailed in a boat across the skies in the night he sailed in the boat through the underworld where he would battle the serpent any evidence of alien life in the cosmos can be likened to a manifestation of ra swimming across the skies if extraterrestrial life were to engage with our planet one could easily find it synonymous with ra's dealings with the underworld especially in the case of a hostile meeting in which the hostile humans would be
analogous to the serpent the ancient maya claimed that gods came from the skies and blessed mankind with technology through this belief they justified the progress of their ancestors including but not limited to the old mix the people of teotihuacan and the zapotecs it might seem far-fetched on their part but one can humble oneself by looking at the people who believe that aliens created the pyramids our species has not evolved equally on all fronts in terms of technology we have progressed exponentially but our thirst for captivating fables and personification of the unknown remains the same if
we look at hinduism we find similar tales there may not be any explicit mention of aliens in the holy scriptures of the abrahamic religions but they do refer to angels and similar beings on the other hand we find no mention of dinosaurs in the bible but archaeological evidence reveals that they existed there are references to the book of job that can allude to dinosaurs but since they are not mentioned explicitly we have no idea therefore aliens could be another one of these unmentioned species however one cannot escape the fact that it sheds down on the
knowledge of the christian creator the arrival of god's son jesus on earth is the main concern when it comes to christianity and alien life if we refer to the christian creationist idea of genesis believing that creation includes 125 billion galaxies it would be presumable that there is life somewhere in that vast space why would god exhibit his glory on and send his son to earth on the surface it seems hard for christian beliefs to accommodate the idea of intelligent life in other parts of the universe aliens are never explicitly mentioned and their existence would leave
much to be desired to align with the christian view would be to believe that we are the most intelligent of all creation and that all other life forms wherever they may be are beneath us this argument is a problem for christianity and islam in particular in islam muhammad may not be god incarnate but he still occupies a central position in the hierarchy above mortals but below god if one has to apply the mediocrity principle to earth the idea that earth is more likely to be non-special than be special the abrahamic religions end up in a
predicament for instance hinduism and chinese mythology have a large number of deities for some atheists the discovery of alien life forms would invalidate most of their major religions nevertheless we can see that in the past religions have evolved to align with science but these maneuvers to adapt often come too little too late as exhibited by the catholic church's admission of galileo's theory that the earth revolves around the sun the catholic church hounded and persecuted the astronomer for his model during his life and rejected his ideas it was not until the 1990s that the church admitted
to its wrongdoing and concluded that galileo was correct in his assessment after all the copernican revolution of the 16th century changed the human understanding of the cosmos claiming that earth was a rather typical planet in a typical galaxy this radical shift in our understanding of humanity's place in the large scheme of things endangered the catholic religion however the catholic church had to evolve to move with the times on the other end of the spectrum thomas paine the british american philosopher and activist argues in the age of reason though it is not a direct article of
the christian system that this world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable creation yet it is so worked up with from what is called the mosaic account of the creation the story of eve and the apple and the counterpart of that story the death of the son of god that to believe otherwise that is to believe that god created a plurality of worlds at least as numerous as what we call stars renders the christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air the
two beliefs cannot be held together in the same mind and he who thinks that he believes both has thought but little of either however we have seen many times in the past that scientific discoveries rarely rattle the belief of the faithful astronomy has been part of human life for a long time and so has religion the two find some way to work in tandem if we look at the 38th chapter of the book of job verses 4 to 7 read where were you when i laid the earth's foundation tell me if you understand who marked
off its dimensions surely you know who stretched a measuring line across it and what were its footing set or who laid its corner stone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy here the bible refers to extraterrestrial beings the morning stars that sang together and the angels who shouted for joy so the margins are there but they are menial however for believers they are revelations for those who dare to decipher them following the tradition of deciphering the bible for clues of alien life one can refer to the book of ezekiel
chapter 1 verses 20 and 21 which says wherever the spirit would go they would go and the wheels would rise along with them because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels when the creatures moved they also moved when the creatures stood still they also stood still and when the creatures rose from the ground the wheels rose along with them because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels some christian scholars claimed that this entire section mentioned spaceships the biggest sign according to them is written a few verses back in the
16th verse which claims the appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a barrel and they four had one likeness and their appearances and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel they believe that the idea of a wheel in the middle of a wheel alluded to a spaceship or a ufo to claim that making contact with an intelligent life-form would wreak havoc on christianity or other abrahamic religions would be ahistorical history has repeatedly shown that such changes prompt a change in the paradigm of
religion instead of rendering them obsolete there are aspects of all major religions that are incompatible with the modern world but religions grow and adapt the discovery of extraterrestrial life would be no different and the faithful would find a way to move on to put everything in perspective the words of scientist neil degrassi tyson are humbling if our solar system is not unusual then there are so many planets in the universe that for example they outnumber the sum of all sounds and words ever uttered by every human who has ever lived to declare that earth must
be the only planet with life in the universe would be inexcusably big-headed of us we hope you enjoyed this video on what the bible says about aliens if you did please hit the like button and subscribe for more videos like this also grab your free mythology bundle ebook while it's still available the link is in the description
